Horace

– Horace:
Owned by Thomas McGrain and worked as “porter” in a Louisville store owned by McGrain on West Main Street. Superintendent of a “colored Sunday school” in Louisville. Purchased his freedom from Thomas McGrain.

From Gresham biography, p.4: “While my father was a pro-slavery man, he was not, at least at the start, wedded to the system. He early took to other kinds of property than the few slaves he owned. I only remember Horace, the porter in the store, and a few household servants – Winnie Johnson, the cook, her son, Booze, and a couple of maid servants.”

p. 5: “By the middle of the ’50s we gave up our Louisville residence, but my father continued in business there until 1862. My father was not a sharp trader; he never made money that way. He was an easy master. He made it possible for Horace to buy his freedom. Horace was an educated darkey, and the superintendent of a colored Sunday school in Louisville. Before his freedom I often went with him to teach a class of eight little mulatto girls, pretty and almost white. Several were the daughters of their masters.”