Carey Davenport
From:
Texas
CAREY DAVENPORT, retired Methodist minister of Anahuac, Texas,
appears sturdy despite his 83 years. He was reared a slave of Capt.
John Mann, in Walker Co., Texas. His wife, who has been his devoted
companion for 60 years, was born in slavery just before
emancipation. Carey is very fond of fishing and spends much time
with hook and line. He is fairly well educated and is influential
among his fellow Negroes.
"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.
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