"Isom Blackshear, Luke's son and my father, farmed until he was eighteen
years old, and was a general mechanic as mentioned when I was telling
about my grandfather Luke, for sixty odd years. Up to within seven
months of his death, he was making chairs and baskets and other things.
He never was in bed in his life until his last sickness. That was his
first and his last. Never did he have a doctor's bill to pay or for his
master to pay,--until he died. He worked on the batteries at Vicksburg
during the War.
"Isom ran away three times. He was a field hand up to eighteen years.
The overseer wanted to whip him. Isom would help his wife in the field
because she couldn't keep up with the others and he would help her to
keep the overseer from whipping her. He'd take her beside him and row
his row and hers too. He was the fastest worker on the place. The
overseer told him to not do that. But Isom just kept on doing it anyway.
Then the overseer asked Isom for his shirt. When they whipped you them
days they didn't whip you on your clothes because they didn't want to
wear them out. Isom said he was not going to take off his shirt because
his mistress gave it to him and he wasn't going to give it to anybody
else. Then the overseer stepped 'round in front of him to stop him,
because Isom had just kept on hoeing. Isom just caught the overseer's
feet in his hoe and dumped him down on the ground and went on hoeing his
own row and his wife's. He called his hoe 'One Eyed Aggie.'
"The overseer said, 'You think you done something smart' and he went for
his master. The overseer was named Mack Hainey. His master came out the
next morning and caught Isom. Isom has often told us about it.
"'First thing I knowed, he had his feet on my hoe and he said, "Isom,
they tell me you can't be whipped." "I'd be willing to be whipped if I'd
done anything." "Huh!" said my master, "Right or wrong, if my
overseer asked you for your shirt give it to him."'
"He held a pistol on him. They made him pull off his shirt and tied him
up to a gin post. The overseer hit him five times and kept him there
till noon trying to get him to say that he would give his shirt to him
the next time. Finally Isom promised and the overseer untied him. When
the overseer untied him, Isom took his shirt in one hand and the
overseer's whip in the other and whipped him almost all the way to the
big house. Then he ran away and stayed in the woods for three or four
days until his old master sent word for him to come on back and he
wouldn't do nothing to him.
"When he went back, his master took him off the farm because he and my
father was nursed together and he didn't want Isom killed. So from that
time on, my father never worked as a field hand any more. And they put
Isom's wife as a cook. She couldn't chop cotton fast enough and they
couldn't handle Isom as long as she was in the field; so they put her to
washing, and ironing, and cooking, and milking.
"The second time father ran away was once when they missed some
groceries out of the storeroom. Master asked him if he took them because
he made the keys to the place and not a person on the place but him
could know anything about getting in there. He didn't own it, so they
tied him up and whipped him two days. When night come they took him and
tied him in his house and told his wife that if he got loose they would
put the portion on her. He didn't try to get loose because he knowed if
he did they would whip her, so he stayed. At noon time when they went to
get the dinner they poured three buckets of water in his face and almost
drowned him. Then after dinner they came back and whipped him again.
Finally he said, 'I didn't do it but nothing will suit you but for me to
say I did, so I will say I did it.' So he owned up to it.
"A few days later Mr. Horn who owned the adjoining plantation came over
and asked him if he had missed anything,--any rations he said. Old
master told him 'Yes' and went on to explain what had been taken and
what he had done about it. Then Mr. Horn took Mr. Blackshear over to his
house and showed him the rations and they were the one he had whipped my
old father about. Then Blackshear came back and told my father that he
was sorry, that he never had known him to steal anything. He turned him
loose and apologized to him but he made him work with the bloody shirt
that they whipped him in sticking to his back.
"The third time he ran off he was in the army working on the batteries
at Vicksburg. He worked there till he got to thinking about his wife and
children, and then he ran off. He got tired and hungry and he went to
Mopilis and give himself up. The jailer written to his master, that is
to his mistress, about it, and she got her father to go and see about
him and bring him home. They'd had a big storm. The houses were in bad
shape. The fences was blown down. The plows was broken or dull and
needed fixin'. And they were so glad to see Isom that they didn't whip
him nor nothin' for runnin' away.
"Isom's mother was named Winnie Blackshear. She was Luke's wife. She was
a light brownskin woman and weighed about one hundred fifty pounds. I
have seen her, but Luke was dead before I was born. Grandmother Winnie
has been dead about twenty years now. She labored in the field.
"My mother's mother was named Nancy Martin and her father was named
Jordan Martin. We kept a Jordan in the family all the way down. Both of
them farmed. They were slaves.
"There were fourteen children of us,--eleven sisters and three brothers.
The brothers were Jordan, Prince, and John. The sisters were Margaret,
Eliza, Nancy, Tempy, Bell, Abbie, Caroline, Frances, Dosia, Mattie,
Lucy, Louisa, Ida."