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At least one slave narrative was total nonsense. Molly Walden Markham, born
20 August 1857 and died 19 February 1941, told her story in WPA Project vol.
XI, part 2, pages 106-8. She told the interviewer that her mother Tempy was
a white woman and her father Squire Walden a "Mulatto" slave on Tempy's
father's plantation. Tempy fell in love with Squire, her father found out
about it and sold Squire to another slaveowner in another state. Tempy found
him, purchased his freedom, then drank the blood from a cut in his finger so
she could honestly tell the Justice of the Peace that she had Negro blood in
her.
The free African American Walden family originated in Surry County,
Virginia, during the colonial period. Tempy James descended from Andrew
James who was a slave freed in York County, Virginia, in 1678. The Walden
family owned land in Northampton County, North Carolina, and the plantation
Tempy referred to was owned by the free African American James family in
Halifax County. Squire Walden married Tempy James, 28 March 1832 Halifax
County, North Carolina bond. Squire and Tempy were counted in the 1850
Northampton County census with his 78-year-old "Mulatto" father William
Walden who was listed as 90 years old in the 1860 census.
Molly Walden married Reverend Edian Markham who founded the St. Joseph
African Methodist Episcopal Church. Markham's son published a booklet about
his father and the founding of the church in which he wrote that tradition
said his great-grandfather Billy Walden lived to the age of 100 years.
Paul
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