He was sixty-three years old when
he died in 1902. He was twenty-six years old when the Civil War ended.
He was a slave. There were three other boys in the family besides him.
No girls.
"His old mars' name was Bill Carraway. They lived at Nubian [HW: New
Bern], North Carolina.
"My father said that his work in slavery time was blacksmithing. He had
to fix the wagons and the plow too. He said that was his work during the
Civil War too. He worked in the Confederate army too.
"I remember him saying how they whipped him when he ran off. The
overseer got after him to whip him and he and one of his friends ran
off. As they jumped over the fence to go into the woods the old mars hit
my daddy with a cat-o-nine tails. You see, they took a strap of harness
leather and cut it into four thongs and then they took another and cut
it into five thongs, and they tied them together. When you got one blow
you got nine and when you got five blows you got forty-five. As his old
mars hit him, he said. 'I got him one, sir; it was a good one too, sir,
and a go-boy.'[HW: ?] But it was nine.
"My father told me how they married in slavery times. They didn't count
marriage like they do now. If one landowner had a girl and another
wanted that girl for one of his men, they would give him her to wife.
Pages:
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153