Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Molly Finley, Honey Creek
3-1/2 miles from Mesa, Arkansas
Age: Born 1865
"My master was Captain Baker Jones and his pa was John Jones. Miss Mariah was Baker Jones' wife. I believe the old man's wife was dead.
"My parents' name was Henry ("Clay") Harris and Harriett Harris. They had nine children. We lived close to the Post (Arkansas Post). Our nearest trading post was Pine Bluff. And the old man made trips to Memphis and had barrels sent out by ship. We lived around Hanniberry Creek. It was a pretty lake of water. Some folks called it Hanniberry Lake. We fished and waded and washed. We got our water out of two springs further up. I used to tote one bucket on my head and one in each hand. You never see that no more. Mama was a nurse and house woman and field woman if she was needed. I made fires around the pots and 'tended to mama's children.
"We lived on the Jones place years after freedom. I was born after freedom. We finally left. I cried and cried to let's go back. Only place ever seem like home to me yet. We went to the Cummings farm. They worked free labor then. Then we went to the hills. Then we seen hard times. We knowed we was free niggers pretty soon back in them poor hills.
"I was more educated than some white folks up in them hills. I went to school on the river. My teacher was a white man named Mr. Van Sang.
"Mama belong to the Garretts in Mississippi. She was sold when she was about four years old she tole me. There had been a death and old mistress bought her in. Master Garrett died. Then she give her to her daughter. She was her young mistress then. Old mistress didn't want her to bring her but she said she might well have her as any rest of the children. Mama never set eyes on none of her folks no more. Her father, she said, was light and part Enjun (Indian).
"John Prior owned papa in Kentucky. He sold him, brother and his mother to a nigger trader's gang. Captain Jones bought all three in Tennessee. He come brought them on to Arkansas. He was a field hand. He said they worked from daylight till after dark.
"They took their slaves to close to Houston, Texas to save them. Captain Jones said he didn't want the Yankees to scatter them and make soldiers of them. He brought them back on his place like he expected to do. Mama said they was out there three years. She had a baby three months old and the trip was hard on her and the baby but they stood it. I was her next baby after that. Freedom done been declared. Mama said they went in wagons and camped along the roadside at night.
"Before they left, the Yankees come. Old Master Jones treated them so nice, give them a big dinner, and opened up everything and offered some for them to take along that they didn't bother his stock nor meat. Then he had them (the slaves) set out with stock and supplies to Texas.