as desired.  Corn bread, beans, sweet potatoes (Irish potatoes being unknown) and collard greens were the principal foods eaten.  Corn bread was made as it is today, only cooked differently.  The corn meal after being mixed was wrapped in tannion leaves (elephant ears) and placed in hot coals.  The leaves would parch to a crisp and when the bread was removed it was a beautiful brown and unburned.  Sweet potatoes were roasted in the hot coals.  Corn was often roasted in the shucks.  There was a substitute for coffee that afforded a striking similarity in taste.  The husks of the grains of corn were parched, hot water was then poured in this, the result was a pleasant liquid substitute for coffee.  These was another bread used as a desert, known as potato bread, made by tailing potatoes until done, then mashing, adding grease and meal, this was baked and then it was ready to serve.  For lights, candles were made of tallow which was poured into a mould when hot.  A cord was run through the center of the candle impression in the mould in which the tallow was poured, when this cooled the candle with cord was all ready for lighting.

The only means of obtaining water was from an open well.  No ice was used.  The first ice that Claude ever saw in its regular form was in Jacksonville after Emancipation.  This ice was naturally frozen and shipped from the north to be sold.  It was called Lake Ice.

Tanning and curing pig and cow hides was done, but Claude never saw the process performed during slavery.  Claude had no special duties on the plantation on account of his youth.  After cotton was picked from the fields the seeds were picked out by hand, the cotton was then carded for further use.  The cotton seed was used as fertilizer.  In baling cotton burlap bags were used on the bales.  The soap used was made from taking hickory or oak wood and burning it to ashes.  The ashes were placed in a tub and water poured over them.  This was left to set.  After setting for a certain time the water from the ashes was poured into a pot containing grease.  This was boiled for a certain time and then left to cool.  The result was a pot full of soft substance varying in color from white to yellow, this was called lye soap.  This was then cut into bars as desired for use.

For dyeing thread and cloth, red oak bark, sweet gum bark and shoe make roots were boiled in water.  The wash tubs were large wooden tubs having one handle with holes in it for the fingers.  Chicken and goose feathers were always carefully saved to make feather mattresses.  Claude remembers when women wore hoop skirts.  He was about 20 years of age when narrow skirts became fashionable for women.  During slavery the family only used slats on the beds, it was after the war that he saw his first spring bed and at that tine the first buggy.  This buggy was driven by ex-governor Reid of Florida who then lived in South Jacksonville.  It was a four-wheeled affair drawn by a horse and looked sensible and natural as a vehicle.