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Hazan, Arkansas
Age 60
"I was born in Trenton, Tennessee. My parents had five children. They were named William and Coarlotte Wells.
My father ran away and left my mother with all the children to raise. By birth mother was a Mississippian. She had
been a nurse and my father was a timber man and farmer. My mother said she had her hardest time raising her little
children. She was taken from her parents when a small girl and put on a block and sold. She never said if her
owners was bad to her, but she said they was rough on Uncle Peter. He would fight. She said they would tie Uncle
Peter and whoop him with a strap. From what she said there was a gang of slaves on Mr. Wade's place. He owned
her. I never heard her mention freedom but she said they had a big farm bell on a tall post in the back yard and they
had a horn to blow. It was a whistle made of a cow's horn.
"She said they was all afraid of the Ku Klux. They would ride across the field and they could see thut they was
around, but they never come up close to them."
STATE--- Arkansas
NAME OF WORKER--- Bernice Bowden
ADERESS--- 1006 Oak Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
DATE--- November 3, 1938
1. Name and address of informant---Moses Mitchell, 117 Worthen Street
2. Date and time of interview---November 1, 1938, 1:00 p.m.
3. Place of interview---117 Worthen Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
4. Kase and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant---Berrice Wilburn, 101 Miller Street,
Pine Bluff, Arkansas
5. Same and address of person, if any, accompanying you---Hone
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.--- A frame house (rented), bare floors, no window shades; a bed
and some boxes and three straight chairs. In an adjoining rocm were another bed, heating stove, two trunks, one
streight chair, one rocking chair. A third room, the kitchen, contained cookstove and table and chairs.
"I was born down here on White River near Arkansas Post, August, 1849. I belonged to Thomas Mitchel and when
they (Yankees) took Arkansas Post, our carers gathered us up and my young master took us to Texas and he sold me
to an Irishman named John McInish in Marshall for $1500. $500 in gold and the rest in Confederate money. They
called it the new issue.
"I was twelve years old then and I stayed in Texas till I was fortyeight. I was at Tyler, Texas when they fread us.
When they took us to Texas they left my nother and baby sister here in Arkansas, down here on Oak Log Bayon. I
never saw her again and when I came back here to Arkansas, they said she had been dead twenty-eight years. Never
did hear of my father again.
"I'm supposed to be part Creek Indian. Don't know how much. We have one son, a farmer, lives across the river.
Married this wife in 1875.
"My wife and I left Texas forty-one years ago and came back here to Arkansas and stayed till 1922. Then we went
to Chicago and stayed till 1930, and then came back here. I'd like to go back up there, but I guess I'm gettin' too old.
While I was there I preached and I worked all the time. I worked on the streets and the driveways in Lincoln Park. I
was in the brick and block department. Then I went from there to the asphalt department. There's where I coined the
money. Made $6.60 in the brick and block and $7.20 a day in the asphalt. Down here they don't know no more
about asphalt than a pig does about a holiday.A man that's from the South and never been nowhere, don't know
nothin', a woman either.
"Yes ma'm, I'm a preacher. Just a local preacher, wasn't ordained. The reason for that was, in Texas a man over
forty-five couldn't join the traveling connection. I was licensed, but of course I couldn't perform marriage
ceremonies. I was just within one step of that.
"I went to school two days in my life. I was privileged to go to the first free school in Texas. Had a teacher named
Goldman. Don't know what year that was but they found out me and another fellow was too old so they wouldn't let
us go no more. But I caught my alphabet in then two days. So I just caught what education I've got, here and there. I
can read well---best on my Bible and Testament and I read the newspapers. I can sorta scribble my name.
"I've been a farmer most of my life and a preacher for fifty-five years. I can repair shoes and use to do common
carpenter work. I can help build a house. I only preach occasionally now, here and there. I belong to the Allen
Temple in Boboken (East Pine Bluff).
"I think the young generation is gone to naught. They're a differant cut to what they was in my comin' up."
This man and his wife live in the outskirts of West Pine Bluff. They receive a small sum of money and commodities
from the County Welfare Departzent. He has a very pleasant personality, a good memory and intelligence above the
ordinary. Beads the Daily Graphie and Arkansas Gasette. Age 89. He said, "Here's the idea, freedom is worth it all."
STATE---Arkansas
NAME OF WORKER--- Bernice Bowden
ADDRESS---1006 Oak Street
DATE---November 3, 1938
NAME AND ADDRESS OF INFORMANT--- Moses Mitchell, 117 Worthen Street, Pine Bluff
1. Ancestry---Father, Lewis Mitchell; Mother, Rhoda Mitchall
2. Place and date of birth---Oak Log Bayou, White River, near Arkansas Post, Ark.
3. Family---Wife and one grown son.
4. Places lived in, with dates---Taken to Texas by his young master and sold in Marshall during the war. Lived in
Tyler, Texas until forty-eight years of age; came back to Arkansas in 1897 and stayed until 1922; went to Chicago
and lived until 1930; back to Jefferson County, Arkansas.
5. Education, with dates---Two days after twenty-one years of age. Mo date.
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates---Farmer, preacher, common carpenter, cobbler, public work on
streets in Chicago. Farmed and preached until he went to Chicago in 1922. The he worked in the maintenance
department of city streets of Chicago and of Lincoln Park, Chicago.
7. Special skills and interests---Asphalt worker
8. Community and religious activities---Licensed Mathodist Preacher. Mo assignment now.
9. Description of informant---Five feet eight inches tall; weight, 165 pounds, nearly bald. Very prominent cheek
bones. Keen intelligence. Meatly dressed.
10. Other points gained in interview---Reads daily papers; knowledge of world affairs.
(Pine Bluff District)
Name of Intcrviewer Martin - Barker
Subject Negro Customs
Story I was born on the Walker place, in 1869. My father was a slave to Mr. Bob. I used to drive Miss Lelia
(Eulalie) to the Catholic church here in Pine Bluff. She used to let me go barefooted, and bare headed.
Miss Lelia was the daughter of Col. Creed Taylor. All during slavery time I drove her gins. We had eight mules.
Eight at a time hitched to each lever, they would weave in an out but they was so hitched that they never got in any
body's way. They just walked around and round like they did in those days.
We had herds of sheep, we sheared them and wove yarn for socks. We raised wheat, when it was ripe we laid a
canvas cloth on the ground and put wheat on it, then men and women on horse back rode over it, and thrashed it that
way. They called it treading it. Then we took it to the mill and ground it and made it into flour. For breakfast, (we
ate awful soon in the morning), about 4 AM, then we packed lunch in tin buckets and eat again at daylight. Fat
meat, cornbread and molasses. Some would have turnip greens for breakfast.
Summertime, Miss Lelia would plant plenty of fruit, and we would have fried apples, stewed peaches and things.
Sunday mornings we would have biscuit, butter, molasses, chicken, etc.
For our work they paid us seventy-five cents a day and when come cotton picking time old rule, seventy five cents
for pickin cotton. Christmas time, plenty of fireworks, plenty to eat, drink and everything. We would dance all
Christmas.
All kind of game was plentiful, plenty of coon, possum, used up everything that grew in the woods. Plenty of corn,
we took it to the grist mill every Saturday.
Ark. riv. boats passed the Walker place, and dey was a landing right at dere place, and one at the Wright place, that
is where the airport is now.
All de white folks had plenty of cattle den and in de winter time dey was all turned in on the fields and with what us
niggers had, that made a good many, and you know yorself dat was good for de ground.
Mother was a slave on the Merriwenther place, her marster was Hick Merriweather. My granma was Gusta
Merriweather, my mother Lavina and lived on the Merriweather place in what was then Dorsey county, near
Edinburg, now Cleveland co.
My grandfather was Louis Barnett, owned by Nick Barnett of Cleveland co., then Dorsey co. Fathers people was
owned by Marse Bob Walker. Miss Lelia (Eulalie) was mistis. Miss Maggie Benton was young mistis.
I dont believe in ghosts or spirits.
Information by Ben Moon
Place of residence
Interviewer Mrs. Bernice Bowden"
