“Old Master had special dogs to hunt opossum, rabbit, coons and birds, and men to go with them on the hunt.  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.

“My mistress was not as well off before she married the doctor as afterward.  I was small or young during my slave days, I always heard my mistress married for money and social condition.  She would tell us how she used to say before she was married, when she saw the doctor coming, ‘here comes old Dr. Nellums’.  Another friend she would say ’here comes cozen Auckney’.

“We never had any overseers on the plantation, we had an old colored man by the name of Peter Taylor.  His orders was law, if you wanted to please Mistress and Master, obey old Peter.

“The farm was very large, the slaves worked from sunup to sundown, no one was harshly treated or punished.  They were punished only when proven guilty of crime charged.

“Our master never sold any slaves.  We had a six-room house, where the slaves entertained and had them good times at nights and on holidays.  We had no jail on the plantation.  We were not taught to read or write, we were never told our age.

“We went to the white church on Sunday, up in the slave gallery where the slaves worshipped sometimes.  The gallery was overcrowded with ours and slaves from other plantations.  My mistress told me that there was once an old colored man who attended, taking his seat up in the gallery directly over the pulpit, he had the habit of saying Amen.  A member of the church said to him, ’John, if you don’t stop hollowing Amen you can’t come to church’; he got so full of the Holy Ghost he yelled out Amen upon a venture, the congregation was so tickled with him and at his antics that they told him to come when and as often as he wanted.

“During my slave days only one slave ran away, he was my uncle, when the Yankees came to Virginia, he ran away with them.  He was later captured by the sheriff and taken to the county jail.  The Doctor went to the court house, after which we never heard nor saw my uncle afterwards.

“I have seen and heard white-cappers, they whipped several colored men of other plantations, just prior to the soldiers drilling to go to war.