“Then he sent for my mama after they sat him free.  His name was Ben Washington.

“He never spoke much of freedom.  He said his master in Mississippi told them and had them sign up contracts to finish that year’s crop.  He took back his old Virginia name and I don’t recollect that master’s name.  Heard it too.  Yes ma’am, heap er times.  My recollection is purty nigh gone.

“I don’t get no younger in feelings ’cause I’m getting old.”

Folklore subjects
Name of Interviewer:  S.S.  Taylor
Subject:  Slave memories—­Birth, Mother, Father, Separation House
Subject:  Slaves—­Dwellings, Food, Clothes
Subject:  Corn Shucking, Dances, Quiltings, Weddings among Slaves
Subject:  Slaves—­Fight with Master (junior); Slave uprisings
Subject:  Confederate Army Negroes; Ex-slave Occupations
Story:—­Information
[TR:  Topics moved from subsequent pages.]

This information given by:  Eliza Washington
Place of Residence:  1517 West Seventeenth
                    Little Rock, Arkansas
Occupation:  Washing and Ironing (When able)
Age:  About 77
[TR:  Information moved from bottom of first page.]

The first thing I remember was living with my mother about six miles from Scott’s Crossing in Arkansas, about the year 1866.  I know it was 1866 because it was the year after the surrender, and we know the surrender was in 1865.  I know the dates after 1866.  You don’t know nothin’ when you don’t know dates.  If you get up in court and say somethin’, the lawyers ask you when it happened and then they ask you where did it happen, and if you can’t tell them, they say “Witness is excused.  You don’t know nothin’.”

Mother and Father

My mother was born in North Carolina in Mecklinberg in Henderson County.  I don’t know when she came to Arkansas, and I don’t know when she went to Tennessee.

My father was born in Tennessee.  I don’t know the county like I did in North Carolina.  I don’t know the town either, but I think it was in the rurals somewhere.  The white folks separated my mother and father when I was a little baby in their arms.  The people to whom my father belonged stayed in Tennessee, but my mother’s people came to Arkansas.  It must have been along in the time of the war that they come to Arkansas.

Dwelling

My mother lived in a log house chinked with wood chinks.  The chinks looked like gluts.  You know what a glut is?  No?  Well a glut looks like the pattern of a shoe.  They lay the logs together, and then chink up the cracks with wood blocks made up like the pattern of a shoe.  These were chinks, wooden things about a foot long, shaped like a wedge.  They were used for chinking.  After the logs were laid together, chinks would be needed to stop up the holes between the logs.  After the chinking was finished, clay was stuffed in to stop up the cracks and make the house warm.  I’ve seen a many a one built.