JOHN AND REBECCA BOYD, WELL DIGGER AND FARMER

In the City of Lakeland, located in the heart of the Citrus development of the State of Florida, there lives a Negro family who has seen Lakeland grow to it's present stage of development. They have maintained their respectability from their pioneering period to the present time. The members of the family consist of, John and his wife Rebecca, their son Bryan Boyd, and John's two sisters Mary Boyd and Mattie Boyd. Mattie is the first Negro baby to be born in Lakeland, Florida.

John is tall and rawboned. He walks a little bent over, he is dark in complexion, with many gray hairs in his head. John was born in Cario, Georgia, having passed his sixty fifth birthday. His parents were Willis J. Boyd and Gabrella Boyd.

Rebecca is very small in size, four feet and five inches in height, dark brown in complexion, with gray hairs in her head. They were very congenial and above the average in intelligence.

Rebecca said, " I will do the best I can to tell you about our early life, and what I found when I came to Lakeland in [1898?]. I came here from Thomasville, Georgia, where I was born. My parents Bryant and [Cherry Sanders?], were slaves. When I was small I used to hear them talk about slavery time. They said their slave master was Mr. [M.?.] Hutch. They [had?], father said, one hundred and fifty slaves on the plantation. He was considered a good slave master. Father died February [10?], 1895, at the age of seventy years old. My mother died in 1909. Our son Bryant was born in 1884, and I was born October 9, 1870.

25996

                                                                                                   Federal Writers' Project                                                                                                    Paul Diggs