"De Lawd forgive me for dis foolishness, 'cause I got a good home, and has all I need, but I gits to thinkin' 'bout Virginny sometimes and my folks what I ain't seed since I left, and it sho' make me want to see it once more 'fore I die.
ELI DAVISON was born in Dunbar, West Virginia, a slave of Will Davison. Eli has a bill of sale that states he was born in 1844. His master moved to Texas in 1858, and settled in Madison County. Eli lives in Madisonville, with one of his sons.
"My first Old Marse was Will Davison. My father's name was Everett Lee and mama was Susan, and he come to see her twict a month, 'cause he was owned by 'nother master.
"Marse Davison had a good home in West Virginia, where I's born, in Dunbar, but most of it 'longed to he wife and she was the boss of him. He had a great many slaves, and one mornin' he got up and 'vided all he had and told his wife she could have half the slaves. Then we loaded two wagons and he turned to his oldest son and the next son and said, 'You's gwine with me. Crawl on.' Then he said to he wife, 'Elsie, you can have everything here, but I'm takin' Eli and Alex and these here two chillen.' The other two gals and two boys he left, and pulled out for Texas. It taken us mos' two years to git here, and Marse Will never sot eyes on the rest of his family no more, long as he lived.
"Marse never married any more. He'd say, 'They ain't 'nother woman under the sun I'd let wear my name.' He never said his wife's name no more, but was allus talkin' of them chillun he done left behind.
"We gits here and starts to build a one room log house for Marse Will and his two boys. My quarters was one them covered wagons, till he trades me off. He cried like a baby, but he said, 'I hate to do this, but its the only way I'll have anything to leave for my two boys.' Looks like everything done go 'gainst him when he come to Texas, and he took sick and died. The boys put him away nice and loaded up and went back to Virginia, but the home was nailed up and farm lying out, and it took them mos' a year to find they folks. The mother and one gal was dead, so they come back and lived and died here in Texas.
"Marse Will was one more good man back in Virginia. He never got mad or whipped a slave. He allus had plenty to eat, with 1,200 acres, but after we come here all we had to eat was what we kilt in the woods and cornbread. He planted seven acres in corn, but all he did was hunt deer and squirrels. They was never a nigger what tried to run off in Texas, 'cause this was a good country, plenty to eat by huntin' and not so cold like in Virginia.
"After I was traded off, my new master wasn't so good to me. He thunk all the time the South would win that war and he treated us mean. His name was Thomas Greer. He kept tellin' us a black nigger never would be free. When it come, he said to us, 'Well, you black ——, you are just as free as I am.' He turnt us loose with nothin' to eat and mos' no clothes. He said if he got up nex' mornin' and found a nigger on his place, he'd horsewhip him.