[320227]
| TR Note: | No Header Page |
| No. Words: | [TR: 1,165] |
| Subject: | [TR: Charles Lee Dalton] |
By Miss Nancy Woodburn Watkins
Rockingham County
Madison, North Carolina
Ex-Slave Biography—Charles Lee Dalton, 93.
In July, 1934, the census taker went to the home of Unka Challilee Dalton and found that soft talking old darky on the porch of his several roomed house, a few hundred feet south of the dirt road locally called the Ayersville road because it branches from the hard surfaced highway to Mayodan at Anderson Scales' store, a short distance from Unka Challilie's. Black got its meaning from his face, even his lips were black, but his hair was whitening. His lean body was reclining while the white cased pillows of his night bed sunned on a chair. His granddaughter kept house for him the census taker learned. Unka Challilie said: "I'se got so I ain't no count fuh nuthin. I wuz uh takin' me a nap uh sleepin' (' AM). Dem merry-go-wheels keep up sich a racket all nite, sech a racket all nite, ah cyan't sleep." This disturbance was "The Red Wolfe Medicine Troop of Players and Wheels" near Anderson Scales' store in the forks of the Mayodan and the Ayresville roads.
In 1937 in the home of his son, Unka Challilie ninety-three, told the cause of his no "countness." "I wuz clean-up man in de mill in Mayodan ontill three years ago, I got too trimbly to git amongst de machinery. Daze frade I'd fall and git cut."
I cum tuh Madison forty-five yeah ago, and I bought one acre, and built me a house on it, an' razed my leben chillun dyah. My wife was Ellen Irving of Reidsville. We had a cow, pigs, chickens, and gyardum of vegetables to hope out what I got paid at de mill.
Nome I nevah learned to read an write. Ounct I thought mebbe I'd git sum lunnin but aftah I got married, I didn't think I would.
My old Marse wuz Marse Lee Dalton and I stayed on his plantation till forty-five years ago when I cum tuh Madison. His place wuz back up dyah close tuh. Mt. Herman Church. Nome we slaves ain't learn no letters, but sumtimes young mistis' 'd read de Bible tuh us. Day wuz pretty good tuh us, but sumtimes I'd ketch uh whippin'. I wuz a hoe boy and plow man. My mothers' name wuz Silvia Dalton and my daddy's name wuz Peter Dalton. Day belonged to Marse Lee and his wife wuz Miss Matilda Steeples (Staples). Marse Lee lived on Beaver Island Creek at the John Hampton Price place. Mr. Price bought it. He married Miss Mollie Dalton, Marse Lee's daughter. Dyah's uh ole graveyard dyah whah lots uh Daltons is buried but no culled fokes. Day is buried to the side uh Stoneville wiff no white fokes a-tall berried dyah. De ole Daltons wuz berried on de Ole Jimmy Scales plantation. Day bought hit, an little John Price what runs uh tuhbaccah warehouse in Madison owns hit now. (1937) His tenant is Marse Walt Hill, an hits five miles frum Madison. I knose whah de old Deatherage graveyard is, too, up close to Stoneville whah sum Daltons is berried. Ole Marse Lee's mother was a Deatherage.
Ole Marse was kind to us, an' I stayed on his plantation an' farmed till I kum to Madison. Dee Yankees, day didn't giv us nuthin so we had kinduh to live off'n old Marse.