Maryland
Dec. 13, 1937
Rogers

PAGE HARRIS, Ex-slave.
Reference: Personal interview with Page Harris at his home,
Camp Parole, A.A.C. Co., Md.


"I was born in 1858 about 3 miles west of Chicamuxen near the Potomac
River in Charles County on the farm of Burton Stafford, better known as
Blood Hound Manor. This name was applied because Mr. Stafford raised and
trained blood hounds to track runaway slaves and to sell to slaveholders
of Maryland, Virginia and other southern states as far south as
Mississippi and Louisiana.

"My father's name was Sam and mother's Mary, both of whom belonged to
the Staffords and were reared in Charles County. They reared a family of
nine children, I being the oldest and the only one born a slave, the
rest free. I think it was in 1859 or it might be 1860 when the Staffords
liberated my parents, not because he believed in the freedom of slaves
but because of saving the lives of his entire family.

"Mrs. Stafford came from Prince William County, Virginia, a county on
the west side of the Potomac River in Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Stafford
had a large rowboat that they used on the Potomac as a fishing and
oyster boat as well as a transportation boat across the Potomac River to