Porter was struck by an automobile, and since he [HW
addition: has] poked his way about town cautiously with his cane, no
longer working as handy man to Thomas R. Pratt's family on the corner
of Academy and Market streets. His slavery home was in a two roomed
(with loft) cabin next door to the house Mr. Pratt built in 1890 when
he moved to Madison from Leaksville. This cabin Col. Gallaway in the
1890's had enlarged to house the Episcopal rector, Mr. Stickney. Uncle
Porter's slave home stands in 1937, occupied by Mr. Pratt's daughter,
Mrs. Pearl Van Noppen and sons.

Uncle Porter was ever very polite and humble, for all his contacts he
thought had always been with the highest of Dan river aristocracy. His
medium, lean body, with a head like Julius Caesar's was covered with
skin of "ginger cake color".

On the Deep Springs Dan River plantation lived Mrs. Timberlake whose
daughter married Mr. Le Seur from an adjoining plantation just across
the Dan river from Gov. Alexander Martin's Danbury plantation. She in
time married Mr. Scales, and as property of this lady, Porter was born
of legally married parents. Porter's brother, Nathan Scales, was given
by his mistress to her daughter, when she married another Le Seur, and
thus he became Nathan Le Seur. Both brothers have descendants in
Madison of a high type of citizenship. Porter, himself was given the
choice by his ole Miss of belonging to either of her two sons, John
Durham Scales or Nathaniel Pitcher Scales. Porter chose Nat Scales as
his young marse and come to Madison to live with him about 1845.

By obeying orders from his marse Nat Pitcher Scales, Porter operated a
train of fifteen wagons loaded with corn for the Confederate cavalry
from Charlotte, North Carolina to Danville, Virginia. Thus a
Confederate soldier, he in his old age received a pension.

Porter said he got lots of practice in managing feed wagons by
"Waggoning in Georgia" for his marster between the two cities, Augusta
and Wadesboro. His master, he said, traded his services to "Dan River
Jim Scales" who "bossed" the teams between Augusta and Wadesboro which
were owned by John Durham Scales and Dan River Jim Scales. These wagons
also carried corn. Nat Pitcher, Porter's master by choice, operated a
store at Wadesboro, Georgia. Uncle Porter's "waggoning in Georgia"
shows Madison's connection with the far south not only through the
Scales family but through other families.

But the great honor of a tobac