A Woman's Life-Work — Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland

by Laura S. Haviland

The colored man near the fence of the back yard told me I would find Aunt Sally in a little cabin he pointed out, with two old colored people. I found her crying. She said her mistress had turned her out, and told her she should never come inside her yard, nor eat a kernel of the corn that she had planted in ground all spaded by herself, and it was growing so nice. The old people very kindly offered to share with her. He was a cobbler, and made all he could, but he said they had but one bed. I furnished one for her, and gave the old people a quilt and a few needed garments for their kindness to Aunt Sally. They, too, had been stripped of all their large family, as well as Aunt Sally of hers.

As I passed Mrs. Pendleton's front yard I saw a large bloodhound on the door-step as sentinel. Even a look at him from the street brought a threatening growl.

Here, too, were William and Phillis Davis, over eighty years of age, they think. They had fourteen children, "all sold down the river," they said, "except those we's got in heaven. We's glad they's safe, an' we trus' de jubilee trumpet will retch their ears, way down Souf, we don't know whar. We's cried for freedom many years, an' it come at last," said the old, tottering man.

Eva Mercer, over seventy five years of age, had a large family. Her husband and all her children were sold twenty years ago. She has been left to perish alone, and had had no underclothes for seven years. She was supplied, and made more comfortable than she had been for years.

David Cary, one hundred years old, in great suffering, was relieved. He, too, had a large family. Three wives were sold from him, and his children, one, two, and three at a time, were sent down the river, never to be heard from again. He said he forgot a great many things every day, "but I can never forget the grief I passed through in parting with my good wives and chillens."

Pross Tabb, ninety years old, was turned out of his cabin, and came to the captain crying. He said, "Massar Tabb turn me out to die by de roadside. I begged him to let me build me a cabin in de woods, and he say if I cut a stick in his woods he'll shoot me." The captain informed J. P. Tabb that he would violate the martial law, and be fined and imprisoned, if he turned that old man out of his cabin, where he had lived and served him many years. The poor lone man was permitted to remain. J. P. Tabb owned twelve thousand acres of land, and had called himself master of one hundred and sixty slaves; now all had left him.

Sunday, May 3d, was a beautiful Sabbath. In the morning I attended service at the school-house, conducted by a Baptist minister, who examined nine new converts. Among them was a little girl, Susan Monroe, eight years old. The preacher asked her, "What have you got to say 'bout Jesus, sis?"

"He tuck de han' cuffs off my han's," she replied, "an' de spancels off my feet, an' Jesus made me free."

With a few other satisfactory answers he passed to the next, a man of forty, perhaps: "And what have you to tell us?"

"It 'peared," he said, "like I's so heavy here, on my heart. I could do nuffin but groan, 'Massar Jesus have pity on poor me;' an' as I was a walkin' 'long de road, he cum sure, an' poured hisself all over me, an' cover over my han's an' my feet, an' made me all over new. I say is dis me? Glory, hallalujah! dis is me. I went on an' met sis Molly. 'What's de matter o' me? it's all full tide here,' I says. 'Why honey,' she answered, 'you's got 'ligion; praise de Lord! Now keep de pure stuff, don't trade it off for de devil.' An' by de help o' de Lord, I don't do any sich tradin'."