"Yes sir, Dr. Fleming always kept enough for us Niggers to eat during the war. He was good to us. You know he married Miss Dean. Do you know Mrs. Lyles, Mrs. Simpson, Mr. Ed Fleming? Well, dey are my chilluns.
"Some man here told me one day that I was ninety years old, but I do not believe I am quite that old. I don't know how old I am, but I was walking during slavery times. I can't work now, for my feet hurt me and my fingers ain't straight."
She said all of her children were dead but two, that she knew of. She said that she had a room in that house and white people gave her different things. As the writer told her good-bye, she said, "Good-bye, and may the Lord bless you".
Source: "Aunt" Mary Adams, 363 S. Liberty Street, Spartanburg, S. C.
Interviewer: F. S. DuPre, Spartanburg, S. C.
Project #1655
Everett R. Pierce
Columbia, S. C.
VICTORIA ADAMS
EX-SLAVE 90 YEARS OLD.
"You ask me to tell you something 'bout myself and de slaves in slavery times? Well Missy, I was borned a slave, nigh on to ninety years ago, right down here at Cedar Creek, in Fairfield County.
"My massa's name was Samuel Black and missus was named Martha. She used to be Martha Kirkland befo' she married. There was five chillun in de family; they was: Alice, Manning, Sally, Kirkland, and de baby, Eugene. De white folks live in a great big house up on a hill; it was right pretty, too.
"You wants to know how large de plantation was I lived on? Well, I don't know 'zackly but it was mighty large. There was forty of us slaves in all and it took all of us to keep de plantation goin'. De most of de niggers work in de field. They went to work as soon as it git light enough to see how to git 'round; then when twelve o'clock come, they all stops for dinner and don't go back to work 'til two. All of them work on 'til it git almost dark. No ma'am, they ain't do much work at night after they gits home.