"Yassum, I was raght dere, done jes' whut I tol' him I'd do; kep' my 'greement an' followed him to de grave. Co'se dat last 'bout Marse Jess ain't no slavery tale, but I thought you was atter hearin' all 'bout de family whut owned dis ol' place; an' Marse Jess was de bes' white frein' a nigger ever had; dis nigger, anyhow."
[Nelson Birdsong]
Personal interview with Nelson and Virginia Birdsong
Summerville, on Front Street
—Ila B. Prine, Mobile, Alabama
NELSON BIRDSONG REMEMBERS HIS MASTER
Nelson Birdsong, who lives on Front Street in the old suburb of Summerville, about three miles from Mobile, Alabama, was born a slave. A tall dark Negro man, with white hair and whiskers, he says he was born at Montgomery Hill, Alabama in Baldwin County, and that his people and he were owned by Mr. Tom Adkins.
Nelson said he was very small at the time of the Surrender, and could not tell very much about slavery days. In fact, he adds, "You know, missie, old folks in dem days did'nt 'low chillun to stan' 'roun' when dey was talking. We chillun was lack a shot out of a gun when anybody come in. We was glad when folks come in 'cause we c'ud run out an' play. Chillun now-a-days knows as much as we did when we was twenty-five years old."
Nelson does remember his "massa" saying he neber was going to 'let dat little nigger work.'
He did not remember much about coming to Mobile, but "seemed lack" his "mammy worked for Mrs. Dunn on Monroe street, and later dey moved out in old Napoleonville" (which is now Crichton, Alabama, a suburb of Mobile). He said his "Pa and Mammy den worked fo' gris' mill out dere, and also owned a big gris' mill in de fork whar de big fire station is now" (which is located at the intersection of St. Francis street and Washington Avenue, the latter formerly Wilkinson street). This grist mill was burned in the 1870's.
Nelson says the first work he remembered doing was "nussing a baby boy of Mr. Bramwell Burden, a gran'son of old man Burden."
Nelson has owned his little farm and three-room house until the past two or three years. He said he scuffled and tried to pay de taxes, but had got so old and his "knees had give out on him, and I seed I was agoin' to lose mah place so I turned it over to a man to keep up mah taxes, so I'd have a place to lib. De relief gibes me a little he'p now, an' me an' my wife makes out de bes' we can."