|
|
Journeying on Cudd Street this morning and stopping at the "Old Ladies' Home" (an institution for negroes), the writer found two ex-slaves sitting on the porch passing the time of day with those who passed the house. They both spoke very respectfully and asked me to come in.
One was seated and she asked me to have a seat by her. Her name was Janie Gallman and she said she was 84 years of age. Upon my telling her my name she stated she knew my father and grandfather and had worked for them in days gone by. "If your father or Mr. Floyd was living I wouldn't want for a thing".
She was born in slavery on the plantation of Bill Keenan in Union County. The place was situated between Pacolet River and Fairforest Creek and near where Governor Gist had a plantation. Her mother and father were both owned by Bill Keenan and he was a good master. She never saw any of the slaves get a whipping and never saw any slave in chains. When she, her father, and mother were set free, she said, "My master gave my father a barrel of meal, a cow and a calf and a wagon of corn when he set him free. He gave every one of his slaves the same. He had a big plantation, but I don't know how many acres of land there was, but it was a big place."
She was married three times and her mother had 12 children, but she has never had any.
Her young life was spent in playing with the children of the white overseer. They used to jump rope most of the time. Whenever the overseer left home to spend the night anywhere, his wife would send for her to spend the night with the family. The overseer was "poor white trash". She had plenty to eat in slavery days. Her father and mother had their own garden, and she did her share of eating the vegetables out of the garden. She remembered seeing plenty of wild turkeys as a child, but as for hogs and cattle, she did not remember them running wild. She had heard of conjuring, but she did not know how it was done - never saw anybody who had been conjured - yet she had seen ghosts two or three times. One night she saw a light waving up against a piece of furniture, then come towards her, then flicker about the room, but she wasn't able to see anybody holding the light. She had heard of headless men walking around, yet had never seen any.
A neighbor told her a woman ghost came to her house one night, just sat on the front steps and said nothing, repeated her visits several nights in succession, but said no word as she sat on the front step. One night the neighbor's husband asked the ghost what did she want, why she sat on the steps and said nothing. The ghost then spoke and told him to follow her. He followed her and she led him to the basement of the house and told him to dig in the corner. He did and pretty soon he unearthed a jar of money. The woman ghost told him to take just a certain amount and to give the rest to a certain person. The ghost told the man if he didn't give the money to the person she named, she would come back and tear him apart. He very obediently took the small amount of the money and gave the balance where the ghost directed, and he never saw the woman sitting on his steps any more.
Another time she heard footsteps approaching a certain house in the yard, but she could never see anybody walking, though she could distinctly hear the gravel crunching as the ghost walked along. "God is the only one who can do any conjuring. I don't believe anybody else can."
SOURCE: Aunt Janie Gallman, 391 Cudd St, Spartanburg, S. C. Interviewer: F. S. DuPre, Spartanburg, S. C.
(Project 1885 -1-, Spartanburg, S.C., 31 May 1937, District #4, Edited by: Martha Ritter)
