New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1874-05-07

From a North Carolina Plantation TO the
the New York Post coffee.

! From "a North Carolina Plantation TO the
the New York Post coffee.
One warm afternoon in the summer of 1862.
half dozen little slave boys were playing
carelessly about a cotton-press about sixteen
miles from Newbern, y. c., when one of the
smallest and youngest of them overheard
something that attaacted his attention, and
which soon had the effect to stop the play
| From the conversation between two adult
slaves, he learned that all of them were to be
taken, in few days, back to the interior
part of the State, out of the way of the Yam
kee invaders. This set him to thinking A
council OF war was held by the little felows
Then was made one of the most tervent
speeches in favor of liberty that was ever
uttered by Southern slave. The possessor
OF the sharp ears had the reputation ola mis-
chievous and headstrong boy among his play
mates, but now they listened to him with a
kind of wonder. With boyish enthusiasm he
rapidly sketched n plot for an escape to the
! Yankee lines. The time was fixed. They
were to start the next afternoon. But about
! three O'Clock the next morning he heard the
booming Ofguns at the battle ofNewbern He
knew precisely what they meant. Rising
steathlly, he reused his companions i'm the
plot, but at the last moment their hearts failed
them. Nothing daunted, the little fellow,
not yet II years of age, with such clothes as
he had on him, and with a supreme trust in
himself and in "Massa Lincoln - started Off
the direction of the cannonading. He took a
circuit around the town. and came in at the
rear OF the Union lines about three O'Clock in
| the afternoon. The distance was about TWEEN
ty miles. He says now he don't remember
that he was tired. On the Journey he was
revolving on his mind magnificent scheme
DIGGING back stealthily to organize company
OF boys on the old plantation, with which he
proposed to join the Union forces. He was
taken on board of the gunboat Chasseur,
where he was soon advanced from the posi-
ton of officer mess to the more honorable
one of powder boy. Until 1864 he was en-
gagged in various capacities as boy in the
Union army andnavy. Then he came North,
and obtained the position of office-boy for the
late Henry j.. Raymond. While he was so
employed in the Times office he revisited the
old plantation. His father, mother. and all
his relatives were dead, but an affection for
the old place carried him back. He was
heartily welcomed, and by none more so
than the widow of his former master. Col
Streets, who was killed in the war.
This was the first of several visits to his
old home. During his residence at the North
he had come in a contact with many public
men, and had cultivated the art of public
| Il
great ascendency over the minds of his old
friends. On his visit in 1872 they insisted
for long time they would nominate him for
sheriff, and it was only his inability to quail
fy on account of age that enabled him to ST.
lence their entreaties. He is regarded by
them as patron, and scarcely colored man
in his native country, to whom he is not per-
sonally known, ever comes to New York
without letter accommodation to David,
as he is familiarity called. He has secured
positions of one kind and another for over
fifty of his people from the old North State.
The above is the life story, briefly told of
David F. Nelson, who yesterday received 4
notification that he had passed very success
fully for 81 900 clerkship in a New York
Postoffice. He is a little over twenty years
4 old, and has held the post Of doOrkeeper for
the Postmaster since 1870, when it was Sc
cured for him by Mr.. Thurlow Weed. He is
entirely self-educated.
A scrap-book in his possession contains,
besides a mass ofvaluable statistics concern
ing his race, a large selection of miscellan-
eOus liturature culled from the writings of
Whittier, Alice Cary, and other writer's OF
equal merit. This morning he was over.
whelmed with congratulations by his fellow
employees of the POstoflice on the success he
had attained.