His funeral orations were hard to beat, several of which I had the pleasure of hearing. The first being that of William Northington, the trusted foreman for years on Miss Ellen Yates’ farm. William was highly esteemed as a colored citizen of the community, and Miss Ellen sent out for her white friends to attend his funeral. They occupied seats on the back porch, while the colored congregation sat under the shade of the tall locust trees, and listened with rapt attention. After taking his text, and making a few appropriate introductory remarks, he quoted effectively from Longfellow’s Psalm of Life: “Art is long, and time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums are beating Funeral marches to the grave.” William and Jack Northington were brothers, owned by Mr. Henry Northington, one of the pioneer settlers of Middle Tennessee. Mr. Northington was a large slave owner, and not needing William and Jack on his farm, he kept them hired out. After they were freed, they said, “We will go back to the old home, and help take care of Mars Henry the remainder of his days,” and they did. Mr. Northington died June, 1877, but they still stayed on the old plantation, working as long as they lived for Miss Ellen Yates, Mr. Northington’s adopted niece. Two summers later, August, 1883, I heard him preach the funeral of Aunt Lucy Parks Northington. For several years before her death, Aunt Lucy had cooked for Mrs. Lawson Fort. She had been a faithful servant in the Dancy, Parks, and Fort families all her life, originally belonging to William E. Dancy, of Florence, Ala. She was beloved by her white people, who tenderly cared for her during the last two years of her life, in which she was unable to work. And when the last sad rites were to be paid her remains, her casket was placed on the front gallery of the pretty Fort home; white friends sat in the parlor and sitting room; the colored congregation occupied seats leading from the steps to the front gate. As Rev. Altheus Carr stood at the head of the casket, and ’neath the shadows of the imposing columns of that old colonial home, it was a scene to touch the tenderest chord of a Southern heart. On the casket was a wreath of spider lillies, that grew in a valley near the cabin home of the deceased, when she lived at the old Parks homestead near Port Royal. Every summer, for years, she had admired that lily bed at blooming time, and the writer remembered it. He took for his text, “Well done good and faithful servant,” etc., and started out by saying: “The nearness of this casket to the mansion door, and the pure white lillies that shed their fragrance over the heart that is forever still, attest the truth of my text. Yes my hearers, this means something. It speaks appreciation of a life, whose ending deserves more than a passing notice.