Will Daily

Will Daily was born in 1858 in Missouri near St. Louis, enslaved by the John Daily family, who held about three hundred people. He said he was proud to say he had been enslaved, since he had been treated well. The enslaver kept a driver but made him report before giving any punishment, saying the people he held were human, with human feelings. By four or five, Will was being trained as a house boy, and soon he was driving up the horses and carrying breakfast to the field, where the grown workers had been since well before day and often worked into the night. He saw people sold from the auction block, with children crying as their mothers were taken away, and saw enslaved people in chains elsewhere. The enslaved had no schooling and no church, and the dead were buried without singing.

His father went to the war, came home once on furlough, then was killed. When freedom came, old Uncle Pete, the oldest man on the place, walked out of the woods where he went to read his Bible and told them, "Me and the Lord knows something": they were free to come and go as they pleased.

Will stayed because his mother did. His love of horses led him to a career as a jockey and trainer; he rode races for the family long after the enslaver died, then kept horses of his own. He later came to San Angelo, Texas, and worked in hotels, from making soap to cooking fine meals, until his health broke. When interviewed he lived in his own small home on an old-age pension.