Ben Horry

Ben Horry was interviewed by Genevieve Chandler at his cabin near Murrells Inlet, Georgetown County, South Carolina, where he lived with his second wife, Stella. He said he was the oldest person between Longwood and Prospect, and pointing at the forest of pines and live oaks, he said he remembered when that land was cleared and planted.

He grew up on Brookgreen plantation, where rice was the main crop and his father held the barn key. He told how his father would take him into the woods at night to hold a torch while he threshed rice from the barn, then carry it to town to trade for whiskey. When the enslaver found out, he broke the jug and for about a year put a broken piece of it in the father's ration pile to shame him. Ben named among his family Dan'l, Summer, Define, Bess, Florence, Georgia and Alice.

In old age he still worked, gathering seafood and cooking crab, oysters and fish for a nearby house, and arranging oyster roasts.