In Raleigh, North Carolina, Thomas met and won the hand of Narcissus Camp. I wish I could have met this wonderful woman. I have read and heard of her all my life.

Soon after the wedding they moved to South Carolina and settled on the western-side of North Pacolet River at Camp's Bridge and planned to grow corn and tobacco. They sold their trained Negroes before they left and bought African Negroes. They also brought the first wagon over in this section.

Thomas was the son of Charles and Mary McMaster. He was very successful as a farmer until the Civil War and the freeing of the slaves. I am not certain, but I was told that he owned some forty-to-fifty. When I visited the old plantation home in February of 1958, old Aunt Mary Brian, at that time 108 years old, was still living, one of the many slaves freed by the war. Also, the plantation home was still standing. See picture on another page. Also, I drank water from the old hand dug well, dug no doubt by slave labor. It was lined with rock from bottom to top. The water was so cold and tasted very good. See picture of well.

Thomas and Narcissus had seven children: James married Sallie Mooney; Mary married William Foster; Martha (or Aunt Matt) never married; Moses died of typhoid fever in Georgia;

Jane married Henry Liles of Green Creek, North Carolina; John Thomas, no record of whom he married, but he and all his family drowned in the Galveston, Texas, flood in 1900. Alfred Aaron married Mattie McDowell; this is my own grandfather and grandmother.

If you wish to know more about other children of Thomas and Narcissus Brian read the next article, "Kinsmen Who Live in South Carolina and Elsewhere."

The plantation home of Thomas and Narcissus Brian.  Their seven children were born here.

Picture of the old well. "And Isaac digged wells of water..." Genesis 26:18.   Thomas Brian dug this well some time back.

The tombstones of Thomas and Narcissus Brian are located in the New Prospect Baptist Church Cemetery. Thomas' headstone is in the center and Narcissus' to the left. Thomas was b. 1776, d. 1871.

The headstone of Martha Brian (Aunt Matt) reads: b. April 12, 1824, d. May 26, 1908. "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first."

Thomas Brian furnished the sawmill that sawed the lumber that built the first Baptist Church at New Prospect. Grandma Narcissus Brian gave the pulpit Bible. It was built in 1820. Thomas Brian also furnished a good bit of the lumber to build the church but we do not know how much.