Carey Davenport

Carey Davenport was born in 1855 in what was then Walker County, Texas, on the part that later became San Jacinto County. His parents, Jim and Janey Davenport, had come from Richmond, Virginia. He had two sisters, Betty and Harriet, and a half-brother, William. About forty people were enslaved by John Mann, called Captain Mann.

Carey said Mann treated the enslaved badly, and that he never understood the man's religion: Mann held prayers every Sunday morning, then got up off his knees and cursed everyone before they were out of the house. White Methodist circuit riders preached to the enslaved, who sat in a corner of the church, but Carey remembered them also holding their own services in hollows, singing songs that came "a-gushin' up from the heart." He saw a man forced to put his head through a rail fence and beaten bloody. A man named Jim, who ran away many times, once had his legs frozen so badly they had to be amputated.

As a boy Carey herded sheep. When the enslaver's son hit him with a pine knot, the enslaver whipped his son; the mistress later tried to whip Carey herself, and he bit her. His father was a skilled carpenter and blacksmith who built plows, spinning wheels and loom parts. Carey became a Methodist and preached for forty-three years. In old age he lived in Anahuac, Texas, where he was well respected, kept preaching, and fished often.