REFERENCES
1. Interview with subject, Arnold Gragston, present address, Robert Hungerford College Campus, Eatonville (P.O. Maitland) Florida
(Subject is relative of President of Hungerford College and stays several months in Eatonville at frequent intervals. His home is Detroit, Michigan).
FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECT
American Guide, (Negro Writers' Unit)
Pearl Randolph, Field Worker
Jacksonville, Florida
December 18, 1936
HARRIETT GRESHAM
Born on December 6, 1838, Harriett Gresham can recall quite clearly the major events of her life as a slave, also the Civil War as it affected the slaves of Charleston and Barnwell, South Carolina.
She was one of a, group of mulattoes belonging to Edmond Bellinger, a wealthy plantation owner of Barnwell. With her mother, the plantation seamstress and her father, a driver, she lived in the "big house" quarters, and was known as a "house nigger." She played with the children of her mistress and seldom mixed with the other slaves on the plantation.
To quote some of her quaint expressions: "Honey I aint know I was any diffrunt fum de chillen o' me mistress twel atter de war. We played and et and fit togetter lak chillen is bound ter do all over der world. Somethin allus happened though to remind me dat I was jist a piece of property."
"I heard der gun aboomin' away at Fort Sumpter and fer de firs' time in my life I knowed what it was ter fear anythin' cept a sperrit. No, I aint never seed one myself but—"