EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM MR. WILLIAM SCOTT, a highly respectable
citizen of Beaver co. Pennsylvania, dated Jan 7, 1839.
_Chippeca Township, Beaver co. Pa. Jan._ 7, 1839.
"I send you the statement of Mr. Eleazar Powell, who was born, and has
mostly resided in this township from his birth. His character for
sobriety and truth stands above impeachment.
"With sentiments of esteem,
I am your friend,
WILLIAM SCOTT.
"In the month of December, 1836, I went to the State of Mississippi to
work at my trade, (masonry and bricklaying,) and continued to work in
the counties of Adams and Jefferson, between four and five months. In
following my business I had an opportunity of seeing the treatment of
slaves in several places.
"In Adams county I built a chimney for a man named Joseph Gwatney; he
had forty-five field hands of both sexes. The field in which they
worked at that time, lay about two miles from the house; the hands had
to cook and eat their breakfast, prepare their dinner, and be in the
field at daylight, and continue there till dark. In the evening the
cotton they had picked was weighed, and if they fell short of their
task they were whipped. One night I attended the weighing--two women
fell short of their task, and the master ordered the black driver to
take them to the quarters and flog them; one of them was to receive
twenty-five lashes and pick a peck of cotton seed. I have been with
the overseer several times through the negro quarters. The huts are
generally built of split timber, some larger than rails, twelve and a
half feet wide and fourteen feet long--some with and some without
chimneys, and generally without floors; they were generally without
daubing, and mostly had split clapboards nailed on the cracks on the
outside, though some were without even that: in some there was a kind
of rough bedstead, made from rails, polished with the axe, and put
together in a very rough manner, the bottom covered with clapboards,
and over that a bundle of worn out clothes. In some huts there was no
bedstead at all. The above description applies to the places generally
with which I was acquainted, and they were mostly _old settlements._
"In the east part of Jefferson county I built a chimney for a man
named ---- M'Coy; he had forty-seven laboring hands. Near where I was
at work, M'Coy had ordered one of his slaves to set a post for a gate.
When he came to look at it, he said the slave had not set it in the
right place; and ordered him to strip, and lie down on his face;
telling him that if he struggled, or attempted to get up, two men, who
had been called to the spot, should seize and hold him fast. The slave
agreed to be quiet, and M'Coy commenced flogging him on the bare back,
with the wagon whip. After some time the sufferer attempted to get up;
one of the slaves standing by, seized him by the feet and held him
fast; upon which he yielded, and M'Coy continued to flog him ten or
fifteen minutes. When he was up, and had put on his trowsers, the
blood came through them.
"About half a mile from M'Coy's was a plantation owned by his
step-daughter. The overseer's name was James Farr, of whom it appears
Mrs. M'Coy's waiting woman was enamoured. One night, while I lived
there, M'Coy came from Natchez, about 10 o'clock at night. He said
that Dinah was gone, and wished his overseer to go with him to Farr's
lodgings. They went accordingly, one to each door, and caught Dinah as
she ran out, she was partly dressed in her mistress's clothes; M'Coy
whipped her unmercifully, and she afterwards made her escape. On the
next day, (Sabbath), M'Coy came to the overseer's, where I lodged, and
requested him and me to look for her, as he was afraid that she had
hanged herself. He then gave me the particulars of the flogging. He
stated that near Farr's he had made her strip and lie down, and had
flogged her until he was tired; that before he reached home he had a
second time made her strip, and again flogged her until he was tired;
that when he reached home he had tied her to a peach-tree, and after
getting a drink had flogged her until he was thirsty again; and while
he went to get a drink the woman made her escape. He stated that he
knew, from the whipping he had given her, there must be in her back
cuts an inch deep. He showed the place where she had been tied to the
tree; there appeared to be as much blood as if a hog had been stuck
there. The woman was found on Sabbath evening, near the sprang, and
had to be carried into the house.
"While I lived there I heard M'Coy say, if the slaves did not raise
him three hundred bales of cotton the ensuing season, he would kill
every negro he had.
"Another case of flogging came under my notice: Philip O. Hughes,
sheriff of Jefferson county, had hired a slave to a man, whose name I
do not recollect. On a Sabbath day the slave had drank somewhat
freely; he was ordered by the tavern keeper, (where his present master
had left his horse and the negro,) to stay in the kitchen; the negro
wished to be out. In persisting to go out he was knocked down three
times; and afterwards flogged until another young man and myself ran
about half a mile, having been drawn by the cries of the negro and the
sound of the whip. When we came up, a number of men that had been
about the tavern, were whipping him, and at intervals would ask him if
he would take off his clothes. At seeing them drive down the stakes
for a regular flogging he yielded, and took them off. They then
flogged him until satisfied. On the next morning I saw him, and his
pantaloons were all in a gore of blood.
"During my stay in Jefferson county, Philip O. Hughes was out one day
with his gun--he saw a negro at some distance, with a club in one hand
and an ear of corn in the other--Hughes stepped behind a tree, and
waited his approach; he supposed the negro to be a runaway, who had
escaped about nine months before from his master, living not very far
distant. The negro discovered Hughes before he came up, and started to
run; he refusing to stop, Hughes fired, and shot him through the arm.
Through loss of blood the negro was soon taken and put in jail. I saw
his wound twice dressed, and heard Hughes make the above statement.
"When in Jefferson county I boarded six weeks in Fayette, the county
town, with a tavern keeper named James Truly. He had a slave named
Lucy, who occupied the station of chamber maid and table waiter. One
day, just after dinner Mrs. Truly took Lucy and bound her arms round a
pine sapling behind the house, and commenced flogging her with a
riding-whip; and when tired would take her chair and rest. She
continued thus alternately flogging and resting, for at least an hour
and a half. I afterwards learned from the bar-keeper, and others, that
the woman's offence was that she had bought two candles to set on the
table the evening before, not knowing there were yet some in the box.
I did nor see the act of flogging above related; but it was commenced
before I left the house after dinner, and my work not being more than
twenty rods from the house, I distinctly heard the cries of the woman
all the time, and the manner of tying I had from those who did see it.
"While I boarded at Truly's, an overseer shot a negro about two miles
northwest of Fayette, belonging to a man named Hinds Stuart. I heard
Stuart himself state the particulars. It appeared that the negro's
wife fell under the overseer's displeasure, and he went to whip her.
The negro said she should not be whipped. The overseer then let her
go, and ordered him to be seized. The negro, having been a driver,
rolled the lash of his whip round his hand, and said he would not be
whipped at that time. The overseer repeated his orders. The negro took
up a hoe, and none dared to take hold of him. The overseer then went
to his coat, that he had laid off to whip the negro's wife, and took
out his pistol and shot him dead. His master ordered him to be buried
in a hole without a coffin. Stuart stated that he would not have taken
two thousand dollars for him. No punishment was inflicted on the
overseer.