“No slaves were beaten at the George’s plantation and old Mistress Hester Lam allowed no slave to be sold.  She was a devoted friend to all.

“As Eliza George, daughter of Ford George and Courtney Hawk, grew into young womanhood the young master Ford George went oftener and oftener to social functions.  He was admired for his skill with firearms and for his horsemanship.  While Courtney and his child remained at the plantation Ford enjoyed the companship of the beautiful women of the vicinity.  At last he brought home the beautiful Loraine, his young bride.  Courtney was stoical as only an Indian can be.  She showed no hurt but helped Mistress Hester and Mistress Loraine with the house work.”

Here George Fortman paused to let his blinded eyes look back into the long ago.  Then he again continued with his story of the dark trail.

“Mistress Loraine became mother of two sons and a daughter and the big white two-story house facing the Cumberland River at Smith Landing, Kentucky, became a place of laughter and happy occasions, so my mother told me many times.

“Suddenly sorrow settled down over the home and the laughter turned into wailing, for Ford George’s body was found pierced through the heart and the half-breed, Eliza, was nowhere to be found.

“The young master’s body lay in state many days.  Friends and neighbors came bringing flowers.  His mother, bowed with grief, looked on the still face of her son and understood—­understood why death had come and why Eliza had gone away.

“The beautiful home on the Cumberland river with its more than 600 acres of productive land was put into the hands of an administrator of estates to be readjusted in the interest of the George heirs.  It was only then Mistress Hester went to Aunt Lucy and demanded of her to tell where Eliza could be found.

‘She has gone to Alabama, Ole Mistus’, said Aunt Lucy, ’Eliza was scared to stay here.’  A party of searchers were sent out to look for Eliza.  They found her secreted in a cane brake in the low lands of Alabama nursing her baby boy at her breast.  They took Eliza and the baby back to Kentucky.  I am that baby, that child of unsatisfactory birth.”

The face of George Fortman registered sorrow and pain, it had been hard for him to retell the story of the dark road to strange ears.

“My white uncles had told Mistress Hester that if Eliza brought me back they were going to build a fire and put me in it, my birth was so unsatisfactory to all of them, but Mistress Hester always did what she believed was right and I was brought up by my own mother.

“We lived in a cabin at the slave quarters and mother worked in the broom cane.  Mistress Hester named me Ford George, in derision, but remained my friend.  She was never angry with my mother.  She knew a slave had to submit to her master and besides Eliza did not know she was Master Ford George’s daughter.”