Mr. Gantling came to Florida to Jennings Plantation near Lake Park and stayed two years, then went to Everett’s Plantation and stayed one year.  From there he went to a place called High Hill and stayed two or three years.  He left there and went to Jasper, farmed and stayed until he moved his family to Jacksonville.  Here he worked on public works until he started raising hogs and chickens which he continued up to about fourteen years ago.  Now, he is too old to do anything but just “sit around and talk and eat.”

He lives with his daughter, Mrs. Minnie Holly and her husband, Mr. Dany Holly on Lee Street.

Mr. Gantling cannot read or write, but is very interesting.

He has been a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church for more than fifty years.

He has a very good appetite and although has lost his teeth, he has never worn a plate or had any dental work done.  He is never sick and has had but little medical attention during his lifetime.  His form is bent and he walks with a cane; although his going is confined to his home, it is from choice as he seldom wears shoes on account of bad feet.  His eyesight is very good and his hobby is sewing.  He threads his own needles without assistance of glasses as he has never worn them.

Mr. Gantling celebrated his 89th birthday on the 20th day of November 1936.

He is very small, also very short; quite active for his age and of a very genial disposition, always smiling.

REFERENCE

1.  Interview with Mr. Clayborn Gantling, 1950 Lee Street, Jacksonville, Florida

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

Martin Richardson, Field Worker
Eatonville, Florida

ARNOLD GRAGSTON

(Verbatim Interview with Arnold Gragston, 97-year-old ex-slave whose early life was spent helping slaves to freedom across the Ohio River, while he, himself, remained in bondage.  As he puts it, he guesses he could be called a ‘conductor’ on the underground railway, “only we didn’t call it that then.  I don’t know as we called it anything—­we just knew there was a lot of slaves always a-wantin’ to get free, and I had to help ’em.”)

“Most of the slaves didn’t know when they was born, but I did.  You see, I was born on a Christmas mornin’—­it was in 1840; I was a full grown man when I finally got my freedom.”

“Before I got it, though, I helped a lot of others get theirs.  Lawd only knows how many; might have been as much as two-three hundred.  It was ’way more than a hundred, I know.

“But that all came after I was a young man—­’grown’ enough to know a pretty girl when I saw one, and to go chasing after her, too.  I was born on a plantation that b’longed to Mr. Jack Tabb in Mason County, just across the river in Kentucky.”