Alonza Fantroy Toombs

Alonza Fantroy Toombs, known as Uncle Lon, was born in the Double Spade quarters on the Georgia plantation of Robert Toombs, the Georgia politician who served in the U.S. Congress and as the Confederacy's first secretary of state. Lon spoke of the man with great admiration, calling him a fine stump speaker and a good provider, though he said Toombs drank too much.

His father, Sam Fantroy Toombs, was the enslaver's carriage driver and a preacher; Lon said Toombs taught him to read and write and let him travel from plantation to plantation on Sundays preaching. His mother, Isabella, was a renowned cook whose pots shone like silver. As a boy Lon was too young for field work and hunted, fished and fed the stock. He said people on the plantation had good food, good clothes, and a doctor when they were sick, and that the smokehouse and wine cellar held everything from possum to venison. He said that after the surrender no one left, and that Toombs gave every freed person over twenty-one a mule, some land and a house to start with.

His father taught him to read and write. He married twice, both times in ceremonies performed by his father. His first wife, Ida Walker, died in childbirth along with their baby; his second wife, Alice James, had died nearly twenty years before he was interviewed. At eighty-six, having recovered from a stroke, he lived with his sister in Alabama, and said his last wish was to slip back to the old place after death to see his friends.