Page 80 - a-history-of-columbia-county-florida-(1996)-edward-f-keuchel

A History of Columbia County Florida (1996) Edward F. Keuchel 69/340

A History of Columbia County, Florida

one occasion when some twenty-five couples were married by a
justice of the peace during a large and joyful party.16
On her own day of freedom Mary Biddle remembered her
master Jamison cursing and crying before her parents and telling
them they were free to go but he would give them one-third of what
they raised if they stayed. Jamison reneged on his promise, so
Mary mounted the old mule “Mustang” and related the situation to
a Union army captain in Newnansville. The officer gave Mary a
letter to give to Jamison which threatened jail if the agreement
was not kept. Jamison complied, but afterwards Mary and her
family left. Biddle noted that this was the only instance of unkind­
ness that Jamison had ever exhibited to the family and thought
perhaps it was the result of frustration over the slaves’ liberation.17
Claude Augustus Wilson was another Columbia countian who
was born a slave. Wilson was born in 1857 on the plantation of Tom
Dexter near Alligator. Dexter was a merchant as well as a large
slave owner. Wilson regarded his master as a kindly man and
thought Dexter’s alleged Yankee ancestry responsible. On the
other hand the master’s wife Mary Ann Dexter was a southerner
and said to be just the opposite. Although Wilson was only eight
years old when the slaves were freed he remembers the Dexter
plantation as being a large operation where the slaves worked
under a driver from dawn to dusk. Wilson worked in the fields as a
boy while his mother and sister worked in the Dexter mansion.
Wilson stated that his mother was rebellious and harrassed the
“Missus” until she was allowed to work in the fields so she could “be
near her man.”18
Wilson noted that in the slave cabin, which served as his early
home, his mother cooked in the fireplace over hot coals using a
skillet and another utensil called a “spider.” He remembers the

"Ibid., pp. 36-37.
17Ibid., pp. 36.
"Ibid., pp. 355-356.
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