He has trouble talking. One lung is affected. He is deaf. He is blind.
He said he was wounded caused his lung trouble. Seems to me old age. He
isn't very feeble in the house. Their house was clean and he and his
wife, also born in slavery, looked clean.
Interviewer: Bernice Bowden
Person Interviewed: Laura Hart
Eleventh & Orange St., Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 85
"I just can't tell you when I was born cause I don't know. My mother
said I was born on Christmas Eve morning. I'm a old woman. I was big
enough to work in slave times.
"Yes ma'am. I member when the war started. I was born in Arkansas. I'm a
Arkansas Hoosier. You know I had to have some age on me to work in slave
times.
"I pulled corn, picked cotton and drive the mule at the gin. Just walked
behind him all day. I've pulled fodder, pulled cotton stalks, chopped
down corn stalks. I never worked in the house when I was a child while I
was under the jurisdiction of the white folks.
"My old master was Sam Carson and his wife was named Phoebe Carson, boy
named Andrew and a daughter named Mary and one named Rosie.
"We had plenty to eat and went to church on Sunday. After the white
folks had their services we went in. The church was on his place right
across the river. That's where I was when freedom taken place.
"When the war started--I remember that all right--cause when they was
gettin' started old master sent a colored man to take his son's place in
the war.
"I was born up here at Fort Smith and brought here to Jefferson County
and sold--my mother and three chillun.
"Now wait--I'm goin' to give you the full history. My father's mother
was a white woman from the North and my father was a colored man. Her
folks run her here to Arkansas and she stayed with her brother till my
father was nine months old and then she went back North and my papa
stayed with his uncle.
"When his uncle died he willed my papa his place. He had it recorded at
the cotehouse in Little Rock that my papa was a free man. But he
couldn't stay in Arkansas free, so he just rambled 'till he found old
man Carson and my mother. He offered to buy my mother but old master
wouldn't sell her so he stayed with old man Carson till they was all
free.
"My white folks was tollable fair--they didn't beat up the people.
"My mother was as bright as you are. She could sit on her hair. Her
mother was a Creole and her father was a Frenchman. After freedom they
would a killed my father if it hadn't been for old Sam Carson, cause
they thought my mother was a white woman, she was so bright.
"Ku Klux? The Lord have mercy! I remember them. They came and surrounded
the house, hundreds of em. We had a loose plank in the floor and we'd
hide under the floor with the dogs and stay there, too, till they'd
gone.
"My father was a gambler. He gambled and farmed. My mother was a
Christian woman. When I got big enough to know anything, she was a
Christian woman.
"I married when I was fourteen. We lived at a place called 'Wildcat.'
Didn't have no school. Nothin' up there but saloons and gambling.
"Then we moved to what they called the Earl Wright place. I had four
chillun--three boys and one girl. Most of my work was in the field.
"I been here in Pine Bluff gwine on seventy-one years. You know--I
knowed this town when they wasn't but one store and two houses. I'm a
old woman--I ain't no baby.
"Honey, I even remember when the Indians was run out o' this town!
"Well, I done telled you all I know. In my comin' up, the colored people
didn't have time to study bout the chillun's ages."
#715
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Hatty Haskell
1416 W. Pullen, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 85
"Yes'm, I reckon I was about twelve when the Civil War ended. Oh, I
could nurse a little.
"No ma'am, I wasn't born in Arkansas. I was born in Tennessee, but I was
brought here when I was a baby. Come here before the war. The old master
had sold 'em.
"We was bought by Will Nichols. You ever hear of this here Dick Lake?
Well, that's the place.
"They taken my father and my sister to Texas and stayed till after
freedom. My mother was sick and they didn't carry her and I was too
little, so they left me. They was pretty good to us as far as I know.
"I remember when the Yankees come through. Oh, yes'm, I was scared. I
used to hide under the bed. I wouldn't give 'em a chance to talk to me.
"Our folks stayed on the Nichols' place about two years. Then they
farmed on the shares till he got able to buy him a mule, then he rented.
"After the war the cholera disease come along. My mother and sister died
with it.
"Somebody said if you would hang up some beef outdoors between the road
and the house, it would stop the disease. I know old master hung up
about a half a quarter and it seemed to work. The meat would turn green.
"The Yankees took things to eat but the Rebels would take the women's
clothes--and the men's too. I guess they just took 'em 'cause they
could.
"Biggest work I've done is farm work.
"My daddy said I was sixteen when I married. I had thirteen children but
they ain't all livin'.
"I remember when they said they was free. Some of the folks left the
place and never come back and some of 'em stayed.
"Sometimes I had a pretty good time and sometimes pretty tough.
"I'm gettin' along all right now. I stay here with my son part of the
time and then I go to the country and stay with my daughter."
#786
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Matilda Hatchett
424 W. Twenty-Fifth Street, North Little Rock,
Arkansas
Age: Between 98 and 100
"I was born right here in Arkansas about nine miles from Dardanelles
(Dardanelle) in Sevier County. I think it's Sevier. No, it was Yell
County. Yell County, that's it. You put the Dardanelles there and if
they get that they'll get the Yell part. Can't miss Yell if you get
Dardanelles.
"I wish I could get holt of some of my old white folks. Maybe you can
find 'em for me. There's one big policeman here looks like them but I
don't know whether he is or not. The first white owners that I knowed
was Jackie George in South Carolina. That is where I heard them talkin'
about him comin' from. I wasn't born there; I was born here. I wasn't
born when he come from South Carolina. His wife was named Nealie. He was
just like a ole shoe. Never whipped me but one time in my life.
"I'll tell you about it. This is what they whipped me for. Me and my
brother, Sam, had to water the horses. I didn't have to go with Sam, but
I was big enough to do that. We had one ole horse named John--big ole
horse. I would have to git up on a ten-rail fence to git on him. One day
I was leading ole John back and I got tired of walking. So when I come
to a ten-rail fence, I got up on ole John. I got up on 'im backwards and
I didn't have hold of no bridle nor nothin' because I was lookin' at his
tail.
"The others got back there before they did. Ole master said to them,
'Where's Tillie?'
"They said to him, 'She's comin', leadin' ole John.'
"Atter a while they saw me comin', an' one of 'em said, 'There's Tillie
now.'
"An' 'nother one, 'Man, she's sittin' on the horse backwards.' And ole
John was amblin' along nippin' the grass now an' then with his bridle
draggin' and me sittin' up on his back facin' his tail and slippin' and
slidin' with every step.
"Ole John was gentle. But they were scairt he would throw me off. Ole
missis come out the gate and met him herself, 'cause she was 'fraid the
others would 'cite him and make him throw me down. She gentled him and
led him up to ole master. They was careful and gentle till they got me
off that horse, and then ole master turned and lit into me and give me a
brushin'.
"That's the only whippin' he ever give me. But that didn't do me no
good. Leastwise, it didn't stop me from ridin' horses. I rode ole John
ever chance I could git. But I didn't ride him backwards no more."