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Humphrey, Arkansas
Age 97
In the west edge of Humphrey In a small house beneath huge old trees lives an aged Negro woman with her boy (61
years old) and his wife. This woman is Margret Hulm who says she was born March 5, 1840 in Hardeman County,
Tennessee. When asked if she remembered anything about the war and slavery days she said:
"Oh yas mam. I was 24 years old when the slaves were set free. My folks belonged to Master Jimmie Pruitt, who
owned lots of other slaves. When they told him his niggers were free, he let them go or let them stay on with him
and he'd give them a place to live and some of the crops. I guess that's what folks call a share crop now. I was what
folks called a house girl. I didn't work in the field like some of the other slaves. I waited on my mistress and her
chillun, answered the door, waited on de table and done things like that. I remember Mr. Lincoln. He came one day
to our house (I mean my white folks' house). They told me to answer the door and when I opened it there stood a
big man with a gray blanket around him for a cape. He had a string tied around his neck to hold it on. A part of it
was turned down over the string like a ghost cape. How was he dressed beneath the blanket? Well, he had on jeans
pants and big mud boots and a big black hat kinda like men wear now. He stayed all night.
We treated him nice like we did everybody when they come to our house. We heard after he was gone that he was
Abraham Lincoln and he was a spy. That was before the war. Oh, yes, I remember lots about the war. I remember
dark days what we called the black days. It would be so dark you couldn't see the sun even. That was from the
smoke from the fighting. You could just hear the big guns going b-o-o-m, boom, all day. Yes, I do remember seeing
the Yankees. I saw 'em running fast one day past our house going back away from the fighting place. And once they
hung our master. They told him they wanted his money. He said he didn't have but one dollar. They said 'we know
better than that.' Then they took a big rope off of one de Yankee's saddle and took de master down in de horse lot
and hung him to a big tree. The rope must a been old, for it broke. Our master was a big man though. Then they
hung him again. He told 'em he didn't have but one dollar and they let him down and said 'Well, old man, maybe
you haven't got any more money.' So they let him go when the mistress and her little chillun come down there. He
didn't have but one dollar in his pockets but had lots buried about the place in two or three places."
While Margret was giving this information she was busily sewing together what looked like little square pads.
When examined they proved to be tobacco sacks stuffed with cotton and then sewed together which would make a
quilt already quilted when she got enough of them sewed together to cover a bed.
Interviewer S. S. Taylor"
