N. C. District: No. 2 [320184]
Worker: T. Pat Matthews
No. Words: 655
Subject: MARGARET E. DICKENS
Story Teller: Margaret E. Dickens
Editor: Daisy Bailey Waitt
[TR: Date Stamp "JUN 11 1937"]
MARGARET E. DICKENS
1115 E. Lenoir St.
My name is Margaret E. Dickens and I was born on the 5th of June 1861.
My mother wuz free born; her name wuz Mary Ann Hews, but my mother wuz
colored. I don't remember anything about Marster and Missus. My father
was named Henry Byrd. Here is some of father's writing. My mother's
father was dark. He had no protection. If he did any work for a white
man and the white man didn't like it, he could take him up and whup him.
My father was like a stray dog.
My name was Margaret E. Byrd before I got married. Here is some of
father's writing--"Margaret Elvira Byrd the daughter of Henry and Mary
Ann Byrd was born on the 5th June 1861." My grandfather, my mother's
father was a cabinet maker. He made coffins and tables and furniture. If
he made one, and it didn't suit the man he would beat him and kick him
around and let him go. Dis was told to me. My father was a carpenter. He
built houses.
I can read and write. My father could read and write. My mother could
read, but couldn't write very much.
I have heerd my mother say when she heerd the Yankees were commin' she
had a brand new counterpane, my father owned a place before he married
my mother, the counterpane was a woolen woven counterpane. She took it
off and hid it. The Yankees took anything they wanted, but failed to
find it. We were living in Raleigh, at the time, on the very premises we
are living on now. The old house has been torn down, but some of the
wood is in this very house. I kin show you part of the old house now. My
mother used to pass this place when she wuz a girl and she told me she
never expected to live here. She was twenty years younger than my
father. My mother, she lived here most of the time except twenty-four
years she lived in the North. She died in 1916. My father bought the
lan' in 1848 from a man named Henry Morgan. Here is the deed.[6]
When we left Raleigh, and went North we first stopped in Cambridge,
Mass. This was with my first husband. His name was Samuel E. Reynolds.
He was a preacher. He had a church and preached there. The East winds
were so strong and cold we couldn't stan' it. It was too cold for us. We
then went to Providence, R. I. From there to Elmira, N. Y. From there we
went to Brooklyn, N. Y. He preached in the State of New York; we finally
came back South, and he died right here in this house. I like the North
very well, but there is nothing like home, the South. Another thing I
don't have so many white kin folks up North. I don't like to be called
Auntie by anyone, unless they admit bein' kin to me. I was not a fool
when I went to the North, and it made no change in me. I was raised to
respect everybody and I tries to keep it up. Some things in the North
are all right, I like them, but I like the South better. Yes, I guess I
like the South better. I was married to Charles W. Dickens in 1920. He
is my second husband.
I inherited this place from my father Henry Byrd. I like well water.
There is my well, right out here in the yard. This well was dug here
when they were building the first house here. I believe in havin' your
own home, so I have held on to my home, and I am goin' to try to keep
holdin' on to it.
[Footnote 6: An interesting feature of the deed is the fact that
Henry Morgan made his mark while Henry Byrd's signature
is his own.]
N. C. District: No. 2 [320156]
Worker: T. Pat Matthews
No. Words: 1369
Subject: REV. SQUIRE DOWD
Story Teller: Rev. Squire Dowd
Editor: Daisy Bailey Waitt
[HW: Minister--Interesting]
[TR: Date Stamp "JUN 1 1937"]
[HW: language not negro, very senternous & interesting.]
[TR: The above comment is crossed out.]
REVEREND SQUIRE DOWD
202 Battle Street
Raleigh, N. C.
My name is Squire Dowd, and I was born April 3, 1855. My mother's name
was Jennie Dowd. My father's name was Elias Kennedy. My mother died in
Georgia at the age of 70, and my father died in Moore County at the age
of 82. I attended his funeral. My sister and her husband had carried my
mother to Georgia, when my sister's husband went there to work in
turpentine. My mother's husband was dead. She had married a man named
Stewart. You could hardly keep up with your father during slavery time.
It was a hard thing to do. There were few legal marriages. When a young
man from one plantation courted a young girl on the plantation, the
master married them, sometimes hardly knowing what he was saying.
My master was General W. D. Dowd. He lived three miles from Carthage, in
Moore County, North Carolina. He owned fifty slaves. The conditions were
good. I had only ten years' experience, but it was a good experience. No
man is fool enough to buy slaves to kill. I have never known a real
slave owner to abuse his slaves. The abuse was done by patterollers and
overseers.
I have a conservative view of slavery. I taught school for four years
and I have been in the ministry fifty years. I was ordained a Christian
minister in 1885. I lived in Moore County until 1889, then I moved to
Raleigh. I have feeling. I don't like for people to have a feeling that
slaves are no more than dogs; I don't like that. It causes people to
have the wrong idea of slavery. Here is John Bectom, a well, healthy
friend of mine, 75 years of age. If we had been treated as some folks
say, these big, healthy niggers would not be walking about in the South
now. The great Negro leaders we have now would never have come out of
it.
The places we lived in were called cabins. The Negroes who were thrifty
had nice well-kept homes; and it is thus now. The thrifty of the colored
race live well; the others who are indolent live in hovels which smell
foul and are filthy.
Prayer meetings were held at night in the cabins of the slaves. On
Sunday we went to the white folk's church. We sat in a barred-off place,
in the back of the church or in a gallery.
We had a big time at cornshuckings. We had plenty of good things to
eat, and plenty of whiskey and brandy to drink. These shuckings were
held at night. We had a good time, and I never saw a fight at a
cornshucking in life. If we could catch the master after the shucking
was over, we put him in a chair, we darkies, and toted him around and
hollered, carried him into the parlor, set him down, and combed his
hair. We only called the old master "master". We called his wife
"missus." When the white children grew up we called them Mars. John,
Miss Mary, etc.
We had some money. We made baskets. On moonlight nights and holidays we
cleared land; the master gave us what we made on the land. We had
money.
The darkies also stole for deserters during the war. They paid us for
it. I ate what I stole, such as sugar. I was not big enough to steal for
the deserters. I was a house boy. I stole honey. I did not know I was
free until five years after the war. I could not realize I was free.
Many of us stayed right on. If we had not been ruined right after the
war by carpetbaggers our race would have been, well,--better up by this
time, because they turned us against our masters, when our masters had
everything and we had nothing. The Freedmen's Bureau helped us some, but
we finally had to go back to the plantation in order to live.
We got election days, Christmas, New Year, etc., as holidays. When we
were slaves we had a week or more Christmas. The holidays lasted from
Christmas Eve to after New Years. Sometimes we got passes. If our
master would not give them to us, the white boys we played with would
give us one. We played cat, jumping, wrestling and marbles. We played
for fun; we did not play for money. There were 500 acres on the
plantation. We hunted a lot, and the fur of the animals we caught we
sold and had the money. We were allowed to raise a few chickens and
pigs, which we sold if we wanted to.
The white folks rode to church and the darkies walked, as many of the
poor white folks did. We looked upon the poor white folks as our equals.
They mixed with us and helped us to envy our masters. They looked upon
our masters as we did.
Negro women having children by the masters was common. My relatives on
my mother's side, who were Kellys are mixed blooded. They are partly
white. We, the darkies and many of the whites hate that a situation like
this exists. It is enough to say that seeing is believing. There were
many and are now mixed blooded people among the race.
I was well clothed. Our clothes were made in looms. Shoes were made on
the plantation. Distilleries were also located on the plantation. When
they told me I was free, I did not notice it. I did not realize it till
many years after when a man made a speech at Carthage, telling us we
were free.
I did not like the Yankees. We were afraid of them. We had to be
educated to love the Yankees, and to know that they freed us and were
our friends. I feel that Abraham Lincoln was a father to us. We consider
him thus because he freed us. The Freedmen's Bureau and carpet baggers
caused us to envy our masters and the white folks. The Ku Klux Klan,
when we pushed our rights, came in between us, and we did not know what
to do. The Ku Klux were after the carpet baggers and the Negroes who
followed them.
It was understood that white people were not to teach Negroes during
slavery, but many of the whites taught the Negroes. The children of the
white folks made us study. I could read and write when the war was up.
They made me study books, generally a blue-back spelling book as
punishment for mean things I done. My Missus, a young lady about 16
years old taught a Sunday School class of colored boys and girls. This
Sunday School was held at a different time of day from the white folks.
Sometimes old men and old women were in these classes. I remember once
they asked Uncle Ben Pearson who was meekest man, 'Moses' he replied.
'Who was the wisest man?' 'Soloman', 'Who was the strongest man?' was
then asked him. To this he said 'They say Bill Medlin is the strongest,
but Tom Shaw give him his hands full.' They were men of the community.
Medlin was white, Shaw was colored.
I do not like the way they have messed up our songs with classical
music. I like the songs, 'Roll Jordan Roll', 'Old Ship of Zion', 'Swing
Low Sweet Chariot'. Classical singers ruin them, though.
There was no use of our going to town of Saturday afternoon to buy our
rations, so we worked Saturday afternoons. When we got sick the doctors
treated us. Dr. J. D. Shaw, Dr. Bruce, and Dr. Turner. They were the
first doctors I ever heard any tell of. They treated both whites and
darkies on my master's plantation.
I married a Matthews, Anna Matthews, August 1881. We have one daughter.
Her name is Ella. She married George Cheatam of Henderson, N. C. A
magistrate married us, Mr. Pitt Cameron. It was just a quiet wedding on
Saturday night with about one-half dozen of my friends present.
My idea of life is to forget the bad and live for the good there is in
it. This is my motto.