Because his mother was a child-bearing woman, she did not know the hard labors of slavery, but had a small patch of cotton and a garden near the house to care for.  “All of the others worked hard,” said he “but had kind masters who fed them well.”  When asked if his mother were a christian, he replied “why yes:  indeed she was, and believed in prayer; one day as she traveled from her patch home, just as she was about to let the ‘gap’ (this was a fence built to keep the hogs and horses shut in) down, she knelt to pray and a light appeared before her and from that time on she did not believe in any fogyism, but in God.”

“I cannot remember much now,” he says, “of what happened in slavery, but after slavery we went back to the name of Towns.  I know I got some whippings and during the war my job was that of carrying the master’s luggage.” (1)

After the war he went to Albany, Georgia and began working for himself, hauling salt from Albany to Tallahassee, Florida; this salt was sold to the stores.  His next job was that of sampling cotton.

Just before he was 30 years old he was married to Mary Julia Coats, who lived near Albany, Georgia.  To them were born the following children:  Willie, George, Alexander, Henry Hillsman, Ella Louise, and twins—­Walter Luke and Mary Julia, who were named for the parents.

He was converted to the Baptist faith when his first child was born; there were no churches, but services were held in the blacksmith shop on the corner of Jackson and State Streets.  Later he became a member of Mount Zion Baptist Church Albany, Georgia, and served there for 50 years as a deacon.

He remained in Georgia until 1899 when he moved to Tampa, Florida and there he operated a cafe.  He joined Beulah Baptist Church and served as deacon there until he sold his business and came to Jacksonville, 1917, to live with his youngest daughter, Mrs. Mary Houston, because he was too old to operate a business.  In Jacksonville he connected himself with the Bethel Baptist Church, and while too old to serve as an active deacon, he was placed on the honorary list because of his previous record of church service.

As a relic of pre-freedom days, Mr. Towns has a piece of paper money and a one-cent piece which he keeps securely looked in his trunk and allows no one to open the trunk; he keeps the key.

Mr. Towns, who will celebrate his one-hundred-first birthday, December 24, 1936, is not able to coherently relate incidents of the past; he hears but little and that with great difficulty.

He says he has his second eyesight; he reads without the use of glasses; until very recently he has been very active in mind and body, having registered in the Spring of 1936, signing his own name on the registration books.  He has almost all of his hair, which is thick, silvery white and of artist length.  He has most of his teeth, walks without a cane except when painful; dresses himself without assistance.