United States. Work Projects Administration

“ As a small boy and later on, until I was emancipated, I worked on the farm doing farm work, principally in the tobacco fields and in the woods cutting timber and firewood. I slept on a home-made bed or bunk, while my mother and sister slept in a bed made by father on which they had a mattress made by themselves and filled with straw, while dad slept on a bench beside the bed and that he used in the day as a work bench, mending shoes for the slaves and others. I have seen mother going to the fields each day like other slaves to do her part of the farming. ”

“ If a slave was caught beyond the limits of the plantation where he was employed, without the company of a white person or without written permit of his master, any person who apprehended him was permitted to give him 20 lashes across the bare back. ”

“ There were a great many people in Anne Arundel who did not believe in slavery and many free colored people. These conditions caused conflicts between the free colored who many times were charged with aiding the slaves and the whites who were not favorably impressed with slavery and the others who believed in slavery. As a result, the patrollers were numerous. I remember of seeing Jim Revell coming home very much battered and beaten up as a result of an encounter with a number of free people and white people and those who were members of the patrollers. ”

“ I have heard it said that the Randolph's lost more slaves by running away than anyone in the county. The patrollers were many in the county; they would whip any colored person caught off the place after night. Whenever a man wanted to run away he would go with someone else, either from the farm or from some other farm, hiding in the swamps or along the river, making their way to some place where they thought would be safe, sometimes hiding on trains leaving Virginia. ”

“ Stafford's dogs were often sought to apprehend runaway slaves. He would charge according to the value and worth of the slave captured. His dogs were often taken to Virginia, sometimes to North Carolina, besides being used in Maryland. I have been told that when a slave was captured, besides the reward paid in money, that each dog was supposed to bite the slave to make him anxious to hunt human beings.
"There was a slaveholder in Charles County who had a very valuable slave, an expert carpenter and bricklayer, whose services were much sought after by the people in Southern Maryland. ”

“ Many a time the owner of the slaves and farm would come to the cabins late at night to catch the slaves in their dingy little hovels, which were constructed in cabin fashion and of stone and logs with their typical windows and rooms of one room up and one down with a window in each, the fireplaces built to heat and cook for occupants.
"The farm was like all other farms in Frederick County, raising grain, such as corn, wheat and fruit and on which work was seasonable, depending upon the weather, some seasons producing more and some less. ”

“ I was taken up bodily by a white man, carried on the boat, put in a cabin and kept there until we got to Louisville, Kentucky, where I was taken off.
"After I arrived in Louisville I was taken to a farm near Frankfort and installed there virturally a slave until 1864, when I escaped through the kindness of a delightful Episcopalian woman from Cincinnati, Ohio. As I could not speak English, my chores were to act as a tutor and companion for the children of Pierce Buckran Haynes, a well known slave trader and plantation owner in Kentucky. ”

“ There were a number of slaves on our plantation who ran away, some were captured and sold to a Georgia trader, others who were never captured. To intimidate the slaves, the overseers were connected with the patrollers, not only to watch our slaves, but sometimes for the rewards for other slaves who had run away from other plantations. This feature caused a great deal of trouble between the whites and blacks. In 1858 two white men were murdered near Warrenton on the road by colored people, it was never known whether by free people or slaves. ”

“ He was a large slave owner having more than 100 slaves on his farm. They were awakened by blowing of the horn before sunrise by the overseer, started work at sunrise and worked all day to sundown, with not time to go to the cabin for dinner, you carried your dinner with you. The slaves were driven at top speed and whipped at the snap of the finger, by the overseers, we had four overseers on the farm all hired white men.
"I have seen men beaten until they dropped in their tracks or knocked over by clubs, women stripped down to their waist and cowhided. ”

“ Since the Civil War he has made extra money for his support during depression times by doing odd jobs of whitewashing, serving as a porter or janitor, cutting wood, hauling and running errands, also serving as a teamster, picking berries and working as a laborer. He has had several miraculous escapes from death during his long life. Twice during the past quarter of a century his home at Mount Winans has been destroyed by fire, when firemen rescued him in the nick of time, and some years ago, when he was suddenly awakened during a severe windstorm, his house was unroofed and blew down. ”

“ When we seined, other slave owners would send some of their slaves to join ours and we then dividing the spoils of the catch.
"We had 60 slaves on the plantation, each family housed in a cabin built by the slaves for Nellums to accommodate the families according to the number. For clothes we had good clothes, as we raised sheep, we had our own wool, out of which we weaved our cloth, we called the cloth 'box and dice'.
"In the winter the field slaves would shell corn, cut wood and thrash wheat and take care of the stock. We had our shoes made to order by the shoe maker. ”

“ During hot weather we wore thin woolen clothes, the material being made on the farm from the wool of our sheep, in the winter we wore thicker clothes made on the farm by slaves, and for shoes our measures were taken of each slave with a stick, they were brought to Baltimore by the old mistress at the beginning of each season, if she or the one who did the measuring got the shoe too short or too small you had to wear it or go barefooted. ”

“ In my boyhood days, my father never spoke much of my master, only in the term I have expressed before, or the children, church, the poor white people in the neighborhood or the farm, their mode of living, social condition. I will say this in conclusion, the white people of Frederick County as a whole were kind towards the colored people and are today, very little race friction one way or the other. ”

“ Lucy is an usual type of Negro and most probably is a descendant of less remotely removed African ancestors than the average plantation Negroes. She does not appear to be a mixed blood—a good guess would be that she is pure blooded Senegambian. She is tall and very thin, and considering her evident great age, very erect, her head is very broad, overhanging ears, her forehead broad and not so receeding as that of the average. Her eyes are wide apart and are bright and keen. ”

“ Baltimore septuagenarians remember the honor paid to the last surviving "Old Defenders", who faced the British troops at North Point in 1814, and now the few veterans of the War of Secession, whether they wore the blue or the gray, receive similar attention. A far different class, one peculiarly associated with the strife between the North and the South, are approaching the point of fading out from the life of today—the old slaves, and original old freemen. "Parson" Williams tops the list of them all. ”

“ When a slave married someone from another plantation, the master of the wife owned all the children. For the wedding the groom wore ordinary clothes, sometimes you could not tell the original outfit for the patches, and sometimes Kentucky jeans. The bride's trousseau, she would wear the cast-off clothes of the mistress, or, at other times the clothes made by other slaves. ”

“ In Charles County and in fact all of Southern Maryland tobacco was raised on a large scale. Men, women and children had to work hard to produce the required crops. The slaves did the work and they were driven at full speed sometimes by the owners and others by both owner and overseers. The slaves would run away from the farms whenever they had a chance, some were returned and others getting away. This made it very profitable to white men and constables to capture the runaways. ”

“ Due to the fact that his grandmother was an Indian the daughter of an Indian chieftan, alleged to be buried in a vault in Baltimore County, Williams was a freeman like his father and hired himself out.
Williams claims that his father, when a boy, accompanied Robert Bowie, for whom he was working, to Mount Vernon, where he first met George Washington. He said that General Washington once became very angry at his father because he struck an unruly horse, exclaiming: "The brute has more sense than some slaves. Cease striking the animal." ”

“ When I grew larger and older I can recall how I used to carry wood in the kitchen, empty the rinds of potatoes, the leaves of cabbages and the leaves and tops of other plants.
"There was a colored man by the name of Joe Nick, called Old Nick by a great many white people of me city. Joe was owned by Rueben Rogers, a lawyer and farmer of Howard County. The farm was situated about 2-1/2 miles on a road that is the extension of Main Street, the leading street of Ellicott City. ”

“ He said that the slaves pretty well knew about this barbarous Maryland law, and that he even heard of dismemberments for atrocious crimes of Negroes in Maryland.
"We lived in rudely constructed log houses, one story in heighth, with huge stone chimneys, and slept on beds of straw. Slaves were pretty tired after their long day's work in the field. Sometimes we would, unbeknown to our master, assemble in a cabin and sing songs and spirituals. Our favorite spirituals were—Bringin' in de sheaves, De Stars am shinin' for us all, Hear de Angels callin', and The Debil has no place here. ”

“ Sometimes Negro slave runaways who were apprehended by the patrollers, who kept a constant watch for escaped slaves, besides being flogged, would be branded with a hot iron on the cheek with the letter 'R'. ”

“ Before the next day the man disappeared, no one ever seeing him again; but after that down in the swamp at certain times of the moon, you could hear the man who prayed in the cabin praying. When old man Ashbie died, just before he died he told the white Baptist minister, that he had killed Zeek for praying and that he was going to hell.
"There was a stone building on the farm, it is there today. I saw it this summer while visiting in Virginia. The old jail, it is now used as a garage. ”

“ By special permission of plantation owners in Prince Georges, St. Marys, Baltimore and other counties in Maryland, he was often permitted to visit the darkeys and conduct a religious meeting in their cabins. He usually wore a long-tailed black "Kentucky" suit with baggy trousers and sported a cane.
Usually when servants or slaves in those days found themselves happy and contented, it was because they were born under a lucky star. As for eating, they seldom got chicken, mostly they ate red herring and molasses—they called black strap molasses. ”

“ Williams, were pretty well treated and usually respected the overseers. He said that the slaves at Bowie mostly lived in cabins made of slabs running up and down and crudely furnished. Working time was from sunrise until sunset. The slaves had no money to spend and few masters allowed them to indulge in a religious meeting or even learn about the Bible.
Slaves received medical attention from a physician if they were seriously ill. When a death occured, a rough box would be made of heavy slabs and the dead Negro buried the same day on the plantation burying lot with a brief ceremony, if any. ”

“ Stafford's living—raising and training blood hounds. I have been told by mother and father on many occasions that there were as many as a hundred dogs on the farm at times. Mr. Stafford had about 50 slaves on his farm. He had an original method in training young blood hounds, he would make one of the slaves traverse a course, at the end, the slave would climb a tree. The younger dogs led by an old dog, sometimes by several older dogs, would trail the slave until they reached the tree, then they would bark until taken away by the men who had charge of the dogs. ”

“ If a slave went on another plantation without a written permit from his master, on lawful business, the owner of the plantation would usually give the offender 10 lashes. We were never allowed to congregate after work, never went to church, and could not read or write for we were kept in ignorance. ”

“ At corn shucking all the slaves from other plantations would come to the barn, the fiddler would sit on top of the highest barrel of corn, and play all kinds of songs, a barrel of cider, jug of whiskey, one man to dish out a drink of liquor each hour, cider when wanted. ”

“ We were taught the rituals of the Catholic church and when any one died, the funeral was conducted by a priest, the corpse was buried in the Dorseys' graveyard, a lot of about 1-1/2 acres, surrounded by cedar trees and well cared for. The only difference in the graves was that the Dorsey people had marble markers and the slaves had plain stones.
"I have never heard of any of the Dorseys' slaves running away. We did not have any trouble with the white people.
"The slaves lived in good quarters, each house was weather-boarded and stripped to keep out the cold. ”

“ The aged negro is the father of 14 children, one still living,—Mrs. Amelia Besley, 67 years old, 2010 Pierpont Street, Mount Winans, Baltimore, Maryland. His brother, Marcellus Williams, and a single sister, Amelia Williams, both living, reside on Rubio street, Philidelphia, Pa. According to "Parson" Williams, they are both more than a century old and are in fairly good health. Besides his children and a brother and a sister, Williams has several grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren living. ”