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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