Andrew Moody

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"I was ten year old when freedom come and I'm the oldest slave what was born in Orange County still livin' there. They called Orange, Green Bluff at the first, then they call it Madison, and then they call it Orange. I used to live on Colonel Fountain Floyd's plantation on Lacey's River, 'bout 17 miles from here. They had 'bout forty hands big enough to pick cotton.

"My grandmother was with me, but not my mother, and my father, Ball, he belong to Locke and Thomas. We lived in houses with home-made furniture. Yes, they had rawhide chairs and whenever they kilt a beef they kep' the skin offen the head to make seat for chairs.

"Colonel Floyd he treat us good, as if he's us father or mother. No, we didn' suffer no 'buse, 'cause he didn' 'low it and he didn' do it hisself.

"Parson Pipkin, he come 'round and preach to the white folks and sometimes he preach extry to the cullud quarters. Some of the cullud folks could read the hymns. Young missus, she larn 'em. They sing,

"Jerdon ribber so still and col',
Let's go down to Jerdon.
Go down, go down,
Let's go down to Jerdon.
"Every man had a book what carried his own niggers' names. The niggers' names was on the white folks' church book with the white folks' names and them books was like tax books. The tax collector, he come 'round and say, 'How many li'l darkies you got?' and then he put it down in the 'sessment book.

"Folks had good times Christmas. Dancin' and big dinner. They give 'em two or three day holiday then. They give Christmas gif', maybe a pair stockin's or sugar candy. The white folks kill turkey and set table for the slaves with everything like they have, bread and biscuit and cake and po'k and baked turkey and chicken and sich. They cook in a skillet and spider. The cullud folks make hoe cake and ash cake and cracklin' bread and they used to sing, 'My baby love shortenin' bread.'

"When a hand die they all stop work the nex' day after he die and they blow the horn and old Uncle Bob, he pray and sing songs. They have a wake the night he die and come from all 'round and set up with the corpse all night. They make the coffin on the place and have two hands dig a grave.

"The way they done when 'mancipation come, they call up at twelve o'clock in June, 1865, right out there in Duncan Wood, 'twixt the old field and Beaumont. They call my mother, who done come to live there. They say, 'Now, listen, you and your chillen don' 'long to me now. You kin stay till Christmas if you wants.' So mother she stay but at Christmas her husban' come and they all go but me. I was the las' nigger to stay after freedom come, and the marster and I'd would go huntin and fishin' in the Naches River. We ate raccoon then and rabbit and keep the rabbit foot for luck, jus' the first joint. The 'Toby' what we call it, and if we didn' have no 'Toby' we couldn' git no rabbit nex' time we goes huntin'."