From the Get Out of Town Department

It looks like Faulkner modeled many of his stories, as well as took a bunch of his characters names, from a 19th century Mississippi plantation diary.  The diary has just been found.

"Names of slaves owned by" the owner of the diary " — Caruthers, Moses, Isaac, Sam, Toney, Mollie, Edmund and Worsham — all appear in some form in “Go Down, Moses.” Other recorded names, like Candis (Candace in the book) and Ben, show up in “The Sound and The Fury” (1929) while Old Rose, Henry, Ellen and Milly are characters in “Absalom, Absalom!” (1936). Charles Bonner, a well-known Civil War physician mentioned in the diary, would also seem to be the namesake of Charles Bon in “Absalom.”"