"I have been preaching many years in colored Methodist 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.