When freedom came to Negroes in the slave territory, George remembers that Sherman’s army drilled a long time after the Civil War had ended.  He saw them right in Pennsylvania.  He was much impressed with their blue suits and brass buttons and which fitted them so well.  Some of the men wore suits with braid on them and they supposedly were the officers of the outfit.  Negro and white men were in the same companies he saw and all were manly and walking proudly.

As George was fifteen years of age when freedom came much of which he related happened after Emancipation.  He being out of the slave territory did not have as much contact with the slaves, but he lived around his grand parents who had been slaves in the southern part of the state.  After slavery they moved up to Altoona, with George’s parents and brought much in the way of customs to George.

Grandfather McCoy and also grandfather Pretty told of many experiences that they went through during their enslavement.  The Negro and white over-seer was much in evidence down there and buying and selling of children from their parents seemed to have left a sad memory with George.

Isaac Pretty’s family was large.  He had seven girls and seven boys, George being the eldest.  George remembers how his heart would ache when his grandfather told of the children who were torn from their mother’s skirts and sold, never to see their parents again.  He went into deep thought over how he would have hated to have been separated from his mother and father to say nothing of leaving his brothers and sisters.  They were brought up to love each other and the thought of breaking the family ties seemed to him very cruel.

When George was told that he was grown as formerly related, he saved his money and when the great earth quake in Charleston occured he went down there to see what it had done to the place.  Before that time in 1882 he remembered having seen the first block of ice.  When he got there, the Charleston people had been making ice for a few years.  It was about that time that George saw the first pair of bed springs.

George remained in Pennsylvania and other states farther north for a long time after freedom.  His first trip to Florida was made in 1893.  He came direct from Altoona, Pennsylvania, with a white man whose name he has forgotten as he did not remain in the man’s employ very long after reaching the state.

Since that time he has farmed in and around different parts of Florida, but now he resides at Tero Beach and Gifford, Florida.  He makes regular trips to Palatka, being as much at home there as in the cities on the East Coast.

George says that he has never had a doctor attend him in his life, neither while he was in Altoona, nor since he has been in Florida.  He claims to be able to identify any root or herb that grows in the woods in the State of Florida having studied them constantly since his arrival here.  Before coming to this state he knew all the roots and herbs around Altoona and it still acquainted with them as he makes regular visits there, since he moved away 43 years ago. (1)