“Fust time I moved here in town was in 1888. I stayed ten months, then I went back to the country. I aimed to go to Fort Smith but I got to talkin’ with my playmates and I didn’t have too much money, and I stayed till I didn’t have enough money left to keep me till I could get a job. So I stayed here and worked for Mrs. Freemayer till I got so I couldn’t work. She’s the one got me on this relief.
“I went to school one session in 1886. Sam Caeser, he was a well-known teacher. He got killed here in Pine Bluff.
“I can’t sweep and I can’t iron. I got a misery in my back. I washes my clothes and spreads ’em out till they dry. Then I puts ’em on and switches into church and ever’body thinks they has been ironed.
“They ain’t but one sign I believes in and that’s peckerwoods. Just as sure as he pecks three times, somebody goin’ to move or somebody goin’ to die. Just as sure as you live somebody goin’ out.
“One time one of my grandchildren and a friend of mine was walkin’ through the woods and we missed the main road we aimed to ketch, and we got into a den of wild hogs. I said, ‘Lord, make ’em stand still till we get out of here.’ One of ’em was that tall and big long ears hung down over his eyes. That was the male, you know. I reckon they couldn’t see us and we walked as easy as we could and we got away and struck the main road. I reckon if they could a seen us we would a been ’tacked but we got away. I had heard how they made people take to trees, and I was scared.
“Have you ever seen a three-legged cow? Well, I have. I looked at her good. She was grown and had a calf.”
— 11 1938
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Charles Graham
616 W. 27th Street, North Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 79
[Freed in ’63]
“I was born September 27, 1859, Clarksville, Tennessee. I don’t remember the county. There are several Clarksvilles throughout the South. But Clarksville, Tennessee is the first and the oldest.
“I got a chance to see troops after the Civil War was over. The soldiers were playing, boxing, and the like. Then I remember hearing the cannons roar—long toms they used to call ‘em. My uncle said, ’That is General Grant opening fire on the Rebels.’