Elias Thomas
From:
North Carolina
N.C. District: No. 2
Worker: T. Pat Matthews
No. Words: 1177
Subject: ELIAS THOMAS
Person Interviewed: Elias Thomas
Editor: G.L. Andrews
[TR: Date stamp: AUG 6 1937]
ELIAS THOMAS
84 years of age
521 Cannon Ave., Raleigh, N.C.
"I was here when the Civil war was goin' on an' I am 84 years old. I
was born in Chatham County on a plantation near Moncure, February 1853.
"My marster was named Baxter Thomas and missus was named Katie. She was
his wife. I don't know my father's name, but my mother was named
Phillis Thomas.
"It took a smart nigger to know who his father was in slavery time. I
just can remember my mother. I was about four or five years old when
she died.
"My marster's plantation was fust the 'Thomas Place'. There was about
two hundred acres in it with about one hundred acres cleared land. He
had six slaves on it.
"When I was eight years old he bought the Boylan place about two miles
from his first home and he moved there. There was about one thousand
acres of land of it all with about three hundred acres cleared for
farming. On the Thomas place his house had six rooms, on the Boylan
place the house had eight rooms. He brought in more slaves and took
over all the slaves after John Boylan died.
"John Boylan never married. He was a mighty hard man to git along with,
an' Marster Baxter Thomas was about the only one who could do anything
with him when he had one of his mad spells. They were no blood
relation but marster got possession of his property when he died. It
was fixed that way.
"We called the slave houses 'quarters'. They were arranged like streets
about two hundred yards on the northside of the great house.
"Our food was purty good. Our white folks used slaves, especially the
children, as they did themselves about eatin'. We all had the same kind
of food. All had plenty of clothes but only one pair of shoes a year.
People went barefooted a lot then more than they do now. We had good
places to sleep, straw mattresses and chickenfeather beds and feather
bolsters. A bolster reached clear across the head of the bed.
"We worked from sun to sun with one hour and a half to rest at noon or
dinner time. I was so small I did not do much heavy work. I chopped
corn and cotton mostly. The old slaves had patches they tended, and
sold what they made and had the money it brought. Everybody eat out of
the big garden, both white and black alike. Ole missus wouldn't allow
us to eat rabbits but she let us catch and eat possums. Missus didn't
have any use for a rabbit.
"Sometimes we caught fish with hooks in Haw River, Deep River, and the
Cape Fear, and when it was a dry time and the water got low we caught
fish in seines.
"My marster only had two children, both boys, Fred, and John. John was
about my age and Fred was about two years older. They are both dead.
My marster never had any overseers, he made boss men out of his oldest
slaves.
"We thought well of the poor white neighbors. We colored children took
them as regular playmates. Marster's boys played with 'em too and
marster gave them all the work he could. He hired both men an women of
the poor white class to work on the plantation. We all worked together.
We had a good time. We worked and sang together and everybody seemed
happy. In harvest time a lot of help was hired and such laughing,
working and singing. Just a good time in general. We sang the songs
'Crossin' over Jordan' and 'Bound for the Promised Land'.
"I never saw a jail for slaves but I have seen slaves whipped. I saw
Crayton Abernathy, a overseer, whip a woman in the cotton patch on Doc.
Smith's farm, a mile from our plantation. I also saw ole man William
Crump, a owner, whip a man and some children. He waited till Sunday
morning to whip his slaves. He would git ready to go to church, have
his horse hitched up to the buggy and then call his slaves out and whip
them before he left for church. He generally whipped about five
children every Sunday morning. Willis Crump, a slave was tied up by his
thumbs and whipped. His thumbs was in such a bad fix after that they
rose and had to be cut open. Willis was whipped after the war closed
for asking for his wages and having words with ole man Crump because he
would not pay him. They fell out and he called his friends in and they
took and tied him and whipped him.
"No books were allowed to slaves in slavery time. I never went to
school a minute in my life. I cannot read and write. We had
prayermeetings on the plantation about once or twice a week. We went to
the white folks church on Sunday. We went to both the Methodist and
Presbyterian. The preacher told us to obey our marsters. I remember the
baptizings. They baptized in Shattucks Creek and Haw River. I saw a lot
of colored folks baptized.
"I do not remember any slaves running away from our plantation but they
ran away from ole man Crump's and Richard Faucett's plantations near
our plantation. Jacob Faucette ran away from Faucette and Tom Crump ran
away from ole man Crump. They ran away to keep from getting a whippin'.
"Colored folks are afraid of bears so one of the slaves who saw Tom
Crump at night told him he saw a bear in the woods where he was
stayin'. Tom was so scared he came home next morning and took his
whippin'. Both came home on account of that bear business and both were
whipped.
"When we got sick Dr. Hews, Dr. Wych and Dr. Tom Buckhannan looked
after us. A lot of the slaves wore rabbit feet, the front feet, for
good luck. They also carried buckeyes.
"I remember the Yankees. I will remember seein' them till I die. I will
never forgit it. I thought it was the last of me. The white folks had
told me the Yankees would kill me or carry me off, so I thought when I
saw them coming it was the last of me. I hid in the woods while they
were there. They tore up some things but they did not do much damage.
They camped from Holly Springs to Avant's Ferry on Cape Fear River.
William Cross' plantation was about half the distance. The camp was
about thirty miles long. General Logan,[9] who was an old man, was in
charge.
"I married Martha Sears when I was 23 years old. I married in Raleigh.
My wife died in 1912. We had fourteen children, five are living now.
"When the war closed I stayed on eight years with my marster. I then
went to the N.C. State Hospital for the Insane. I stayed there 28
years. That's where I learned to talk like a white man."
LE
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 9: HW: Maj.-Gen. John A. Logan, Fifteenth Army Corps
(Union.)]
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