A man by the name of Manning Brown was nursed by an old colored woman he called mamma Betty.  She was naturally good natured and a devout Christian, and Mr. Brown gained many of her good qualities when he was under her entire control, at which time he was said to be a boy of very fine sense of feeling and quite promising.  But when approaching manhood Mr. Brown fell among a class of other white men who, in the days of slavery, were unbridled in their habits.  With this class of men he began to drink, and step by step in this rapid stride he soon became a confirmed drunkard.  This habit so over-coated the good influence he had gained from the colored woman, that it rendered him dangerous not only to his enemies, but also to his friends.

Manning Brown was feared by most of the other white men in Richland county, S.C., and, strange to say, although he was dangerous to white men, yet he never lost the respect he had for colored people in his boyhood days.  He ate, drank and slept among colored people after he was a grown man, and in many cases when other white men, who were called patrols, caught colored people away from home without tickets, and were about to whip them, Mr. Brown would ride up and say, “The first man who raises a whip at one of those negroes I will blow his brains out.”  Knowing that he would shoot a man as quick as he would a bird, even if ten patrols were together, when Mr. Brown made such threats, they never would attempt to whip the negroes.

Mr. Brown owned a plantation with forty slaves on it; his good treatment of them enabled him to get more work out of them than most owners got out of their slaves.  His slaves thought so much of their “Massa Manning,” as they used to call him, that they did everything in their power to please him.  But while he was so good to colored people, he was dangerous to many of the white people and feared by them.

A man by the name of Peter Gafney fought a duel with his brother-in-law, whose name was Dr. Kay; the former, who was quite a marksman, was killed by the latter, who was considered a very poor one.  This led many who were in favor of Mr. Gafney to feel that there had been foul play by Dr. Ray, the contestant.  Mr. Brown, who acted as a second for Mr. Gafney in the fight, felt the loss of his old friend very deeply.  A short time after this he sent a challenge to Dr. Ray, stating, “You may either meet me at a certain time, on the spot where you killed P.T.  Gafney, for a duel, or I will shoot you on first sight wherever I meet you.  Yours, M. Brown.”

But Dr. Ray refused in the face of the threat to accept the challenge.  Knowing the disposition of Mr. Brown, the people in that county were inflamed with excitement, because the doctor was liable at any moment while riding in the road to be killed.  In fear of meeting Mr. Brown, the doctor gave up visiting the most of his sick patients, and almost wholly confined himself to his large plantation.  At the same time Mr. Brown was closely watched by his friends to keep him from waylaying the doctor.