Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  John Wesley, Helena, Arkansas
Age:  ?

“I was full grown when the Civil War come on.  I was a slave till ’mancipation.  I was born close to Lexington, Kentucky.  My master in Kentucky was Master Griter.  He was ’fraid er freedom.  Father belong to Averys in Tennessee.  He was a farm hand.  They wouldn’t sell him.  I was sold to Master Boone close to Moscow.  I was sold on a scaffold high as that door (twelve feet).  I seen a lot of children sold on that scaffold.  I fell in the hands of George Coggrith.  We come to Helena in wagons.  We crossed the river out from Memphis to Hopefield.  I lived at Wittsburg, Arkansas during the war.  They smuggled us about from the Yankees and took us to Texas.  Before the war come on we had to fight the Indians back.  They tried to sell us in Texas.  George Coggrith’s wife died.  Mother was the cook for all the hands and the white folks too.  She raised two boys and three girls for him.  She went on raising his children during the war and after the war.  During the war we hid out and raised cotton and corn.  We hid in the woods.  The Yankees couldn’t make much out in the woods and canebrakes.  We stayed in Texas about a year.  Four years after freedom we didn’t know we was free.  We was on his farm up at Wittsburg.  That is near Madison, Arkansas.  Mother wouldn’t let the children get far off from our house.  She was afraid the Indians would steal the children.  They stole children or I heard they did.  The wild animals and snakes was one thing we had to look out for.  Grown folks and children all kept around home unless you had business and went on a trip.

“My wife died three years ago.  I stay with a grandchild.  I got a boy but I don’t know where he is now.

“I had a acre and a home.  I got in debt and they took my place.

“I voted.  The last time for President Wilson.  We got a good President now.  I voted both kinds of tickets some.  I think they called me a Democrat.  I quit voting.  I’m too old.

“I farmed in my young days.  I oil milled.  I saw milled.  I still black smithing (in Helena now).  I make one or two dollars a week.  Work is hard to git.  Times is tight.  I don’t get help ‘ceptin’ some friend bring us some work.  I stay up here all time nearly.

“I don’t know about the young generation.

“Well, we had a gin.  During of the war it got burnt and lots of bales of cotton went ’long with it.

“The Ku Klux come about and drink water.  They wanted folks to stay at home and work.  That what they said.  We done that.  We didn’t know we was free nohow.  We wasn’t scared.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Robert Wesley, Holly Grove, Arkansas
Age:  74

“I was born in Shelby County, Alabama.  My parents was Mary and Thomas Wesley.  Their master was Mary and John Watts.

“John Watts tried to keep me.  I stayed round him all time and rode up behind him on his horse.  He was a soldier.