Frances Andrews
From:
South Carolina
Project 1815-1
FOLKLORE
Spartanburg Dist. 4
June 10, 1937
Edited by: Elmer Turnage
STORIES FROM EX-SLAVES
"I was born in Newberry County, S. C., near Belfast, about 1854. I was a
slave of John Wallace. I was the only child, and when a small child, my
mother was sold to Joe Liggins by my old master, Bob Adams. It is said
that the old brick house where the Wallaces lived was built by a
Eichleberger, but Dr. John Simpson lived there and sold it to Mr.
Wallace. In the attic was an old skeleton which the children thought
bewitched the house. None of them would go upstairs by themselves. I
suppose old Dr. Simpson left it there. Sometimes later, it was taken out
and buried. Marse Wallace had many slaves and kept them working, but he
was not a strict master.
"I married Allen Andrews after the war. He went to the war with his
master. He was at Columbia with the Confederate troops when Sherman
burnt the place. Some of them, my husband included, was captured and
taken to Richmond Va. They escaped and walked back home, but all but
five or six fell out or died.
"My young master, Editor Bill Wallace, a son of Marse John, was a
soldier. When he was sick at home, I fanned the flies from him with a
home-made fan of peacock feathers, sewed to a long cane.
"After the war, the 'bush-whackers', called Ku Klux, rode there.
Preacher Pitts' brother was one. They went to negro houses and killed
the people. They wore caps over the head and eyes, but no long white
gowns. An old muster ground was above there about three miles, near what
is now Wadsworth school."
Source: Frances Andrews (col. 83), Newberry, S. C
Interviewer: G. Leland Summer, Newberry, S. C.
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