I found this article on Ancestry. Does anyone know where the Skeet Good home is?................. In his regular column in the Page News & Courier titled Home of the Birds, Jacob Richard Seekford (1857-1939) wrote perhaps the most poignant account of slavery in Page County, referencing a slave auction held, not in Luray, but in Marksville. Note that the aforementioned editor, William Carl Lauck, was still editor of the PN&C at the time of the appearance of this particular article. So, that being said, on to what Seekford wrote: “In 1856, when the southern slave buyers would come into this county and would buy slaves and would take them to the south in large droves of colored men and women. In 1856, just in front of the door of the house where ‘Skeet’ Good lives at Marksville, was the place where they sold slaves. Mary Williams, then the mother of two little girls belonging to Paschal Graves, was with her little baby girl put on the block and sold to a man who took them away down south, then the other little girl was sold to Daniel Koontz for $400, and Mr. Koontz gave the little girl to Mrs. John P. Foltz, who lived at Newport. Mrs. Foltz being his daughter. This little negro girl grew to womanhood and married William Winston, she is still living in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Her name was Martha. Many years ago she asked me if I could find her mother and sister. I told her that it would be impossible, then she broke down and cried. I do not know how it will be in the great beyond, but I would like to be there when Martha meets and clasps hands with her mother and sister. Those were terrible days, and I have often wondered what it might some day bring upon this country.”
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 14:24:30 +0000
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