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by the name of Paulina, who belonged to my mother. Marriage between negroes was prohibited by law, and it was only by voluntary cohabitation that semblance was given to legality. These two persons, John and Paulina, were the father and mother of several children, all of whom under the law belonged to my mother. When the California gold excitement of 1849 was at its height, Carter's three sons, George, Tom and Rolla, determined to cross the plains to California in search of gold, and with the permission of their father, took John (the slave) with them.

Thus it was that the husband, without his consent, was taken away from the wife and children and made to work in the gold fields for his young masters. Had John seen proper to avail himself of his rights to freedom under the laws then existing, he could have remained in California a free man. This he did not prefer to do, but trusted to his master to take him back to slavery and his wife and children in Missouri. After being in California a year, the youngest of the Carter boys, Rolla, was taken very sick. It was thought best to send him home by water in care of the faithful old John. The two went on board ship at San Francisco and started for New York via Panama. This sick man was carried on the shoulders of John across the isthmus and placed in a vessel on the Atlantic side. In the course of time the vessel reached New York and the two passengers made their way from New York to Missouri. I was twelve years old when they returned, and I can never forget the joy that was overflowing in the cabin when John embraced his wife and children. Here was a husband so devoted to wife and children that he pre

ferred them with slavery to freedom without. Monuments have been erected to many who are not so deserving as old John.

Carter owned another negro man by the name of Fred. He also had a wife at my mother's home, and her name was Rachel. These two were also father and mother of several children. Carter became involved in debt and had to sell Fred to get money to pay off his indebtedness. Fred was sold to a "negro trader" from the South. Thus it was that another family was separated for all time. One of the children followed my fortunes in the Civil War and took care of my horses while I was Colonel of the 49th Missouri Infantry. All of that family of negroes are dead, and only two years ago I contributed to the funeral expenses of the last one of them.

I have probably devoted more space to what I consider great wrongs done to the negroes than I should, but I confess that my sympathy for them has much to do with it all.

III

EDUCATION

John B. Henderson, a Sketch-Schools of the Time -Meagre Facilities for Education - St. Charles College, 1855 - Read Law while Teaching.

In the neighborhood where my father settled, was a family by the name of Henderson. They came to Missouri from Pittsylvania County, Virginia, a short time before my father settled in the State. The two counties of Henry and Pittsylvania joined and composed a part of a Senatorial District represented by my father in the State Senate of Virginia. The Henderson family consisted of husband, wife and four children when they settled in Missouri. The wife did not live long after coming to the neighborhood. The husband was addicted to the use of liquor and when in his cups was very quarrelsome. While under the influence of liquor he got into a fight with a neighbor, and in it lost his life. He left four children, two boys and two girls, without a dollar in the world. The children were named John, James, Ann, and Mary, and they were left as I have said, without means and without relatives.

The County Court of Lincoln County appointed Carey Duncan guardian for them, and it became his duty to find homes for them among the people of the

neighborhood. The oldest, John Brooks Henderson who, as will be seen hereafter, became greatly and justly distinguished, was apprenticed to Oliver Simonds of Troy, the county seat of the county, to learn the trade of a cabinet maker. The remaining three were given homes with other families. John was a red-headed, quick-tempered fellow, and from the beginning took a dislike to Simonds. After working for a month or so, he and Simonds got into a fight, in which the boy got the best of it. Simonds saw Duncan and told him to find another place for John, and this he did by "binding him out" to old Billy Browning on a farm. This was the beginning of a career hardly surpassed anywhere in the history of the United States.

If ever there was a self-made man in this country, John Brooks Henderson was that man. He rose from absolute poverty to affluence, and from an uneducated youth to a great scholar, from a student of law while he taught a country school to one of the leading lawyers of the Statefrom a tyro in debate to a convincing orator. He became a senator of the United States and served with great distinction. He it was who drew the 13th Amendment to the Federal Constitution. He and Abraham Lincoln were great friends. In his public service he reflected great honor upon the State of Missouri as well as upon the whole country. I give particular mention to Henderson here for the reason that Lincoln County was always proud of him and justly claimed him as the greatest man the county ever produced.

The terms of his apprenticeship were that Brown

ing should furnish board and lodging and clothing and three months' schooling in the year in exchange for John's labor on the farm. Here the boy lived for two years and until he reached the age of eighteen. He had by great industry acquired what was then considered a fair education. He went to the adjoining county of Pike, where he made the acquaintance of Matthew Givens in the lower part of that county. Here, through the influence of Givens, he was employed to teach a country school, and continued as such teacher for a year. He began to study law while teaching, and before he was twenty years of age was admitted to the bar by Judge Ezra Hunt, then Circuit Judge.

He opened a law office in Louisiana, Missouri, where he continued to reside for many years. He soon became prominent in his profession and by the time he was twenty-three years of age, the voters of Pike County elected him as one of their representatives in the State Legislature and he became at once prominent and influential. He impressed himself and his views upon the body and took an active part in the legislation of the day, especially that which authorized and established a State bank and branches. One of these was located at Louisiana and Henderson became its president, and Benjamin P. Clifford its cashier.

After he had been admitted to the bar in Pike County by Judge Hunt, he went back to Troy to attend a term of the Circuit Court. One evening during the week he went out to "Billy Browning's," to visit with the family of his former master and to stay over night at the place that had been his home

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