er end of town.

Sence Lincoln shook hands with his assasin who at de same time shoot
him, frum dat day I stop shakin' hands, even in de church, an' you know
how long dat wus. I don't b'lieve in kissin' neider fur all carry dere
meannesses. De Master wus betrayed by one of his bosom frien' with a
kiss.

=Source:=

Interview with (Mrs.) Susan Hamilton, 17 Henrietta Street, who claims to be
101 years of age. She has never been sick for twenty years and walks as though
just 40. She was hired out by her master for seven dollars a month which had to
be given her master.

Project #1655
Stiles M. Scruggs
Columbia, S.C.

ANSON HARP
EX-SLAVE 87 YEARS OLD.

Anson Harp, eighty-seven years old, lives out in the country on Route
#3. He still works on the few acres he owns, raising vegetables for
himself and a few baskets to sell. He is a gray-haired, medium sized man
and his geniality is frequently noticed by white and Negro friends who
know him.

"I was born in Mississippi in 1850, on a big plantation dat b'long to
Master Tom Harp. I can see dat big rushin' river now, 'ceptin' the
mosquitoes. My daddy and mammy b'long to Master Harp and we live in a
cabin 'bout a mile from the big house of my master's home.

"One day when the slaves was choppin' cotton, a strange white man come
and watch us, and in a day or two me and three other chillun was called
in the yard of the big house and told we goin' to git to go wid the
stranger. My daddy and mammy and the other chillun's daddy and mammy all
cry when we was put in a big wagon and carried 'way to somewhere.

"We gits plenty of rations on the way and when we gits to Aiken one
mornin', we was told we was close to home and soon we was on the big
plantation of Master James Henry Hammond. We find other boys there, too.
We go to the fields and chop cotton, after we rest up. No sah, we wasn't
flogged often. One time the grown men and women was choppin' two rows to
our one, and a straw-boss slave twit us and call us lazy. The white
overseer, who was riding by, heard him. He shake his whip at the
straw-boss and tell him: 'The young niggers not yet 'spected to make a
half hand and you do pretty well to 'tend to your own knittin'.

"I been there for a pretty long time befo' I really talks to my great
white master, James Henry Hammond. He not at home much, and when he was
home, many big white men wid him 'most every day.

"One Saturday, we always had a hal