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Florence Lee, who is at present making her home in the Mary Scott Home for the Aged (colored). She is originally from Lincoln County, Ky., as near as she can remember her birthday is on May 10, but she does not remember the year and has no idea of her age. Her mother's name was Julia McMicken. During the slave days, she did housework, no hard work, received no money in payment but was not treated as a slave, had plenty to eat, food seemingly the same as the average person has at the present time, plenty of smoked meat and some fresh meat, vegetables and cooked about as we are used to cooking. They had plenty of possums, fish and rabbits in addition to their other meat. One thing she remembers particularly is dried corn. She remembers they cooked the corn partly, then dried it in the sun and packed it away for winter. Sauer Kraut was another popular food. Her family had a private garden, which her father tended only on Saturdays.
They wore cotton dresses, gingham as it is now known, shoes and stockings always. Her stockings were hand knit in fine yarn and in most cases were striped. These were for summer wear and in winter they used what they called plaid linsey-woolsey. They never wore heavy shoes and had no particular Sunday clothes.
Florence Lee's master's name was Old Squire Reed and his wife was called Miss Jensie and their six children the boys, John, Jim and Will, and the girls, Sally, Mandy and Liza. Her parents lived in a two-story house built of logs, weather boarded on the outside with a low celler and stairs from the kitchen to the upper floor. They had some neighbors which were considered poor folks, mostly Irish, living in shanties and mostly worked on the roads. The plantation was a big one, has no idea as to its acreage, had plenty of slaves, she does not know how many. Does not know the exact hours of labor on the plantation, but from quite early until quite late. When slaves couldn't be handled and do their work properly, she remembers they were sold "down the river", had no jail on the plantation, had no chains on the plantation and no as she remembers, but she had heard of slaves being chained in other parts. She never saw an auction sale of slaves and remembers nothing of that sort even from heresay. She remembers that in Harrisburg, Ky., in later years after being free that colored women were worked on the streets of Harrisburg, Ky. Does not remember if it was chain gang, but evidently they were serving time of some sort for some misdemeanor. The white women of the city soon put a stop to this. She went to school when she was a child, also to Sunday School regularly. The town they were in boasted three churches, the Methodist, the Christian and the Baptist. She remembers the name of one preacher, which was Kay Smothers. They baptized in the creek and at times broke ice to do it. As she remembers, any of the slaves on the plantation who wished to visit relatives or friends on another plantation must come to the Big Boss and get a pass before leaving the plantation. They had doctors only in the greatest emergency and were always well dosed with pennyroyal, catnip, elderbroom tea was used for babies and the only charms or things of that sort she remembers was a little bag of asafetida, which was supposed to ward off children's diseases. Their father was in the army at Camp Nelson and their mother had two other younger children than herself and at the time they were freed the master simply called them all together and said they were free and agreed to hire her mother if she cared to stay. However, she did not wish to do so, as she had the promise of a position on another plantation cooking for the family where she could take her two younger children with her and received $3.00 per week, which was more than her former master could offer.
Henrietta McCarthy, also from Mary Scott Home, was raised in Bargeton County, Ky., and has practically the same story as above, except for the fact that she did nothing but take care of babies. Her treatment was fine and they lived and ate in the
"Big House" and were nicely treated by the entire family. Knows nothing of any mistreatment of slaves. Heard in some cases of runaways and things of that sort, but knew nothing except from heresay. One of the ladies, however, stated that there was a certain line a short distance from the plantation on which she lived. This line evidently was an imaginary one, probably a plantation boundry or something of the sort and seemingly when a slave ran away and got over that line they were hunted, but at times after a slave had run away, word was passed out by the master that they would see this party or that had given him the word that he had been sold and to go such and such a place instead of returning to his former home.
