“And I’ve heard the old folks say if you start any place and have to go back, you make a circle on the ground and spit in it or you’ll have bad luck.”
This information given by: Clark Hill (C)
Place of residence: 818 E. Fifteenth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Occupation: None
Age: 84
Interviewer: Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Elmira Hill
1220 North Willow
Pine Bluff, Ark.
Age: 97
“I’m one of em. Accordin’ to what they tell me, I think I’ll be ninety-eight the ninth day of February. I was born in Virginia in Kinsale County and sold from my mother and father to Arkansas.
“The Lord would have it, old man Ed Lindsey come to Virginia and brought me here to Arkansas. I was here four years before the Old War ceasted and I was twelve when I come here.
“I was right there standin’ behind my mistis’ chair when Abe Lincoln said, ‘I ’clare there shall be war!’ I was right here in Arkansas—eighteen miles from Pine Bluff when war ceasted. The Lord would have it. I had a good master and mistis. Old master said, ‘Fore old Lincoln shall free my niggers, I’ll free em myself.’ They might as well a been free, they had a garden and if they raised cotton in that garden they could sell it. The Lord bless His Holy Name! We didn’t know the difference when we got free. I stayed with my mistis till she went back to Virginia.
“Yes, honey, I was here in all the war. I was standin’ right by my mistis’ chair. I never heard old master make a oaf in his life, but when they brought the paper freein’ the slaves, he said, ‘Dad burn it.’
“I member a man called Jeff Davis. I know they sung and said, ‘We’ll hand old Jeff Davis to the sour apple tree.’
“I been here a long time. Yes, honey, I been in Arkansas so long I say I ain’t goin’ out—they got to bury me here. Arkansas dirt good enough for me. I say I been here so long I got Arkansas ’stemper (distemper).