sperit of dat woman comin' back here to tell some of her fambly a
message? Yes ma'm, dat is her sperit an' dat house is hanted an' nobody
will live dar ag'in.

"No ma'm, I can't read nor write."




Charlie Davenport, Ex-slave, Adams County
FEC
Edith Wyatt Moore
Rewrite, Pauline Loveless
Edited, Clara E. Stokes

[CHARLIE DAVENPORT
Natchez, Mississippi]


"I was named Charlie Davenport an' encordin'[FN: according] to de way I
figgers I ought to be nearly a hund'ed years old. Nobody knows my
birthday, 'cause all my white folks is gone.

"I was born one night an' de very nex' mornin' my po' little mammy died.
Her name was Lucindy. My pa was William Davenport.

"When I was a little mite dey turnt me over to de granny nurse on de
plantation. She was de one dat 'tended to de little pickaninnies. She
got a woman to nurse me what had a young baby, so I didn' know no
dif'ence. Any woman what had a baby 'bout my age would wet nurse me, so