Chapter VI: Part 6

"In slavery time they would raise children just like you would raise colts to a mare or calves to a cow or pigs to a sow. It was just a business It was a bad thing. But it was better than the county farm. They didn't whip you if you worked. Out there at the county farm, they bust you open. They bust you up till you can't work. There's a lot of people down at the state farm at Cummins--that's where the farm is ain't it--that's raw and bloody. They wouldn't let you come down there and write no history. No Lawd! You better not try it. One half the world don't know how the other half lives. I'll tell you one thing, if those Catholics could get control there would be a good time all over this world. The Catholics are good folks.

"That gang that got after you if you let the sun go down while you were out--that's called the Pateroles. Some folks call 'em the Ku Klux. It was all the same old poor white trash. They kept up that business for about ten years after the War. They kept it up till folks began to kill up a lot of 'em. That's the only thing that stopped them. My daddy used to make his own bullets.

"I've forgot who it is that told us that we was free. Somebody come and told us we're free now. I done forgot who it was.

"Right after the War, my father farmed a while and after that he pulled a skiff. You know Jim Lawson's place. He stayed on it twenty years. He stayed at the Ferguson place about ten years. They're adjoining places. He stayed at the Churchill place. Widow Scott place, the Bojean place. That's all. Have you been down in Argenta to the Roundhouse? Churchill's place runs way down to there. It wasn't nothing but farms in Little Rock then. The river road was the only one there at that time. It would take a day to cone down from Clear Lake with the cotton. You would start 'round about midnight and you would get to Argenta at nine o'clock the next morning. The roads was always bad.

"After freedom, we worked on shares a while. Then we rented. When we worked on shares, we couldn't make nothing--Just overalls and something to eat. Half went to the other man and you would destroy your half if you weren't careful. A man that didn't know how to count would always lose. He might lose anyhow. They didn't give no itemized statement. No, you just had to take their word. They never give you no details. They just say you owe so much. No matter how good account you kept, you had to go by their account and now, Brother, I'm tellin' you the truth about this. It's been that way for a long time. You had to take the white man's work on notes and everything. Anything you wanted, you could git if you were a good hand. You could git anything you wanted as long as you worked. If you didn't make no money, that's all right; they would advance you more. But you better not leave him--you better not try to leave and get caught. They'd keep you in debt. They were sharp. Christmas come, you could take up twenty dollars in somethin' to eat and much as you wanted in whiskey. You could buy a gallon of whiskey. Anything that kept you a slave because he was always right and you were always wrong if there was difference. If there was an argument, he would get mad and there would be a shooting take place.

"And you know how some Negroes is. Long as they could git somethin', they didn't care. You see, if the white man came out behind, he would feed you, let you have what you wanted. He'd just keep you on, help you get on your feet--that is, if you were a good hand. But if you weren't a good hand, he'd just let you have enough to keep you alive. A good hand could take care of forty or fifty acres of land and would have a large family. A good hand could git clothes, food, whiskey, whenever he wanted it. My father had nine children and took care of them. Not all of them by one wife. He was married twice. He was married to one in slavery time and to another after the War. I was a child of the first one. I got a sister still living down here in Galloway station that is mighty nigh ninety years old. No, she must be a hundred. Her name is Frances Dobbins. When you git ready to go down there, I'll tell you how to find that place jus' like I told you how to fin' this one. Galloway is only 'bout four miles from Rose City.

"I been married twice in my life. My first woman, she died. The second lady, she is still living. We dissolved friendship in 1913. Least-wise, I walked out and give her my home. I used to own a home at twenty-first and Pulaski.

"I belong to the Baptist Church at Wrightsville. I used to belong to Arch Street. Was a deacon there for about twelve years. But they had too much splittin' and goin' on and I got out. I'll tell you more sometime."

Interviewer's Comment

Henry Blake's age appears in excess of eighty. His idea of seventy-five is based on what someone told him. He is certain that he drove a "Horsepower Gin Wagon" during "slavery times", and that he was seven or eight when he drove it. Even if that were in '65, he would be at least eighty years old--seventy-three years since the War plus seven years of his life. His manner of narration would indicate that he drove earlier.

The interview was held in a dark room, and for the first time in my life I took notes without seeing the paper on which I was writing.

Interviewer: Mary D. Eudgins Person Interviewed: Miss Adeline Blakeley Age: 87 Home: 101 Rock Street, Fayetteville, Arkansas.

There is no hint of elision in the speech of Adeline Blakeley, scarcely a trace of vernacular. All of her life her associations have been with white persons. She occupies a position, rare in post-slavery days, of negro servant, confidant and friend. After the death of Mrs. Hudgins, family intimates, wives of physicians, bankers' wives and other Fayetteville dowagers continued periodically to come to see Adeline. They came not in the spirit of Lady Bountifuls condescending to a hireling, but because they wanted to chat with an old time friend.

Interviewer's note.

As told by: Adeline Blakeley

"Honey, look in the bible to get the date when I was born. We want to have it just right. Yes, here's the place, read it to me. July 10, 1850? Yes, I remember now, that's what they've always told me. I wanted to be sure, though. I was born in Hickman County, Tenn. and was about a year when they brought me to Arkansas. My mother and her people had been bought by Mr. John P. Parks when they were just children--John and Leanna and Martha. I was the first little negro in the Parks kitchen. From the first they made a pet out of me. I was little like a doll and they treated me like a plaything--spoiled me--rotten.

After Mr. Parks came to Arkansas he lived near what is now Prarie Grove, but what do you think it was called then--Hog Eye. Later on they named it Hillingsley for a man who settled there. We were two miles out on the Wire Road, the one the telegraph line came in on, Honey. Almost every conmunity had a 'Wire Road'.

It was the custom to give a girl a slave when she was married. When Miss Parks became Mrs. Blakeley she moved to Fayetteville and chose me to take with her. She said since I was only 5 she could raise me as she wanted me to be. But I must have been a lot of trouble and after she had her baby she had to send me back to her father to grow up a little. For you might say she had two babies to take care of since I was too little to take care of hers. They sent a woman in my place.

Honey, when I got back, I was awful: I had been with the negroes down in the country and said 'hit' and 'hain't' and words like that. Of course all the children in the house took it up from me. Mrs. Blakeley had to teach me to talk right. Your Aunt Nora was born while I was away. I was too little to take full charge of her, but I could sit in a chair and hold her on my lap.

Mrs. Blakeley taught her children at home. Her teaching was almost all they had before they entered the University. When I was little I wanted to learn, learn all I could, but there was a law against teaching a slave to read and write. One woman--she was from the North did it anyway. But when folks can read and write its going to be found out. It was made pretty hard for that woman.

After the war they tried to get me to learn, but I tossed my head and wouldn't let them teach me. I was about 15 and thought I was grown and wouldn't need to know any more. Mary, it sounds funny, but if I had a million dollars I would give it gladly to be able to read and write letters to my friends.

I remember well when the war started. Mr. Blakeley, he was a cabinet maker and not very well, was not considered strong enough to go. But if the war had kept up much longer they would have called him. Mr. Parks didn't believe in seceding. He held out as long as it was safe to do so. If you didn't go with the popular side they called you 'abolitionist' or maybe 'Submissionist'. But when Arkansas did go over he was loyal. He had two sons and a son-in-law in the Confederate army. One fought at Richmond and one was killed at Gettysburg.

The little Blakeley boy had always liked to play with the American flag. He'd march with it and carry it out on the porch and hang it up. But after the trouble began to brew his mother told him he would have to stay in the house when he played with the flag. Even then somebody saw him and scolded him and said 'Either burn it or wash it.' The child thought they meant it and he tried to wash it. Dyes weren't so good in those days and it ran terribly. It was the awfulest thing you ever saw.

Fayetteville suffered all thru the war. You see we were not very far from the dividing line and both armies were about here a lot. The Federals were in charge most of the time. They had a Post here, set up breast works and fortified the square. The court house was in the middle of it then. It was funny that there wasn't more real fighting about here. There were several battles but they were more like skirmishes--just a few men killed each time. They were terrible just the same. At first they buried the Union soldiers where the Confederate Cemetery is now. The Southerners were placed just anywhere. Later on they moved the Northern caskets over to where the Federal Cemetery is now and they took up the Southern men when they knew where to find them and placed them over on the hill where they are today.

Once an officer came into our home and liked a table he saw, so he took it. Mrs. Blakeley followed his horse as far as she could pleading with him to give it back because her husband had made it. The next day a neighbor returned it. He hod found it in the road and recognized it. The man who stole it had been killed and dropped it as he fell.

Just before the Battle of Prairie Grove the Federal men came thru. Some officers stopped and wanted us to cook for them. Paid us well, too. One man took little Nora on his lap and almost cried. He said she reminded him of his own little girl he'd maybe never see again. He gave her a cute little ivory handled pen knife. He asked Mrs. Blakeley if he couldn't leave his pistols with her until he came back thru Fayetteville. She told him it was asking too much, what would happen to her and her family if they found those weapons in her possession? But he argued that it was only for a few days. She hid them under a tub in the basement and after waiting a year gave them to her brother when he came through. The Yankees met the Southerners at Prairie Grove. The shots sounded just like popcorn from here in Fayetteville. We always thought the man got killed there.

The soldiers camped all around everywhere. Lots of them were in tents and some of the officers were in houses. They didn't burn the college--where Miss Sawyer had taught, you know. The officers used it for their living quarters. They built barracks for the men of upright logs. See that building across the street. It's been lots of things, a livery stable, veterinary barn, apartment house. But it was one of the oldest buildings in Arkansas. They've kept on remodeling it. The Yankees made a commissary out of it. Later on they moved the food up on the square and used it for a hospital. I can remember lots of times seeing the feet of dead men sticking out of the windows.

Your Aunt Nora's mother saved that building from being burned. How did it happen? Well you see both sides were firing buildings--the Confederates to keep the Yankees from getting them, and the other way about. But the Southerners did most of the burning. Mrs. Blakeley's little boy was sick with fever. She and a friend went up, because they feared burnings. They sat there almost all night. Parties of men would come along and they would plead with them. One sat in one doorway and the other in the building next. Mrs. Blakely was a Southerner, the other woman a Northerner. Between them they kept the buildings from being burned: saved their own homes thereby and possibly the life of the little sick boy.

It was like that in Fayetteville. There were so many folks on both sides and they lived so close together that they got to know one another and were friends. Things like this would happen. One day a northern officer came over to our house to talk to his wife who was visiting. He said he would be away all day. He was to go down to Prarie Grove to get 'Old Man Parks, dead or alive'. Not until he was on his way did somebody tell him that he was talking about the father of his wife's hostess. Next day he came over to apologize. Said he never would have made such a cruel remark if he had known. But he didn't find his man. As the officers went in the front door, Mr. Parks went out of the back and the women surrounded him until he got away.

There was another time when the North and South took refuge together. During the war even the little children were taught to listen for bugle calls and know what they meant. We had to know--and how to act when we heard them. One day, I remember we were to have peas for dinner, with ham hock and corn bread. I was hungry that day and everything smelled so good. But just as the peas were part of them out of the pot and in a dish on the table the signal came 'To Arms'. Cannon followed almost immediately. We all ran for the cellar, leaving the food as it was.

The cellar was dug out only a little way down. It had been raining and snowing all day--melted as it fell. It was about noon and the seep water had filled a pool in the middle of the cellar. They placed a tub in the water and it floated like a little boat. They put Nora and a little girl who was visiting her, and me in it. The grown folks clung to the damp sides of the cellar floor and wall. After the worst bombing was over we heard someone upstairs in the house calling. It was the wife of a Northern officer. He had gotten away so fast he had forgotten his pistols. She had tried to follow him, but the shots had frightened her. We called to her to come to the basement. She came, but in trying to climb up the slick sides she slid down and almost into our tub. She looked so funny with her big fat legs that I giggled. Mrs. Blakeley slapped me--it was one of the few times she struck me. I was glad she did, for I would have laughed out. And it didn't do to laugh at Northerners.

It wes night before the fighting was over. An old man who was in the basement with us went upstairs because he heard someone groan. Sure enough a wounded man had dragged himself to our door. He laid the man, almost fainting down before the fireplace. It was all he could do. The man died. When we finally came up there wasn't a pea, nor a bit of ham, not a crum of cornbread. Floaters had cleaned the pot until it shone.

We had a terrible time getting along during those years. I don't believe we could have done it except for the Northern soldiers. You might say the Confederacy was kept up by private subscription, but the Yankees had the whole Federal government back of them. They had good rations which were issued uncooked. They could get them prepared anywhere they liked. We were good cooks so that is the way we got our food--preparing it for soldiers and eating it with them. They had quite a variety and a lot of everything. They were given bacon and coffee and sugar and flour and beans and somthing they called 'mixed vegetables'. Those beans were little and sweet--not like the big ones we have today. The mixed vegetables were liked by lots of folks--I didn't care for them. Everything was ground up together and then dried. You had to soak it like dried peas before cooking.

After the war they came to Mrs. Blakeley, the soldiers did, and accused her of keeping me against my will. I told them that I stayed because I wanted to, the Blakeleys were my people. They let me alone, the whites did, but the negroes didn't like it. They tried to fight me and called me names. There was a well near the square from which everybody got water. Between it and our house was a negro cabin. The little negroes would rock me. I stood it as long as I could. Then I told Mrs. Blakeley. She said to get some rocks in my bucket and if they rocked me to heave back. I was a good shot and they ran. Their mother came to Mrs. Blakeley to complain, but she told her after hearing her thru that I had stood all I could and the only reason I hadn't been seriously hurt was because her children weren't good shots. They never bothered me again.

It was hard after the war. The Federals stayed on for a long time. Fences were down, houses were burned, stock was gone, but we got along somehow. When Nora Blakeley was 14 a lady was teaching a subscription school in the hall across the street--the same hall Mrs. Blakely had saved from burning. She wanted Nora to teach for her. So, child that she was, she went over and pretty soon she was teaching up to the fourth grade. I went over every morning and built a fire for her before she arrived.

That fall she went over to the University, but the next year she had to stay out to earn money. She wanted to finish so badly that we decided to take boarders. They would come to us from way over on the campus. There were always lots more who wanted to stay than we could take. We bought silver and dishes just as we could pay for them, and we added to the house in the summer time. I used to cook their breakfasts and dinners and pack baskets of lunch for them to take over to the Campus. We had lots of interesting people with us. One was Jeff Davis--later he was governor and then senator. He and a Creek Indian boy named Sam Rice were great friends. There were lots of Indians in school at the University then. They didn't have so many Indian schools and tribes would make up money and send a bright boy here.

Ten years after she graduated from the University Nora married Harvey M. Hudgins. They moved to Hot springs and finally ran a hotel. It burned the night of Washington's birthday in 1895. It was terrible, we saved nothing but the night clothes we were in. Next morning it was worse for we saw small pox flags all over town. Our friends came to our rescue and gave us clothes and we went with friends out into the country to escape the epidemic. There were three or four families in one little house. It was crowded, but we were all friends so it was nice after all.

About ten years before Mr. Hudgins had built a building in Fayetteville. They used the second floor for an Opera House. When we came back here after the fire we took it over to run. Mr. Hudgins had that and all the billboards in town. We saw all the shows. Several years later the twins, Helen and Wade were born. I always went to see the shows and took them with me. Folks watched them more than the shows. I kept them neat and clean and they were so cute.

We saw the circuses too. I remember once Barnum and Bailey were coming to Fort Smith. We were going down. I didn't tell anybody, but I put $45 in my purse. I made money then. Mr. Hudgins got me a cow and I sold milk and butter and kept all I made. Why the first evening dress Helen had and the first long pants Bud (Wade) had I bought. Well, we were going down to Fort Smith, but Bud got sick and we couldn't go. You know, Mary, it seemed so queer. When Helen and I went to California, we all saw the same circus together. Yes, I've been to California with her twice. Whenever the train would stop she would come from the pullman to the coach where the colored persons had to ride to see about me. We went out to visit Sister (Bess Hudgins Clayton) and Bud. While we were there, Barnum and Bailey came to Los Angeles. It seemed so funny. There we were--away out in California--all the children grown up and off to themselves. There we were--all of us--seeing the show we had planned to see way back in Arkansas, years and years before.

You know, Honey, that doll Ann has--she got it for her seventh birthday (Elisabeth Ann Wiggans--daughter of Helen Hudgins Wiggans). It was restrung for her, and was once before for her mother. But it's the same doll Baby Dean (Dean Hudgins) carried out of that fire in Hot Springs in 1895. Everybody loves Ann. She makes the fifth generation I've cared for. When Helen is going out she brings Ann down here or I go up there. It's usually down here tho. Because since we turned the old home into apartments I take care of them, and it's best for me to be here most of the time.

All the people in the apartments are mighty nice to me. Often for days at a time they bring me so much to eat that I don't have to cook for myself. A boy going to the University has a room here and tends to the furnace. He's a nice boy. I like him.

My life's been a full one, Honey, and an interesting one. I can't really say which part of it is best. I can't decide whether it's a better world now or then. I've had lots of hard work, and lots of friends, lots of fun and I've gone lots of places. Life is interesting."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Vera Roy Bobo (Mulatto, almost white) Holly Grove, Arkansas Age: 62

"My parents come from Macon, Georgia. My mother was Margaret Cobb. Her people were owned by the Cobbs. They reared her. She was a house girl and a seamstress. She sewed for both white and black. She was light color.

"My father was St. Roy Holmes. He was a C.M.E. preacher in Georgia and later in Arkansas. He came on the train to Forrest City, 1885. He crossed the Mississippi River on a ferry boat. Later he preached at Wynne. He was light color.

"I never heard them say very much about slavery. This was their own home.

"My husband's father was the son of a white man also--Randall Bobo. He used to visit us from Bobo, Mississippi. The Bobo a owned that town and were considered rich people. My husband was some darker and was born at Indian Bay, Arkansas. He was William Bobo. I never knew him till two months before I married him. We had a home wedding and a wedding supper in this house."

(This may be continued)

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Liddie Boechus, (second interview) Madison, Arkansas Age: 73

"I was born in West Point, Mississippi. My own dear mother's owner was Pool. His wife was Mistress Patty Pool. Old man Pool raised our set. He was an old soldier, I think. He was old when I came to know him.

"My own papa's pa was Smith. After he came back from the Civil War he took back his Smith name. He changed it back from Pool to Smith.

"I was a small child when my own dear mother died. My stepmother had some children of her own, so papa hired me out by the year to nurse for my board and clothes. My stepmother didn't care for me right. White folks raised me.

"I married when I was fifteen years old to a man twenty years old or more. White folks was good to me but I didn't have no sense. I lef' 'em. I married too young. I lived wid him little over twelve years, and I had twelve children by him. Then I married a preacher. We had two more children. My first husband was trifling. I ploughed, hoed, split wood to raise my babies.

"My daughter come from Louisiana to stay with me last winter when I was sick. I got eight dollars, now I gets six dollars from the Welfare. My daughter here now.

"I went to one white teacher a few days--Miss Perkins. I never got to go enough to learn. I took up reading and writing from my children. I write mighty poor I tell you.

"I used to be a midwife and got ten dollars a case. They won't pay off now. I do a little of that work, but I don't get nothing for it. They have a doctor or won't pay.

"My husband was a good man. He was a preacher. I'm a Baptist.

"I don't know what to think about young folks. Every feller is for his own self. Times is hard with old folks. I had a stroke they said. This new generation ain't got no strength. I think it is because they set around so much. What would a heap of them do? A long day's work in the field would kill some of them. It would! Some folks don't work 'nough to be healthy. I don't know, but though, I really believes education and automobiles is the whole cause."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Maggie (Bunny) Bond, Madison, Arkansas Age: Well up in 80's

"I was born at Magnolia, North Carolina. Lou Nash named me Maggie after my mistress. That was her name. They had a rabbit they called Bunny. It died. They started calling me Bunny. Our old mistress was a Mallory from Virginia. She was the old head of all these at Forrest City. (A big family of people are descendants at Forrest City.)

School During the War

"Mrs. Eddy Williams said to my mother, 'Let her go to school and play with the children.' I was young. I don't know how old I was. I was washed, my hair combed, and clean dresses put on me. I went to school four or five days. I set by different ones. They used slates. It was a log schoolhouse. It had a platform the teacher sat on. They preached in it on Sunday. Where Mt. Vernon Cemetery now stands. The teacher was Mrs. McCallis. She rode horseback from out of the bottoms. The families of children that come there were: Mallorys, Izards, Nashs, Dawsons, Kittrells, and Pruitts.

"There was a big oak tree in front. The boys played on one side, the girls on the other. Cake and pie was a fortune then. If the children had any they would give me part of it. Times was so hard then people had plain victuals every day at school.

"The children tried to learn me at recess under the tree. They used McGuffey's and Blue Back books. One day I said out loud, 'I want to go home.' The children all laughed. One day I went to sleep and the teacher sent me out doors to play. Mrs. McCallis said, 'Bunny, you mus'n't talk out loud in school.' I was nodding one day. The teacher woke me up. She wrapped her long switch across the table. She sent me to play. The house set up on high blocks. I got under it and found some doodle holes. Mrs. McCallis come to the door and said, 'Bunny, don't call so loud. You must keep quiet.' I would say: 'Doodle, doodle, your house on fire. Come get some bread and butter.' They would come up.

"After the War I had a white lady teacher from the North. I went a little bit to colored school but I didn't care about books. I learned to sew for my dolls. The children would give me a doll all along.

"The happiest year of my whole life was the first year of my married life. I hardly had a change of clothes. I had lots of friends. I went to the field with Scott. I pressed cotton with two horses, one going around and the other coming. Scott could go upstairs in the gin and look over at us. We had two young cows. They had to be three years old then before they were any service. I fed hogs. I couldn't cook but I learned. I had been a house girl and nurse.

"I was nursing for Mrs. Pierce at Goodwin. I wanted to go home. She didn't want me to leave. I wouldn't tell her why. She said, 'I speck you going to get married.' She gave me a nice white silk dress. Mrs. Drennand made it. My owner, Miss Leila Nash, lend me one of her chemisette, a corset cover, and a dress had ruffles around the bottom. It was wide. She never married. I borrowed my veil from a colored woman that had used it. Mr. Rollwage (dead now but was a lawyer at Forrest City) gave Scott a tie and white vest and lend him his watch and chain to be married in. They was friends. Miss Leila made my cake. She wanted my gold band ring to go in it. I wouldn't let her have it for that. Not my ring! She put a dime in it. Miss Maggie Barrow and Mrs. Maggie Hatcher made two baskets full of maple biscuits for my wedding. They was the best cake. Made in big layers and cut and iced. Two laundry baskets full to the brim."

She showed us a white cedar three-gallon churn, brass hoops hold the staves in place, fifty-seven years old and a castor with seven cruits patented December 27, 1859. It was a silver castor and was fixed to ring for the meal.

She showed us the place under a cedar tree where there are four unmarked graves--Mr. and Mrs. McMurray and their son and daughter and one niece. The graves are being ploughed over now.

"Mrs. Murray's son gave her five hundred dollars. She hid it. After she died no one knew where to find it."

Scott Bond bought the place. Bunny was fixing the hearth (she showed us the very spot) brick and found a brick. Dora threw it out. The can could never be found and soon Dora went home near Chattanooga, Tennessee. Dora was a Negro servant in the Bond home. It seems the money was in the old can that Bunny found but thought it was just a prop for the brick.

Maggie (Bunny) Bond has given two of her white friends coffins. One was to a man and two years ago one was to a woman, Mrs. Evans' daughter. She wanted to do something, the nicest thing she could do for them, for they had been good to her. People who raised them and had owned them. They gratefully accepted her present. In her life she has given beautiful and expensive wedding preaents to her white friends who raised her and owned her. She told us about giving one and someone else said she gave two. Theo Bond's wife said this about the second one.

The Yankees passed along in front of the Scott Bond home from Hunter, Arkansas to Madison, Arkansas. It was an old military road. The Yankees burnt up Mt. Vernon, Arkansas. Madison was a big town but it overflowed so bad. There were pretty homes at Madison. Levies were not known, so the courthouse was moved to Forrest City. Yankees camped at Madison. A lot of them died there. A cemetery was made in sight of the Scott Bond yard. The markings were white and black letters and the pailings were white with black pointed tips. They were moved to the north. Madison grew to be large because it was on a river.

Interviewer's Comment

Maggie (Bunny) Bond is eight-ninth white.

Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy Person interviewed: Caroline Bonds Russellville, Arkansas Age: 70

"What's all dis info'mation you askin' about goin' to be for? Will it help us along any or make times any better? All right, then. My name's Caroline Bonds. I don't know jist exactly when I was born, but I think it was on de twentieth of March about--about--yes, in 1866, in Anderson County, North Carolina.

"So you was a 'Tarheel' too? Bless my soul!

"My old master was named Hubbard, and dat was my name at first. My parents belonged to Marse Hubbard and worked on his big plantation till dey was freed.

"I was too little to remember much about what happened after de War. My folks moved to Arkansas County, in Arkansas, soon after de War and lived down dere a long time.

"I joined de Missionary Baptis' Church when I was fifteen and has belonged to it ever' since.

"No sir, I never got in de habit of votin' and never did vote, never thought it was necessary."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Rev. Frank T. Boone 1410 W. Seventeenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 80

[HW: Free Colonies]

"I was born in Nansemond County, Virginia on my father's place near the center of the County. I was born free. We were members of the colonies. You know there were what is known as Free Colonies. They were Negroes that had always been free. The first landing of the Negroes in America, they claimed, formed a colony. The Negro men who came over, it is said, could buy their freedom and a number of them did.

"But I didn't become free that way. My ancestors were a white man and an Indian woman. He was my great-grandfather. None of my family have been slaves as far back as I know.

"There was one set of white people in Virginia called Quakers. Their rule was to free all slaves at the age of twenty-one. So we got some free Negroes under that rule. My mother who was a Negro woman was freed under this rule. My father was always free.

"My grandmother on my father's side owned slaves. The law was that colored people could own slaves but they were not allowed to buy them. I don't know how many slaves my grandmother owned. I didn't know they were slaves until the War was over. I saw the colored people living in the little houses on the place but I didn't know they was slaves.

"One morning my grandmother went down to the quarters and when she came back she said to my aunt, 'Well, the slaves left last night.' And that was the first I knew of their being slaves.

"My father's name was Frank Boone. I was named for him. My mother's name was Phoebe Chalk. I don't know who her mother and father were. She said that her mother died when she was a child. She was raised by Quaker people. I presume that her mother belonged to these Quaker people.

"On our place no grown person was ever whipped. They was just like one family. They called grandmother's house the big house. They farmed. They didn't raise cotton though. They raised corn, peas, wheat, potatoes, and all things for the table. Hogs, cows, and all such like was raised. I never saw a pound of meat or a peck of flour or a bucket of lard or anything like that bought. We rendered our own lard, pickled our own fish, smoked our own meat and cured it, ground our own sausage, ground our own flour and meal from our own wheat and corn we raised on our place, spun and wove our own cloth. The first suit of clothes I ever wore, my mother spun the cotton and wool, wove the cloth and made the clothes. It was a mixed steel gray suit. She dyed the thread so as to get the pattern. One loom carried the black thread through and the other carried the white thread to weave the cloth into the mixed pattern.

"I don't know how large our place was. Maybe it was about a hundred acres. Every one that married out of the family had a home. They called it a free Negro colony. Nothing but Negroes in it.

"My father volunteered and went to the army in 1862. He served with the Yankees. You know Negroes didn't fight in the Confederate armies. They was in the armies, but they were servants. My father enrolled as a soldier. I think it was in Company F. I don't know the regiment or the division. He was a sergeant last time I saw him. I remember that well, I remember the stripes on his arm. He was mustered out in Galveston, Texas, in 1865.

"The house I was born in was a log house, sealed inside. The cracks were chinked with dirt and mud, and it was weather boarded on the outside. You couldn't tell it was a log house. It had two rooms. In them times you didn't cook in the house you lived in. You had a kitchen built off from the house you lived in just like you have servant quarters now. You went across the yard to do your cooking. The smokehouse was off by itself. Milk was off by itself too. The dairy house was where you kept the flour and sugar and preserves and fruit and pickles and all those kind of things. No food was kept in the house. The milk house had shelves all up in it and when you milked the cows the pans and bowls and crocks were put up on the shelves. Where it was possible the milk house was built on a branch or spring where you could get plenty of cold water. You didn't milk in the milk house. You milked in the cow pen right out in the weather. Then you carried it down to the milk house and strained it. It was poured out in vessels. When the cream rose it was skimmed off to churn for butter.

"Feed for the stock was kept in the corn crib. We would call it a barn now. That barn was for corn and oft'times we had overhead a place where we kept fodder. Bins were kept in the barn for wheat and peas.

Slaves on Other Places

"I seen the slaves outside the colonies. I was little and didn't pay any attention to them. Slaves would run away. They had a class of white people known as patrollers. They would catch the slaves and whip them. I never saw that done. I heard them talking about it. I was only a child and never got a chance to see the slaves on the places of other people, but just heard the folks talking about them.

Within the Yankee Lines

"When the War broke out, the free colored people became fearful. There was a great deal of stuff taken away from them by the Confederate soldiers. They moved into the Yankee lines for protection. My family moved also. They lost live stock and feed. They lost only one horse and then they came back home. I can see that old horse right now. He was a sorrel horse, with a spot in his forehead, and his name was John. My father was inside the Yankee lines when he volunteered for the service. I don't know how much he got or anything about it except that I know the Yankees were holding Portsmouth, Norfolk, Hampton Roads, and all that country.

Expectations of the Slaves

"I could hear my mother and uncle talk about what the slaves expected. I know they was expecting to get something. They weren't supposed to be turned out like wild animals like they were. I think it was forty acres and a mule. I am not sure but I know they expected something to be settled on them.

What They Got

"If any of them got anything in Virginia, I don't know anything about it. They might have been some slaves that did get something--just like they was here in Arkansas.

"Old Man Wilfong, when he freed Andy Wilfong in Bradley County, Arkansas, gave Andy plenty. He did get forty acres of land. That is right down here out from Warren. Wilfong owned that land and a heap more when he died. He hasn't been dead more than six or seven years. I pastored him in 1904 and 1905. There were others who expected to get something, but I don't know any others that got it. Land was cheap then. Andy bought land at twenty-five and fifty cents an acre, and sold the timber off of it at the rate of one thousand dollars for each forty acres. He bought hundreds of acres. He owned a section and a section and one-half of land when he was my member. He had seven boys and two girls and he gave them all forty acres apiece when they married. Then he sold the timber off of four forties. Whenever a boy or girl was married he'd give him a house. He'd tell him to go out and pick himself out a place.

"He sold one hundred and sixty acres of timber for four thousand dollars, but if he had kept it for two years longer, he would have got ten thousand dollars for it. The Bradley Lumber Company went in there and cut the timber all through.

"Wilfong's master's name was Andrew Wilfong, same as Andy's. His master came from Georgia, but he was living in Arkansas when freedom came. Later on Andy bought the farm his master was living on when freedom came. His master was then dead.

Right After the War

"My mother came back home and we went on farming just like we did before, raising stuff to eat. You know I can't remember much that they did before the War but I can remember what they did during the War and after the War,--when they came back home. My folks still own the old place but I have been away from there sixty-one years. A whole generation has been raised up and died since I left.

"I came out with one of my cousins and went to Georgia (Du Pont) following turpentine work. It was turpentine farming. You could cut a hole in the tree known as the box. It will hold a quart. Rosin runs out of that tree into the box. Once a week, they go by and chip a tree to keep the rosin running. Then the dippers dip the rosin out and put it in barrels. Them barrels is hauled to the still. Then it is distilled just like whiskey would be. The evaporation of it makes turpentine; the rosin is barreled and shipped to make glass. The turpentine is barreled and sold. I have dipped thousands of gallons of turpentine.

"I came to South Carolina in 1880 and married. I stayed there seven years and came to Arkansas in 1888. I came right to North Little Rock and then moved out into the country around Lonoke County,--on a farm. I farmed there for five years. Then I went to pastoring. I started pastoring one year before I quit making cotton. I entered the ministry in 1892 and continued in the active service until November 1937. I put in forty-five years in the active ministry.

Schooling

"I first went to school at a little log school in Suffolk, Virginia. From there I went to Hampton, Virginia. I got my theological training in Shorter College under Dr. T.H. Jackson.

Ku Klux

"I never had any experience with the Ku Klux Klan. I seen white men riding horses and my mother said they was Ku Kluxes, but they never bothered us as I remember. They had two sets of white folks like that. The patrollers were before and during the War and the Ku Klux Klan came after the War. I can't remember how the Ku Klux I saw were dressed. The patrollers I remember. They would just be three or four white men riding in bunches.

Nat Turner Rebellion

"I have heard the 'Nat Turner Rebellion' spoken of, but I don't know what was said. I think the old people called it the 'Nat Turner War.'

Reconstruction Days

"Lawyer Whipper was one of the best criminal lawyers in the state. He was a Negro. The Republican party had the state then and the Negroes were strong. Robert Small was a noted politician and was elected to go to Congress twice. The last time he ran, he was elected but had a hard fight. The election was so close it was contested but Small won out. He was the last nigger congressman. I heard that there were one or two more, but I don't remember them.

"When I first went to South Carolina, them niggers was bad. They organized. They used to have an association known as the Union Laborers, I think. The organization was like the fraternal order. I don't know's they ever had any trouble but they were always in readiness to protect themselves if any conflict arose. It was a secret order carried on just like any other fraternal order. They had distress calls. Every member has an old horn which he blew in time of trouble. I think that sane kind of organization or something like it was active here when I came. The Eagles (a big family of white people in Lonoke County) had a fight with members of it once and some of the Eagles were killed a year or two before I came to this state.

Voting and Political Activities

"I voted in South Carolina, but I wasn't old enough to vote in Georgia. However, I stumped Taliaferro County for Garfield when I was in Georgia. I lived in a little town by the name of McCray. The town I was in, they had never had more than fifteen or twenty Republican votes polled. But I polled between two hundred and three hundred votes. I was one of the regular speakers. The tickets were in my care too. You see, they had tickets in them days and not the long ballots. They didn't have long ballots like they have now. The tickets were sent to me and I took care of them until the election. In the campaign I was regularly employed through the Republican Campaign Committee Managers.

"According to preparation and conditions there were less corruption then than there is now. In them days, they had to learn the tricks. But now they know them. Now you find the man and he already knows what to do.

Songs

"Back in that period, nearly all the songs the Negro sang considerably were the spirituals: 'I'm Going Down to Jordan,' 'Roll Jordan Roll.'"

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: J.F. Boone 1502 Izard, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 66

[HW: A Union Veteran]

"My father's name was Arthur Boone and my mother's name was Eliza Boone, I am goin' to tell you about my father. Now be sure you put down there that this is Arthur Boone's son. I am J.F. Boone, and I am goin' to tell you about my father, Arthur Boone.

"My father's old master was Henry Boone. My mother came from Virginia--north Virginia--and my father came from North Carolina. The Boones bought them. I have heard that my father, Arthur Boone, was bought by the Boones. They wasn't his first masters. I have heard my father say that it was more than a thousand dollars they paid for him.

"He said that they used to put up niggers on the block and auction them off. They auctioned off niggers accordin' to the breed of them. Like they auction off dogs and horses. The better the breed, the more they'd pay. My father was in the first-class rating as a good healthy Negro and those kind sold for good money. I have heard him say that niggers sometimes brought as high as five thousand dollars.

"My father don't know much about his first boss man. But the Boones were very good to them. They got biscuits once a week. The overseer was pretty cruel to them in a way. My father has seen them whipped till they couldn't stand up and then salt and things that hurt poured in their wounds. My father said that he seen that done; I don't know whether it was his boss man or the overseer that done it.

"My father said that they breeded good niggers--stud 'em like horses and cattle. Good healthy man and woman that would breed fast, they would keep stalled up. Wouldn't let them get out and work. Keep them to raise young niggers from. I don't know for certain that my father was used that way or not. I don't suppose he would have told me that, but he was a mighty fine man and he sold for a lot of money. The slaves weren't to blame for that.

"My father said that in about two or three months after the War ended, his young master told them that they were free. They came home from the War about that time. He told them that they could continue living on with them or that they could go to some one else if they wanted to 'cause they were free and there wasn't any more slavery.

"I was born after slavery. Peace was declared in 1865, wasn't it? When the War ended I don't know where my father was living, but I was bred and born in Woodruff near Augusta in Arkansas. All the Booneses were there when I knew anything about it. They owned hundreds and hundreds of acres of ground. I was born on old Captain Boone's farm.

"My father was always a farmer. He farmed till he died. They were supposed to give him a pension, but he never did get it. They wrote to us once or twice and asked for his number and things like that, but they never did do nothing. You see he fit in the Civil War. Wait a minute. We had his old gun for years. My oldest brother had that gun. He kept that gun and them old blue uniforms with big brass buttons. My old master had a horn he blowed to call the slaves with, and my brother had that too. He kept them things as particular as you would keep victuals.