When Samuel Girard Earle died in 1848, and his wife in 1865, they were buried under a large apple tree at "Evergreen" plantation. Later, their bodies were removed to the Shiloh graveyard, by their grand-daughter, Miss Betty Earle. Thomas says he helped to move and rebury the bodies.
Thomas was at one time a member of Shiloh, but is now a member of the Mt. Sinai colored church.
Thomas is remarkably well for a person one hundred and two years old. His eyes are dim, his steps tottering, but his hearing is good and his mind is as clear as it ever was. Asked about his appetite, he said, "I eat anything I can get, I can eat anything." Many people much younger than he is, and certainly with more money than he has, would envy him for his splendid digestion.
Thomas has been on the relief rolls now for several years. It is a peculiar pleasure for Mrs. A.M. Mitchell, County Director of Temporary State Department of Public Welfare, to look after Thomas personally, because her grandmother was the bride to whom he was given, with his mother and brothers and sisters. The old man eagerly anticipates Mrs. Mitchell's coming each month, to bring his check and to look after his comfort. He is very humble and exceedingly grateful for everything done for him, and says he is expecting to live many more years, with the good care he is getting.
[Henry D. Jenkins]
Interview with Henry D. Jenkins, 87 years old
—W.W. Dixon, Winnsboro, S.C.
Henry D. Jenkins lives in a four-room frame house, which he owns. His wife, two single daughters, his son and his son's wife and three small children live with him. The house is constructed on a tract of land containing four hundred and eighty (480) acres, which Henry also owns.
He does not suffer with an inferiority complex. He is self-reliant and thrifty, with a pardonable pride in his farm and his rise from slavery to a position of respectibility as a church member, citizen, and tax payer. He is well preserved physically, for his age, 87 years, alert in his movements and animated in conversation.
His plantation and home is in the south western part of Fairfield County, six or seven hundred yards east of State highway #215.
"Yes sir, tho' I am a 'spectable colored citizen, as you see me; I pays taxes and owns my own plantation. I was once a slave on de Reese place, in Sumter County, below Columbia. Just when I come to b'long to Mr. Joseph Howell, I don't know. I recollects dat Marse Joe had 'bout twenty families of slaves and dere was six hundred acres in his plantation.