“Her father got with the soldiers in Texas and went to war.  He enlisted and when the war was over he come on hunt of my mother-in-law.  He found her married and had three children.  He had some money he made in the war and bought forty acres of land.  It was school land (Government land).  She raised all her thirteen children there.  They brought grandma back out here with them from Tennessee.  They all died and buried out here.  My mother-in-law was married three times.  She had a slavery husband named Nathan Moseby.  After he died she married Abe Ware.  Then he died.  She married Mitchell Black and he died long before she died.  She was ninety-two years old when she died and could outdo me till not but a few years ago.  Her strength left her all at once.  She lived on then a few years.

“She always told me Master Mann’s folks was very good to her.  She said she never remembered getting a whooping.  But then she was the best old thing I ever seen in my life.  She was really good.

“One story she tole more than others was:  Up at Des Arc country the Yankees come and made them give up their something-to-eat.  Took and wasted together.  Drunk up their milk and it turning, (blinky—­ed.).  She’d laugh at that.  They kept their groceries in holes in the ground.  The Yankees jumped on the colored folks to make them tell where was their provision.  Some of them had to tell where some of it was.  They was scared.  They didn’t tell where it all was.

“When they went to Des Arc and the gates was closed they had to wait till next day to get their provisions.  They had to start early to get back out of the pickets before they closed.”

Name of Interviewer:  Beulah Sherwood Hagg
Name of Ex-Slave; Boston Blackwell Age:  98
Residence:  520 Plum, North Little Rock

Story told by Boston Blackwell

Make yourself comfoble, miss.  I can’t see you much ’cause my eyes, they is dim.  My voice, it kinder dim too.  I knows my age, good.  Old Miss, she told me when I got sold—­“Boss, you is 13—­borned Christmas.  Be sure to tell your new misses and she put you down in her book.”  My borned name was Pruitt ’cause I got borned on Robert Pruitt’s plantation in Georgia,—­Franklin County, Georgia.  But Blackwell, it my freed name.  You see, miss, after my mammy got sold down to Augusta—­I wisht I could tell you the man what bought her, I ain’t never seed him since,—­I was sold to go to Arkansas; Jefferson county, Arkansas.  Then was when old Miss telled me I am 13.  It was before the Civil War I come here.  The onliest auction of slaves I ever seed was in Memphis, coming on to Arkansas.  I heerd a girl bid off for $800.  She was about fifteen, I reckon.  I heerd a woman—­a breeding woman, bid off for $1500.  They always brought good money.  I’m telling you, it was when we was coming from Atlanta.