J.M.  Johnson, Field Worker
John A. Simms, Editor
Chaseville, Florida
August 28, 1936

WILLIAM SHERMAN

In Chaseville, Florida, about twelve miles from Jacksonville on the south side of the Saint Johns River lives William Sherman (locally pronounced Schumann,) a former slave of Jack Davis, nephew of President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy. (1)

William Sherman was born on the plantation of Jack Davis, about five miles from Robertsville, South Carolina, at a place called “Black Swamp,” June 12, 1842, twenty-three years prior to Emancipation.  His father who was also named William Sherman, was a free man, having bought his freedom for eighteen hundred dollars from his master, John Jones, who also lived in the vicinity of the Davis’ plantation.  William Sherman, senior, bargained with his master to obtain his freedom, however, for he did not have the money to readily pay him.  He hired himself out to some of the wealthy plantation owners and applied what he earned toward the payment for his freedom.  He was a skilled blacksmith and cabinet maker and his services were always in demand.  After procuring his freedom he bought a tract of land from his former master and built a home and blacksmith shop on it.  As was the custom during slavery, a person who bought his freedom had to have a guardian; Sherman’s former master, John Jones, acted as his guardian.  Under this new order of things Sherman was in reality his own master.  He was not “bossed,” had his own hours, earned and kept his money, and was at liberty to leave the territory if he desired.  However, he remained and married Anna Georgia, the mother of William Sherman, junior.  She was also a slave of Jack Davis.  After William Sherman, senior, finished his day’s work he would go to the Davis plantation to visit his wife and sometimes remain for the night.  It was his intention to purchase the freedom of his wife Anna Georgia, and their son William, but he died before he had sufficient money to do so, and also before the Civil War, which he predicted would ensue between the North and South.  His son William says that he remembers well the events that led up to his father’s burial; he states that the white people dug his grave which was six feet deep.  It took them three days in which to dig it on account of the hardness of the clay; when it was finished he was put sorrowfully away by the white folk who thought so much of him.  William was a boy of nine at that time, and he remembers that his mother was so grieved that he tried to console her by telling her not to worry “papa’s goin’ to com’ back and bring us some more quails” (he had been accustomed to bringing them quails during his life) but William sorrowingly said “he never did come back.”