710 South McDowell Street
"My name is Ransom Sidney Taylor. I was borned in slavery the 5th day of January, 1857. Adam Taylor was my father and Mary Taylor my mother. My brothers were: William H., Jesse, and Louis; sisters: Virginia, Annie, and Isabella; all born in slavery. We all belonged to John Cane. He owned a plantation on Ramkatte Road[5] near Yates Mill, between Yates Mill and Penny's Mill. There was a whiskey still at Penny's Mill.
"There were sixty slaves in all, but Marster only kept seven on the plantation with him at Yates Mill. Marster's sister Mary was our missus after he died. He died before the surrender. The war was going on when he died. He was a Northern man. His sister came down to the funeral from New York and then went back, then she came back to settle up the estate. She stayed here a long time then. She told all the slaves they were free. That was about the close of the war.
"Marster John Cane was buried in the Catholic Graveyard in Raleigh. His wife had died in the North, so my mother told me. We had plenty of something to eat, beans, peas, butter milk and butter and molasses and plenty o' flour.[6] We made the wheat on the plantation and other things to eat. We didn't have clothes like they have now but we had plenty o' good and warm wove clothes. Our shoes had wooden bottoms, but were all right.
"We had prayer meetings on the plantation and at times we went to the white folks' church. Marster was a Catholic, but we went to the Methodist Church[7], Edenton Street Methodist Church. My marster would not allow anyone to whip his Negroes. If they were to be whipped he did it himself and the licks he gave them would not hurt a flea. He was good to all of us and we all loved him.
"We called our parents pappy and mammy most o' the time. My marster looked like you, jes' the same complection and about your size. He weighed around 200 pounds had curly hair like yours and was almost always smiling like you. My marster was an Irishman from the North. Mother and father said he was one o' the best white men that ever lived. I remember seein' him settin' on the porch in his large arm chair. He called me 'Lonnie', a nickname. He called me a lot to brush off his shoes. I loved him he was so good.
"Our overseer was named John H. Whitelaw. He got killed at the Rock Quarry near the Federal Cemetery when they were carrying a boiler to the Rock Quarry a long time after the surrender about 14 or 15 years ago. He and John were standing on the side of the boiler and the boiler turned over and killed both of 'em. Marster's overseer was bad to us after marster died. Nothing we could do would suit him, and he whipped the Negroes. We never heard the word Negroes until we moved to Raleigh after the surrender. They called us niggers and colored folks.
"We were darin' to have a book to study. It was against the Confederates' rules at dat time, but marster called us in to have prayer meeting on Sunday mornings.
"I have seen patterollers. Dey had' em but not when my marster was living. Dey didn't come around den, but when he died dey come around every night; we never knowed when dey was comin', you know.
"I never saw a slave really whipped. Marster would switch a slave sometime, but it was a matter o' nothing 'cause he didn't hurt much.