"When I come to Columbia in 1866, I find work on houses, and building was plentiful then. I git 'long pretty well, then, 'cause if I did not land a job, I could go to de Freedman's Aid Office at Assembly and Gervais streets and git rations and a little cash for my family. After de Freedman's Aid left town I had no trouble findin' work. And soon I was pretty prosperous. I kept that way, so long as I was able to do my share of de work.
"It was in 1913, as I was walkin' 'long Hampton Street, dat I see my present wife, Sadie. She pass by me, and smile and look and I smile and look, and she slow up a little and say: 'What's happen, big boy?' I am so tickled, I say: 'I just have to tell you:
'De rose am red,
De violet's blue,
No knife can cut
My love in two.'
"She say; 'Pretty good, big boy, pretty good! Come 'round and see me sometime.' I answer: 'I sho' will, Peaches and Cream'. And dat am just what I did. We got married dat same year, and we have been happy, 'til I git too old and feeble to work much. She work now to de best of her ability and we somtimes has a big squeeze to pay de rent. Dat is why I'm hopin' to get de old age pension, made possible by de greatest President of them all.
"Does I recall de 'sassination of de first President dat died dat way? Yes sir, I sho' do. De first one was Abraham Lincoln, a little after de close of de war. He was shot while sittin' in a seat in de theater at Washington. James A. Garfield, was de nex' one. He was shot in de depot, at Washington. De nex' one was McKinley. He was shot while at a show place, in Buffalo."
Project #1655
W.W. Dixon,
Winnsboro, S.C.
DAN SMITH
EX-SLAVE 75 YEARS.
Dan Smith lives in one room, rent free, of a three-room frame house, the property of his son-in-law, Jim Cason. It is situated on the southeast corner of Garden and Palmer streets in the town of Winnsboro, S.C. He is tall, thin and toothless, with watery eyes and a pained expression of weariness on his face. He is slow and deliberate in movements. He still works, and has just finished a day's work mixing mortar in the construction of a brick store building for Mr. Lauderdale. His boss says: 'The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.' There is nothing organically wrong with Dan but he appears, in human anatomy, as Doctor Holmes's One Horse Shay must have looked the day before its final collapse.
"You been here once befo' and now here you is again. You say you wanna git additions? Well, I's told you dat I was born in Richland County, a slave of Marse John Lever and on his plantation, January de 11th day, 1862, when de war was gwine on. How I know? 'Cause my mammy and pappy told me so. They call my pappy Bob and my mammy Mary. Strange as it seem, my mistress name Mary, just de same as my mammy, tho' marster wasn't name Bob, lak pappy. Him name Marster John and de young marster, an only child, was name Marse Jim. You better stop right dere 'til I tell you pappy no b'long to de Levers. Him b'long to de Smiths. Him name Bob Smith, after freedom. Dat's how come I be dis day, Dan Smith. You ketch de p'int? Well dats de way it was.
"Befo' pappy take a shine to mammy in slavery time, her got mixed up wid one of old Marse Burrell Cook's niggers and had a boy baby. He was as black as long-leaf pine tar. Her name him George Washington Cook but all him git called by, was Wash Cook. My full brudders was Jim, Wesley, and Joe. All of them dead and gone long ago.