[5] No public schools in Hot Springs until the late 70s.
[6] The Adeline Blakely of another Arkansas interview with slaves.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Jake Goodridge
Clarendon, Arkansas
Age: 97? 87 is about correct
Born August 4, 1857
“I was born close to Jackson, Tennessee in Madison County. My master was Hatford Weathers. His wife’s name was Susan Weathers. They had a big family—John, Lidy, Mattie, Polly, Betty, and Jimmy, that I recollect and there might er been some more.
“My parents’ names was Narcissus and Jacob Goodridge. I had one brother that was a Yankee soldier, and five sisters. One sister did live in Texas. They all dead fur as I know. We got scattered. Some of us got inherited fore freedom. Jake Goodridge took me along when he went to the army to wait on him. Right there it was me an’ my brother fightin’ agin one ’nother.
“When we come to St. Charles we come to Memphis on freight boxes—no tops—flat cars like. There a heap more soldiers was waiting. We got on a boat—a great big boat. There was one regiment—Indiana Cavalry, one Kansas, one Missouri, one Illinois. All on deck was the horses. There was 1,200 men in a regiment and four regiments, 4,800 horses and four cannons. There was not settin’ down room on the boat. They captured my master and sent him to prison. First they put him in a callaboose and then they sent him on to prison and they took me to help them. They made a waitin’ boy of me. I didn’t lack none of ’em. They cussed all the time. I heard they paroled my master long time after the war.
“They would shoot a cannon, had a sponge on a long rod. They wipe it out and put in another big ball, get way back and pull a rope. The cannon fire agin. Course I was scared. I was scared to death bout two years, that ’bout how long I was in the war. I was twelve or fourteen years old. I recollect it as well as if it was yesterday. They never had a battle at St. Charles while I was there. They loaded up the boat and took us to Little Rock. They mustered out there. The Yankee soldiers give out news of freedom. They was shouting ’round. I jes’ stood around to see whut they goiner do next. Didn’t nobody give me nuthin’. I didn’t know what to do. Everything going. Tents all gone, no place to go stay and nothin’ to eat. That was the big freedom to us colored folks. That the way white folks fightin’ do the colored folks. I got hungry and naked and cold many a time. I had a good master and I thought he always treated me heap better than that. I wanted to go back but I had no way. I made it down to St. Charles in ’bout a year after the surrender. I started farmin’. I been farmin’ ever since. In Little Rock I found a job in a tin pin alley, pickin’ up balls. The man paid me $12 a month, next to starvation. I think his name was Warren Rogers.
“I went to Indian Bay ’bout 1868 and farmed for Mr. Hathway, then Mr. Duncan. Then I come up to Clarendon and been here ever since.
“One time I owned 40 acres at Holly Grove, sold it, spent the money.