Mack Mullen’s parents were among those slaves who remained; they lived there until Mr. Snellings died, and then moved to Isonvillen, near Americus, Georgia, where his father opened a black-smith shop, and made enough money to buy some property.  Another child was added to the family, a girl named Mariah.  By this time Mack had become a young man with a strong desire to travel, so he bade his parents farewell and headed for Tampa, Florida.  After living there awhile he came to Jacksonville, Florida.  At the time of his arrival in Jacksonville, Bay Street was paved with blocks and there were no hard surfaced streets in the city.

He was one of the construction, foremen of the Windsor Hotel.  Mack Mullen is tall, grey haired, sharp featured and of Caucasian strain (his mother was a mulatto) with a keen mind and an appearance that belies his 75 years.  He laments that he was freed because his master was good to his slaves; he says “we had everything we wanted; never did I think I’d come to this—­got to get relief.” (1)

REFERENCE

1.  From an interview with Mack Mullen, a former slave at his residence, 521 West First Street, Jacksonville, Florida

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

J.M.  Johnson, Field Worker
Jacksonville, Florida
November 17, 1936

LOUIS NAPOLEON

About three miles from South Jacksonville proper down the old Saint Augustine Road lives one Louis Napoleon an ex-slave, born in Tallahassee, Florida about 1857, eight years prior to Emancipation.

His parents were Scipio and Edith Napoleon, being originally owned by Colonel John S. Sammis of Arlington, Florida and the Floyd family of Saint Marys, Georgia, respectively.

Scipio and Edith were sold to Arthur Randolph, a physician and large plantation owner of Fort Louis, about five miles from the capital at Tallahassee.  On this large plantation that covered and area of about eight miles and composed approximately of 90 slaves is where Louis Napoleon first saw the light of day.

Louis’ father was known as the wagoner.  His duties were to haul the commodities raised on the plantation and other things that required a wagon.  His mother Edith, was known as a “breeder” and was kept in the palatial Randolph mansion to loom cloth for the Randolph family and slaves.  The cloth was made from the cotton raised on the plantation’s fertile fields.  As Louis was so young, he had no particular duties, only to look for hen nests, gather eggs and play with the master’s three young boys.  There were seven children in the Randolph family, three young boys, two “missy” girls and two grown sons.  Louis would go fishing and hunting with the three younger boys and otherwise engage with them in their childish pranks.