Chester South Carolina

Slave Narrative of Benjamin Russell

Interviewer: W. W. Dixon Person Interviewed: Benjamin Russell Location: South Carolina Age: 88 Ex-Slave 88 Years “I was born fourteen miles north of Chester, S.C. the property of Mrs. Rebecca Nance. After eighty-eight years, I have a vivid recollection of her sympathy and the ideal relations she maintained with her slaves. “My father was just Baker, my mother just Mary. My father was bought out of a drove of slaves from Virginia. I have been told my mother was born on the Youngblood place. (Youngblood name of my mistress’ people in York County.) My father was a slave of a … Read more

Slave Narrative of Jesse Williams

Interviewer: W. W. Dixon Person Interviewed: Jesse Williams Location: South Carolina Age: 83 At the end of one of the silent streets of west Chester, S.C., that prolongs itself into a road leading to the Potter’s Field and on to the County Poorhouse, sets a whitewashed frame cottage. It has two rooms, the chimney in the center providing each with a fireplace. A porch, supported by red cedar posts, fronts the road side. In this abode lives Jesse Williams with his daughter, Edna, and her six children. Edna pays the rent, and is a grenadier in the warfare of keeping … Read more

Biography of Henry M. Darnall

Henry M. Darnall (deceased) was born in Chester District, South Carolina in 1808. His parents moved to Maury County, Tennessee, when he was four years old. When nineteen he left there and went to Obion County, and lived there and in Lake County until his death. His early education was neglected, though be inherited fine sense from his mother, and his father was well educated. When thirty years of age he was appointed captain of a company of militia; then was made colonel, and finally brigadier general. During the war he was offered the generalship of the army of Virginia, … Read more

Slave Narrative of Josephine Stewart

Interviewer: W. W. Dixon Person Interviewed: Josephine Stewart Location: Blackstock, South Carolina Place of Birth: Blackstock, South Carolina Date of Birth: May, 1853 Age: 85 Phinie Stewart, as she is known in the community where she lives, is a small, black negress, who shows her age in appearance and movements. She lives with Robert Wood, a hundred yards back of the Presbyterian Church manse at Blackstock, S.C. Robert Wood married Phinie’s niece, who is now deceased. Phinie has no property, and depends entirely on the charity of Robert Wood for her support. “Does you know where de old Bell House … Read more

Slave Narrative of Robert Toatley

Interviewer: W. W. Dixon Person Interviewed: Robert Toatley Location: Winnsboro, South Carolina Date of Birth: May 15, 1855 Age: 82 Robert Toatley lives with his daughter, his son, his son’s wife, and their six children, near White Oak, seven miles north of Winnsboro, S.C. Robert owns the four-room frame house and farm containing 235 acres. He has been prosperous up from slavery, until the boll weevil made its appearance on his farm and the depression came on the country at large, in 1929. He has been compelled to mortgage his home but is now coming forward again, having reduced the … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Josiah Miller

Josiah Miller, a pioneer newspaper man of Lawrence and Kansas, an ardent free-soiler and public official in the formative periods of the territory and the state, was born in Chester District, South Carolina, November 12, 1828. He gradnated from the Indiana University in 1851, and from the law school at Poughkeepsie, New York, and in August, 1854, came to Kansas. As his father had been waylaid and mobbed because of his anti-slavery views, it was but natural that Josiah should be an ardent opponent of slavery, and on January 5, 1855, he began the publication of the Kansas Free State … Read more