st churches. I have
7 children, 22 grand-children but no great-grand-children.

"I think Abraham Lincoln was a great man, and Jefferson Davis, too.
Booker Washington was a grand educator for the colored race. Bishop S.D.
Chappell, colored preacher of the A.M.E. church South, one time
president of Allen University at Columbia, S.C. was a great colored man,
too. He went to Nashville, Tenn. as secretary-treasurer of the Sunday
School Union.

"I don't believe slavery was good--much better for all of us now.

"I joined the church when I was young, because I thought it right to be
a member. I think everybody ought to join some church, and they ought to
join early in life, when quite young."

=Source:= Rev. Thomas Harper (84), Newberry, S.C., interviewed by:
G.L. Summer, Newberry, S.C. May 21, 1937.

Project #1555
W.W. Dixon
Winnsboro, S.C.

ABE HARRIS
EX-SLAVE 74 YEARS OLD.

Abe Harris lives about nine miles southwest of the town of Winnsboro,
South Carolina. His home is a two-room frame house, with rock chimneys
of rough masonry at each gable end. It is the property of Mr. Daniel
Heyward. Abe is one-fourth white and this mixture shows in his features.
He is still vigorous and capable of light manual labor.

"My father was Samuel Lyles. My mother's name was Phenie Lyles. My
father and mother had fifteen chillun. I am de only one livin'. De last
one to die was my brother, Stocklin, that tended to de flowers and
gardens of people in Winnsboro for many years. He was found dead, one
mornin', in de Fortune Park woods.

"My parents b'long to Captain Tom Lyles, in slavery time. Father was de
hog man. He 'tended to de hogs; didn't pasture them as they do now.
Marster had a drove of eighty or more in de fall of de year befo' hog
killin' time. They run 'bout in de woods for acorns and hickory nuts and
my father had to keep up wid them and bring them home. He pen them, feed
them, and slop them at night.

"My white folks was de fust white settlers in de county. De fust one was
name Ephram, so I hear them tell many times. They fought in all wars dat
have been fought. My old marster, Tom, live up 'til de Civil War and
although he couldn't walk, he equip and pay a man to go in his place.
When Sherman's men come to de house, he was in bed wid a dislocated hip.
They thought he was shammin', playin' 'possum, so to speak. One of de
raiders, a Yankee, come wid a lighted torch and say: 'Unless you give