N.C. District: No. 2
Worker: T. Pat Matthews
No. Words: 1,477
Subject: JAMES TURNER McLEAN
Storyteller: James Turner McLean
Editor: Daisy Bailey Waitt
JAMES TURNER McLEAN
Lillington, N.C.
Route 1
"My name is James Turner McLean. I was born in Harnett County near Cape
Fear River in the Buies Creek Section, Feb. 20, 1858. I belonged to
Taylor Hugh McLean, and he never was married. The plantation was
between Buies Creek and the Cape Fear river; the edge of it is about 75
yards from where I now live. The place where I live belongs to me. 'Way
back it belonged to the Bolden's.
"The Boldens came from Scotland, and so did the McLeans. There were
about five hundred acres in this plantation and Marster Hugh McLean had
about fifty slaves. The slaves lived in quarters and Marster lived in
the big house which was his home. Marster took good care o' his
darkies. He did not allow anybody to whip 'em either. We had good food,
clothes and places to sleep. My father was Jim McLean and my mother was
named Charlotta McLean. My grandmother was named Jane. I called my
mother 'Sissie' and called my grandmother 'mammy' in slavery time. They
did not have me to do any heavy work just tending to the calves, colts,
and goin' to the post office.
"The post office was at Mr. Sexton's and we called it Sexton's post
office, on the Raleigh and Fayetteville Road. The stage run on this
road and brought mail to this place. This post in my yard is part of a
stage coach axle. You see it? Yes sir, that's what it is. I got it at
Fayetteville when they were selling the old stage coach. We bought the
axle and wheels and made a cart. We got that stuff about 1870; my
father bought it. He gave twelve dollars for jes' the wheels and axle.
This was after we had taken the iron clad oath and become more
civilized.
"We were daresome to be caught with a paper book or anything if we were
tryin' to learn to read and write. We had to have a pass to go around
on, or the patterollers would work on us. I saw a lot of patterollers.
Marster gave his Negroes a pass for twelve months. He sent his timber
to Wilmington, and worked timber at other places so he gave his slaves
yearly passes. Then when the war was about up me and him went to the
post office, and he got the paper. All the niggers were free. We
stopped on the way home at a large sassafras tree by the side o' the
road where he always stopped to read, and he read, and told me I was
free.
"I did not know what it was or what it meant. We came on to the house
where my mother was and I said, 'Sissie, we is free.' She said, 'Hush,
or I will put the hickory on you.' I then went to grandma, the one I
called mammy and threw my arms around her neck and said, 'Mammy we are
free, what does it mean?' and mammy, who was grandma, said, 'You hush
sich talk, or I will knock you down wid a loom stick.'
"Marster was comin' then, and he had the paper in his hand and was
cryin'. He came to the door and called grandma and said, 'You are free,
free as I am, but I want you to stay on. If you go off you will perish.
If you stay on now the crop is planted and work it, we will divide.'
Marster was cryin' and said, 'I do not own you any longer.' He told her
to get the horn and blow it. It was a ram's horn. She blew twice for
the hands to come to the house.
"They were workin' in the river lowground about a mile or more away.
She blew a long blow, then another. Marster told her to keep blowin!
After awhile all the slaves come home; she had called them all in.
Marster met them at the gate, and told them to put all the mules up,
all the hoes and plows, that they were all free. He invited all to eat
dinner. He had five women cooking. He told them all he did not want
them to leave, but if they were going they must eat before they left.
He said he wanted everybody to eat all he wanted, and I remember the
ham, eggs, chicken, and other good things we had at that dinner. Then
after the dinner he spoke to all of us and said, 'You have nowhere to
go, nothin' to live on, but go out on my other plantation and build you
some shacks.'
"He gave them homes and did not charge any rent. He bought nails and
lumber for them, but he would not build the houses. Some stayed with
him for fifteen years; some left. He gave them cows to milk. He said
the children must not perish.
"Marster was a mighty good man, a feelin' man. He cried when some of
his slaves finally left him. Mother and father stayed till they got a
place of their own. I waited on him as long as he lived. I loved him as
well as I did my daddy. I drove for him and he kept me in his house
with him. He taught me to be honest, to tell the truth, and not to
steal anything.
"When freedom came marster gave us a place for a school building and
furnished nails and gave the lumber for the floors. He instructed them
in building the windows. He was goin' to put his sister Jenette
McAllister in as teacher. She had married Jim McAllister at the Bluff
Church, right at the lower part of the Averysboro Battleground where
some of the last fightin' between the North and South was done, but a
man by the name of George Miller of Harnett County told him he knew a
nigger who could teach the school. He employed the nigger, whose name
was Isaac Brantley, to teach the school. He came from Anderson's Creek
in the lower part of Harnett County. We learned very little, as the
nigger read, and let us repeat it after him. He would hold the book,
and spell and let us repeat the words after him without lettin' us see
in the book. He stayed there two months, then a man by the name of
Matthews, Haywood Matthews, son of Henderson Matthews came. They were
white folks, but went for negroes. Haywood teached there. He got the
children started and most of 'em learned to read and write.
"I saw the Yankees come through. Also Wheeler's Cavalry. The Yankees
took chickens and things, and they gave us some things, but Wheeler's
Cavalry gave us nothin'. They took what they wanted and went on.
Marster hid his horses and things in the Pecosin.
"When the Yankees came Marster was hid. They rode up to my mother and
asked her where he was. She said, 'I do not know.' They then asked her
where was de silver, his money, an' de brandy, an' wine. They got one
demijohn full o' brandy. They went into the house, tore up things got
his china pipe, fixed for four people to smoke at one time. You could
turn a piece and shett off all de holes but one, when one man wanted to
smoke. They threw away his old beaver hat, but before they left they
got it and left it in the house. Wheeler's Cavalry stomped things and
broke up more den de Yankees.
"Daddy hid marster's money, a lot of it, in the jam o' de fence. He
covered it with sand that he threw out of a ditch that ran along near
the fence. The Yankees stopped and sat on the sand to eat their dinner
and never found the money.
"I have never seen a slave sold, and none never ran away from marster's
plantation. When any of his men went to visit their wives he let them
ride the stock, and give them rations to carry. There was a jail for
slaves at Summerville. I saw it.
"We went to the white folks church at Neill's Creek. Mother used herbs
to give us when we were sick. Dr. Turner, Dr. John Turner, looked after
us. We were bled every year in the spring and in the fall. He had a
little lance. He corded your arm and popped it in, and the blood would
fly. He took nearly a quart of blood from grandma. He bled according to
size and age.
"We ought to think a lot o' Abraham Lincoln and the other great men
such as Booker T. Washington. Lincoln set us free. Slavery was a bad
thing and unjust."