Gets a pension check.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Fanny Finney, Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 74 plus
"I was born in Marshall County, Mississippi. Born during slavery. I
b'long to Master John Rook. He died during the Civil War. Miss Patsy
Rook raised me. I put on her shoes, made up her bed, fetched her water
and kindling wood.
"My parents named Catherine and Humphrey Rook. They had three children.
"When Master John Rook died they divided us. They give me to Rodie
Briggs. John and Lizzie was Master John's other two children. He had
three children too same as ma. My young master was a ball player. I'd
hear them talk. Ma was a good house girl. They thought we'd all be like
'er. When I was three years old, I was the baby. They took ma and pa off
keep the Yankees from stealing then. Miss Patsy took keer me. When ma
and pa come home I didn't know them a tall. They say when they come back
they went to Louziana, then 'bout close to Monticello in dis state, then
last year they run 'em to Texas.
"Pa was jus' a farmer. Gran'ma lived down in the quarters and kept my
sisters. I'd start to see 'em. Old gander run me. Sometimes the geese
get me down and flog me wid their wings. One day I climbed up and peeped
through a crack. I seen a lot of folks chopping cotton. It looked so
easy. They was singing.
"Betsy done the milking. I'd sit or stand 'round till the butter come.
She ax me which I wanted, milk or butter. I'd tell her. She put a little
sugar on my buttered bread. It was so good I thought Sometimes she'd
fill my cup up with fresh churned milk.
"I et in the kitchen; the white folks et in the dining-room. I slep' in
granny's house, in granny's bed, in the back yard. Granny's name was
'Aunt' Hannah. She was real old and the boss cook on our place. She
learnt all the girls on our place how to cook. Kept one or two helping
her all the time. It was her part to make them wash their faces every
morning soon as they started a fire and keep their hands clean all the
time er cooking. Granny wore her white apron around her waist all time.
Betty would make them help her milk. They had to wash the cows udder
before they ever milked a drop. Miss Patsy learnt her black folks to be
clean. Every one of them neat as a pin sure as you born.
"I was so little I couldn't think they got whoopings. I never heard of a
woman on the place being whooped. They all had their work to do. Grandma
cut out and made pants for all the men on the whole farm.
"Old man Rook raised near 'bout all his niggers. He bought whiskey by
the barrel. On cold mornings they come by our shop to get their sacks. I
heard them say they all got a drink of whiskey. His hands got to the
field whooping and singing. The overseers handed it out to them. The
women didn't get none as I knowed of.
"The paddyrollers run 'em in a heap but Master John Rook never let them
whoop his colored folks.
"We lived six miles from Holly Springs on the big road to Memphis. Seem
like every regiment of Yankee and rebel soldiers stopped at our house.
They made a rake-off every time. They cleaned us out of something to
eat. They took the watches and silverware. The Yankees rode up on our
porch and one time one rode in the hall and in a room. Miss Patsy done
run an' hid. I stood about. I had no sense. They done a lot every time
they come. I watched see what all they would do. They burnt a lot of
houses.
"A little white boy said, 'I tell you something if you give me a
watermelon.' The black man give the boy a big watermelon. He had a big
patch. The boy said, 'My papa coming take all your money away from you
some night.' He fixed and sure 'nough he come dressed like a Ku Klux. He
had some money but they didn't find it. One of the Ku Kluxes run off and
left his spurs. The colored folks killed some and they run off and leave
their horses. They come around and say they could drink three hundred
fifteen buckets of water. They throw turpentine balls in the houses to
make a light. They took a ball of cotton and dip it in turpentine, light
it, throw it in a house to make a light so they could see who in there.
A lot of black folks was killed and whooped. Their money was took from
them.
"The third year after the War ma and pa come and got me. They made a
crop for a third. That was our first year off of Rook's place. I love
them Rook's girls so good right now. Wish I could see them or knowd
where to write. I had to learn my folks. I played with my sisters all my
life but I never had lived with them. When pa come for me they had my
basket full of dresses and warm underclothes, clean and ironed. They
sent ma some sweet potatoes and two big cakes. One of them was mine.
Miss Patsy said, 'Let Fannie come back to see my girls.' I went back and
visited. Granny lived in her house and cooked till she died. I had a
place with granny at her house. We went back often and we helped them
after freedom. They was good white folks as ever breathed. There was
good folks and bad folks then and still is.
"Times is hard. I was raised in the field. I made seven crops here--near
Brinkley--with my son. I had two girls. One teaches in Brinkley, fourth
or fifth grade; one girl works for a family in New York. My son fell off
a tall building he was working on and bursted his head. He was in
Detroit. Times is hard now. The young folks is going at too fast a gait.
They are faster than the old generation. No time to sit and talk. On the
go all the time. Hurrying and worrying through time. Hard to make a
living."
Interviewer: Zillah Cross Peel
Information given by: "Gate-eye" Fisher
Residence: Washington County, Arkansas
"I was jes' a baby crawlin' 'round on the floor when War come" said
"Gate-eye" Fisher, who lives in a log house covered with scraps of old
tin, on what is known as the old Bullington farm near Lincoln. His one
room log cabin is "down in the bresh" back of the barn and when new
renters come on the place, they just take it for granted that "Gate-eye"
just belongs. He bothers no one. No floors, no windows just a door, a
bed, stove and a table. Yes and a lantern and a chair.
"Yes mam, my mother, Caroline, belonged to the Mister Dave Moore family.
His wife, Miss Pleanie, was a Reagan. Yes mam, they was good folks. When
the War come, my pa, Harrison Fisher and my ma stayed on the place,
Mister Moore had lots of land and stock--and he and his folks went to
Texas, nearly everybody did 'round here, and he took some of his fine
stock with him but he called my pa and ma in and told them he wanted
them to stay on the place and take care of all the things. Pa was boss
over all the slaves. I guess mos' all my white folks is dead. Mos' of
them all buried down yan way to Ft. Smith. One of Mister Moore's
daughters, Miss Mary, married Dr. Davenport and Miss Sinth (Cynthia)
went to live with her."
(The Moores came from Kentucky and Tennessee and settled at Cane Hill,
Washington County, about 1829. The Reagans came about the same time. The
first schools in the county were at Cane Hill).
"Yes mam, I guess all the colored folks that belonged to Mister Moore,
but me, is dead. I guess. My mother, Caroline, stayed in the house
nearly all the time and took care of Missy's children, and when they
come home from school she'd hear them learn their ABC's. That's how come
I can read and write. My ma taught me, out of an old Blue Back Speller.
Yes mam, I learned to read and can't write much, jes my own name. Yes
mam, I kinda believe in signs that's how come I wear this leather strap
'round my wrist it keeps me from havin' rheumatism, neuralgia. Yes mam,
it helps. I used to believe in signs a lot and I used to believe in
wishes. I used to wish a lot of bad wishes on folks till one day I read
a piece from New York and it said the bad wishes that you made would
come back to you wosser than you wished, so I don't wish no more. I got
scared and don't wish nothin' to no body."
"After the War Ole Mister and Ole Missey called in my ma and pa and
asked them if they wanted to still stay on the place or go somewhere.
'Bout ten of us stayed. Then a while after Mister Moore asked my pa if
he wanted to go up on the Tilley place--600 acres and farm it for what
he could make. We, my pa and my ma and my sister Mandy, stayed there a
long time. Then Mister Moore sold off a little here and a little there
and we moved up on the mountain with my sister and her husband, Peter
Doss, where my ma died. Then I went down to Mister Oscar Moore's
place--he was my Missey' boy."
"Yes mam, I did have a wife. I had a mos' worrysome time. It is a
worrysome time when a man comes to takes your wife right away from you.
No'm, I don't ever want her to come back."
"Yes'm, I do my own cooking, and I've put up some fruit. I have a little
mite of meat, a little mite of taters, a little mite of beans and peas.
I get a little pension too."
"These darkies today nearly all get wild. You can't tell What they are
going to do tomorrow. They's jes like everybody--some awful good and
some awful bad."
And in the tiny one room shack, of logs and tin, no window, a swing door
held by a leather strap, "Gate-eye" does his cooking on a small wood
stove. A long bench holds a lantern with a shingly clean globe, a lot of
canned fruit, dried beans and peas. The bed is a series of old bed
springs. But "Gate-eye" just belongs to the neighborhood, and every one
feels kindly toward him. He says he is seventy-one years, past.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed: Ellen Fitzgerald
Brinkley, Ark.
Age: 74
"Mama was named Anna Noles. Papa named Milias Noles. She belong to the
Whitakers and he belong to Gibbs. Noles bought them both. They was both
sold. Mother was born in Athens, papa somewhere in Kentucky. Their
owners, the Noles, come to Aberdeen, Mississippi.
"Grandma, papa's mama, was killed with a battling stick. She was a
slender woman, very tall and pretty, papa told me. She was at the
spring, washing. They cut a tree off and make a smooth stump. They used
a big tree stump for battling. They had paddles, wide as this (two hands
wide--eight or ten inches) with rounded-off handle, smoothed so slick.
They wet and soap the clothes, put em on that block-tree stump and beat
em. Rub boards was not heard of in them days. They soaked the clothes,
boiled and rinsed a heap. They done good washing. I heard em say the
clothes come white as snow from the lye soap they used. They made the
soap. They had hard soap and soft soap, made from ashes dripped and meat
skins. They used tallow and mutton suet too. I don't know what was said,
but I recken she didn't please her mistress--Mrs. Callie Gibbs. She
struck her in the small part of her back and broke it. She left her at
the spring. Somebody went to get water and seen her there. They took her
to the house but she finally died. Grandpa was dead then. I recken they
got scared to keep papa round then and sold him.
"I was born first year of the surrender. Moster Noles told them they was
free. They didn't give them a thing. They was glad they was free. They
didn't want to be in slavery; it was too tied down to suit em. They
lived about places, do little work where they found it.
"We dodged the Ku Klux. One night they was huntin' a man and come to the
wrong house. They nearly broke mama's arm pullin' her outen our house.
They give us some trouble coming round. We was scared of em. We dodged
em all the time.
"I was married and had a child eight years old fore I come to Arkansas.
I come to Brinkley first. I was writing to friends. They had immigrated,
so we immigrated here and been here ever since. When I come here there
was two big stores and a little one. A big sawmill--nothing but woods
and wild animals. It wasn't no hard times then. We had a plenty to live
on.
"My husband was a saw mill hand and a railroad builder. He worked on the
section. I nursed, washed, ironed, cooked, cleaned folks houses. We done
about right smart. I could do right smart now if white folks hire me.
"The night my husband died somebody stole nearly every chicken I had. He
died last week. We found out it was two colored men. I ain't needed no
support till now. My husband made us a good living long as he was able
to go. We raised a family. He was a tolerably dark sort of man. My girls
bout his color."
The two grown girls were "scouring" the floor. Both of them said they
were married and lived somewhere else.
Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins
Person Interviewed: Henry Fitzhugh
Aged: 90
Home: Rooms at 209 Walnut Street
Several "colored" districts are scattered throughout Hot springs. On
Whittington, within a block of the First Presbyterian Church and St.
Joseph's Infirmary stand the Roanok Baptist and the Haven Methodist
(both for colored). Architecturally they compare favorably with similar
edifices for whites. Their choirs have become nationally famous. Sunday
afternoon concerts are frequent. Mid-week ones are not uncommon. At such
times special sections are reserved for whites, and are usually filled.
Visitors to the resort enjoy them immensely.
Across the street a one-time convent school has been converted into a
negro apartment house. A couple of blocks up Whittington, Walnut veers
to the right. It is paved for several blocks. Fronting on concrete
sidewalks are houses, well painted and boasting yards which indicate
pride in possession. Some are private homes, some rooming houses and
some apartments. Porch flower boxes and urns are mostly of concrete
studded with crystals.
Finding Henry Fitzhugh wasn't easy. The delivery boy at the corner chain
store "knows everybody in the neighborhood" according to a passer-by. He
offered the address _209_. That number turned out to be an old, but
substantial and well cared for two story house. Ringing the bell
repeatedly brought no response.
A couple of women in the yard next door announced that to find Fitzhugh
one had to "go around back and knock on the last door on the back
porch." This procedure too brought no results. Another backyard observer
offered the suggestion that Fitzhugh was probably down at the restaurant
eating.
School had just been dismissed. Two well dressed negro children walked
along together, swinging their books. "Can you tell me where the
restaurant is?" asked the interviewer, stopping them. "Do you mean the
colored restaurant?" one of the tots asked, not a whit of embarrassment
in her manner, no servility, no resentment--just an ordinary question.
"It's right over there."
The restaurant proved to be large, well lighted, scrupulously clean.
Tables were well spaced and quite a distance from the counter. Sunshine
streamed in from two directions. Fitzhugh was sitting just outside
talking to the boot-black.
"Yes, ma'am, I's Henry Fitzhugh. Can't work no more since I got hit by
an automoble. Before that I had a shoe-shine place myself. But I can't
work no more. Yes 'um I gets the pension. I gets $10 a month. It's not
much, but I sort of get by. I's got my room up at 209 and I gets my
meals down here at the restaurant. Yes ma'am, pensions seem to be coming
in pretty regular now.
Been in Hot Springs a long, long time. Come here in 1876. I remembers
lots of the old families here. What yo say your name was? Your Mother
was a Dengler? Sure, I remembers the Denglers. Mr. Dengler had a
soda-water shop. I remembers him.
When I first come, soon as I was able, I cleaned up for Captain Mallard.
Cleaned up all along Central in that block he was in.
How'd I come to Hot springs? I was sick. I had rheumatism. Was down with
it so bad the doctor had done give me up. He'd stopped giving me
medicine. But the lady I was working for, she run a hotel in Poplar
Bluff. They put me on a stretcher and they put me in the baggage car and
they brought me clean on in to Hot Springs. They bathed me at the free
bath house. I started getting better right away. 'Twasn't long before I
was well and able to work. I stayed right on here in Hot Springs.
Yes, ma'am I's all Arkansas. I was born near Little Rock. Ain't never
been out of the state but twice. Then I didn't stay long.
I worked on a farm that belonged to Mr. J.B. Henderson. He was an uncle
to Mr. Jerome Henderson what was in the bank and Mr. Jethro Henderson
what was a Judge.
No, the war didn't bother us none. We wasn't afraid. We heard the shots,
but it seemed just like a whole lot of fire crackers to us. Guess we
just didn't have sense enough to be afraid. Fighting we did [HW: hear
was] near Pine Bluff--the Baxter-Ware trouble. We seen the soldiers when
they come through Mt. Pleasant, right smart bunch of them. They was
Confederates. We didn't see none of the Yankees.
My father was killed during the war. Went off to help and never came
back. My mother, she died when I was a baby. She was lying down in her
cabin before the fire--lying on the hearth, letting me nurse. The door
was open and a gust of wind blew her dress in the fire. She dropped me
and she screamed and run out into the yard. Old Miss saw her from the
house. She grabbed a quilt and started out. She got to my mother and she
wrapped her in the quilt to smother out the fire. But my mother done
swallowed fire. She died. That's the story they tell me. I was too
little to know.
I guess I was about eleven when I went into the fields. What's that,
pretty young? I didn't go because they made me. I went because I wanted
to be with the men. Wasn't nobody around to play with. We was the only
family on the farm. It was a pretty good sized farm and they had lots of
children. There was Miss Sally and Miss Fanny and Miss Ella and Miss
Myrtle and Miss Hattie. Then there was four boys.
Stayed on with the folks three years after the surrender. They treated
me good and gave me what I wanted. Treated me nice--very nice--my white
folks.
Then I went on down to Marshall--way down in Texas. There I worked for
the high sheriff. Drove his carriage for him and cleaned up around the
yard. I worked for him a whole year then I went back to Arkansas and
then went up in Missouri. Wasn't there long before I got sick. I was
working for a woman who had a hotel. She was good to me. Mighty good she
was.
Yes ma'am. There has been lost chances I has had to do more than I has.
But I's sort of satisfied. There's been lots of changes in Hot Springs
since I come. I used to know all the white folks and all the colored
folks too. Can't do that today. Place has got too big.
Joe Golden? Yes, I does--I knows Joe. He used to have a butcher shop
over on Malvern. Quite a man, Joe was. I hasn't seen him in a long time.
How is he? Pretty good? That's fine.
"I remembers Mc--McLeod's Happy Hollow." (Hot Spring nearest approach to
a Coney Island in the earlier days). "I remembers that they used to have
the old stage coach there what the James and Younger brothers held up.
Sort of broken down it was, but it was there.
Law, law, them was the times. I'll never forget when Allen Roane brought
in the news. Allen drove a sort of a hack. He come on into town and he
whipped up his horse and he run all over town telling about the hold-up.
Allen lived just next door to where I does now."
Down the street passed a colored woman, her head held high. Passing the
porch where the aged negro man and the young white woman sat talking she
paused and gave what was suspiciously like a sniff. Fitzhugh grinned.
"She's sanctified," he explained.
"Did you ever hear of Tucky-Nubby? He was an Indian. Bob Hurley used to
bring him to Hot Springs every year. What medicine shows they used to
have here. Ain't seen nothing like it lately, everybody knowed
Tucky-Nubby. Lots of those medicine shows--free shows, used to come
here. But Bob Hurley and Tucky-Nubby was the most liked.
Yes, ma'am, I'm all alone now. My sister married a man a long, long time
ago. She didn't live but a couple of years. I's had four children. One
of them died when it was born. One died when it was three. One lived
until it was seven. One son he lived to be grown. He went to the war.
Got as far as camp. One day I got a word saying that he was sick. I went
but before I could get there he had died. That left me alone.
What's that? Been married once? I been married _eleven_ times. But it
was ten times too many. Besides they is all dead, so you might say that
I's been married only once.
Yes, ma'am. Thank you ma'am. The quarter will come in powerful handy.
When you tries to make out on $10 a month a little extra comes in
powerful handy. Thank you ma'am. I enjoyed talking to you, ma'am."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Mary Flagg
1601 Georgia Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 89
"Yes'm, I was here in Civil War days. I was bout twelve years old when
Lincoln was elected. I remember when he was elected. I was big enough to
weave and knit for the soldiers. I remember when the war started. Yes
ma'm--oh I remember so much. Saw all the soldiers and shook hands with
em. Why I waited on the table when General Lee stopped there for dinner
on his way from Mobile to meet Sherman. That was in Winchester,
Mississippi where I was born. I worked in a hotel, yes ma'm. I was
raised up in a hotel, called em taverns in those days. I was born right
in Winchester, Mississippi. Used to see the soldiers drill every day. If
I could remember, I could tell you a heap of things.
"My mistress' name was Mrs. Shaw. She took me away from my mother when I
was four years old--taken me for her body servant. She learned me how to
do housework and all kinds of sewin'--cuttin' and makin'. I done all the
sewin' for her family.
"I never went to no school but Mrs. Shaw tried to teach me and she
slapped my jaws many a day bout my book.
"I married when I was fifteen just fore the war ended and I forgot
everything I ever learned--yes ma'm! I been married four times and
they're all dead. I never married when any of em was livin' like a heap
of colored folks did.
"The Yankees come within fifty miles of where we was livin' and then
they burned the bridge and turned back. White folks never told us what
the war was for but a old German man used to read the paper at the
table--every battle they'd fight and when the Yankees would whip. Oh
them was times then. If I could remember I could tell you a heap of
things but my mind's gone from me.
"Old master had about a hundred head of hands and old mistress had a
cousin had five hundred.
"White folks was good to me. My father was the carriage driver and old
mistress used to carry me to church with her every Sunday.
"I never seen no Ku Klux but I lived where they was, in Mississippi.
That was a Ku Klux state. Yes ma'm.
"I remember when General Lee come to Winchester you could hear the
horses' feet a mile away, it so cold.
"My great grandfather was a full blooded Indian. I've lived among the
Indians in Mississippi and bought baskets from em. They lived all around
us. Yes ma'm, I'm acquainted with em. Oh, I been through a little bit.
"I started sewin' and weavin' when I was just big enough to reach the
treadles. Used to sew for Mrs. Hulburt in Bolivar County, Mississippi. I
remember she started to the Mardi Gras on a boat called the Mary Bell.
It got burned and she had to turn back. I used to do a heap a sewin'.
"Everythings changed now. People is so treacherous now. Chile, ain't
nothin' to this younger generation. Now I'm tellin' you the truth. They
ain't studyin' nothin' good. Sin and corruption all you see now.
"Last man I married was Elder Flagg. He was a preacher in the Baptist
church and as good a preacher as I ever heard. They don't preach the
Gospel now.
"Well, I wish I could remember more to tell you, but it's been a long
time. I'll be ninety if I live till the 4th of next May."
Interviewer: Mrs. Zillah Cross Peel
Person interviewed: Doc Flowers
Age: 85?
Home: Lincoln, Arkansas
Everybody calls him Uncle Doc. His name is Doc Flowers, and he lives in
the last house on a street that is just part of a road in the town of
Lincoln, Arkansas.
When you stop in front of the house you will find there is no path. One
has to watch his step owing to the fact that there is a zigzaggy branch
hidden by the tangle of weeds.
If old Aunt Jinney is on the porch she will say, "Sorry, honey, but de
path done growed up."
Uncle Doc is six feet two and as strong as a lion. Whether he is 80 or
if he is 90, he is young-looking for his age.
"No'm lady, I'se jes' don' know how old I is. Back in dem days didn't
keep up with our ages. No record of the born. Yes'm I was a pretty good
chunk of a boy when de war started."
Doc belonged to Edward Choate, who lived on Barron Forks, near Dutch
Mills in the Southwest corner of Washington County. Barron Forks is made
up from Fly Creek and the River Jordan Creek.
About 1849 Edward Choate came from Tennessee to Arkansas, where he had
bought Aunt Marie [TR: 'a slave' marked out here] and her three sons,
Doc, Abe, and Dave.
"Yes'm, we had a 100 acres or better all along the banks of de river and
good valley land where we raised corn, potatoes, wheat, oats, an'
'bacco. Master Choate had three sons, I recollect, Jack, Sam, and Win.
He had a lot of slaves. Some of dem was good, some was bad. An' old
Mister Choate had a cat-a-nine-tails. He never did have to whup me, some
of dem darkies did get whupped. Dar was one who was always dressing up
in wimmins clothes and go walking down by de river.
"My mother was Maria. She worked part time in de kitchen and part time
in de field. My mother had three boys and I 'member one of my sisters
was sold as a slave. We darkies had cabins all along de river bank.
"During de War we all jes' stayed on de place. Mister Choate and Old
Missy stayed too. After peace was made my mother and all of we went up
to Prairie Grove to live.
"Yes'm, I voted every chance I got. I voted for Harrison for President.
No'm, I don't know which Harrison. Yes'm, I vote Republican.
"I can't say much for these young darkies these times.
"I ben 'roun' some. I went to Caldwell, Kansas, two times. Farming is my
occupation. Now we jes' live. I get $10 a month from the state. Yes'm,
that there Jinney is my wife. Her mother Celia and she belonged to the
Ballards of Cincinnati.
"No'm, I jes' can' tell how old I is. I know I was quite a chunk of a
boy when de War started. Me and Mister Win, one of Mister Choate's boys,
was 'bout de same age." (Winston Choate died in the spring of 1935 at
the age of 94 years, according to a niece.)
The Choate place down on Barron Forks is still owned by one of the
Choates, a grandson of the first owner, Edward Choate.
A granddaughter of Mr. Choate lives in Fayetteville and said that there
are four or five graves on the old place where Negro slaves who belonged
to her grandfather were buried, and the children on the place would
never go near these graves. They thought they were haunted.
So when one asks Uncle Doc how old he is he will say, "I know I was jes'
a chunk of a boy when de War started so I mus' be 'bout 83 nex' spring."
Aunt Jinney, his wife, sat on the porch and just rocked back and forth
while Uncle Doc was talking. She didn't speak while Doc was speaking.
"Law, honey, I had good white folks. None of dem never struck their
colored folks. No'm. Me an' my mother Celia belonged to Mister Ballard
at Cincinnati. Old Missey's name was Miss Liza, an' she kept my ma in de
house wid her to wait on her. Yes'm all de white folks always kept a
little darkey in de house to wait on all of dem. Dem was good times 'fo'
de War. Yes'm good times--plenty to eat. Good times. I was jes' a baby
crawling on de flo' when de War come."
The interviewer didn't ask Uncle Doc when and why he went to Caldwell,
Kansas the two times. She knew that Uncle Doc, big and strong, took
another Negro's wife away from him and ran off with her to Kansas and
there left her. Later he brought her to Arkansas. Jinney was his wife
and took Uncle Doc back, but Gate-eye didn't take his wife back. Nor did
the interviewer tell Uncle Doc that she had been to see old Gate-eye
Fisher and had heard the long ago story of Uncle Doc taking his wife,
and what a worrysome time he had. In an old record marked
"Miscellaneous" in the Washington County Courthouse at Fayetteville,
Arkansas, one can find this Emancipation paper:
"For and in consideration of the love and affection of my wife for my
little Negro girl (a slave) named Celia, about two years old, I do by
these presents henceforth and forever give to said Celia her liberty and
freedom, and through fear of some mistake, mishap or accident, I now
hereby firmly bind myself, heirs and representatives forever in
accordance with this indenture of emancipation.
"In testimony whereof witness my hand and seal this 26th day of January
1846.