inal families
have sold out or have died out.

In Carlowville stands the largest white church in Dallas or Wilcox
Counties. It has a seating capacity of 1,000, excluding the balcony,
which, during slavery, was used exclusively for the Negroes of the
families attending.

Our stay in Carlowville was necessarily short, as the evening sun was
low and the nearest place for lodging was two miles ahead. Before
reaching this place we came to a large one-room log cabin, 30 feet by 36
feet, on the road-side, with a double door and three holes for windows
cut in the sides. There was no chimney nor anything to show that the
room could be heated in cold weather. This was the Hope-well Baptist
Church. Here 500 members congregated one Sunday in each month and spent
the entire day in eating, shouting, and "praising God for His goodness
toward the children of men." Here also the three months' school was
taught during the winter. A few hundred yards beyond this church brought
us to the home of a Deacon Jones.

He was living in the house occupied by the overseer of the plantation
during slavery. It was customary for Deacon Jones to care for strangers
who chanced to come into the community, especially for the preachers and
teachers. So here we found rest.

His family consisted of himself, his wife, and six children--two boys
and four girls. Mrs. Jones was noted for her ability to prepare food
well, and in a short while invited us to a delicious supper of fried
chicken, fried ham, some very fine home-made sugar-cane sirup, and an
abundance of milk and butter. At supper Deacon Jones told of the many
preachers he had entertained and their fondness for chicken.

After supper I spent some time in trying to find out the real condition
of the people in this section. Mr. Jones told me how, for ten years, he
had been trying to buy some land, and had been kept from it more than
once, but that he was still hopeful of getting the right deeds for the
land for which he had paid. He also told of many families who had
recently moved into this community. These newcomers had made a good
start for the year and had promising crops, but they were compelled to
mortgage their growing crops in order to get "advances" for the year.

When asked of the schools, he said that there were more than five
hundred children of school age in his township, but not more than two
hundred of these had attended school the previous winter, and most of
these for a period not