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720 Pulaski Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age About 80 Occupation Formerly house and field work
"I was born and raised in Mer Rouge, Louisiana. That is between here and Honroe. I have been here in Little Rook
more than twenty-five years.
"My mother's name was Sarah Mitchell. That was her married name. I don't know what her father's name was. My
father's name was Willis Clapp. He was killed in the first war---the Civil War. My father went to the war from Her
Rouge, Louisiana. I don't remember him at all. But that is what my mother told me about him. My mother said he
had very good people. After he married my mother, old man Offord bought him. Offord's name was Warren Offord.
They buried him while I was still there in Mer Rouge. He was a old-time Mason. That was my mother's master---in
olden days.
"His grandmother took my mother across the seas with her. She (his grandmother) died on shipboard, and they
throwed her body into the water. There's people denies it, but my mother told me it was so. Young Davenport is still
living. He is a relative of Offords. My mother never did get no pension for my father.
"I was born in a log house. There were two doors---a front and a back---and there were two windows. My mother
had no furniture 'cept an old-time wooden bed---big bed. She was a nurse all the time in the house. I heard her say
she milked and waited on then in the house. My father's occupation was farming during slavery times.
"My mother always said she didn't have no master to beat on her. I like to tell the truth. My mother's master never
1st no overseer beat his slaves around. She didn't say just what we had to eat. But they always give us a plenty, and
there wasn't none of us mistreated.
"My father could have an extra patch and make a bale of cotton or whatever he wanted to on it. That was so that he
could make a little money to buy things for hisself and his family. And if he raised a bale of cotton on his patch and
wanted to sell it to the agent, that was all right.
"I have a brother named Manuel Clayton. If he's living still, he is younger than I am. He is the baby boy. I doesn't
remember his father at all. I had five sisters with myself and two brothers. All of them were older than me except
Manuel. My mother had one brother and two sisters. Her brother's name was Lin Urbin. We always called him Big
Boddy. He hasn't been so long died. My older brother is named Willis Clayton---if he's still living. Willis has a half
dozen sons. He is my oldest brother. He lives way out in the country 'round Mar Rouge.
"My mother said they pronised to them money when they were freed. Some of them gave them something, and
some of them didn't. My mother's folks didn't give her nothin'. The Government didn't give her nothin' either. I don't
know just who told her she was free nor how. I don't remember myself.
"I never heard much about pateroles. My mother said they used to whip you if they would catch you out without a
pass. I heard her talk about the Ku Klux after freedom.
"My nother could always go to church on Sunday. Her slave-time preacher was Tom Johnson. Henry Scates and
Watt Taylor were slavery-time preachers too. Old man Jacob Anderson too was a great preacher in slave time.
There was a big arbor where they held church. That was outdoors. There was just a wood frame and green leaves
laid over it. Hundreds of people sat under there and heard the Gospel preached. The Offords didn't care how much
you worshipped. If I was with them, I wouldn't have no trouble.
"In the winter time they had a small place to meet in. They built a church after the war. When I went home, eight or
nine years ago, I walked all 'round and looked at all the old places.
"You know my remembrance comes and goes. I ain't had no good remembrance since I been sick. I been mighty
sick with high blood pressure. I can't work and I can't even go out. I'm 'fraid I'll fall down and get myself hurt or run
over.
"I don't get no help 'cept what my daughter gives me. I can't get no Old Age Pension. I never did get nothin' for my
father. My mother didn't either. He was killed in the war, but they didn't give nobody nothin' for his death. They told
me they'd give me something and then they told me they rouldn't. I'm dependent on what my daughter does for me.
If I was back in Mer Rouge, I wouldn't have no trouble gettin' a pension, nor nothin' else.
"My mother said they just read 'em together, slavery times. I think she said that the preacher married them on the
Offord plantation. They didn't get no license.
"They had quiltings and corn shuckings. I don't know what other amusements they had, but I know everything was
pleasant on the Offord plantation.
"If slaves went out without a pass, my mother said her master wouldn't allow them to beat on them when they come
in. They had plenty to eat, and they had substantial clothes, and they had a good fire.
"I don't know how old I am. I was born before the war. My father went to the war when it begun. I had another
brother that was born before the war. He don't remember nothin' about my father. I don't neither. I was too young."
Allowing for a year's difference between the two youngest children, and allowing that the boy was born
immediately before the War, the girl could not be younger than seventy-eight. She could be older. She states all
facts as through her mother, but she seems to have experienced some of the things she relates. Her memory is
fading. Failure to get pension or old age assistance oppresses her mind. She comes back to it again and again. She
carries her card and her commodity order with her in her pocketbook.
She had asked me to write some letters for her when her daughter interfered and said that she didn't want it done.
She said that she had told the case worker that her husband worked at the Missouri Paeifie Shop and that the case
worker had asked her if she wouldn't provide for her mother. They live in a neat rented house. The mother weighs
about a hundred and ten pounds and is tall. The daughter is about the same height but weighs about two hundred
and fifty. Time and again, the old lady tried to convey to me a message that she didn't want her daughter to hear, but
I could not make it out. The daughter was belligerent, as is sometimes the case, and it was only by walking in the
very middle of the straight and narrow path that I managed to get my story.
Interviewer Samuel S. Taylor"
