*Willis Winn claims to be 116 years old. He was born in Louisiana, a
slave of Bob Winn, who Willis says taught him from his youth that his
birthday was March 10, 1822. When he was freed Willis and his father
moved to Hope, Arkansas, where they lived sixteen years. Willis then
moved to Texarkana and from there to Marshall, where he has lived
fourteen years. Willis lives alone in a one-room log house in the rear
of the Howard Vestal home on the Powder Mill Road, north of Marshall,
and is supported by an $11.00 per month old age pension.*
"The onliest statement I can make 'bout my age is my old master, Bob
Winn, allus told me if anyone ask me how old I is to say I's borned on
March the tenth, in 1822. I's knowed my birthday since I's a shirt-tail
boy, but can't figure in my head.
"My pappy was Daniel Winn and he come from Alabama, and I 'member him
allus sayin' he'd like to go back there and get some chestnuts. Mammy
was named Patsy and they was nine of us chillen. The five boys was me
and Willie and Hosea and two Georges, and the gals was Car'lina and Dora
and Anna and Ada, and all us lived to be growed and have chillen.
"Massa Bob's house faced the quarters where he could hear us holler when
he blowed the big horn for us to git up. All the houses was made of logs
and we slept on shuck and grass mattresses what was allus full of
chinches. I still sleep on a grass mattress, 'cause I can't rest on
cotton and feather beds.
"We et yellow bread and greens and black-eyed peas and potlicker and
sopped 'lasses. Us and the white folks all cooked in fireplaces. A big
iron pot hung out in the yard for to bile greens and hog jowl and sich
like. We didn't know nothing 'bout bakin' powder and made our soda from
burnt cobs. That's jes' as good soda as this Arm and Hammer you get in
the store. We et flour bread Sundays, but you daren't git cotch with
flour dough 'cept on that day. Mammy stole lots of it, though. She
rolled it up and put it round her head and covered it with her head-rag.
Wild game was all over the country, buffalo and bears and panthers and
deer and possum and coon. The squirrels 'most run over you in the woods.
We et at a long, wooden trough and it was allus clean and full of plenty
grub. We used buffalo and fish bones for spoons, and some et with they
hands. The grub I liked best was whatever I could git.
Us slaves didn't wear nothing but white lowell cloth. They give us pants
for Sunday what had a black stripe down the leg. The chillen wore wool
clothes in winter, but the big folks wore the same outfit the year
round. They didn't care if you froze.
"I can show you right where I was when the stars fell. Some say they
covered the ground like snow, but nary one ever hit the ground. They
fell in 'bout twelve feet of the ground. The chillen jumped up and tried
to cotch them. I don't 'member how long they fell, but they was shootin'
through the air like sky-rockets fer quite a spell.
"Missy Callie had one gal and two boys and Massa Bob had three
overseers. He didn't have nigger drivers, but had his pets. We called
them pimps, 'cause they was allus tattlin' when we done anything. His
place was jes' as far as you could let your eyes see, 'bout 1,800 or
1,900 acres, and he owned more'n 500 niggers.
"I still got the bugle he woke us with at four in the mornin'. When the
bugle blowed you'd better go to hollerin', so the overseer could hear
you. If he had to call you, it was too bad. The first thing in the
mornin' we'd go to the lot and feed, then to the woodpile till
breakfast. They put our grub in the trough and give us so long to eat.
Massa hollered if we was slow eatin'. 'Swallow that grub now and chaw it
tonight. Better be in that field by daybreak.' We worked from see to
can't.
"I's seed many a nigger whipped on a 'buck and gag' bench. They buckled
'em down hard and fast on a long bench, gagged they mouth with cotton
and when massa got through layin' on that cowhide, the blood was runnin'
off on the ground. Next mornin' after he whip you, he'd come to the
quarters when you git up and say, 'Boy, how is you feelin'? No matter
how sore you is, you'd better jump and kick you heels and show how
lively you is.' Massa hated me to he dying day, 'cause I told missy
'bout him whippin' a gal scandously in the field, 'cause she want to go
to the house to her sick baby. Missy Callie didn't whip us, but she'd
twist our nose and ears nearly off. Them fingers felt like a pair of
pinchers. She stropped on her guns and rode a big bay horse to the
field.
"Massa had a gin and I hauled cotton to Port Caddo, on Caddo Lake. I
druv eight mules and hauled eight bales of cotton. Massa followed me
with two mules and two bales of cotton. I usually had a good start of
him. The patterrollers has cotched me and unhitched my mules and druv
'em off, leavin' me in the middle of the road. They'd start back home,
but when they overtook massa they stopped, 'cause he druv the lead
mules. He fetched 'em back and say, 'Willis, what happen?' He sho'
cussed them patterrollers and said he'll git even yet.
"They was sellin' slaves all the time, puttin' 'em on the block and
sellin' 'em, 'cordin' to how much work they could do in a day and how
strong they was. I's seed lots of 'em in chains like cows and mules. If
a owner have more'n he needed, he hit the road with 'em and sold 'em off
to 'joinin' farms. None of 'em ever run off. They couldn't git away. I's
seed too many try it. If the patterrollers didn't cotch you, some white
folks would put you up and call your massa. They had a 'greement to be
on the watch fer runaway niggers. When the massa git you back home and
git through with you, you'd sho' stay home.
"In slavery time the niggers wasn't 'lowed to look at a book. I larned
to read and write after surrender in the jail at Hot Springs, in
Arkansas.
"They give us cake at Christmas and eggnog and 'silly-bug'. Eggnog is
made from whites of eggs and 'silly-bug' from yallers. You have to churn
the whiskey and yallers to make 'silly-bug'.
"Corn shuckin's was the things them days. I liked to see 'em come. They
cooked up guineas and ducks and chickens and sometimes roast a pig.
Massa kept twenty, thirty barrels whiskey round over the place all the
time, with tin cups hangin' on the barrels. You could drink when you
want to, but sho' better not git drunk. Massa have to watch he corners
when cornshuckin' am over, or us niggers grab him and walk him round in
the air on their hands.
"When some of the white folks died every nigger on the place had to go
to the grave and walk round and drap in some dirt on him. They buried
the niggers anyway. Dig a ditch and cover 'em up. I can show you right
now down in Louisiana where I was raised, forty acres with nothin' but
niggers buried on 'em.
"I 'member lots 'bout the war but can't tell you all, 'cause every war
have its secrets. That war had four salutes, and you'd better give the
right one when you meet the captain. I's heared the niggers sing, 'Gonna
hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree.' My pappy fought in the last
battle, at Mansfield, and so did Massa Bob.
"When the 'Federates come in sight of Mansfield they was carryin' a red
flag, and kept it raised till surrender. When the Yanks come in sight
they raised a white flag and wanted the 'Federates to surrender, but
they wouldn't answer. It wasn't long till the whole world round there
smelt like powder. Guns nowadays jus' goes 'pop-pop', but them guns
sounded like thunder.
"After surrender, massa freed the men and missy freed the women, but he
didn't let us loose when he ought. They wasn't no places 'vided with
niggers as I heared 'bout. Niggers in Louisiana say Queen Elizabeth sent
a boatload of gold to America to give the free men, but we never seed
any of it. Massa give us each a barrel meal, a barrel flour, a side of
meat and ten gallons 'lasses and tell us we can work for who we pleases.
Daddy bought two cows and a horse and eight hawgs and a goat from massa
on credit and we moved and made three crops.
"The Yanks stayed round Louisiana a long time after surrender. They come
to white folks houses what hadn't freed they slaves and busted they meal
and flour barrels and burn they meat and say, 'If we have to face you
'gain, we'll sweep you from the cradle up.'
"I's been cotched by them Ku Kluxers. They didn't hurt me, but have lots
of fun makin' me cut capers. They pulls my clothes off once and make me
run 'bout four hunerd yards and stand on my head in the middle the road.
"They is plenty niggers in Louisiana that is still slaves. A spell back
I made a trip to where I was raised, to see my old missy 'fore she died,
and there was niggers in twelve or fourteen miles of that place that
they didn't know they is free. They is plenty niggers round here what is
same as slaves, and has worked for white folks twenty and twenty-five
years and ain't drawed a five cent piece, jus' old clothes and somethin'
to eat. That's the way we was in slavery.
"Bout four years after surrender pappy say he heared folks say gold was
covering the ground at Hope, Arkansas, so we pulled up and moved there.
We found lots of money where they'd been a big camp, but no gold. We
lived there sixteen years, then I came to Texarkana and worked twelve
years for G.W. George Fawcett's sawmill. I never married till I was old,
in Little Washington, Arkansas, and lived with my wife thirty-six years
'fore she died. We raised eighteen chillen to be growed and nary one of
'em was ever arrested.
[Illustration: _Willis Winn_]
"I was allus wild and played for dances, but my wife was 'ligious and
after I married I quieted down. When I jined the church, I burned my
fiddle up. I allus made a livin' from public road work since I left
Texarkana, till I got no count for work. The only time I voted was in
Hope, and I voted the 'publican ticket and all my folks got mad.
"If it wasn't for the good white folks, I'd starved to death. 'Fore I
come here to the Vestals, I was livin' in a shack on the T. & P. tracks
and I couldn't pay no rent. I was sick and the woman made me git out.
Master Vestal found me down by the tracks, eatin' red clay. I'd lived
for three days on six tomatoes. I et two a day. Master Vestal went home
and his wife cooked a big pot of stew, with meat and potatoes, and
fetched it to me. Then they built a house down behind their back yard
and I's lived with 'em ever since.
"I allus say the cullud race started off wrong when they was freed and
is still wrong today. They had a shot to be well off, but they can't
keep money. You give one a bank of money and he'll be busted tomorrow. I
tells young niggers every day they ought to come down where they'll have
some sense. I serves the Lord at home and don't meddle with 'em."