las’ we stopped, an’ den he started to go ‘way.  He locked de do’ behin’ him, an’ I heerd him goin’ up de steps de way we come, lockin’ all de do’s behin’ him as he went.  I tell you, dat was dreafful when I heerd dat big key turn on de outside, an’ me ’way down, down, down dar in de dark all alone, an’ no chance eber to git out!  An’ I knowed it was ’cause I didn’t foller de Lord.  I felt roun’ de place, an’ dar was nothin’ but de thick walls an’ de great iron do’.  Den I sot down an’ cried, ’cause I knowed I was a los’ man.  Dat was de same as hell [his voice sinking into a whisper], an’ all de time I knowed I was dar, ’cause I hadn’t follered de Lord.  Bymeby somethin’ say, “Pray.”  Somethin’ keep sayin’, “Pray.”  Den I drap on my knees an’ prayed.  I tell you, no man eber prayed harder ‘n I did!  I prayed, an’ prayed, an’ prayed!  What’s dat?  Dar’s somebody a-comin’ down dem steps; dey ‘s unlockin’ de do’; an’ de fus’ thing I knowed, de place was all lighted up bright as day, an’ a white-faced man stood by me, wid a crown on his head, an’ a golden key in his han’.  Somehow, I knowed it was Jesus, an’ right den I waked up all of a tremble, an’ knowed it was a warnin’ dat I mus’ foller de Lord.  An’, bless Jesus, I has been follerin’ him fifty year since I had dat dream.

In his prayers, and class-meeting and love-feast talks, Uncle Nolan showed a depth of spiritual insight truly wonderful, and the effects of these talks were frequently electrical.  Many a time have I seen the Pine-street brethren and sisters rise from their knees, at the close of one of his prayers, melted into tears, or thrilled to religious rapture, by the power of his simple faith, and the vividness of his sanctified imagination.

He held to his pro-slavery views and guarded his own freedom-papers to the last; and when he died, in 1875, the last colored Southern Methodist in California was transferred from the Church militant to the great company that no man can number, gathered out of every nation, and tribe, and kindred, on the earth.

Buffalo Jones.

That is what the boys called him.  His real Christian name was Zachariah.  The way he got the name he went by was this:  He was a Methodist, and prayed in public.  He was excitable, and his lungs were of extraordinary power.  When fully aroused, his voice sounded, it was said, like the bellowing of a whole herd of buffaloes.  It had peculiar reverberations —­rumbling, roaring, shaking the very roof of the sanctuary, or echoing among the hills when let out at its utmost strength at a camp-meeting.  This is why they called him Buffalo Jones.  It was his voice.  There never was such another.  In Ohio he was a blacksmith and a fighting man.  He had whipped every man who would fight him, in a whole tier of counties.  He was converted after the old way; that is to say, he was “powerfully” converted.  A circuit-rider preached the sermon that converted him.  His anguish was awful.  The midnight hour found him in tears.  The Ohio