proj~eCt f1655
Stiles M. Scruggs	I:~or~,)7c~	. .
Columbia, S. C~		       ~ ~ ~	84
	~	   JOH1~ FRAi~11I1‘~
		Ex—8LA,1rI~: €34 YEARS OLD.


ft I is the son of John FraE.IClbi and Susan Bobo Franklin. I w~s born


August 10th, 1853 i.n Spartanburg County. My daddy was a slave on the plantation of I~ar6ter Henry Franklin, sometimes called Hill and my rna~mr~ was a slave on the plantation of IVJ~.rster Benjamin Bobo. They was brother« iri“law‘s and lived on a planation joining each other.

	“My white marsters and their mistresses was good to us and to ail their slaves. We have plenty to eat and wear, on the Bobo plantation, from the time I can remember up to the time I was ‘bout eleven years old. In 1861, my rnarsters go away with their neighbors, to fight the daitni Yankees and the plantation was left in charge of the mistresses and worked by the slaves. The slaves all raised ‘bundance of rations, but pretty soon there was a scarcity ‚ cause they ~was no . o~offee at the store and stragglin‘ Yankees or what they call ‘Rebel soldierst come ‘long every few days and take all they can carry.

	“That shortage begun in 1862, and it kept on gettin‘worse all the time ‚ and when Lincoln s et all niggers free ‚ there was such ~ a shortage of food and clothes at our white folks houses, that we decided to move to a Dutch Fork plantation. ~ daddy go ‘long with other niggers to fight for t Uncle ‘ and we never see him no more • Soon after that me and mammy told our mistress goodbye, and move do~wxi to her daddy‘s place, ‘bout ten miles from Chapin. I ~was ten years old that year and we raise corn, beans, ‘taters and chickens for ourselves and to sell, when we could go to Columbia and sell it and buy coffee • and other things that we could not raise at home.