I believe we got a good country and good laws. I'se worked in and round Marshall ever since the war. I railroaded for the T. & P and the Cotton Belt twenty-two years, and worked for the Marshall brick plant eighteen years. I'se seed lots of laws and lots of changes. I believe the laws we have now is the best we had since 1865. This President we got now has done more for poor fo'ks than any we had since the war. The young Negroes don't believe things we believe forty and fifty years ago. When I was a boy I got religion, and really got converted. "Sociality" is taking the world today. Course we got more education 'mong the Negroes now than when I was a boy, but I don't think they is using it right, or there wouldn't be so many in the penitentiary. I think the young race of Negroes is in a bad fix if they ain't some change.

Anderson & Minerva Edwards , a Negro Baptist preacher and his wife, were slaves on adjoining plantations in Rusk County, Texas. Anderson was born March 12, 1844, a slave of Major Matt Gaud , and Minerva was born February 2, 1850, a slave of Major Flannigan . As a boy Andrew would get a pass to visit his father, who belonged to Major Flannigan , and there he met Minerva . They worked for their masters until three years after the war, than moved to Harrison County, married and reared sixteen children. Andrew and Minerva live in a small but comfortable farmhouse two miles north of Marshall. Minerva's memory is poor, and she added little to Anderson's story.

My father was Sandy Flannigan and he had run off from his first master in Maryland, on the east shore, and come to Texas, and here a slave buyer picked him up and sold chances on him. If they could find his Maryland master he'd have to go back to him and if they couldn't the chances was good. Wash Edwards in Paxola County bought the chance on him, but he run off from him, too, and come to Major Flannigan's in Rusk County. Fin'ly Major Flannigan had to pay a good lot to get clear title to him. My mammy was named Minerva and her master was Major Gaud , and I was born there on his plantation in 1866. You can ask that tax man at Marshall 'bout my age, 'cause he's fix my 'xemption papers since I'm sixty. I had seven brothers and two sisters. There was Frank , Joe , Sandy and Gene , Preston and William and Sarah and Delilah , and they all lived to be old folks and the younges' jus' died last year. Folks was mere healthy when I growed up and I'm 93 new and ain't dead: fact is, I feels right pert mos' the time. My missy named Mary and she and Massa Matt lived in a hewed log house what am still standin' out there near Headerson. Our quarters was 'cross the road and set all in a row. Massa own three fam'lies of slaves and lots of hosses and sheep and cows and my father herded for him till he was freed. The government run a big tan yard there on Major Gaud's place and one my uncles was shoemaker. Jus' 'bout time of war, I was piddlin' 'round the tannery and a government man say to me, 'Boy. I'll give you $1,000 for a drink of water,' and he did, but it was 'federate money that got kilt, so it done me no good. Mammy was a weaver and made all the clothes and massa give us plenty to sat; fact, he treated us kind-a like he own boys. Course he whipped us when we had to have it, but not like I seed darkies whipped on other place. The other niggers called us Major Gaud's free niggers and we could hear 'em moanin' and cryin' round 'bout, when they was puttin' it on 'em. I worked in the field from one year end to t'other and when we come in at dusk we had to eat and be in bed by nine. Massa give us mos' anything he had to eat, 'cept biscuits. That ash cake wasn't sich bad eatin' and it was cooked by puttin' cornmeal batter in shucks and bakin' in the ashes. We didn't work in the field Sunday but they have so much stock to tend it kep' us busy. Missy was 'ligious and allus took us to church when she could. When we prayed by ourse'ves we daren't let the white folks know it and we turned a wash pot down to the ground to cotch the voice. We prayed a lot to be free and the Lord done heered us. We didn't have no song books and the Lord done give us our songs and when we sing them at night it jus' whispering to nobody hear us. One went like this: My knee bones am aching, My body's rackin' with pain. I 'lieve I'm a chile of God. And this ain't my home. 'Cause Heaven's my aim.'

Massa Gaud give big corn shuckin's and cotton pickin's and the women cook up big dinners and massa give us some whiskey, and lots of times we shucked all night. On Saturday nights we'd sing and dance and we made our own instruments, which was gourd fiddles and quill flutes. Gen'rally Christmas was like any other day, but I got Santa Claus twict in slavery, 'cause massa give me a sack of molasses candy once and some biscuits once and that a whole lot to me then. The Vinsons and Frys what lived next to massa sold slaves and I seed 'em sold and chained together and druv off in herds by a white man on a hoss. They'd sell babies 'way from the mammy and the Lord never did 'tend sich as that. I 'lieve in that hant business yet. I seed one when I was a boy, right after mammy die. I woke up and seed it come in the door, and it had a body and legs and tail and a face like a man and it walked to the fire-place and lifted the lid off a skillet of 'taters what sat there and came to my bed and raised up the cover and crawled in and I hollers so loud it wakes everybody. I tell 'em I seed a ghost and they say I crazy, but I guess I knows a hant when I sees one. Minerva there can tell you 'bout that haunted house we lived in near Marshall jus' after we's married." (Minerva says, 'Deed, I can,' and here is her story: ) The nex' year after Anderson and me marries we moves to a place what had 'longed to white folks and the man was real mean and choked his wife to death and he lef' the country and we moved in. We heered peculiar noises by night and the niggers 'round there done told us it was hanted but I didn't 'lieve 'em, but I do now. One night we seed the woman what died come all 'round with a light in the hand and the neighbors said that candle light the house all over and it look like it on fire. She come ev'ry night and we left our crop and moved 'way from there and ain't gone back yit to gather that crop. 'Fore we moved in that place been empty since the woman die, 'cause nobody live there. One night Charlie Williams , what lives in Marshall, and runs a store out by the T. & P. Hospital git drunk and goes out there to sleep and while he sleep-in' that same woman come in and nigh choked him to death. Ain't nobody ever live in that house since we is there. Anderson then resumed his story:  I 'member when war starts and massa's boy. George it was, saddles up ole Bob , his pony, and lef'. He stays six months and when he rid up massa say, 'How's the war, George ?' and massa George say. 'It's Hell. Me and Bob has been runnin' Yankees over since us lef'.' 'Fore war massa didn't never say much 'bout slavery but when he heered us free he cusses and say. 'Gawd never did 'tend to free niggers,' and he cussed till he died. But he didn't tell us we's free till a whole year after we was, but one day a bunch of Yankee soldiers come ridin' up and massa and miss y hid out. The soldiers walked into the kitchen and mammy was churnin' and one of them kicks the churn over and say, 'Git out, you's jus' as free as I is.' Then they ransacked the place and breaks out all the window lights and when they leaves it look like a storm done hit that house. Massa come back from hidin' and that when he starts on a cussin' spree what lasts as long as he lives. bout four year after that war pappy took me to Harrison County and I've lived here ever since and Minerva's pappy moves from the Flannigan place to a jinin' farm 'bout that time and sev'ral years later we was married. It was at her house and she had a blue serge suit and I wore a cutaway Prince Albert suit and they was 'bout 200 folks at our weddin'. The nex' day they give us an infair and a big dinner. We raises sixteen chillen to be growed and six of the boys is still livin' and workin' in Marshall. I been preachin' the Gospel and farmin' since slavery time. I jined the church mos' 83 year ago when I was Major Gaud's slave and they baptizes me in the spring branch clost to where I finds the Lord. When I starts preachin' I couldn't read or write and had to preach what massa told me and he say tell them niggers iffen they obeys the massa they goes to Heaven but I knowed there's something better for them, but daren't tell them 'cept on the sly. That I done lots. I tells 'em iffen they keeps prayin' the Lord will set 'em free. But since them days I's done studied some and I preached all over Panole and Harrison County and I started the Edward's Chapel over there in Marshall and pastored it till a few year ago. It's named for me. I don't preach much now, 'cause I can't hold out to walk far and I got no other way to go. We has a $14.00 pension and lives on that and what we can raise on the farm.