Biography of Nellie Atwood Strong, Autauga, Alabama http://files.usgwarchives.net/al/autauga/bios/nastrong.txt ==================================================================== USGENWEB PROJECT NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Project Archives to store this file permanently for free access. This file is copyrighted and contributed by: Ronald D. Bridges ==================================================================== November 1998 Biography of Nellie Atwood Strong - Autauga County "DESCENDENT OF PRATT SLAVE RECALLS GRANDFATER’S STORIES Nellie Atwood Strong never knew her grandfather. He died before she was born. But she’s heard the stories. Her grandfather , Charles Atwood, was the slave of Daniel Pratt, founder of the city which bears his name. Charles came with the Pratts from Savannah to settle in Alabama. Atwood has a place in the history books, according to Autauga County historian Dan Gray. In his book, "Autauga County: The First 100 Years, 1818-1918," Gray writes of Pratt coming to the South with his wife, and two slaves." …..and in 1833, he, with his brave wife and two African Negroes, started for Alabama." Gray writes. The Pratts bought Charles in Savannah, when he was a very young man, Mrs. Strong said. Another slave, Nelson, came with them from Savannah. Mrs. Strong’s great-grandmother, Charles’ mother, was from Africa, she said. Charles was a mulatto, the son of a white man, she said. "The Pratts were not used to owning slaves," Mrs. Strong said. "My grandfather had it softer. They must have been pretty nice to them." Later, the Pratts bought another slave in Savannah, Eliza, to be a wife for Charles. "Eliza belonged to the Atwood family, so when she came down here, the Pratts adopted the name Atwood for Charles and Eliza," Mrs. Strong said. The two "weren’t like the other slaves, they were more accepted, like servants," she said. The pair had their own house in the slave quarters she said. Atwood was a footman or doorman for the Pratts, according to Mrs. Strong. Although the Pratts had other slaves, "they were more or less not interested in buying slaves, but just in getting workers for their farm." Mrs. Strong said the Pratts must have given Charles Atwood his freedom before the Civil War. Mrs. Strong said her grandmother, Eliza, had two children before she came to Prattville. Later, she and Charles had six sons and one daughter. Charles Atwood "must have been an easy-going person," she said. "My grandmother was the domineering type. She ruled the roost." Although neither of her grandparents could read or write, all of their children went to school. Mrs. Strong, the fifth of 10 children, said her father who was born in 1870 was named after Pratt, becoming Pratt Atwood. He was the third son of Charles and Eliza. The Pratts always protected the Atwoods, she said. "They looked after us." The blacks often attended church with the white families, so the Pratts gave them the Ward Chapel A. M. E. Church during the 1870s or so, Mrs. Strong said. When the slaves were freed, many of them didn’t have any work, she said. But the Atwoods moved into a home where the Health Department is now located, she said. They continued to work for the Pratts. Later, when Mrs. Strong’s parents married, they went to live in the big house with the rest of the Atwood family. Mrs. Strong grew up there. Her grandfather died before she was born, and her grandmother died in 1904 when Mrs. Strong was only five days old. The two are supposedly buried at Pratt Cemetery, she said, where the Pratts are also buried. "I don’t know anything about my father’s people from the time they came to Prattville from Savannah," she said. The population in Prattville was around 2,500 when Mrs. Strong was growing up. "The poor people didn’t call us poor, because we were all poor at the time," she said. "My family was a lot better off than a lot of blacks then," she said. "I thought all of us were in the same boat." "I know that as black history, we are the black history of Prattville," she said. "The Pratts had a school near the creek," she said. "The old bridge school…..my oldest sister and brother went down there." Mrs. Strong said she started to school in a one-room schoolhouse that went through the fourth grade. She then attended at Lutheran school, and the Lutherans sent her to State Normal, now Alabama State University. The Atwoods and the Pratts have always been connected in some way, she said. Her father, Pratt Atwood, worked at Continental Gin for 51 years. Mrs. Strong’s sister, Mrs. Lillian Atwood Golson is also a Prattville resident. Mrs. Strong lived in Cleveland, Ohio and Chicago, Illinois, for more than 30 years and then returned to Prattville. In keeping with the Pratt- Atwood tradition, she has worked for Mrs. Merry Pratt Bell, Mrs. Dora Pratt Young and Mr. Henry Pratt Bell." (1) (1) From the 11 February 1982 edition of The Prattville Progress, by Julie Hare.