"I was allus wild and played for dances, but my wife was 'ligious and after I married I quieted down. When I jined the church, I burned my fiddle up. I allus made a livin' from public road work since I left Texarkana, till I got no count for work. The only time I voted was in Hope, and I voted the 'publican ticket and all my folks got mad.
"If it wasn't for the good white folks, I'd starved to death. 'Fore I come here to the Vestals, I was livin' in a shack on the T. & P. tracks and I couldn't pay no rent. I was sick and the woman made me git out. Master Vestal found me down by the tracks, eatin' red clay. I'd lived for three days on six tomatoes. I et two a day. Master Vestal went home and his wife cooked a big pot of stew, with meat and potatoes, and fetched it to me. Then they built a house down behind their back yard and I's lived with 'em ever since.
"I allus say the cullud race started off wrong when they was freed and is still wrong today. They had a shot to be well off, but they can't keep money. You give one a bank of money and he'll be busted tomorrow. I tells young niggers every day they ought to come down where they'll have some sense. I serves the Lord at home and don't meddle with 'em."
[Rube Witt]
Rube Witt, 87, was a slave of Jess Witt of Harrison County, Texas. He enlisted in the Confederate Army at Alexandria, La., and was sent to Mansfield, but his regiment arrived after the victory of the North. He worked for his master for a year after the war, then moved to Marshall and worked for Edmund Key, Sr., pioneer banker and civic leader. Rube cooked for eighteen years at the old Capitol Hotel in Marshall, and took up preaching as a side line. He and his wife live at 707 E. Crockett St., in Marshall. They receive a $15.00 pension.
"I was born on the Jess Witt place, right here in Harrison County, on the tenth day of August, in 1850, and allus lived in and round Marshall. My father and mother, Daniel and Jane, was bred and born in Texas, and belonged to the Witts. I had five brothers, named Charlie and Joe and George and Bill and Jim, and six sisters, named Mary and Susan and Betsy and Anna and Effie and Lucinda. They all lived to be growed but I'm the onliest chile still livin'.
"Master Witt had a big place, I don't recall how many acres. He didn't have so many slaves. Slavery was a tight fight. We lived in li'l cabins and slept on rough plank beds and et bacon and peas and pa'ched corn. We didn't hardly know what flour bread was. Master give us one outfit of clothes to a time and sometimes shoes. We worked all day in the fields, come in and fed the stock and did the chores and et what li'l grub it took to do us and went to bed. You'd better not go nowhere without a pass, 'cause them patterrollers was rolling round every bush.
"My missus was named Kate and had two chillen. The Witts had a good set of niggers and didn't have to whip much. Sometimes he give us a light brushin' for piddlin' round at work. I seed plenty niggers whipped on ole man Ruff Perry and Pratt Hughes places, though. They was death on 'em. Lawyer Marshall used to whip his niggers goin' and comin' every day that come round.
"I 'members white folks sayin' war was startin' 'bout keepin' slaves and then I seed 'em mendin' the harness and wagons to go and fight. I was the houseboy for the Witts durin' the war and 'bout time it was over I enlisted at Alexandria as a soldier and they sent me to Mansfield. The Yanks had done won the victory when our reg'ment got there. They turned us loose to git home the best we could. I come back to the Witts and master calls up all the slaves and says we was free, but if we stayed and worked for him we'd have plenty to eat and wear, and if we left, it'd be root, hawg or die. Most of 'em left but I stayed a year. You'd ought to seed 'em pullin' off them croaker-sack clothes when master says we's free.
"I come to Marshall with my mother and the whole state was under United States law. The 8th Regiment of Illinois was at Marshall for two years after the war, and no man, black, white or red or what is you, darsn't git cotched after dark without a pass. When they'd stop you, if you couldn't give the U.S. sign, 'Grant's Friend,' they'd shoot the devil out of you. You didn't pass 'less you knowed the sign.