Monday morning Mr. Fort ordered his saddle horse brought out unusually early; he rode over to Port Royal and informed Mr. Dancy of what his boy Dean had done, and the trickster had to make some pretty fair promises to escape punishment.
On the same night that Dean Dancy led the patrolers to molest the quiet worshipers on Mr. Fort’s plantation, an amusing scene was enacted in a dry goods store at Port Royal. It was during the late fall, and several of the village clerks had put up a notice that they would pay liberally for a fat, well cooked o’possum, delivered at Dancy and Kirby’s store. Joe Gaines, a tall brown skinned man belonging to W. N. Gaines, gleaned the persimmon trees round about the Gaines premises, and failing to find an o’possum, conceived the idea of substituting a fat house-cat. After it was nicely cooked, he stepped out by the light of the moon, with his pass in his pocket, and hope in his heart of bringing back a silver dollar.
The clerks from the other business houses assembled at Dancy and Kirby’s, where a spread was set for eight o’possum eaters. Dr. J. T. Darden a young physician from Turnersville, had a short time before located at Port Royal, and was invited to the feast. When the dish containing the supposed delectable marsupial was uncovered, it was observed that the young physician began to view it with a suspicious eye. He called Mr. T. M. Kirby to one side and told him the carcass was not that of an o’possum and they must not eat it. Upon closer examination it was very plain that it was a cat.
Without a word, Mr. Dancy walked to the front door and turned the key, locking them in; a pistol was placed on the table, and Joe was informed that he must devour that cat, or suffer the consequences.
It required the effort of his life, but he choked it down. If Dean and Joe ever had good intentions, Satan certainly run rough shod over them all that Saturday night.
Along with the progress of colored churches within the past four decades, that of orders, and societies is worthy of mention.
Within a short distance of each other, they have, near Port Royal, both Odd Fellows and Benevolent Society halls. Of the latter society I shall speak more in detail, from the fact that it is much older as an organization, in this community, and has done so much for its members. It was organized, October, 1872, in a little log school room, on what was called Sugar Camp Branch, on Miss Ellen Yates’ farm.
Dennis Neblett, a good colored man of that vicinity, was the prime mover in the enterprise, and called to his assistance in its organization Granville Wilcox and Henry Roberts (col.), of Clarksville, Tenn.
They organized with thirty charter members, and Dennis Neblett was elected President, which office he faithfully filled for thirty-seven years.