I stayed there till I got to be
grown. I continued there. I 'member her house and yard. Had a big yard.
"I can read some. Learned it at Miss Nancy Davis' plantation after the
war. They had a little place where they had school. I went to church
some a long time ago.
"Abraham Lincoln was a white man. He fought in the time of the war,
didn't he? Oh, yes, he issued freedom. The Yankees and the Rebels
fought.
"After the war I worked at farm work. I ain't did no real hard work for
over a year."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: John Wells, Edmondson, Arkansas
Age: 82
"I was born down here at Edmondson, Arkansas. My owner was a captain in
the Rebel War (Civil War). He run us off to Texas close to Greenville.
He was keeping us from the Yankees. In fact my father had planned to go
to the Yankees. My mother died on the way to Texas close to the Arkansas
line. She was confined and the child died too. We went in a wagon. Uncle
Tom and his wife and Uncle Granville went too. He left his wife. She
lived on another white man's farm. My master was Captain R. Campbell
Jones. He took us to Texas. He and my father come back in the same wagon
we went to Texas in. My father (Joe Jones Wells) told Captain R.
Campbell Jones if he didn't let him come back here that he would be here
when he got here--beat him back.
Pages:
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98