Mary Kincheon Edwards

Mary Anne Kincheon Edwards said she was born July 8, 1810, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; the interviewer could not confirm it, but noted she was clearly very old. She grew up with the Kincheon family, who had many children, and spoke French as a child. She remembered the night the stars fell and how frightened everyone was as they streaked down and went out before reaching the ground.

The Kincheons gave her to Felix Vaughn, who brought her to Texas long before the war. Her main work for the Vaughns was wet-nursing their baby son, Elijah, whose mother didn't have enough milk. She also knitted socks, washed clothes, sometimes worked in the fields, and helped make cotton baskets from white-oak strips soaked overnight, with everyone competing to make the best basket. A basket held about a hundred pounds of cotton. When interviewed she lived with Beatrice Watters near Austin.