JOHN BERRY MEACHUM DESCRIBES HIS EARLY LIFE

"The author of this little book was born a slave, in Goochland county, Virginia, May 3d, 1789. I belonged to a man by the name of Paul Meachum, who moved to North Carolina, and lived there nine years. He then moved to Hardin county, Kentucky, where I still remained a slave with him. He was a good man and I loved him, but could not feel myself satisfied, for he was very old, and looked as if death was drawing near to him. So I proposed to him to hire my time, and he granted it. By working in a saltpetre cave I earned enough to purchase my freedom.

Still I was not satisfied, for I had left my father in old Virginia, and he was a slave. It seemed to me, at times, though I was seven hundred miles from him, that I held conversation with him, for he was near my heart. However this did not stop here, for industry will do a great deal. In a short time I went to Virginia, and bought my father, and paid one hundred pounds for him, Virginia money. It was a joyful meeting when we met together, for we had been apart a long time. He was a Baptist preacher, living in Hanover county, and went by the name of Thomas Granger. While there, on a Sunday morning after I had bought the old man, he was singing and my eyes filled with tears. He turned to me and said, "you are yet in your sins." His words went to my heart, and I began to pray and seek the Lord. Four weeks from that day I found peace in believing upon the Lord Jesus, related my experience to the church, and was baptized by elder Purinton, in Louisa county. This was in the year 1811, when I was about twenty-one years old. My father and myself then earned enough to pay our expenses on the way, and putting our knapsacks on our backs walked seven hundred miles to Hardin county, Kentucky. Here the old man met his wife and all his children, who had been there several years. Oh there was joy!

In a short time, my mother and all her children received their liberty, of their good old master. My father and his family settled in Harrison county, Indiana.

I married a slave in Kentucky, whose master soon took her to St. Louis, in Missouri. I followed her, arriving there in 1815, with three dollars in my pocket. Being a carpenter and cooper I soon obtained business, and purchased my wife and children. Since that period, I have purchased about twenty slaves, most of whom paid back the greatest part of the money, and some paid all. They are all free at this time, and doing well, excepting one, who happened to be a drunkard, and no drunkard can do well. One of the twenty colored friends that I bought is worthy to be taken notice of, to show what industry will do. I paid for him one thousand dollars. He worked and paid back the thousand dollars. He has also bought a lot of ground for which he paid a thousand dollars. He married a slave and bought her, and paid seven hundred dollars for her. He has built a house that cost him six hundred dollars. He is a blacksmith, and has worked for one man ever since he has been in St. Louis. So much for industry.

I commenced preaching in 1821, and was ordained as a minister of the gospel in 1825. From that time to this, I have been the pastor of the African Baptist Church in St. Louis, which has now more than five hundred members. The Sunday school has an attendance from one hundred and fifty to three hundred."

Source: John B. Meachum, An Address to All the Colored Citizens of the United States (Philadelphia: King and Baird, 1846).