rank

rding what my brother Dow and I have been ab

present success. I do not use the word "success" boastfully, but because it really states a fact: we have done much more than we ever

re than twelve miles from the Tuskegee Institute

, and are each about sixty-five years of age; they were, for twenty-five years each, slaves. Neither can read or write. My br

married two sisters, Susie and Lillie Hendon. Shortly after my marriage my beloved wife Sus

s had leased and "worked" a tract of 1,100 acres of land, having leased it for ten years at a time. We still lease this tract, and, in addition, rent an additional 480 acres in the same way, ten years at a time. We subrent tracts of this total of 1,580 acres to thirty tenants, charging one and one-half bales of cotton for each one-horse farm. We pay twenty-three bales for t

quired by purchase another tract containing 285 acres. The first tract we paid for in two years; the

some idea as to what we have been

covering debts on land, fertilizers, and money

head of cattle, thirty hogs, and have ab

ther and I live in a good six-room house, with a large

ON TH

with fodder corn, st

ied in a country store of this kind. The colored Odd F

in our store, and here all of the surr

ge yearly business a

son for ourselves and others living near; of the 150 bales got from the la

corn, potatoes, and peas, i

chase the 480 acres we h

eather-boarded. The school is regularly conducted for five months each year, and part of the time has two teachers. Mr. J. C. Calloway, a Tuskegee graduate, Class of '96, is principal of the school. We are cooperating with Mr. Calloway in an effort to supplement the school funds and secure an addit

ork and most of that of the whole community. Rev. Robert C. Bedford, secretary of the board of trustees, Tuskegee Institute, some time ago visited us, as he does most of the Tuskegee graduates and former students. He is apprised of the correctness of the statements set forth above. He wrote the following

of the crude and inexperienced laborers about us, we found that we could, with advantage to all, rent large tracts of land, subrent to others, and in this way pay no rent ourselves, as these subrenters did that for us. We could in this way al

that we might not always have the same whole-souled man to deal with, and that terms might be made much harder. My brother and father agreed, and we set about to purchase

the beginning. We have had no disputes or differences; w

cure homes, buy lands, live decently, and be somebody. The following are

lave. He has 11 mules and horses and raised 65 bales of cotton last year. His property is all paid for. His brother, M

body, only about two miles from our place. It is all paid for, and the deeds are all recorded at th

over 100 bales of cotton this year together. He has raised over 30 himself. He has 20 mules, 3 horses, 30 head of cattle, an

girls, who go to school on our place. He himself can

o-room frame house. Mr. Whitlow gave them 40 acres of land, and he is trying to buy an additional 100 acres. He raised 17 bales of cotton this year and 150 bushels

rated high, and I shall never fail to praise T