Julia Daniels

Julia Francis Daniels was born in 1848 in Georgia to Lottie and Boyd Denman, enslaved by a man named Denman who moved them first to Cherokee County, Texas, then to Houston County near Crockett. She had about ten brothers and sisters, including Tom, George, Marthy and Mandy. Her mother cooked for the Denman household and two Black families; her father worked the fields; her Uncle Joe was the driver and held Sunday meetings under the trees, which she said were "the loveliest days that ever there was." A white overseer named Briscoe whipped grown men with a strap.

When Denman's daughter Lizzie married Creed Cramer, Julia and two of her sisters were given to her. One day Julia saw Confederate cavalry riding up for water; Cramer said he wanted to fight so badly he was sick with it, and he left soon after. Word came back that he had angered his officers, who chained his ankles and made him dig a stump in the hot sun until he died of fever. Back at the Denman place, passing soldiers stoned the chickens and carried them off. Once, soldiers in the woods had been tormenting an old Black woman on a mule. Julia's father put her on his mule to get her past them, and when they grabbed at her shouting "Gimme the gal," she fainted.

The year the war ended she learned to plow, and that was also the year she married. When interviewed she lived with a daughter on Spring Street in Dallas, still took part in church, and had recently started learning to read and write.