Ephraim Casey

I am from the State of Georgia, where I was born free. But the laws were no better about learning for a free man than for a slave. I was never sent to a school in my life. My opportunities for religious information were poor. I am now a member of the Methodist Church. At about twenty-three, I emigrated to Indiana, carrying no property. In Indiana, I attended to farming. I had a farm there, and when I left, owned one hundred and eighteen acres. I left on principle—on account of the laws. I liked the country very well. The laws bore hard on me before I came away—I had a case in law, and could not prove my side good by the evidence of colored men, which caused me a loss of fifty or sixty dollars. I did not feel disposed to stand this, and emigrated into Canada.

I settled in Colchester, where I bought out a white settler, land and stock, for seven hundred and fifty dollars. The farm was sixty acres, one half improved: seventeen head of hogs, and five head of cattle. There was no good water there. He had dug in a few places, but got no supply. I sunk a well twenty-eight feet, and the water now rises and runs over the surface, a stream eighteen inches deep; enough to supply water for a steam saw-mill. I have growing eight or ten acres of corn, five or six in wheat, two or three in oats, some potatoes, and other vegetables. The land is better than where I was in Indiana.

I moved in, two years ago last May. I have hired colored men to work for me whenever I wanted their help, and have seen them hired by others: but they prefer, so far as I know, to work for themselves, and to get an independent living.