He came to Jacksonville about what he believes to be half a century ago.  He remembers that it was “ever so long before the fire” (1901) and “way back there when there wasn’t but three families over here in South Jacksonville:  the Sahds, the Hendricks and the Oaks.  I worked for all of them, but I worked for Mr. Bowden the longest.”

The reference is to R.L.  Bowden, whom Thomas claims as one of his first employers in this section.

The old man has 22 children, the eldest of those living, looking older than Thomas himself.  This “child” is fifty-odd years.  He has been married three times, and lives now with his 50 year old wife.

In front of his shack is a huge, spreading oak tree.  He says that there were three of them that he and his wife tended when they first moved to Jacksonville.  “That one there was so little that I used to trim it with my pocket-knife,” he states.  The tree he mentioned is now about two-and-a-half feet in diameter.

“Right after my first wife died, one of them trees withered,” the old man tells you.  “I did all I could to save the other one, but pretty soon it was gone too.  I guess this other one is waiting for me,” he laughs, and points to the remaining oak.

Thomas protests that his health is excellent, except for “just a little haze that comes over my eyes, and I can’t see so good.”  He claims that he has no physical aches and pains.  Despite the more than a century his voice is lively and his hearing fair, and his desire for travel still very much alive.  When interviewed he had just completed a trip to a daughter in Clearwater, and “would have gone farther than that, but my son wouldn’t send me no fare like he promised!”

REFERENCE

1.  Interview with subject, Shack Thomas, living on Old Saint Augustine Road, South Jacksonville, Florida

FEDERAL WRITERS’ PROJECT American Guide, (Negro Writers’ Unit)

Rachel A. Austin
Jacksonville, Florida
November 30, 1936

LUKE TOWNS, A Centenarian

Luke Towns, a centenarian, now residing at 1335 West Eighth Street, Jacksonville, Florida, was the ninth child born to Maria and Like Towns, slaves, December 34, 1835, in a village in Tolberton County, Georgia.

Mr. Town’s parents were owned by Governor Towns, whose name was taken by all the children born on the plantation; he states that he was placed on the public blocks for sale, and was purchased by a Mr. Mormon.  At the marriage of Mr. Mormon’s daughter, Sarah, according to custom, he was given to this daughter as a wedding present, and thus became the slave and took the name of the Gulleys and lived with them until he became a young man at Smithville, Georgia, in Lee County.

His chief work was that of carrying water, wood and working around the house when a youngster; often, he states he would hide in the woods to keep from working.