FOLKLORE SUBJECTS

Name of Interviewer—S. S. Taylor Person interviewed—H. B. Holloway (Dad or Pappy) Story:

Birth, Parentage

“I never lived in the country. I lived in town. But sometimes my father would go into the country to hunt and I would go with him.

“I was born in Austin County, Fort Valley, Georgia, 105 miles below Atlanta one way, and by Macon it would be 140. I was thirteen years old when the war began and seventeen when it ended. I was born the fifteenth day of February, 1848.

“My mother was a nurse and midwife. My father was a finished mechanic. I never had to do any work until after the Civil War, but I was just crazy about railroading and went to railroading early. I railroaded all my life. I did some draying too and a lot of concreting too.

“I was born free. There weren’t so many free Niggers in Georgia. None that I knew owned any slaves. I never heered of any owning any slaves. My mother was a full blooded Cherokee woman, and my father was a dark Spaniard.” (“Dad” or “Pappy” Holloway is a fine looking old white man and shows evidence of White and Indian blood; however, Negro blood shows.)

“I am the only one out of twelve children that can’t talk my mother’s language and don’t know my father’s. I remember the Indian war whoop, and the war dance—used to do that myself. When they run the Indians out of Georgia into Florida, my mother never did go. She was one hundred seven years old when she died.”

Marriage, Breeding, Weddings, Separations

“You know, there weren’t no marriages like now with Niggers—just like if you and your wife owned a man and I owned a woman, if your man wanted to marry, he got consent from you and my woman would get consent from me. And then they would marry, and I either got to buy your slave or you got to buy mine. Sometimes the white folks wouldn’t want you to marry.

“They didn’t force nobody to marry. They might force you to marry if both of you had the same master, but not if they belonged to different masters. They were crazy about slaves that had a lot of children.

“Niggers didn’t separate in slave times because they never was married except by word of mouth. There was a lot of old souls that came out of slavery times that lived together and raised children that never was married (except by word of mouth), just got together. But they made out better and were better husbands and wives and raised better families than they do now.

“Sometimes folks would get separated when the slave traders would sell them, and sometimes families would get separated when their white folks died or would run into debt.”

Slave Sales

“They had a slave block in Georgia. You see they would go to Virginia and get the people that they would bring across the water—regular Africans. Sometimes they would refugee them four or five hundred miles before they would get the chance to sell them. Sometimes a woman would have a child in her arms. A man would buy the mother and wouldn’t want the child. And then sometimes a woman would holler out: ‘Don’t sell that pickaninny.’ (You know they didn’t call colored children nothin’ but Pickaninnies then.) ‘I want that little pickaninny.’ And the mother would go one way and the child would go the other. The mother would be screaming and hollering, and of course, the child wouldn’t be saying nothin’ because it didn’t know what was goin’ on.

“They had a sale block in my home (Fort Valley, Georgia), and I used to go and see the Niggers sold often. Some few wasn’t worth nothin’ at all—just about a hundred dollars. But they generally ran about five or six hundred dollars. Some of them would bring thousands of dollars. It depended on their looks. The trader would say, ‘Look at those shoulders; look at those muscles.’

“Someone would holler out, ‘A thousand dollars.’

“Then another would holler out, ‘Fifteen hundred.’

“They went like horses. A fine built woman would bring a lot of money. A woman that birthed children cost a heap.

“Virginia was where the slaves would be brought first. The slave traders would go there and get them and take them across the country in droves—just like you take a drove of cattle. They would sell them as they would come to sale blocks. The slaves would be undressed from the shoulders to the waist.”

Houses, Food, Clothes

“The slaves lived in log huts on the plantations. Some men would weatherboard them. They didn’t put any ceiling in. You could lay back in your bed and see the moon and stars shining through.

“Some got good food and some of the owners would make the Niggers steal their food from other folks. Old Myers Green would make his Niggers steal and he would say, ‘If you get caught, I’ll kill you.’ One or two of them let themselves get caught, and he would whip them. That was to save him from paying for it. They couldn’t do anything to you but whip you nohow. But they could make him pay for it.

“They used homemade clothes made out of homemade cotton cloth. They would spin the cotton to a thread. When they would get so many broaches of it, they would make it into cloth. A broach was just a lot of thread wound around a stick. They would take it to the wheel and make the cloth, them women used to have tasks:—spinning, weaving, dressmaking, and so on. Sometimes they would have five and six spinning wheels running before they would get to the weaving.

“I don’t know who made the clothes. But you know them Niggers made them. They used to learn some slaves how to do some things,—the right way. Jus’ like they learned themselves. There was plenty of nice seamstresses. The white folks used to make them make clothes for their children. The white folks wouldn’t do nothin’. They wouldn’t even turn down the bed to get in it.”

Ages

“Colored folks in slavery times didn’t know how old they was. When you would buy a drove of darkies, you would go by what they would tell you, but they didn’t know how old they was. Some of those Niggers they bought from Africa wouldn’t take nothin’ neither.

“They would say: ‘Me goin’ do what you say do, but me aint goin’ to get no whipping.’ And when they whipped them, there was trouble.

“The masters kept records of ages of those born in their care. Some of them did. Some of them didn’t keep nothin’. Jus’ like people nowadays. Raised them like pigs and hogs. Jus’ didn’t care.”

Amusements

“There used to be plenty of colored folk fiddlers. Dancing, candy pulling, quilting,—that was about the only fun they would have. Corn shucking, too. They used to enjoy that. They would get on top of that pile and start singing—the white folks used to like that—sometimes they would shuck corn all night long. And they would sing and eat too.

“They had what they called the old-fashioned cotillion dance—partners—head, foot, and two sides—four men and four women—each man danced with his partner. Music by the fiddlers. I used to dance that.

“At the quilting, they’d get down and quilt. The boys and young men would be there too and they would thread the needles and laugh and talk with the girls, and the women would gossip.

“The masters would go there too and look at them and see what they’d do and how they’d do and make them do. They would do that at the candy pullin’ too, and anything else.

“The candy pulling—there they’d cook the candy and a man and a girl would pull candy together. Look to me like they enjoyed the corn shucking as much as they did anything else.”

Christmas

“They’d give time to celebrate Christmas time. They’d dance and so on like that. But they worked them from New Year’s day to Christmas Eve night the next year. The good white people would give them a pig and have them make merry. They’d make merry over it like we do now. That’s where it all come from.”

Run-Away Slaves

“I seen a many a runaway slave. I’ve seen the hounds catch them too. You could hear the hounds all hours of the night. Some Nigger was gone. Some of them would run away from the field. And some of them would slip out at night.

“I used to mock them hounds. The first hound would say ‘Oo-oo-oo, He-e-e-e-re he-e-e-e-e G-o-o-o-oes.’ The others would say, ‘Put ’im up. Put ’im up. Put ’im up. Put ’im up. Put ’im up.’ My mother would laugh at me. The lead-hound howled, and the catch dog wouldn’t say nothin’ but you could hear the sound of his feet. The lead hound didn’t catch the Nigger, but he would just follow him. When he caught up with him, he would step aside and let the catch dog get him if he wasn’t treed.”

Pateroles

“The pateroles were for Niggers just like police and sheriffs were for white folks. They were just poor white folks. When a Nigger was out from the plantation at night, he had to have a pass. If the pateroles seen him, they would stop him and ask for his pass. If’n he didn’t have it, he’d mos’ likely get a beating. I was free and didn’t have no pass. Sometimes they would stop me, but I never had no trouble with ’em. I was a boy then, and everybody knowed me.”

Good Masters

“Men like Colonel Troutman, Major Holmes, and Preacher Russell—Thomas Russell—they didn’t whip their Niggers and didn’t allow no one else to whip them. They had a little guardhouse on the plantation and they would lock them up in it. You’d better not hit one of their Niggers. They’d take a pole or something and run you ragged.”

Mean Masters

“White folks was cruel in slavery times. You see I was free and could go where I wanted too, and I see’d a lot. Old Myer Green would take a Nigger and tie his feet to one side of a railroad track and tie his hands to the other side, and whip him till the blood ran. Then he would take him down to the smoke house and rub him down with lard and red pepper. ‘Rub plenty in,’ he would say, ‘Don’t let him spoil.’

“Then I have seen them take up a ten-rail fence end set it down on a Nigger’s neck and whip him. If he would rare and twist and try to jump up, he would break his neck.

To follow 1st. par, P.7

Pateroles (See also on Page 9)

“One night, when me and my mother was coming from town, my mother had a demijohn of whiskey. They (pateroles) tried to take it. And she snatched a palling off the fence and nearly beat them poor white trash to death. My mother was a good woman, strong as any man. I was sitting on the demijohn. I was a little fellow then. They didn’t do nothin’ to her neither, ’cause they knew what old Colonel Troutman would do.” (Holloway’s mother was midwife to Colonel Troutman’s wife and nurse and ‘mammy’ to his boy, although a free Indian.)

Mixed Bloods

“I can carry you to Columbus, Georgia. There was ten mulatto Niggers born there and you would think they were all white; but they were all colored. They were slaves, but their master was their Daddy.

“I’ll tell you somethin’. W. H. Riley and Henry Miller,—You know them don’t you—they are blood brothers,—had the same mother and the same father. Riley’s grandfather was a white man named Miller. Miller got mad at his son, Riley’s father, and sold him to a white man named Riley. Riley took the name of his father’s second master. After freedom, Henry and Josephine took the name of Miller, their real grandfather. They said, ‘Miller had never done anything’ for them.”

Curious Beliefs and Slave Expectations of Freedom

“I was looking right in Lincoln’s mouth when he said, ‘The colored man is turned loose without anything. I am going to give a dollar a day to every Negro born before Emancipation until his death,—a pension of a dollar a day.’ That’s the reason they killed him. But they sure didn’t get it. It’s going to be an awful thing up yonder when they hold a judgment over the way that things was done down here.”

Lincoln’s Visit to Atlanta

“When the war was declared over, Abraham Lincoln came South and went to the capitol (of Atlanta), and there was so many people to meet him he went up to the tower instead of in the State House. He said, ‘I did everything I could to keep out of war. Many of you agreed to turn the Negroes loose, but Jeff Davis said that he would wade in blood up to his neck before he would do it.’

“He asked for all of the Confederate money to be brought up there. And when it was brought, he called for the oldest colored men around. He said, ‘Now, is you the oldest?’ The man said, ‘Yes Sir.’ Then he threw him one of those little boxes of matches and told him to set fire to it and burn it up.

“Then he said, ‘I am going to disfranchise every one of you (the white folks), and it will be ten years before you can even vote or get back into the Union.’”

Grant’s Attitude

“Grant was the one that killed the Republican party. We ain’t had but three real Republican presidents since the war—Garfield, McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt. They killed Garfield, and they killed McKinley, and they tried to kill Teddy Roosevelt. Well, they asked Grant if they could make state constitutions. Grant said, ‘Yes, if they didn’t conflict with the national constitution.’ But they did conflict and Grant didn’t do nothin’ about it.”

Schooling, Antebellum and Postbellum

“Northern teachers were sent down here after the war and they charged a dollar a month until the State set up schools. Some of the Niggers learned enough in the six months school to teach, and some white persons taught.

“In slave times, they didn’t have any schools for Niggers. Niggers better not be caught with a book. If he were caught with a book they beat him to death nearly. Niggers used to get hold of this Webster’s Blue Back Book and the white folks would catch them and take them away. They didn’t allow no free Niggers to go to school either in slave times.”

Share Cropping

“I used to see Niggers in Georgia share cropping. Nigger work all the year. Christmas eve night they would be going back to the plantation singing—done lost everything—sitting on the wagon singing:

“Then they would have to get clothes and food against the next year’s crop. Then you’d see ’em on the wagon again driving back to the plantation loaded down with provisions, singing:

“I used to study how them people could live. They didn’t give but ten dollars a month for common labor. They didn’t give anything to the share cropper. They took all of it. They said he spent it, borrowed it, and on like that.”

Didn’t Want To Be Free

“Some that didn’t know any better didn’t want to be free. Especially them that had hard taskmasters. When the Nigger was turned loose sho nuff, some of them didn’t have a good shirt to their back. The master hated to lose them so bad, he wouldn’t give them anything.

“But for twenty-five years after slave times, there ain’t no race of people ever traveled as fast as the Nigger did. But when the young ones came up, they are the ones what killed the thing. An old white man said: ‘We thought if you folks kept it up we or you one would have to leave this country. But when the young ones came on, and began begrudging one another this and that and working against one another, then we saw you would never make a nation.’”

Riots and KKK

“I have been in big riots. I was in the Atlanta riots in 1891. We lost about forty men, and I don’t know how many the white folks lost, but they said it was about a hundred. I used to live there. I came here in 1892.

“We had a riot there when the KKK was raising so much Cain. The first Ku Klux wore some kind of hat that went over the man’s head and shoulders and had great big red eyes in it. They broke open my house one night to whip me.

“I was working as a foreman in the shops. One night as I was going home, some men stopped and said ‘Who are you.’ I answered ‘H. B. Holloway.’ Then they said, ‘Well we’ll be over to your house tonight to whip you.’

“I said, ‘We growed up together and you couldn’t whip me then. How you ’spect to do it now. You might kill me, but you can’t beat me.’

“And one of them said, ‘Well we’ll be over to see you at eleven thirty tonight, and we are going to beat you.’

“I went on home end told my wife what had happened. She was afraid and wanted me to leave and take her and the children with her.

“But I said, ‘No, you must take the little children and go in the bedroom and stay there.’

“She did. I had three sons that were grown up, between twenty and twenty-eight years old, and I had a Winchester, a shotgun and a pistol. I gave the Winchester to the oldest, the shotgun to the next, and the pistol to the youngest. I took my ax for myself. I stationed the boys at the far end of the room—away from the door.

“The oldest said, ‘Papa, let’s kill them.’

“I said, ‘No. You just stand there and do nothing till I tell you. When they break in, I’ll knock the first one in the head with the ax. But don’t you do nothin’ till I tell you.’

“After a while, we heard a noise outside, and I took my stand beside the door. Then they gave a rush, and battered the door down. A man with a gray hood on jumped inside. I hit him side the head with the flat of the ax, and he fell down across the door.

“Then the others rushed up, and the boys cut loose with all three of the guns, and such another uproar you never heard. They high-tailed it down the street, and the boys took right after them, shooting at their legs. The Winchester shot sixteen times, and the pistol shot six, and the boy with the shotgun was shooting and breaking down and reloading and shooting again as fast as he could.

“I went outside and whistled for the boys to come back. They come. They would always obey me. I told them to carry the man I had hit out. He was still lying there. Through all the fuss and uproar, he had been lying there across the doorway. Carried him out, and threw him on the sidewalk. My eldest son said the man said, ‘Holloway, don’t hit me no more.’

“I didn’t, but if I had known who he was then, I would have gone out and cut his throat. He was old Colonel Troutman’s son. There was just two hours difference in our birth. Me and him both nursed from the same breast. We grew up together and were never separated until we were thirteen (beginning of the war). Many people thought we were brothers. I had fought for him and he had fought for me. When he wasn’t at my house, I was at his, and his father partly raised me. That’s the reason I don’t trust white people.

“We had a big dog that everyone was scared of. We always kept him chained up. I unchained the dog, and took the boys and we went out in the woods. It was cold; so we made a fire under a tall sapling.

“Near daylight, I said, ‘The dog sees something, but we can’t see what it is.’ The eldest son said, ‘Pappy, if you get astride the dog, and look the way he’s looking, you can see what he sees.’

“I got astride him and looked, and finally way off through the trees and the branches and leaves, I saw six men riding through the woods on horseback. I took the guns away from the boys and put the pistol and shotgun under the leaves at my feet. I made the boys separate and hide in the brush at a good distance from me and from each other. I made the dog lie down beside me. Then I waited.

“When the men came near me and were about to pass on looking for me, I hailed them. I told them to stop right where they were or I’d drop them in their tracks. It was Colonel Troutman and five other of the old men from town out hunting me.

“Colonel Troutman said, ‘We just wanted to talk to you Holloway.’

“I said, ‘Stand right where you are and talk.’

“After some talk, I let them come up slowly to a short distance from me. The upshot of the whole thing was that they wanted me to go back to town with them to ‘talk’ over the matter. They allowed I hadn’t done nothin’ wrong. But Colonel Troutman’s man was hurt bad, and some of the young men in the mob had had their legs broke. And they were all young men from the town, boys that knew me and were friendly to me in the daytime. Still they wanted me to go to town in their charge, and I knew I wouldn’t have a chance if I did that. Finally I told Colonel Troutman, that I was going home to see my wife that evening, and that if he wanted to talk to me, he could come over there and talk.

“When they left, I sent the boys along home and told them to tell my wife. That night when I got home, Colonel Troutman was in the house talking to my wife. I went in quietly. He said that they said I had forty Niggers hid in the house that night. I told him that there wasn’t anybody there but me and my family, and that all the damage that was done I done myself. He said that well he didn’t blame me; that even if it was his son, they broke in on me and I had a right to defend my family, and that none of the old heads was going to do anything about it. He said I was a good man and had never given anybody any trouble and that there wasn’t any excuse for anybody comin’ stirrin’ up trouble with me. And that was the end of it.”

Hoodoo

“My wife was sick, down, couldn’t do nothin’. Someone got to telling her about Cain Robertson. Cain Robertson was a hoodoo doctor in Georgia. They there wasn’t nothin’ Cain couldn’t do. She says, ‘Go and see Cain and have him come up here.’

“I says, ‘There ain’t no use to send for Cain. Cain ain’t coming up here because they say he is a “two-head” Nigger.’ (They called all them hoodoo men ‘two-head’ Niggers; I don’t know why they called them two-head.) ‘And you know he knows the white folks will put him in jail if he comes to town.’

“But she says, ‘You go and get him.’

“So I went.

“I left him at the house and when I came back in, he said, ‘I looked at your wife and she had one of then spells while I was there. I’m afraid to tackle this thing because she has been poisoned and it’s been goin’ on a long time. And if she dies, they’ll say I killed her and they already don’t like me and lookin’ for an excuse to do somethin’ to me.’

“My wife overheard him and says, ‘You go on, you got to do somethin’.’

“So he made me go to town and get a pint of corn whiskey. When I brought it back, he drunk a half of it at one gulp, and I started to knock him down. I’d thought he’d get drunk with my wife lying there sick.

“Then he said, ‘I’ll have to see your wife’s stomach.’ Then he scratched it, and put three little horns on the place he scratched. Then he took another drink of whiskey and waited about ten minutes. When he took them off her stomach, they were full of blood. He put them in the basin in some water and sprinkled some powder on them, and in about ten minutes more, he made me get them and they were full of clear water and there was a lot of little things that looked like wiggle tails swimming around in it.

“He told me when my wife got well to walk in a certain direction a certain distance and the woman that caused all the trouble would come to my house and start a fuss with me.

“I said, ‘Can’t you put this same thing back on her.’

“He said, ‘Yes, but it would kill my hand.’ He meant that he had a curing hand and that if he made anybody sick or killed them, all his power to cure would go from him.

“I showed the stuff he took out of my wife’s stomach to old Doc Matthews and he said, ‘You can get anything into a person by putting it in them.’ He asked me how I found out about it, and how it was taken out, and who did it.

“I told him all about it, and he said, ‘I’m going to see that that Nigger practices anywhere in this town he wants to and nobody bothers him.’ And he did.”

Opinions of Young People

“The young Niggers aint got as much sense as the old ones had,—those that were born before the war. One thing, they don’t read enough. They don’t know history. I can’t understand them. Looks like to me they had a mighty good chance; but it looks like the more they get the worse they are. Looks like to me their parents didn’t teach them right—or somethin’. Young ladies—I look at them every day of my life—coarse, swearing, running with bootleggers, and running the hoodlums down, smoking, going half-naked, and so on. They don’t care what they do or nothing.”

Relatives

“My brother was in Collodiusville, Georgia, the last time I heard from him. That is in Monroe County, or Upton County,—I don’t know what county it’s in. I know he is there if he is living because he owns a home there.

“William always lived in Macon but he is dead. Bud,—I don’t know where he is. Milton, Irving, and Zekiel, I don’t know where they are. I used to keep up with them regular. But we ain’t written to each other in a long time.

“The last time I heard from Mahala and Laura, their husbands were bricklayers and they were living in Atlanta, I think. They went some other place where there was plenty of work. I think it was to Cleveland, Ohio. There’s Josephine, Mandy, and little Mary—five sisters and seven brothers.

“Outside of William, Crawford, and Milton, I haven’t seen none of them since fifty years. I haven’t seen Zekiel since the year of the surrender. I seen some of the white folks the year they had the re-union here. They seen me on the street, and came over and talked to me, and wanted me to go back to Fort Valley, and offered to pay my railroad fare. But I told ’em I was goin’ to stay here in God’s country.”

This information given by: H. B. Holloway (Dad or Pappy) Place of Residence: 1524 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Occupation: Formerly railroader and drayman—Pension now. Age: 89

— 29 1938 Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Pink Holly Holly Grove, Arkansas Age: 70

“I was born in Anderson County, South Carolina. My papa was Abe Brown and my mama was Lizzie White. She died when I was a baby and Miss Nancy White took me up to her house and raised me. Her husband was Mars Henry White. They was good to me. Miss Nancy was the best. They treated me like their own boy. It was done freedom then but my papa stayed on the place. I learned to do up the night turns, slop the hogs and help bout the milkin’. They had young calves to pull off. I toted in the wood and picked up chips. She done everything for me and all the mother I knowed.

“When I was seven years old my papa pulled me off to Arkansas. We come on a immigration ticket, least I recken we did. I don’t think my papa paid our way. We was brought here. The land was better they told em.

“We settled in the woods close to Mariana and commenced farmin’. I been farmin’ and workin’ in the timber and I carpenters a little. The timber is gone.

“I supports myself all I can. I own a little house at Clarendon I recken is the reason I don’t get no Government help.”

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Dora Holmes (light brown) 1500 Valentine St., Little Rock, Ark. Age: 60? Occupation: Housewife

“My father’s half brothers were white. They all fought in the army. They were Confederate soldiers. Once during the war when they came home, they brought my mother the goods for two dresses,—twenty yards of figured voile, ten yards for each dress. The cost of the whole twenty yards was fifty dollars ($50.00).

“I still have the dresses and some petticoats and pantaloons which are nearly as old. I have ironed these things many a time until they were so stiff they stand straight up on the floor.”

Interviewer’s Comments

Mary Ann King, mother of Dora Holmes, was the original owner of the dresses. She died at the age of ninety-eight two or three years ago. One of the dresses is still in the possession of the daughter. It has a skirt with nine gores and a twelve-inch headed ruffle.

The petticoat is of white muslin with a fifty-two yard lace ruffle in sixteen tiers of lace with beading at the top. It was worn just after the Civil War.

There are also a baby dress and a baby petticoat fifty-six years old.

MAY 31 1938 Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Elijah Henry Hopkins 1308½ Ringo Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 81

“My father’s master was old Tom Willingham, an awful big farmer who owned farms in Georgia and South Carolina, both. He lived in southwest Georgia in Baker County. Old man Willingham’s wife was Phoebe Hopkins. Her mother was old lady Hopkins. I don’t know what the rest of her name was. We never called her nothin’ but old lady Hopkins or Mother Hopkins. She was one of the richest women in the state. When she died, her estate was divided among her children and grandchildren. Her slaves were part of her estate. They were divided among her children and grandchildren, too. Tom Willingham’s family come in for its part. He had three sons, Tom, Jr., John, and Robert. My father already belonged to Tom Willingham, Sr., so he stayed with him. But my mother belonged to old lady Hopkins, and she went to Robert, so my daddy and mother were separated before I knew my daddy. My father stayed with old man Willingham until freedom.

“Robert Willingham was my mother’s master. He never married. When he died he willed all his slaves free. But his relatives got together and broke the will and never did let ’em go.

“When I saw my father to know him, I saw him out in Georgia. They told me that was my father. Then he had another wife and a lot of children. My mother brought me up and my father taken charge of me after she died and after freedom—about a year after. It was close to emancipation because the states were still under martial law.

“I was born May 15, 1856, in the Barnwell district, South Carolina. They used to call them districts then. It would be Barnwell County now. They changed and started calling ’em counties in 1866 or thereabouts. I was running around when they mustered the men in for the Civil War, and I was about nine years old when the War ended. I was about ten when my mother died and my father taken charge of me. I was taken from South Carolina when I was about four years old and carried into Georgia and stayed there until emancipation. My mother didn’t tarry long in Georgia after she was emancipated. She went back into South Carolina; but she died in a short time, as I just said. Then my father taken charge of me. I got married in South Carolina in 1885, and then I came out here in 1886—to Arkansas. Little Rock was the first place I came to. I didn’t stay here a great while. I went down to the Reeder farm on the Arkansas River just about sixteen miles above Pine Bluff. I started share cropping but taken down sick. I never could get used to drinking that bottom water. Then I went to Pine Bluff and went to work with the railroad and helped to widen the gauge of the Cotton Belt Road. Then the next year they started the Sewer Contract, and I worked in that and I worked on the first water plant they started. In working with the King Manufacturing Company I learned piping.

“I stayed in Pine Bluff sixteen years. My wife died August 1, 1901. A couple of years after that, I came back to Little Rock, and have been here ever since. I went to work on the Illinois Central Railroad just across the river, which is now the Rock Island Railroad. After it became the Rock Island, the bridge was built across the river east of Main Street. They used to go over the old Baring Cross Bridge and had to pay for it. The Missouri Pacific enjoined the Rock Island and wouldn’t let it go straight through, so they built their own bridge and belted the city and went on around. I got stricken down sick in 1930 and haven’t been able to do heavy work since. You know, a plumber and steam-fitter have to do awful heavy work.

“I get a little old age assistance from the state. They are supposed to give me commodities but my card got out and they ain’t never give me another one. I went down to see about it today, and they said they’d mail me another one.”

How the Little Children Were Fed

“My mother was always right in the house with the white people and I was fed just like I was one of their children. They even done put me to bed with them. You see, this discrimination on color wasn’t as bad then as it is now. They handled you as a slave but they didn’t discriminate against you on account of color like they do now. Of course, there were brutal masters then just like there are brutal people now. Louisiana and Alabama and Mississippi always were tough states on colored people. South Carolina and Georgia got that way after people from those places came in and taught them to mistreat colored people. Yet in Alabama and Louisiana where they colored people were worse treated, it seems that they got hold of more property and money. Same way it was in Mississippi.”

Patrollers

“The patrollers was just a set of mean men organized in every section of the country. If they’d catch a nigger out and he didn’t have a pass, they’d tie him up and whip him and then they’d take him back. You had to have a pass to be out at night. Even in the daytime you couldn’t go no great distance without a pass. Them big families—rich families—that had big plantations would come together and the niggers from two or three places might go to a church on one of them. But you couldn’t go no place where there wasn’t a white man looking on.”

Reading and Writing in Slave Time

“Some of the white people thought so much of their slaves that they would teach them how to write and read. But they would teach them secretly and they would teach them not to read or write out where anybody would notice them. They didn’t mind you reading as much as they minded you writing. If they’d catch YOU now and it was then, they’d take you out and chop off them fingers you’re doing that writing with.”

Slave Occupation and Wages

“My daddy was a builder. Old man Willingham gave him freedom and time to work on his own account. He gave him credit for what work he done for him. He got three hundred dollars a year for my father’s time, but all the money was collected by him, because my father being a slave couldn’t collect any money from anybody. When my father’s master died, he may have had money deposited with him. But he was strictly honest with my father. No matter how much he collected, he wouldn’t take no more’n three hundred dollars and he put all the rest to the credit of my father. He said three hundred dollars was enough to take.”

How Freedom Came

“The owners went to work and notified the slaves that they were free. After the proclamation was issued, the government had agents who went all through the country to see if the slaves had been freed. They would see how the proclamation was being carried out. They would ask them, ‘How are you working?’ ‘You are free.’ ‘What are you getting?’ Some of them would say, ‘I ain’t gettin’ nothin’ now.’ Well, the agent would take that up and they would have that owner up before the government. Maybe he would be working people for a year and giving them nothin’ before they found him out. There are some places where they have them cases yet. Where they have people on the place and ain’t paying them nothin’.”

Memories of Soldiers and the War

“I have seen thousands and thousands of soldiers. Sometimes it would take a whole day for them to pass through. When Sherman’s army marched through Atlanta, it took more than a day. I was in Atlanta then. He sent word ahead that he was coming through and for all people that weren’t soldiers to get out of the town. I saw the Rebels, too; I saw them when they stacked their arms. Looked like there was a hundred or more rifles in each stack. They just come up and pitched them down. They had to stack their arms and turn them over.

“I was taken to Georgia when I was four years old, you know. I recollect when all the people came up to swear allegiance, and when they were hurrying out to get away from Sherman’s army. They fit in Atlanta and then marched on toward Savannah. Then they crossed over into South Carolina. They went on through Columbia and just tore it up. Then they worked their way on back into Georgia. They didn’t fight in Augusta though.

“Jeff Davis was captured not far from my father’s place[7]. Jeff Davis had a big army, but the biggest thing he had was about a thousand wagons or more piled up with silver and other things belonging to the Confederacy. He was supposed to be taking care of that. He had to turn it over to the North.”

‘Shin Plasters’

“They had a kind of money right after the Civil War—paper money gotten out by the United States Government and supposed to be good. The Confederate money was no good but this money—these ‘shin plasters’ as they were called—was good money issued by the government. They did away with it and called it all in. You could get more for it now than it is worth. The old green back took its place but the ‘shin plaster’ was in all sizes. It wasn’t just a dollar bill. It was in pinnies, five cents, ten cents, twenty-five cents, and then they skipped on up to fifty cents, and they didn’t have nothin’ more till you got to a dollar.”

Schooling

“I haven’t had a great deal of schooling. I have had a little about in places. Just after the emancipation, my mother died and my father married again. My stepmother had other children and they kept me out of my education. Since I have been grown, I have gotten a little training here and there. Still I have served as supervisor of elections and done other things that they wanted educated people to do. But it was just merely a pick-up of my own. The first teachers I had were white women from the North.”

Politics

“I have never taken a great deal of interest in politics. Only in the neighborhood where I lived there was a colony of colored people at Bentley, South Carolina. They chose me to represent them at the polls and I did the best I could. I got great credit for both the colored and the white people for that. But I never took much interest in politics.

“My father spent a fortune in it but I never could see that it benefited him. I never did care for any kind of office except a mail contract that I had once to haul mail. I went through that successfully and never lost a pouch or anything but at the end of the year I throwed it up. I couldn’t trust anyone else to handle it for me and I had to meet trains at all hours. The longest I could sleep was two or three hours a night, so I gave it up at the end of the year.”

Care of Old People

“Some of the masters treated us worse than dogs and others treated us fine. Colonel Robert Willingham freed his slaves but his sisters and brothers wouldn’t stand for it. They went and stole us off and sold us. My mother being a thrifty colored woman and a practical nurse, everywhere she went, a case gave thirty dollars and her board and mine. My father paid his master three hundred dollars a year. He built these gin houses and presses. The old man would write him passes and everything and see that he was paid for his work. Some years, he would make as much as three or four thousand dollars. His master collected it and held it for him and gave it to him when he wanted it. That was during slavery times.”

Opinion of the Present

“Slavery days were hard but in the same time the colored people fared better than now because the white folks taken up for them and they raised what they needed to eat. You couldn’t go nowhere but what people had plenty to eat. Now they can’t do it.

“I know what caused it too. The Jews didn’t have much privilege till after the Negro was emancipated. They used to kill Jews and bury them in the woods. But after emancipation, he began to rise. First he began to lend money on small interest. Then he started another scheme. People used to not have sense. They went to work and got in with the Southern white folks and got a law passed about the fences.

“The Greeks and Italians are next to the Jews. They don’t make much off the white man; they make it off the Negro. They come ’round and open up a place and beg the niggers to come in; and when they get up a little bit, they shut out the niggers and don’t want nothin’ but white folks. It’s a good thing they do, too; because if somebody didn’t shut the Negro out, he’d never have anything.

“The slaveholders were hard, but those people who come here from across the water, they bring our trouble. You can’t squeeze as much out of the poor white as you can out of the darkey. The darkey is spending too much now—when he can get hold of it. Everywhere you see a darkey with a home, he’s got a government mortgage on it. Some day the government will start foreclosing and then the darkeys won’t have anything, and the biggest white man won’t have much.

“A hundred years from now, they won’t be any such thing as Negroes. There will be just Americans. The white people are mixed up with Greeks, Germans, and Italians and everything else now. There are mighty few pure Americans now. There used to be plenty of them right after the War.

“The country can’t hold out under this relief system.

“They’re sending the young people to school and all like that but they don’t seem to me to have their minds on any industry. They have got to have backing after they get educated. Now, they’ll bring these foreigners in and use them. In the majority of states now the colored man ain’t no good unless he can get some kind of trade education and can go into some little business.

“In slavery times, a poor white man was worse off than a nigger. General Lee said that he was fighting for the benefit of the South, but not for slavery. He didn’t believe in slavery.”

Occupation and Present Support of Hopkins

“I came to Arkansas in 1886. I got married in 1885 in South Carolina. I never had but the one wife. I have done a little railroading, worked in machinery. I have planted one crop. Did that in 1887 but got sick and had to sell out my crop. For forty-six years, I worked as a plumber and piper. I worked in piping oil, gas, water, and I worked with mechanics who didn’t mind a colored man learning. They would let me learn and they would send me out to do jobs.

“Nothing hurts me but my age. If I were younger, I could get along all right. But the work is too heavy for me now.

“I get old age assistance from the state. They pay me eight dollars. I have to pay four dollars for the use of this shack. So that don’t leave much for me to live on. I’m supposed to get commodities too, and I am waiting for my order now.”

FOOTNOTES:

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Nettie Hopson Helena (home—Poplar Grove), Arkansas Age: ?

“I don’t know how old I is. I am old. I been here so long. I feel my age now right smart. I want to do things and give out. I know I’m old. I look old. I was born in Alabama.

“Mother was sold to Bud Walls at Holly Grove. Papa bought her and brought us to this state. My father died seven months before I was born my mother told me. She married ag’in. She was the mother of ten children. We all lived and do better than we do now. Mother was light. She worked in the field ever since I come to know ’bout things. Her name was Martha Foster. I don’t know my father’s name but Foster. The rest of the family was called Walls. Whether they wanted to be called that, they was called Walls’ niggers ’fore and after freedom both.

“My husband is living. My daughter died first day of March. It sorter addled me.”

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Molly Horn Holly Grove, Arkansas Age: 77

“My ma and pa belong to the same white folks. I was born in North Carolina. Ma and pa had six children. I don’t know how many owners they ever had in North Carolina. Ma and pa was named Sarah and Jad Nelson.

“When I was a baby Rubin Harriett bought me and mama. His wife was Becky Harriett. Ma was too old to sell without me. They didn’t want to sell me but they couldn’t sell her widout me. I am the baby of our family. Papa didn’t get to come to Arkansas. That parted them. After freedom her other children came. I heard ma say how they kept papa dodged round from the Yankees. The white folks kept him dodged round. He was a field hand. Ma was a cook and house girl. She never did work in the field till she come out here. She said white folks didn’t whoop him; he wouldn’t take it. I don’t know why they thought he wouldn’t be whooped.

“I could walk when I first seed the Yankees. I run out to see em good. Then I run back and told Miss Becky. I said, ‘What is they?’ She told ma to put all us under the bed to hide us from the soldiers. One big Yankee stepped inside and says to Miss Becky, ‘You own any niggers?’ She say, ‘No.’ Here I come outen under the bed and ask her fer bread. Then the Yankee lieutenant cursed her. He made the other four come outen under the bed. They all commenced to cryin’ and I commenced to cry. We never seed nobody lack him fore. We was scared to deaf of him. He talked so loud and bad. He loaded us in a wagon. Mama too went wid him straight to Helena. He put us in a camp and kept us. Mama cooked fer the Yankees six or seven months. She heard em—the white soldiers—whisperin’ round bout freedom. She told em, ‘You ain’t goiner keep me here no longer.’ She took us walkin’ back to her old master and ax him for us a home. Then she married man on the place. He was real old. I had five half brothers and sisters then. I was a good size girl then.

“They had run him and some more men to Texas. They went in a wagon and walked. They made one crop there. He said fifteen or sixteen families what belong to different owners went out there. They heard some people talking—overheard it was free times. They picked up and left there at night. They dodged round in the woods and traveled at night. When he got back he made terms to work as a share cropper.

“Master, he didn’t give us nuthin’. I didn’t hear they would give em anything. Truth of it was they didn’t have much to keep less givin’ the niggers something. We all had little to eat and wear and a plenty wood to burn and a house to shelter us. The work didn’t slack up none. The fences down, the outhouses had to have more boards tack on. No stock cept a scrub or so. We had no garden seed cept what be borrowed round and raised. Times was hard. We had biscuits bout once a week, lucky if we got that.

“The Ku Klux got after our papa. They fixin’ to kill him. He hid in the gullies. They come to our house once or twice but I never seed em. Papa come once or twice and took us all and hid us fore sundown. They quit huntin’ him.

“We farmed wid Mr. Hess. Mr. Herrin wouldn’t let nobody bother his hands.

“We had good times. I danced. We had candy pullings bout at the houses. We had something every week. I used to dance in the courthouse at Clarendon—upstairs. Paul Wiley was head music man. All colored folks—colored fiddlers.

“I was married over fifty years. Bunt Sutton’s mother helped bout my weddin’ supper. (Bunt Sutton’s mother was a white woman.) She and her family all was there. She had then two boys and two girls. Mama bought me a pure white veil. I was dressed all in white. We had a colored preacher to marry us. We married at night, borrowed lamps and had em settin’ about. There was a large crowd. Ann Branch was the regular cake-cooker over the country. She cooked all my cakes. They had roast pork and goose and all sorter pies. Then I went on to my new home on another man’s place bout one-fourth mile from mama’s house. Bunt Sutton’s mama was a widow woman.

“My husband voted some but I don’t pay no tention to votin’.

“I own a place but it don’t do no good. My son is cripple and I can’t work. I done passed hard work now. My husband bought this place before he died. I don’t get help from nowhere.

“This is hardest times in my life. Well, education doin’ a heap of good. The papers tell you how to do more things. It makes folks happier if they can read.

“Now I don’t be bothered much wid young folks. You heard em say flies don’t bother boilin’ pots ain’t you? I does nough to keep me going all the time and the young folks shuns work all they can cept jes’ what it takes for em to live on right now. Their new ways ain’t no good to me.”

#773

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Cora L. Horton 918 W. Ninth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: Between 50 and 60?

“My grandfather on my mother’s side was a slave. After my mother had been dead for years, I went to Georgia where he was. I never had seen him before and I would always want to see him, because I had heard my mother speak of him being alive and he would write to her sometimes. I said if I ever got to be grown and my grandfather stayed alive, I was going to Georgia to see him. So the first opportunity I got I went. That was a long time ago. If I’d waited till now he’d a been dead. He’s been dead now for years. He lived a long time after I visited him. His name was John Crocker. He lived in Marshallville, Georgia.

“I couldn’t tell how he and my mother got separated. I don’t know. I don’t believe I ever heard her say. In Georgia when she was quite a girl, I think she said some of her people left Georgia and went to Covington, Tennessee. Some of the white people that was connected with them in slavery were named Hollinsheds and my auntie went in that name. That is, her husband did. My mother’s name was Adelaide Crocker. She was never a slave. Her mother was.

“My mother and father had children—twelve of them. I don’t know how many children my grandparents had. I know three uncles—William, Harmon, and Matthew. They were all my grandmother’s children and they were Flewellens. She married a Flewellen. Those were my father’s brothers. My auntie’s husband was named Dick Hollinshed. They all come from Georgia.

“It comes to me now. I remember hearing my mother say once that her father was sold. I think she said that her father was sold from her mother. She didn’t seem to know much about it—only what she heard her father say.

“A man came through the country when I was a girl before my mother died. She died when I was young. He came to our house and he said he was a relative of my mother’s and he went on to tell what he knew of her folks in slave times. By him telling so much about her folks, she thought he really was related to her. But after he left, she found out that he was just a fraud. He was going ’round throughout the country making it by claiming he was related to different people. I don’t know how he found out so much about the different people he stopped with. I suppose there was a lot of people made it that way.

“I don’t know what my grandparents did in slavery time. When I did see my grandfather, he wasn’t able to do anything. He didn’t live so long after I seen him. My mother’s mother was dead and he had married another woman. I never did see my grandmother. I do remember seeing one of my granduncles. But I was so small I don’t remember how he looked.

“I used to hear my grandma say that they weren’t allowed to have a church service and that they used to go out way off and sing and pray and they’d have to turn a pot down to keep the noise from going out. I don’t know just how they fixed the pot.

“I had one auntie named Jane Hunter. When she died, she was one hundred and one years old. She married Rev. K. Hunter over here in North Little Rock. She had been married twice. She was married to Dick Hollinshed the first time. She’s been dead ten years. She was thirty-eight years old when Emancipation came. She baked the first sacrament bread for the C. M. E. Church when it was organized in 1870.

“My grandmother lived a hundred years too. That was my father’s mother. I knew both of them. My grandmother lived with us. That is, she lived with us a while when my mother died. She lived here a while before she died, and then she went back to Georgia because she had a son there named William Flewellen. He is a presiding elder in the C. M. E. church, in Georgia.

“My father was a railroad man and when my mother did anything at all, she worked in the field. My father farmed during the time when he was working on the railroad.

“I have heard my grandmother talk about slaves being put on the block and sold and then meeting way years after and not knowing one another. She told me about a woman who was separated from her son. One day, years after slavery, when she had married again and had a family, she and her husband got to talking about old slave times. She told him about how she had been sold away from her baby son when he was a little thing. She told him how he had a certain scar on his arm. Her husband had a similar scar and he got to talking about slave times, and they found out that they were mother and son. He left her and went on his way sad because he didn’t want to stay on living as husband with his mother. I don’t think those people were held accountable for that, do you?”

Omit Interviewer’s Comment

Cora Horton is the first president of the Woman’s Missionary Society composed of the societies of the three Arkansas C. M. E. Conferences. She has been president of the Annual Conference division of the Woman’s Home Missionary Society of the Little Rock Conference for about seven years. She visits all meetings of the General Conference and the General Board of the C. M. E. church as well as all connectional meetings of the Little Rock Conference, and such meetings of the Arkansas and Southwest Conferences as relate to the discharge of her duties as president of the State Woman’s Home Missionary Society organization.

She has been president of the N. C. Cleves Club of Bullock Temple C. M. E. Church of Little Rock for seven years and is a most active church worker as will be seen from this comment. In her worship she represents the traditional Negro type, but she buys the current issue of the C. M. E. Church Discipline and is well acquainted with its provisions relating to her specific church work as well as to all ordinary phases of church work and administration.

There is a lot of drama in her story of the mother who unwittingly married her son.

There is an interesting sidelight on slavery separations in this interview. Never had it occurred to me that imposters among Negroes might seize upon the idea of missing relatives as the basis for a confidence scheme.

There is also an interesting sidelight on C. M. E. Church history in the naming of Jane Hunter as the woman who baked the first sacrament bread at the organization of that Church in 1870.

Name of interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy Person interviewed: Laura House Russellville, Arkansas Age: 75?

“No sir, I don’t remember hearing my parents ever tell me just when I was born, the year or the month, but it was sometime during the War. My parents’ master was named Mentor—spelled M-e-n-t-o-r. We come to Pope County several years after the War, and I have lived here in Russellville forty years and raised our family here. Father passed away about fifteen years ago.

“Mother used to tell me that the master wasn’t overly kind to them. I remember she used to talk of some money being promised to them after they were freed, but I don’t know how much. But I do know that none was ever paid to them.

“No sir, I cannot read or write.

“I have been a member of the A. M. E. Church ever since I was a little girl.”

NOTE: Mrs. House is very neat in her dress and general deportment, is industrious, and keeps busy working here and there at odd jobs, but her memory is very uncertain as to many important details about her ancestry.

NOV 30 1936 Mrs. Mildred Thompson Mrs. Carol Graham El Dorado District Ex-Slave—Hoodoo—Haunted Houses

Aunt Pinkey Howard, an old negress of slavery days, can’t “comember” her age but she must be about 85 or 86 years old as she was about fourteen or fifteen when the war closed. In speaking of those days Aunt Pinkie said:

“Oooh, chile, you ought to been there when Mr. Linktum come down to free us. Policemen aint in it. You ought ter seen them big black bucks. Their suits was so fine trimmed with them eagle buttons and they wuz gold too. And their shoes shined so they hurt your eyes. I tell yo ah cant comember my age but it’s been a long time ago.

“My ole Marsa Holbrook lived at Hillsboro and he wuz a good marsta. I never went hungry or wid out cloes in them days. Slavery days was good old days. These days is hard days. Po’ ole neeger caint git enough to feed herself. Them days weuns made our cloth and growed our food and never paid for it. Never did want for nothin’ and Marster had heaps of slaves. Use to bring them across Moro Bay and them neegers always fighting and running off. They’d run off and go across Moro Bay trying to get back home. Marsta neva went after em. Said: ‘Let ’em go. Aint no count no ways.’

“I wooden take $100 for living in slavery days and I member when they all parted out. Mr. Linktum come down. Yasum, Mr. Abe Linktum and his partner Horace Greeley, comed down. Lieutenants and ‘Sarges’ all comed. And some big yaller buck niggers all dressed up fine. I served Mr. Linktum myself wid my own hands. Yasum I did. I fetched cold water from the spring on a waiter and I stood straight an held it out just like dis in front of me. Yasum and his partner, Mr. Horace Greeley too. And them big yaller buck niggers went in the kitchen where my mammy was cookin and tole her: ‘Git out er here nigger. You don have to wait on dese white fokes no more.’ Yasum dey did. And they done said: ‘You aint got no more marster and no more missus. Yo don’ have to work here no more.‘ But my mother said: ‘I’se puttin old marster’s victuals on to cook. Wait till I gets em on.’ An they tole her again that she didn’t have no more marster and no more missus. I tole my mammy to kick him down the step but she said she was afeard he would shoot her. All I hates about them ‘Sarges’ and Lieutenants is they never did shave. Them days all wore whiskers. I ‘comember’ when I was a little chap standin on the block with my mammy and being sold. But Ah always had a good marster.

“Ah members standin on nuther block to cook. Tables wuz high to keep nothin from draggin things off. Grandma Aiken learnt me to cook an I stood on a block and made out biscuits with a spoon. Ah neber put my scratchers in the dough in my life. And I could cook good too. Wuz knowed as the drummers cook. Drummers would come through fum New Orleens and et at ole marsters and bragged on my cookin and tried to git me ter go wif them to New Orleans and cook fuh they wives.

“Mah fust name was Pinkie Dixon. I was married on ole mistesses front gallery and mah name wuz Cook then. Next time ah married mah name wuz Howard.

“Ah can count but not to member hit. Ah don’ know the number of my chilluns but ah kin name em. There’s Alec, Henry, Winnie, Ellen, Mary, Gola, Seebucky, Crawford, Sarah and Ruby. Seebucky wuz named fer Sears and Roebuck. Cause at that time weuns ordered things fum them and ordered Seebuckys clo’es fore she cum fum thar. That why we named ’er that.

“Ah deednt git no book larnin. Ah larnt enough to keep out of devilment and ah knowed how to cook. Now these fools aroun here don’ know nothin. They never did see Linktum or Horace Greeley. Ah wishes it wuz work time agin but ah caint hold out now.”

“Ah never gits hot nor cold lak yo does. Ah takes mah cold bath ever mornin and ah feels good.”

Thus old aunt Pinkey rambled on and on talking of this and that and especially the good days—slavery days. She evidently thought that some of the army officers were Lincoln and Greeley. She probably heard her master or mistress talk about these men and got them confused with the army officers who visited in the home.

Old Marion Johnson was seven years old when the war closed. Is 79 now. “Chillun let me tell you ah don want to go over what I done been over. Not agin. In slavery days we had plenty to eat and plenty to wear but since then Oh, Lordy. My old Mawster’s name was Alex Anderson and he lived in Jackson Parrish, Louisiana. Yuh say youh wants me to tell you some tales about ole times, ghostes and the like. Well ah sure can if ah gits started but somehow I jest don’ seem wound up this mawnin.

“One time there was a man what had a house full of daughters and his girl Janie wanted to git married. Her lover asked her father’s permission to wed. He said: ‘Well Mr. have you got any objection to me and your daughter Janie maryin’?’ The old man didn’t want the young one to see how anxious he was to get rid of his daughter so he said: ‘You wantin to marry my daughter, Janie? Janie don’t want ter git married.’ The girl was behind the door listening and when her father said that she spoke up and said: ‘Yes I do pappa, bad.’ The young man said: ‘See there now we both wants to git married.’ The ole man spoke then and said: ‘Well, damn you, dash you take her.’

“You know what the clocks says? The big old mantle clocks we used to have ticked along real slow and they said: ‘Take your time. Take your time. Take your time.’ The little alarm clocks of today say: ‘Get together. Get together. Get together.’ And that is jes like the young folks. When I was young the young folks them days young folks took their time and went together a long time and they married they stayed married. The young folks today rush around and get married in a week and fust thing you knows they is done duvoced and married agin. They is jest as diffunt as the clocks is diffunt.

“You knows if you makes up yo mind to do somethin and asks the Lord to help you he will. I was comin along that path in June 12 years ago. I chewed Brown Mule tobacco and wanted a chaw. I had been plowing all day and when I pulled the tobacco outen my pocket it was wet where I had sweated on hit and the outer leaves wuz all curled up so I said ‘Lord help me’ and throwed it out in the weeds and havn’t taken a chew since.

“Youns notice how the younguns cuss this day. The womens too. In the olden days the women didn’t cuss out loud but they did ‘wooden cussin.’ Now I bet you girls is done wooden cussin lots o times. Loose your temper and want to say things and don’t dare so you slams chairs around on the floor when you is movin them to sweep. That is wooden cussin.

“You says you is interested in buried treasure? Well near Strong where the CCC Camp is was a place of buried treasure. Madam Hartline and three other white folks and myself went down there in a car. With a finding rod (divining rod) we located the treasure. Then I took this here proving rod you sees here and drove it down in the groun till hit struck somethin hard. A voice from somewhere said: ‘What you all doing here? What you after?’ Ever body lit a shuck to the car and nobody ever did go back to see about the treasure. You says why did I run? Dese feets wuz made to take care of this body and I used em is all.

“When ah was a young man and livin down in Louisiana below Farmerville ah went with a bunch of white fellows to dig fer buried gold. They didn’t begin diggin until after dark. Six men were on guard. We dug by a light made by a big pine torch. Dug and dug and dug. Finally we struck hit. Got hit all uncovered and sure nuff there hit was. Jest then the torch blew out and we heard the quarest noises and ever’ body run to camp. Hit jest poured down rain that night and the next mornin, we went back to get the money and hit was gone.

“And you says you is interested in spooks and ghosties. Down in Louisiana Dr. Fred Hodge (white) had me to hitch up his buggy and go with him on my horse to make a call many miles away from home one night. Hit must have ben bout nineteen miles. I was ter go on some other place with him but the patient was so bad that he had ter stay and sent me on in the buggy an kept my horse to ride back. I was glad to git the buggy sos I could take my gal for a ride. The doctor stayed till bout four o’clock in the mornin. He had to go home by a graveyard. There was a big white oak tree growin by the side of the road and when the doctor passed there every limb fell off the tree and left the naked tree standin there. The doctor rode back to the house where he had been and he rode so fast that the horse was winded when he got there. The man went on back with him and there stood the tree just as hit was before ever a limb fell ofn it.

“Nother man I knew went to town on horseback and bought a bolt of domestic for his wife and tied it on the back of his saddle. He had to pass a cemetery. Jest as he passed he noticed a flapping sound and looked back to see sumpin white wavin behind. He whipped his horse and made him run and the faster he ran the more the flapping sounded and it got longer and longer behind him. At last he got home and found that the domestic had got unwrapped and was flappin in the wind. The man was plumb weak and the horse died he had run him so hard.

“An talk of hainted houses. This here one that ahm livin in is hainted. Frank Thompson a yaller nigger died here before me and mah wife moved here. Before mah wife died, weuns would hear things and mah wife said hit was Frank Thompson come back. We would be in bed and would hear fokes walkin aroun and the door would come unlatched and come open. Mah wife would say that hit wes Frank Thompson’s sperit come back and as soon as he got through ramblin aroun she would git up and bolt the door agin. One Satiday night me and her went to town. On our way back as we wuz comin acrost that little ditch out thar she said to me step aside Marion and let Frank Thompson pass. Don’ you see him comin? And we stepped aside an she said he passed and we come on home. Ah hears him now at times walkin aroun and goin in and out the doors but ah aint never done seen him like she has.

“Now ah’ll tell you about a curious happenin’. One time down in Louisiana a brown skin girl died. When they started to the graveyard with her the sun was shinin as purty as hit is right now they lowered the coffin in the grave and it ‘come-inced’ to rain hard and ever’body run in the church and stayed till it quit raining. The rain stood in holes and puddles and ever’body expected the grave to be full but when we went out there was not a bit of water in the grave. How come if it wasn’t hoodooed?

“Ah jes aint wound up right this mawnin to tell youns what you wants to know but if you all will come back ahm sure ah can member some more ah knows.”

And Uncle Marion kept working with the chair in which he was weaving a new bottom of white-oak splits. Before we left he showed us baskets that he had woven.

Old Della Benton can neither read nor write and doesn’t know her age she must be near seventy. Della was my washwoman several years ago and I remembered hearing her tell something about hoodoes so we went to see Della to get all we could about it.

“Honey don’ you know that if you make a hole in a tree and put a hair from the head of the person you want to hoodoo in the tree and seal it up in there the person will go crazy. Yas mam and ifn you puts pins and needles in with the hair before you seals the hole they will die. Why my neighbor Angelina Thompson was hoodood by a woman and Ah’ll jest take you all ovah and let her tell you for herself.

“And ifn you all wants to drive somebody away fum home sos they’ll nevah come back take one of their hairs and put hit in a steam of runnin water so hit’ll run off and they will leave home and nevah come back.

“An somebody can git your track and run you slam crazy. Yasum they kin too. Where you steps in the clay or mud they gits hit and takes hit up with sumpin and does things to you and you goes crazy.

“Now you chillun come with me ovah to Sister Thompson’s and she kin tell you fer herself what was done done to her when she wuz hoodooed.”

We went to a nearby house and Della called Angelina out. She told us that she was truly hoodoed and what she said was as follows:

“Sister Thompson tell these ladies about bein hoodooed. Oh they is alright. This is some of my white folks I used to work fuh long time ago.”

Then Angelina told the following:

“Yasum, I sholey wuz hoodooed. How hit come about I loaned my clothes to a woman. A dress and shoes. She put something on them that looked like snuff. It was brown lookin and I jes though she had spilled snuff on em. That wuz 18 years ago and she done hit outa jealousy. She wanted my ole man and she thought she would hoodoo me and ahd die and she’d get him. And she woulda too ifn hit hadn a been for Mother Dye. You all know she’s a doodoo doctor who lived at Newport. An I went to her fer bout two years and she cured me. Mother Dye is daid now but Jess Rogers, a man thar does the docterin now.

“You all ask how hit fected me when ah was hoodooed. I tole you bout the brown stuff bein in my shoes and on mah dress. Well ah put em on and in a little while mah feet itched lak an could claw the bones out. Ah nevah was in such misery. Then ah tuk somethin like the dry rot. The meat come off my fingers and toes. Jest look at them scars. And look at these scars in mah hair. See how mah haid is all scarred up. At times ah had a mind that ah wanted to go and didn’ know where. They had to watch me all the time. But ole Mother Dye cured me and that woman didn’ git mah ole man aftah all.”

Della and Angelina talked among themselves for a moment and Della said “Ah believe ah will.” Then she said: “Does you all know Phil Green? He lives about two miles and a half down the Junction City Highway and he is a hoodoo man. He can tell you all things efn you all cares to go ahll go with you. He can tell you what is gwianter happen and what has happened and he can hoodoo.” Of course we were in for going right then while we had a car so Della crawled in the back seat and we were away to Phil Green’s. Went out the highway about two miles and turned off on a country road. Up hill and down, around this field and that and through a big gate, winding around through a field and orchard. At last we arrived. Phil Green looked to be a prosperous farmer. We drove up to the back of the house and around front. Some negro had just killed a chicken for dinner. Several cars were parked in the yard. One bore a Louisiana license. The porch was full of negroes. Della called and asked if Phil was there. They replied that he was but that he was busy. Della said, “We wants to see him” and a black negro woman came out to the car. My, but she was furious. We had never seen a negro so angry before. The first thing she did was to tell us that they didn’t serve white people but the way she expressed it was a scream she said: “We don’ use white people. No suh! We don’ use em. Hits too dangerous. Ah don’t care who tole you Phil used white people. He don’. He is may husban and ah won’t let him.”

We soon pacified her by telling her that we appreciated her point of view and that it was perfectly alright with us. Della crawled out of the car right now and said: “You all knows the way back to town don’ you? Ah’s going ter stay.”

The next morning we went back to Della’s. She told us that the people on Phil’s front porch were from Marion Louisiana and they had come to get him to tell them how to get one of the men of the family out of the penitentiary. She apologized for taking us out there and declared that she believed that he once served white people.

Aunt Dilcie Raborn and all her family declared that she would be a hundred this August. She is an ex-slave and Mr. John Wright of Louisiana was her master.

“Yas’m chillun I’se a hunnerd years ole. Ah was one of the las’ young niggers on marster’s plantation. Mah job was nusin the chillun. Ole Marster’s father was livin in them days and he fought in the Resolution War. Yasum he did. He was rail old and my mother chawed fer him jes like she did fer her baby. I’se seen more hardness since I got old than ah ever did in mah life. Slavery wuz the easiest time of all. Mah muthas name was Charity and she wuz the family cook, yasum an ah wuz the nuss girl. I tuk care of the chilluns. Ole marster’s wife lost her mind and they had to watch her all the time. Did you ask they send her to the sylum? No man Thar warn’t no sylums in them days and anyway ole marster had plenty of niggers to wait on her and take care of her and watch her sos she wouldn’t git out and git hurt. She did slip out one time and ah was totin the flour from mill from the gate to the kitchen and she grabbed hit away fum me and throwed hit all ovah me and rubbed hit in mah face good and then laughed at me. Then she run and got in the creek and set down in the watah and the niggas had to git in thar and git her out. Hit made her sick and old marster sho did git them niggers fer lettin her git out.

“I sho wish all times could be slavery times. Ah had everything nice then.

“I had some chillun. Ah cant count em but ah can name em. Joe, Habe, Abram, Billy, Johnny, Charity and Caline. Ah makes mah home here with Charity, she is mah baby chile and she is fifty.

“You asks is ah afeard of haints? Ah’v never taken no frightment off’n em. Ah’v lived in houses other folks couldn’t live in but ah’v never lived that way that I had to run from haints.

“Ah lived jes like a millionaire when ah lived in slavery times, seed more hardness since I got old than I ever did in mah life.”

Then we left aunt Dilcie with her snuff and went to find Aunt Jane Carter.

After rambling around in Rock Island quarters we at last found Jane Carter. She was living with her grand daughter and was sitting out in the yard with a bunch of her great-grand-children. She was so deaf that we were not able to talk to her, much to our disappointment. The granddaughter told us that she was 106 years old and that Mrs. Roscoe Taunton’s granfather was Jane’s old master.

We later saw Mrs. Taunton and she told us that Jane had belonged to her grandfather Stephen Manning and was her mother’s nurse. Jane was grown when Mrs. Taunton’s mother was born.

We were told about old Bill who lives in Barton Quarters and went to find her. She was sitting out on the porch of her cabin and we sat on the edge of the porch much to the dismay of Bill who could not walk because of a sore foot which she told us was caused by the bite of a rattlesnake years ago in slavery time.

“Ah don’ want mah white folks to sit on the floo’. Honey go in dah and git dat sheet and spred hit on the floo’. Ole Bill would go herself efn she could walk. Honey you all is gwianter git blistered out in de sun like you is widout no hats on. Don you all know you had orter take keer of thet purty white skin of yourn? My ole missus never would git out in the sun widout somethin on her haid. Ole Mawster thought she was purty and she aimed to stay purty.

“You all says you wants ter heah ole Bill tell about slavery days, lawsy chillun Ah pray ter God ah’ll be with mah white chillun agin and play mah harp with em. We’ll have plenty to eat and plenty to wear jes as we did when we had our good mawster in slavery days. Marster’s grown son used to say: ‘Bill she’s ruint to death.’ Why I used ter git my young mistesses dresses and put em on and git out in the yard and flounce and flip. The young mistess would scole me but young marster would say ‘Leave Bill erlone, ah lack to see her dance. Dance some moah Bill.’ Mah white folks use ter teach me. Now when white folks taugh me ahm a nigger done taughted.

“Honey ah jes don’ like ter see mah white folks sit on the floo’ ah wishes ole Bill cud foch some cheers fer yo all ter set on.

“How ole is ah? Ah jes don’ member but ah’s powerful ole.

“Yas’m ah’ wuz nurse girl for marsters chillun. I nevah had ter wuk hard a tall, all ah had ter do was play wid the chillun and take keer of em. Oncet a circus show comed thru and mawster bought a rattle snake fum em fer a pet. Hit nevah did have hits teeth pulled (fangs). Hit wuz a plum pet too, allus followin us about. We would have to knock hit back outn de way sometimes. One time ah wuz comin down de stairs wid a chile in each arm and de snake wuz crawlin erlong sides me. Jest as we got ter the bottom hit crawled roun front of me and ah didn see hit cause of havin the chillun in mah arms and ah stepped slambang on that snake an hit turnt aroun and bit mah foot. Ah nevah drapped them chillun though. My ole man said ifn hit had been him he’d a throwd them chillun down and run but not ole Bill. Marster and Mistess trusted Bill to take keer of them chillun and ole Bill sho did take keer of em. But mah foot nigh bout kilt me and thet foot is whut is the mattah wid me terday.

“You ask haint ah got no folks? No’m. Ah nevah had but one youngun and hit died wid the croup. The man next doo’ owns this heah house and lets ole Bill live heah. The guvment lady send me a check ever’ month (pension) and Joe Lyons gits hit and fetches hit out ter me.

“You ask does ah know erbout any hainted houses? No’m when ah fin’s a house is hainted ah aint gwian in. No’m not ole Bill. But sumpin happened not long ergo that give me a big fright. Hit waz long bout dusk ah seed two women, white as anybody gwian down de road and when they got along thar they quit the road and come aroun the path. Ah said: ‘Howdy’ and they never even speak jus kep’ a goin’. Ah say: ‘Whar is you all a goin’ and they nevah say a word. Then ah say to em: ‘Won’t you all come by and set with ole Bill a while.’ An still they nevah say nothin. Jus kep’ on a goin’ roun’ that house and down the road. Then ah got skeered and went in the house an ah doan set out late no moah. Efn them ghost had uh come in th house ah would a gone undah the house.

“You all chillun ain goin is you? Come back ter see ole Bill. Ah sholey hates to have mah white folks sit on the floor but mebby ole Bill’s foot will be bettuh next time an she can git her white fokes some cheers.”

Aunt Sally Fields said to be 106 years old lived in Mack Quarters about two and a half or three miles south of El Dorado. She is blind and lives with Hattie Moseley. During slavery days she belonged to the Patterson family and came with them from Alabama to Louisiana and later to Caledonia where she was living at the close of the Civil War. Her mind was wandering to such an extent that we could not get very much from her and when asked about slavery times she said:

“Slavery time is gone. The stars are passed. The white folks that raised me said: ‘I want you all to get up in the morning and tell me about the stars.’ Oh Lordy! The stars fell. Ole Missus would come say: ‘Ah want to be standing up behind the door. Ah don’ want to be buried.’ My ole missus was good to all the niggers.

“There was a big spring on marsters plantation. When we would start to the spring mistress would say: ‘Don’t go on the left hand side of the spring, go up the right hand side to the chinquapin tree.’”

It took Sally about twenty minutes to say that much so we didn’t stay longer.

Interviewer: Carol Graham Person Interviewed: Pinkie Howard (Add) El Dorado, Ark. Age: ?

“Mornin’, honey! Here you is to see Aunt Pinkie again. What did you bring me? Didn’t you bring old Aunt Pinkie somethin’ good to eat?

“Lawsy, honey, its been so long I can’t member much bout plantation days. But I members the children on the plantation would ring up and play ring games. And we used to have the best things to eat back in them days. We used to take taters and grate them and make tater pudding. Made it in ovens. Made corn bread and light bread in ovens too and I used to bake the best biscuits anybody ever et and I didn’t put my scratchers in them neither. Old Miss taught me how. And we had lasses pone corn bread and them good old tater biscuits. We used to eat parched corn, and cornmeal dumplings was all the go back there.

“I worked all my life and hard, too, but I still is a pretty good old frame.

“He! He! He! Look at that black boy passing, will you? Them brichie legs is half way his thighs. He needs to put sugar in his shoes to sweet talk his brichie legs down. And did you notice he didn’t speak to old Aunt Pinkie. Young folks ain’t got no manners these days. Now when I was young back there on that plantation at Hillsboro old Miss Aiken taught all her niggers manners. She would say to us, ‘Now, you all don’ clean your noses, or years, or fingernails before folks; it’s ill manners. And don’ make no ’marks bout folks. Don’ eat onions and go out in company, if you does, eat coffee to kill the taste. Don’t talk with yo’ mouth full of sumpin’ to eat; that ill manners too. Don’ eat too fast cause you is liable to git strangled. And don’ wear yo’ welcome out by staying too long.’

“Ain’t it warm and nice today missy? Jus like a spring day. An see that bee after my flower? Wasn’t it a bee? You know, bees used to swarm in the springtime back on the plantation. The way they would catch em was to ring a bell or beat on a old plow and keep beatin’ and ringin’ till they settled on a tree limb. Then they made a bee gum and covered it and left a hole at the bottom of the gum for them to go in and out, then they sawed the limb off and put the bees in the gum and put some sweetened water made from molasses so they can start to makin’ honey. Sometimes the bees would sting some of us and we would put a little snuff on it and cure it right up.”

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Josephine Howell Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 72

“My mother was Rebecca Jones. She was born in Nashville, Tennessee. Grandma was a cook and a breeding woman. The Jones thought she was very valuable. They prized her high. She was the mother of twenty-one children. Mother was more than half Indian. She was bright color. The Jones wanted to keep her, thought she would be a fine cook and house woman and a fine breeder. She had such a terrible temper they sold her to McAlways, some of their relations close to Augusta, Arkansas.

“Mama said she was eight years old when Gabe McAlway come to Nashville, Tennessee and got her. He bought her. He was a young man and a saloon-keeper at Augusta, Arkansas. He put her out on the farm at his father’s. She was a field hand. She was part African and a whole lot Indian. She was fractious and high tempered. The old man McAlway and the overseers would drop her clothes down in the field before all the hands and whoop her. Gabe never even slapped her. His aunt Mrs. Jones didn’t want them to put her in the field. She wanted to keep her but couldn’t she was so fractious, and she didn’t know how bad old man treated her.

“When mother was sold she was brought from twenty brothers and her mother and never saw none of them no more. She left them at Wolf River. They took the boat. Wolf River is close to Memphis. They must have brought them that far but I don’t know. This is what all she told me minua and minua time. Her own papa bought her when she was eight years old, Gabe McAlway. When she got to be a young maid he forced motherhood up on her. I was born before freedom. How old I am I don’t know. Gabe McAlway was sort of a young bachelor. He got killed in the Civil War. He was a Scotch-Irishman. I never seen my father.

“Mother married then and had five children. She lived in the back yard of Mrs. Will Thompson. Dr. Goodridge stopped her from having children, she raved wild. She had such a bad fractious temper. She suckled both Mrs. Will Thompson’s children, old man Nathan McGreggor’s grandchildren. She lived in Mrs. Thompson’s back yard but she slept in their house to help with the babies.

“Judge Milwee’s wife and auntie, Mrs. Baxter, raised me from a baby (infant). Judge Milwee was in Brinkley but he moved to Little Rock. Them is my own dear white folks. Honey, I can’t help but love them, they part of me. They raised me. They learned me how to do everything.

“My son live with me and I raising my little great-grandson. We can’t throw him away. My baby’s mother is way off in St. Louis. He is three years old.