“There were a great many people in Anne Arundel who did not believe in slavery and many free colored people.  These conditions caused conflicts between the free colored who many times were charged with aiding the slaves and the whites who were not favorably impressed with slavery and the others who believed in slavery.  As a result, the patrollers were numerous.  I remember of seeing Jim Revell coming home very much battered and beaten up as a result of an encounter with a number of free people and white people and those who were members of the patrollers.

“As a child I was very fond of dancing, especially the jig and buck.  I made money as I stated before, I played children’s plays of that time, top, marbles and another game we called skinny.  Skinny was a game played on trees and grape vines.

“As a boy I was very healthy, I never had a doctor until I was over 50 years old.  I don’t know anything about the medical treatment of that day, you never need medicine unless you are ailing and I never ailed.”

Maryland
Sept. 27, 1937
Stansbury

“PARSON” REZIN WILLIAMS, ex-slave. 
References:  Baltimore Morning Sun, December 10, 1928. 
            Registration Books of Board of Election Supervisors
            Baltimore Court House.

Personal interviews with “Parson” Rezin Williams, on Thursday afternoon, September 18 and 24, 1937, at his home, 2610 Pierpont Street, Mount Winans, Baltimore, Md.

Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol 1 (1906), p. 56.

Buchholz:  Governors of Maryland—­pp. 57-63, 192-167. 
(P.L.G. 28 B 92.)

“Parson” Williams——­

Oldest living Negro Civil War veteran; now 116 years old.

Oldest registered voter in Maryland and said to be the oldest
“freeman” in the United States.

Said to be oldest member of Negro family in America with sister
and brother still living, more than a century old.

Father worked for George Washington.

In 1864 when the State Constitution abolished slavery and freed about 83,000 Negro slaves in Maryland, there was one, “Parson” Rezin Williams, already a freeman.  He is now living at the age of 116 years, in Baltimore City, Maryland, credited with being the oldest of his race in the United States who served in the Civil War.

He was born March 11, 1822, at “Fairview”, near Bowie, Prince Georges County, Maryland—­a plantation of 1000 acres, then belonging to Governor Oden Bowie’s father.  “Parson” Williams’ father, Rezin Williams, a freeman, was born at “Mattaponi”, near Nottingham, Prince Georges County, the estate of Robert Bowie of Revolutionary War fame, friend of Washington and twice Governor of Maryland.  The elder Rezin Williams served the father of our country as a hostler at Mount Vernon, where he worked on Washington’s plantation during the stormy days of the Revolution.