Person:John Finley (83)

She (Bernice Garlington) also told me about Berry's house getting burned down. She said Berry's son John was living in the house. Bernice's mother Mae, John's sister, called him a "grand rascal." He would borrow from people and never paid them back. Apparently he borrowed some corn or something from a white man and didn't pay it back. A lynch mob was formed, but the white man who owned the store in Madden Station warned John and told him to go talk to the man. John managed to talk to the man and get out of the lynching. But the mob was so upset about not being able to lynch him that they burned down the house instead. Bernice remembers this happening. The family lived in the schoolhouse on Berry's land for a while. John eventually lost the land for not paying the taxes. He then moved to Asheville, North Carolina. I believe that Jeff and Dollie moved to Arkansas about the time of the lynching incident. email to Marilyn Finley from Annette Madden based on oral conversation with Bernice Garlington, 8/18/05, copy in possession of Annette Madden

Per Bernice Garlington, 6/28/06: John had lots of girlfriends, several outside children. Was very good looking.

1. ↑ 1870 Census, Laurens County, SC.
2. ↑ 1880 Census, Laurens County, SC.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2} 1900 Census, Laurens, Laurens, SC (1).
4. ↑ 1910 U.S. Census, Laurens, Laurens, South Carolina.
5. ↑ ^5.0 5.1 Headstone, Rocky Springs cemetery, Laurens, SC.
6. ↑ Headstone, Rocky Springs Bpt. Ch.
7. ↑ Farmer