I need not add that this has been very pleasing to me. I was married December 9, 1904, at Atlanta, Ga., to Miss Mary E. Hobbs.
To me Tuskegee has been all in all, and I still remember with gratitude the man who, in my hearing, spoke so glowingly of the school as I weighed my cotton in the little Georgia town away back in December, 1892.
VII
COTTON-GROWING IN AFRICA
By John W. Robinson
As all autobiographical sketches begin, so do I begin this one. I was born in Bennettsville, S. C., in 1873. Neither of my parents could write their names; but my father could read a little, and taught me the alphabet.
My paternal grandfather was a slave of some intelligence. He was a competent carpenter, had charge of his master's saw- and grist-mills, and kept the accounts of the two mills. His master, who was a member of the State Legislature, was very kind to him. He allowed him a portion of the savings from these industries he was controlling, and even promised him his freedom. The latter he delayed so long that my grandfather ran away. He succeeded in reaching Charleston, S. C. He had secured a ticket and was about to take passage for Canada, when he was captured and returned to his master's home. His master was attending the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina, and it became the overseer's duty to punish the returned fugitive. My grandfather never recovered from the effects of the brutal punishment meted out to him for daring to desire freedom in his own right.
My father was the oldest boy and the second child in a family of five. He was a farmer and a cobbler. At the age of twenty-seven he was married to my mother.
I suppose the history of my mother's life would be monotonous and dull to many ears, but I remember that I never grew tired of hearing her relate its somber happenings. She often told us how her grandmother could relate the thrilling story of her capture on African soil and of being brought to America, of the horrors of the passage, and of much else that I shall always remember.