I wish to make a record of the goodly contingent of colored residents, who came to Mt. Pleasant, many of them with the returning soldiers at the close of the Civil war. At one time they numbered four hundred and were to be reckoned with on election day. But now I fancy forty could hardly be counted. They mostly had a little colony to themselves out in Lee town and some of them were tall, fine-looking men. Alfred Mason and the Burnaughs, the Mosley’s, Samuel McCracken. Old Adam Arms lived down near Winona, now Saunders. Adam had a good wife, Paulina, pronounced P’li’ny. “How’s your wife, Adam?” After a little embarrassment he answered, “Well’um, de changes of de wedder is hard on Pliny. She not berry well dis mornin’. She born a lil baby last night.”

(Excerpts from “100 Years in Mt. Pleasant”, an article written by Florence Andrews Palm and published In the “Free Press”, Friday, April 21, 1933, page 3)

Transcribed and contributed by Pat White, 16 Jun 2024.