Future historians will no doubt find reasons for recording his name high on the best pages of their books. [2]
He relates the following incidents of his early childhood: “When I was five years of age, I, for the first time, enjoyed a ride to town. When I got off the wagon Mr. Harrison rolled up my shirt sleeves and the legs of my pants and placed me on a block on the street in the middle of a great crowd of people. I enjoyed it, as I seemed to be the person especially noticed by all. I saw my mother and father weeping, but I could see no reason for it. When I came down from the block, I, with two sisters and a brother, went home with a Mr. House, where the crack of the whip, the yelp of the hound and the howl of the wolf were the most frequent sounds that fell upon my ear. The fact and horrors of slavery were first branded into my heart by the tying and whipping of my father before my eyes. When I asked father what it meant, he replied: ‘The lash which I fear will soon fall upon yourself, my son, will too early explain what is meant.’”
A white man to whom he hired himself taught him at night his alphabet, and started him to spelling and reading during his eighteenth year, and now he reads, writes, and manages his own figures in business. He is a grand man.
He has organized a building and loan association with about 2,000 members.
[2] See chapters on Sixth Avenue and Shiloh Churches, Birmingham, and the Mt. Pilgrim Association.
Ware, Rev. William, of East Lake, Jefferson county, Ala., was born in said county October 5, 1837. He was converted to Christianity in his thirteenth year, and was baptized into Union Church, near Birmingham—that is, where the city now is—by the Rev. Willis Burns (white). He was ordained to the work of the gospel ministry November, 1868, by Revs. Edmond Burris and Allen McAlpine.
The Rev. A. J. Waldrop (white) says of Bro. Ware: “We never had in Jefferson county a man of more stainless character. He is not an educated man, but he is earnest, honorable and upright.”
The writer has found Bro. Ware to be one of the meekest and gentlest of men. He, with Rev. Henry Wood, organized the Mt. Zion Church in 1878, and he was the first moderator of the Mt. Pilgrim Association. He has held various pastorates, and has held them always with credit to himself and profit to the cause.
He lives on his own pleasant home and quiet farm a few miles northwest of East Lake. He is still an active worker, and enjoys the love and confidence of the people among whom his light so long has shone to the glory of God.
Ware, Rev. Berry, was one of the pioneers of the work in Shelby, Jefferson and Talladega counties. Few men in those early days had more power over the masses than he. He died some sixteen or seventeen years ago, and I have nothing of his history or nativity. He baptized the Rev. D. L. Prentice, and started the church at Aldrich.