II.  "We were Barrs before we were Reeds."

That statement was among the oral history passed down in the family.  In 1991, during a conversation with my mother and my aunt, I learned that Grandpa Bill Reed's last name wasn't always Reed.  My aunt recalled her aunt (John Ella Reed Bobo) telling her that the family's surname was at first a name that began with a "B".  A year later, at the first family reunion, I learned that Grandpa Bill Reed was first enslaved by a Barr family in South Carolina.  A number of family elders remembered this crucial piece of information.

Later, Cousin Ike Deberry shared with me the story his grandfather shared with him of the day the Barrs sold him to the Reids.  He stated, "I even remember when he told me about the day he was sold.  He said that he was placed on a block and he was looked over left and right.  The boss man (Barr) had him turn to the left, and then turn to the right for them to decide how much he was worth.  He said that he was a teenager at the time because he heard them say that he would make a good plow boy.  I can't recall what he said they paid for him, but I know it must have been him and his sister who were sold to the Reids."