"I was born in Darlington County, South Carolina, the 14th of June
1869. My mother was named Rilla McCullough and my father was named
Marion McCullough. I remember them very well and many things they told
me that happened during the Civil War. They belonged to a slave owner
named Billy Cannon who owned a large plantation near Marion, South
Carolina. The number of slaves on the plantation from what they told me
was about fifty. Slaves were quartered in small houses built of logs.
They had plenty of rough food and clothing. They were looked after very
well in regard to their health, because the success of the master
depended on the health of his slaves. A man can't work a sick horse or
mule. A slave occupied the same place on the plantation as a mule or
horse did, that is a male slave. Some of the slave women were looked
upon by the slave owners as a stock raiser looks upon his brood sows,
that is from the standpoint of production. If a slave woman had
children fast she was considered very valuable because slaves were
valuable property.
"There was classes of slavery. Some of the half-white and beautiful
young women who were used by the marster and his men friends or who was
the sweetheart of the marster only, were given special privileges. Some
of 'em worked very little. They had private quarters well fixed up and
had a great influence over the marster. Some of these slave girls broke
up families by getting the marster so enmeshed in their net that his
wife, perhaps an older woman, was greatly neglected. Mother and
grandmother tole me that they were not allowed to pick their husbands.
"Mother tole me that when she became a woman at the age of sixteen
years her marster went to a slave owner near by and got a six-foot
nigger man, almost an entire stranger to her, and told her she must
marry him. Her marster read a paper to them, told them they were man
and wife and told this negro he could take her to a certain cabin and
go to bed. This was done without getting her consent or even asking her
about it. Grandmother said that several different men were put to her
just about the same as if she had been a cow or sow. The slave owners
treated them as if they had been common animals in this respect.
"Mother said she loved my father before the surrender and just as soon
as they were free they married. Grandmother was named Luna Williams.
She belonged to a planter who owned a large plantation and forty
slaves adjoining Mr. Cannon's plantation where mother and father
stayed. My grandmother on my mother's side lived to be 114 years old,
so they have tole me.
"I ran away from home at the age of twelve years and went to
Charleston, South Carolina. I worked with a family there as waitin' boy
for one year. I then went to Savannah, Ga. I had no particular job and
I hoboed everywhere I went. I would wait all day by the side of the
railroad to catch a train at night. I rode freight trains and passenger
trains. I rode the blind baggage on passenger trains and the rods on
freight trains. The blind baggage is the car between the mail car and
the engine. The doors are on the side and none at the end. I hoboed on
to Miami over the Florida East Coast Railroad. I next went from Miami
to Memphis, Tenn. after staying there a few days and working with a
contractor, I again visited Charleston, S.C. I had been there only two
days when I met some Yankees from Minnesota. They prevailed on me to go
home with them, promising if I would do so they would teach me a trade.
I went with them. We all hoboed. We were halted at the Blue Ridge
mountains but we got by without going to jail. We then went to N.J.
From N.J. to Chicago, Ill., then into Milwaukee, Wis., then on into
Minneapolis, Minn. Many towns and cities I visited on this trip, I did
not know where I was. My Yankee companions looked out for me. They
taught me the trade of making chairs and other rustic furniture. They
taught me 164 ways of making different pieces of furniture. I spent 11
years in Minnesota but during that time I visited the South once every
three years, spending several days in the county of my birth. Mother
and father farmed all their lives and they often begged me to settle
down but the wanderlust had me and for 30 years I travelled from place
to place. Even while in Minnesota I did not stay in Minneapolis all the
time. I visited most every town in the state during the eleven years I
stayed there and made hobo trips into most of the adjoining states.
"The main Yankee who taught me the trade was Joe Burton. He and the
gang helped me to get food until I learned the trade well enough so I
could make a living working at it.
"I have made a lot of money making and selling rustic furniture, but
now I am getting old. I am not able to work as I used too. Not long ago
I made a trip from Raleigh to Charleston, S.C., but the trip was
different from the old days. I hitch-hiked the entire distance. I rode
with white folks. On one leg of the trip of over 200 miles I rode with
a rich young man and his two pals. They had a fruit jar full of bad
whiskey. He got about drunk, ran into a stretch of bad road at a high
rate of speed, threw me against the top of his car and injured my head.
I am not over it yet.
"I quit the road in 1924. My last trip was from Raleigh, N.C. to
Harrisburg, Penn. and return. I have made my home in Raleigh ever
since. Done settled down, too ole to ramble anymore."