I can myself almost remember negro slaves in New York State, as my
grandfather and great-grandfather (at West Hills, Suffolk county, New
York) own'd a number. The hard labor of the farm was mostly done by
them, and on the floor of the big kitchen, toward sundown, would be
squatting a circle of twelve or fourteen "pickaninnies," eating
their supper of pudding (Indian corn mush) and milk. A friend of my
grandfather, named Wortman, of Oyster Bay, died in 1810, leaving ten
slaves. Jeanette Treadwell, the last of them, died suddenly in Flushing
last summer (1884,) at the age of ninety-four years. I remember "old
Mose," one of the liberated West Hills slaves, well. He was very genial,
correct, manly, and cute, and a great friend of my childhood.