Nothing impressed the little boy with such unforgettable imagery as the cold which descended upon Greogery’s Landing one winter.  Motherless, hungry, desolate and unloved, he often cried himself to sleep at night while each day he was compelled to carry wood.  One morning he failed to come when the horn was sounded to call the slaves to breakfast.  “Old Missus went to the Negro quarters to see what was wrong” and “She was horrified when she found I was frozen to the bed.”

She carried the small bundle of suffering humanity to the kitchen of her home and placed him near the big oven.  When the warmth thawed the frozen child the toes fell from his feet.  “Old Missus told me I would never be strong enough to do hard work, and she had the neighborhood shoemaker fashion shoes too short for any body’s feet but mine,” said Uncle George.

Uncle George doesn’t remember why he left Missouri but the sister of Greene Taylor brought him to Troy, Indiana.  Here she learned that she could not own a slave within the State of Indiana so she indentured the child to a flat boat captain to wash dishes and wait on the crew of workers.

George was so small of stature that the captain had a low table and stool made that he might work in comfort.  George’s mistress received $15,00 [TR:  $15.00?] per month for the service of the boy for several years.

From working on the flat boats George became accustomed to the river and soon received employment as a cabin boy on a steam boat and from that time through out the most active days of his life George Taylor Burns was a steam-boat man.  In fact he declares, “I know steamboats from wood box to stern wheel.”

“The life of a riverman is a good life and interesting things happen on the river,” says Uncle George.

Uncle George has been imprisoned in the big jail at New Orleans.  He has seen his fellow slaves beaten into insensibility while chained to the whipping post in Congo Square at New Orleans.

He was badly treated while a slave but he has witnessed even more cruel treatment administered to his fellow slaves.

Among other exciting occurrences remembered by the old negro man when he recalls early river adventures is one in which a flat boat sunk near New Orleans.  After clinging for many hours to the drifting wreckage he was rescued, half dead from exhaustion.

In memory, George Taylor Burns stands in the slave mart at New Orleans and hears the Auctioneers’ hammer, for he was sold like a beast of burden by Greene Taylor, brother of his mistress.  Greene Taylor, however, had to refund the money and return the slave to his mistress when his crippled feet were discovered.

“Greene Taylor was like many other people I have known.  He was always ready to make life unhappy for a negro.”

Uncle George, although possessing an unusual amount of intelligence and ability to learn, has a very limited education.  “The Negroes were not allowed an education,” he relates.  “It was dangerous for any person to be caught teaching a Negro and several Negroes were put to death because they could read.”