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1220 North Willow
Age 97 Pine Bluff, Ark.
"I'm one of em. Accordin' to what they tell me, I think I'll be ninety-eight the ninth day of February. I was born in
Virginia in Kinsale County and sold from my mother and father to Arkansas.
"The Lord would have it, old man Ed Lindsey come to Virginia and brought me here to Arkansas. I was here four
years before the old War ceasted and I was twelve when I come here.
"I was right there standin' behind my mistis' chair when Abe Lincoln said, 'I 'clare there shall be war!' I was right
here in Arkansas - eighteen miles from Pine Bluff when war ceasted. The Lord would have it. I had a good master
and mistis. Old master said, 'Fore old Lincoln shall free my niggers, I'll free em myself.' They might as well a been
free, they had a garden and if they raised cotton in that garden they could sell it. The Lord bless His Holy Name!
We didn't know the difference when we got free. I stayed with my mistis till she went back to Virginia.
"Yes, honey, I was here in all the war. I was standin' right by my mistis' chair. I never heard old master make a oaf
in his life, but when they brought the paper freein' the slaves, he said, 'Dad burn it.'
"I member a man called Jeff Davis. I know they sung and said, 'We'll hand old Jeff Davis to the sour apple tree.' "I
been here a long time. Yes, honey, I been in Arkansas so long I say I ain't goin' out - they got to bury me here.
Arkansas dirt good enough for me. I say I been here so long I got Arkansas 'stemper (distemper).
"My old master in Virginia was Joe Hudson. My father used to ketch oysters and fish. We could look up the
Patomac river and see the ships comin' in. In Virginia I lived next to a free state and the runaways was tryin' to get
away. At Harper's Ferry - that's where old John Brown was carryin' em across. My old mistis used to take the
runaway folks when the dogs had bit their legs, and keep em for a week and cure em up. This time o' year you could
hear the bull whip. But I was lucky, they was good to me in Virginia and good to me in Arkansas.
"Yes, chile, I was in Alexandria, Virginia in Kinsale County when they come after me by night. I was hired out to
Captain Jim Allen. I had been nursin' for Captain Allen. He sailed on the sea. He was a good man. He was a
Christian man. He never whipped me but once and that was for tellin' a story, and I thank him for it. He landed his
boat right at the landin' on Saturday. Next day he asked me bout somethin' and I told him a story. He said, 'I'm
gwine whip you Monday morning!' He wouldn't whip me on Sunday. He whipped me and I thank him for it. And to
this day the Lindsey's could trust me with anything they had.
"I was in Virginia a play-chile when the ships come down to get the gopher wood to build the war ships. Old mistis
had a son and a daughter and we all played together and slep together. My white folks learned me my A B C's.
"They come and got me and carried me to Richmond - that's where they sold em. Sold five of us in one bunch. Sold
my two brothers in New Orleans - Robert and Jesse. Never seed them no more. Never seed my mother again after I
was sold.
"Yes, chile, I was here in Arkansas when the war started, so you know I been here a long time.
"I was here when they fit the last battle in Pine Bluff. They called it Marmaduke's Battle and they fit it on Sunday
morning. They took the old cotehouse for a battery and throwed up cotton bales for a breastworks. They fit that
Sunday and when the Yankees started firin' the Rebels went back to Texas or wherever they come from.
"When we heard the Yankees was comin' we went out at night and hid the silver spoons and silver in the toilet and
buried the meat. After the war was over and the Yankees had gone home and the jayhawkers had went in - then we
got the silver and the meat. Yes, honey, we seed a time - we seed a time. I ain't grumblin' - I tell em I'm havin' a
wusser time now than I ever had.
"Yankees used to call me a 'know nothin' cause I wouldn't tell where things was hid.
"Yes, chile, I'm this way - I like everbody in this world. I never was a mother, but I raised everbody else's chillun. I
ain't nothin' but a old mammy. White and black calls me mamma. I'll answer at the name.
"I was married twice. My last husband and me lived together fifty years. He was a preacher. My first husband, the
old rascal - he was so mean to me I had to get rid of him.
"Yes, I been here so long. I think the younger generation is goin' the downward way. They ain't studyin' nothin' but
wickedness. Yes, honey, they tell me the future generation is goin' a do this and goin' a do that and they ain't done
nothin'. And God don't like it.
"My white folks comes to see me and say as long as they got bread, I got it.
"I went to school the second year after surrender. I can read but I ain't got no glasses now. I want you to see this
letter my mother sent me in 1867. My baby sister writ it. Yes, honey, I keeps it for remembrance.
"Don't know nothin' funny that happened 'ceptin stealin' my old master's company's hoss and runnin' a race. White
chillun too. Them as couldn't ride sideways ridin' straddle. Better not ride Rob Roy - that was old master's ridin'
hoss and my mistis saddle hoss. That was the hoss he was talkin' bout ridin' to the war when the last battle was fit in
Helena. But he was too old to go to war.
"Well, goodbye, honey - if I don't see you no more, come across the Jordan."
Interviewer Samuel S. Taylor"
