Document text
Accession no.
Nikl 11061
Date received
e/// 4,7re
Consignment no.
Shipped from
A/ad-4
Label
Amount
jc,
WPA L. C. ORDJECT
Form —a
_LAD=
,..z..c___.______coueetb)n (or TYPO
Place of originA
Date
Project worker--kL
Project editor--
Remarks--
Project #1655
W. W. Dixon,
Winnsboro, S. C.
FAIRFIELD COUNTY
CYNTHIA M. COLEMAN
(white)
RIDGECAY, S. C. 91 YEARS
3414f44.9E
Mrs. Cynthia Miller Coleman lives with her daughter Sarah Starnes,
who is postmistress in the town of Ridgeway, S. C. She is, for one of her
age, active, intelligent, and responsive to all inquiries about her life
for the past eighty-five years.
"My father's people, the Millers, and my mother's people* the White's,
were of Scotch -Irish descent. They came as settlers from Pennsylvania be-
fore the Revolutionary War. My father was Robert LeRoy Miller; my mother,
Jane White Miller. In religion, my mother and father were strict -laced,
blue -stockinged Presbyterians. I WMA born on their small plantation on
Rocky Creek, Chester County, January 17, 1847.
*I learned to spell and read at home out of the blue -backed speller.
It was a great text book for beginners. The first school I attended with
other pupils was in 1855. Our teacher was a kind man, Ur. John Chisolm.
The schoolhouse was the old Covenanter brick church. We had a long school
day. we commenced early in the morning and ended just before sundown. We
had an hour's intermission for dinner and recreation. The boys played town
ball and shot marbles, and the few girls in the school looked on, enjoyed,
and applauded the fine plays. Every Friday we had compositions and decla
mations from the pupils.
"Social amusements in the community consisted of pound parties at
some neighbor's hone during the winter nights, usually on Friday night.
2.
The music was made by a Negro fiddler, Tom Archer. We danced the cotillion,
the Virginia reel, and steal partners. Our community would not tolerate
waltzes and round dancing of any kind.
"I remember the hoop skirt. I wore one. I put it on over my head,
tied it behind, then put on my corset above this and laced it tight. My
outside skirt came over the wire hoop and my bodice came down over the
corset and fastened with a collar about my neck.
*Horseback riding was a great diversion for the girls of our day.
We had long riding skirts and sidesaddles; also a hitching post and a get
on block at the front gate to assist us in mounting on the horse.
"On the first Saturday in May,there was an annual picnic at Catawba
Falls, now called Great Falls. The Catawba River at this point was full
of shad every year at this time. After enjoying the picnic dinner and
the day, we would return home with the back of the buggy or wagon body
full of shad, which lasted the family and all the Negroes on the plan-
tation through Sunday.
"My parents were not rich planters and slave owners. We only had
six hundred acres of land and about thirty slaves. I don't remember
ever seeing one of the slaves whipped. My mother taught them the erg's-
byterian catechism, which was printed especially for slaves* They were
distributed among slave owners in 1840, my mother told me.
"In 1870 I married Walter Francis Marion Coleman, a boy in the
neighborhood that I grew up with and loved all my life. The greatest
grief of my life was when old A. S. Wallace, scalawag COngressman, sent
troops to the neighborhood to catch him for being a Ku Klux, but he evaded
them by escaping to Texas for a time. when he returned, we moved out to
3.
Blackstock and lived there until my husband's death.
"Just before the coming of baseball, the annual event at Blackstock
was the horseback tournament, with lances, and the crowning of a Queen
of Love and Beauty and her two maids of honoro There were three posts
erected on a field in a straight line and from there posts were sus-
pended rings on a cross piece. zach rider was costumed as some knight.
At a fast gallop they would successively race down the field and strive
to gain each ring suspended. Each knight made the attempt three times.
The maximum of rings caught on his lance could be nine rings. The one
taking the greatest number of rings would have the honor and right to
name and crown the Queen of Love and Beauty of the tournament. As each
knight would take his place at the standing point, the announcer would
proclaim the name of the rider. I remember some of the representations;
Knight of Avenel, James Fitz James, Knight of Snowden, Knight of the
Leopard, and Knight of Ravenswood. The others I can't recall. It was
an exciting, thrilling scene of color, and the plaudit of the populace
was deafening if the ring was successively taken by the knight and ran
dawn his lance. I remember Mary Wylie was crowned at one time, Lydia
Mobley at another, and my husband's sister, Minnie Coleman once.
"In the little village of Blackstock, at that time about one hundred
inhabitants, there were six barrooms, one church, and two policemen.
Everybody was poor, everybody had credit, everybody played cards, I mean
the men), and everybody was happy.
"Matches were a luxury. Fire vas covered with ashes over night to
save one match. The price of them was twenty-five cents per hundred. Soap
was made of ashes and hog grease.
4.
"I have been the mother of eleven children, six of whom are living;
the grandmother of twelve children, all living; and the great—grandmother
of four children, all living. The Yankees didn't reach us in the route
through this part of the state.
"One of my grandsons is a graduate of West Point Military Academy.
He is a captain in the cavalry stationed at Fort Oglethorpe. His name
is Capt. Logan Carroll Berry. He is a son of my daughter, Julia, with
whom you danced fifty years ago. he is out on the porch now waiting to
speak to you."