*Rube Witt, 87, was a slave of Jess Witt of Harrison County, Texas. He
enlisted in the Confederate Army at Alexandria, La., and was sent to
Mansfield, but his regiment arrived after the victory of the North. He
worked for his master for a year after the war, then moved to Marshall
and worked for Edmund Key, Sr., pioneer banker and civic leader. Rube
cooked for eighteen years at the old Capitol Hotel in Marshall, and took
up preaching as a side line. He and his wife live at 707 E. Crockett
St., in Marshall. They receive a $15.00 pension.*
"I was born on the Jess Witt place, right here in Harrison County, on
the tenth day of August, in 1850, and allus lived in and round Marshall.
My father and mother, Daniel and Jane, was bred and born in Texas, and
belonged to the Witts. I had five brothers, named Charlie and Joe and
George and Bill and Jim, and six sisters, named Mary and Susan and Betsy
and Anna and Effie and Lucinda. They all lived to be growed but I'm the
onliest chile still livin'.
"Master Witt had a big place, I don't recall how many acres. He didn't
have so many slaves. Slavery was a tight fight. We lived in li'l cabins
and slept on rough plank beds and et bacon and peas and pa'ched corn. We
didn't hardly know what flour bread was. Master give us one outfit of
clothes to a time and sometimes shoes. We worked all day in the fields,
come in and fed the stock and did the chores and et what li'l grub it
took to do us and went to bed. You'd better not go nowhere without a
pass, 'cause them patterrollers was rolling round every bush.
"My missus was named Kate and had two chillen. The Witts had a good set
of niggers and didn't have to whip much. Sometimes he give us a light
brushin' for piddlin' round at work. I seed plenty niggers whipped on
ole man Ruff Perry and Pratt Hughes places, though. They was death on
'em. Lawyer Marshall used to whip his niggers goin' and comin' every day
that come round.
"I 'members white folks sayin' war was startin' 'bout keepin' slaves and
then I seed 'em mendin' the harness and wagons to go and fight. I was
the houseboy for the Witts durin' the war and 'bout time it was over I
enlisted at Alexandria as a soldier and they sent me to Mansfield. The
Yanks had done won the victory when our reg'ment got there. They turned
us loose to git home the best we could. I come back to the Witts and
master calls up all the slaves and says we was free, but if we stayed
and worked for him we'd have plenty to eat and wear, and if we left,
it'd be root, hawg or die. Most of 'em left but I stayed a year. You'd
ought to seed 'em pullin' off them croaker-sack clothes when master says
we's free.
"I come to Marshall with my mother and the whole state was under United
States law. The 8th Regiment of Illinois was at Marshall for two years
after the war, and no man, black, white or red or what is you, darsn't
git cotched after dark without a pass. When they'd stop you, if you
couldn't give the U.S. sign, 'Grant's Friend,' they'd shoot the devil
out of you. You didn't pass 'less you knowed the sign.
"The Confederates had a big gun powder mill on Mill's Creek, two and a
half miles north of Marshall and it stayed operatin' two or three years.
But Gen. Atichon and Capt. Bishop and Lt. Rives and a bunch of Yanks
tried to capture it and the Confederates blowed it up.
"When I was 'bout sixteen my mother hires me out to a Mr. Acorns, who
was refugeed from Georgia to Marshall. Ole man Acorns was a mile of hell
anywhere you met him and he nearly beat me to death and I run away. His
son and him and 'nother man starts after me and I has to light a shuck.
We sho' had some race down that hill over where the new water tower is
in Sunny South, but they didn't cotch me. The white folks round here
didn't 'lieve us niggers was free then.
[Illustration: _Rube Witt_]
"Then I goes to work for Mr. Edmond Key, Sr., and stays with him till
I'm growed. I used to help chase rabbits where the court house is now. I
recalls the Buzzard Roost Hotel and some stores was on that square then.
"I cooks for the old Capitol Hotel eighteen years, then I quit and tries
railroadin', but it didn't take long to decide to go back to the cook
apron. I allus made a livin' from cookin' and preachin', and I've
preached forty-five years. The only times I voted was for high sheriff
once and for President Garfield and President Grant.
"I marries in 1915 and my wife is still with me. I'm too stove up with
rhumatis' now to work and her and me gits $15.00 a month from the
government."