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Return to the Riley Farm
In 1878, after meeting President Hayes at the White House, Henson returned to the Riley plantation to find it much diminished -- a scene common after the end of slavery in the South. Upon recognizing Henson, the Widow Riley exclaimed: "Why, Si, you are a gentleman!" To which he replied: "I always was madam."
Letter of introduction from Frederick Douglass
"I called on his Excellency President Hayes, in his office, while Mrs. Hayes very kindly showed my wife through the house."
"The once great plantation is now but a wilderness; the most desolate, demoralised place one can imagine. The fertile fields where once waved acres upon acres of tasselled corn…the once ploughed land where grew the endless rows of potatoes…all these splendid lands are overgrown with trees and underbrush… and when we drove at last up the grass-grown road to the house …it was in such a dilapidated condition that the windows rattled and the very door sprang ajar as we drove up…"
"[S]he began to question me, asking me for many names of officers under whom Mr. Riley served in the war of 1812. My memory did not once fail me…and I then learned that she was trying to get a pension to which Mr. Riley was entitled, but to secure which she had not the necessary data until I gave them.... I do not know whether she succeeded in getting the money, but I hope so, for she needed it." |