Carey Davenport
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"If I live till the 13th of August I'll be 82 years old. I was born in 1855 up in Walker County but since then they split the county and the place I was born is just across the line in San Jacinto County now. Jim and Janey Davenport was my father and mother and they come from Richmond, Virginia. I had two sisters, Betty and Harriet, and a half brother, William.
"Our old master's name was John Mann but they called him Capt. Mann. Old missus' name was Sarah. I'd say old master treated us slaves bad and there was one thing I couldn't understand, 'cause he was 'ligious and every Sunday mornin' everybody had to git ready and go for prayer. I never could understand his 'ligion, 'cause sometimes he git up off his knees and befo' we git out the house he cuss us out.
"All my life I been a Methodist and I been a regular preacher 43 years. Since I quit I been livin' here at Anahuac and seems like I do 'bout as much preachin' now as I ever done.
"I don't member no cullud preachers in slavery times. The white Methodist circuit riders come round on horseback and preach. There was a big box house for a church house and the cullud folks sit off in one corner of the church.
"Sometimes the cullud folks go down in dugouts and hollows and hold they own service and they used to sing songs what come a-gushin' up from the heart.
"They was 'bout 40 slaves on the place, but I never seed no slaves bought or sold and I never was sold, but I seen 'em beat—O, Lawd, yes. I seen 'em make a man put his head through the crack of the rail fence and then they beat him till he was bloody. They give some of 'em 300 or 400 licks.
"Old man Jim, he run away lots and sometimes they git the dogs after him. He run away one time and it was so cold his legs git frozen and they have to cut his legs off. Sometimes they put chains on runaway slaves and chained 'em to the house. I never knowed of 'em puttin' bells on the slaves on our place, but over next to us they did. They had a piece what go round they shoulders and round they necks with pieces up over they heads and hung up the bell on the piece over they head.
"I was a sheep minder them days. The wolves was bad but they never tackled me, 'cause they'd ruther git the sheep. They like sheep meat better'n man meat. Old Captain wanted me to train he boy to herd sheep and one day young master see a sow with nine pigs and want me to catch them and I wouldn't do it. He tried to beat me up and when we git to the lot we have to go round to the big gate and he had a pine knot, and he catch me in the gate and hit me with that knot. Old Captain sittin' on the gallery and he seed it all. When he heered the story he whipped young master and the old lady, she ain't like it.
"One time after that she sittin' in the yard knittin' and she throwed her knittin' needle off and call me to come git it. I done forgot she wanter whip me and when I bring the needle she grab me and I pull away but she hold on my shirt. I run round and round and she call her mother and they catch and whip me. My shirt just had one button on it and I was pullin' and gnawin' on that button and directly it come off and the whole shirt pull off and I didn't have nothin' on but my skin. I run and climb up on the pole at the gate and sot there till master come. He say, 'Carey, why you sittin' up there?' Then I tell him the whole transaction. I say, 'Missus, she whip me 'cause young marse John git whip that time and not me.' He make me git down and git up on his horse behin' him and ride up to the big house. Old missus, she done went to the house and go to bed with her leg, 'cause when she whippin' me she stick my head 'tween her knees and when she do that I bit her.
"Old master's house was two-story with galleries. My mother, she work in the big house and she have a purty good house to live in. It was a plank house, too, but all the other houses was make out of hewed logs. Then my father was a carpenter and old master let him have lumber and he make he own furniture out of dressed lumber and make a box to put clothes in. We never did have more'n two changes of clothes.
"My father used to make them old Carey plows and was good at makin' the mould board out of hardwood. He make the best Carey plows in that part of the country and he make horseshoes and nails and everything out of iron. And he used to make spinning wheels and parts of looms. He was a very valuable man and he make wheels and the hub and put the spokes in.
"Old master had a big farm and he raised cotton and corn and 'taters and peanuts and sorghum cane and some ribbon cane. The bigges' crops was cotton and corn.
"My father told us when freedom come. He'd been a free man, 'cause he was bodyguard to the old, old master and when he died he give my father he freedom. That was over in Richmond, Virginia. But young master steal him into slavery again. So he was glad when freedom come and he was free again. Old master made arrangement for us to stay with him till after the harvest and then we go to the old Rawls house what 'long to Mr. Chiv Rawls. He and my father and mother run the place and it was a big farm.
"I git marry when I was 'bout 22 years old and that's her right there now. We's been married more'n 60 years and she was 17 years old then. She was raised in Grant's colony and her father was a blacksmith.
"We had it all 'ranged and we stop the preacher one Sunday mornin' when he was on the way to preachin' and he come there to her pa's house and marry us. We's had 11 children and all has deceased but three.
"I was educated since freedom, 'cause they wasn't no schools in slavery days, but after I was freed I went to public schools. Most my learnin' I got from a German man what was principal of a college and he teach me the biggest part of my education.
"When I was 14 a desperado killed my father and then I had my mother and her eight children to take care of. I worked two months and went to school one month and that way I made money to take care of 'em.
