Scott Hooper

Scott Hooper was born in 1856 in Shelby County, Texas, near the place then called Bucksnort and later Tenaha; the year was recorded in her mother's Bible. She was enslaved by the Rev. Robert Turner, a Baptist preacher who held seven families, and she said he treated them "like humans," with no whippings. Her mother had nine children. Her father belonged to Jack Hooper four miles away and visited Wednesday and Saturday nights. He was allowed to farm an acre for himself, often raising more than half a bale of cotton, and bought his own pony and saddle and brought the children candy and toys. By the surrender he had saved about $500, all in Confederate money, which he gave the children to play with.

Turner ran a store at Bucksnort, where, to people's amusement, the preacher also sold whiskey, and he dosed the enslaved with "bitters" made of whiskey, cherry bark and rust from iron nails; she said castor oil was candy beside it. At the surrender he called everyone into the yard, told them they were free, said he hated to part with them, and offered shares. Most left. Her family went to her father's place and rented from Hooper for seven years.

She married Steve Hooper at thirteen, and they had eight children whose whereabouts she no longer knew. When interviewed at 81 she lived in Fort Worth on an $8 pension, a block from her sister, Louise Mathews.