“The third time I cast my eyes, lo and behold! there stood my old man behind the table, the Bible was open, and he was slowly reading from its sacred pages!
“Miss Harriet, this may all sound very strange to you, but that vision was as plain to me, as the sight of you, sitting here before me.
“The old man had been working away from home all the week, so I got up next morning and went about my daily duties without telling my children what I had seen.
“Saturday night he came home, and after holding family prayers, and everything was quiet about the house, I told him of my vision—and listen, oh, it was joy to my soul! He told me that Dr. Norfleet wanted us to have a place of worship, and that he was willing to give us land on which to build a church, about an acre, on the hillside, between Mr. Bourne’s spring and Sulphur Fork Creek. And he said that many other white friends would give lumber, and small sums of money.
“Miss Harriet, we rejoiced together that Saturday night, as we never had before. We had been reaching our feeble arms toward Heaven a long time, pleading for the blessing that was now in sight.”
Thirty odd years had passed, and a new generation had come, but the flight of time only served to sweeten the sound of her story. As I bade her good bye, I was deeply conscious that I would never see her again, for she was growing too feeble to leave home, and I drove off, feeling spiritually benefitted from contact with such a Christian character as Aunt Kitty Carr.
One Autumn afternoon in 1867, a large crowd of the best colored people of Port Royal and surrounding neighborhoods, assembled on the hillside where Mount Zion now stands, and organized the church.
Elder Horace Carr was assisted in the organization by Revs. Chess Ware and Ben Thomas, of Guthrie, Ky. Elder Carr stood under a large white oak tree, and led in the movement, while his hearers sat around on rails, logs, stumps, etc.
