Yes suh I wuz a slave in Vaginyah, Alvamaul (Albermarle) county an’ I didn’t have any good life, I’m tellin’ you dat!  It wuz a tough life.  I don’t know how old I am, dey never told me down dere, but the folks here say I’m a hunderd yeah old an’ I spect dats about right.  My fathah’s name wuz Jack Brown and’ my mammy’s Nellie Brown.  Dey wuz six of us chillun, one sistah Hannah an’ three brothers, Jim, Harrison, an’ Spot.  Jim wuz de oldes an’ I wuz next.  We wuz born on a very lauge plantation an dey wuz lots an’ lots of other slaves, I don’t know how many.  De log cabins what we live in[HW:?] on both sides de path make it look like a town.  Mastah’s house wuz a big, big one an’ had big brick chimneys on de outside.  It wuz a frame house, brown, an’ set way back from de road, an’ behind dat wuz de slaves’ quarters.  De mastah, he wuz Fleming Moon an’ dey say he wuz cap’n in de wah of 1812.  De missy wuz Parley Moon and dey had one son an fouh daughters.

All us chillun an mammy live in a log cabin dat wuz lauge enuf foh us an we sleep in good beds, tall ones an’ low ones dat went undaneath, trundles dey call ’em, and de covahs wuz comfohtable.  De mammies did de cookin.  We et cohn bread, beans, soup, cabbage an’ some othah vegtubles, an a little meat an fish, not much.  Cohn cake wuz baked in de ashes, ash-cake we call ’em an’ dey wuz good and sweet.  Sometimes we got wheat bread, we call dat “seldom bread” an’ cohn bread wuz called “common” becos we had it ev’ry day.  A boss mammy, she looked aftah de eatins’ and believe me nobuddy got too much.

De meat house wuz full of smoked po’k, but we only got a little piece now an’ den.  At hog killin’ time we built a big fiah an put on stones an’ when dey git hot we throw ’em in a hogshead dat has watah in it.  Den moah hot stones till de watah is jus right for takin’ de hair off de hogs, lots of ’em.  Salt herrin’ fish in barls cum to our place an we put em in watah to soak an den string em on pointed sticks an’ hang up to dry so dey wont be so salty.  A little wuz given us with de other food.

I worked about de place doin’ chores an takin’ care of de younger chillun, when mammy wuz out in de fields at harvest time, an’ I worked in de fields too sometimes.  De mastah sent me sometimes with young recruits goin’ to de army headquartahs at Charlottesville to take care of de horses an show de way.  We all worked hard an’ when supper wuz ovah I wuz too tired to do anything but go to bed.  It wuz jus work, eat an sleep foh most of us, dere wuz no time foh play.  Some of em tried to sing or tell stories or pray but dey soon went to bed.  Sometimes I heard some of de stories about hants and speerits an devils that skeered me so I ran to bed an’ covered mah head.