Elmira Hill
From:
More Arkansas
Interviewer: Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Elmira Hill
1220 North Willow
Pine Bluff, Ark.
Age: 97
"I'm one of em. Accordin' to what they tell me, I think I'll be
ninety-eight the ninth day of February. I was born in Virginia in
Kinsale County and sold from my mother and father to Arkansas.
"The Lord would have it, old man Ed Lindsey come to Virginia and brought
me here to Arkansas. I was here four years before the Old War ceasted
and I was twelve when I come here.
"I was right there standin' behind my mistis' chair when Abe Lincoln
said, 'I 'clare there shall be war!' I was right here in
Arkansas--eighteen miles from Pine Bluff when war ceasted. The Lord
would have it. I had a good master and mistis. Old master said, 'Fore
old Lincoln shall free my niggers, I'll free em myself.' They might as
well a been free, they had a garden and if they raised cotton in that
garden they could sell it. The Lord bless His Holy Name! We didn't know
the difference when we got free. I stayed with my mistis till she went
back to Virginia.
"Yes, honey, I was here in all the war. I was standin' right by my
mistis' chair. I never heard old master make a oaf in his life, but when
they brought the paper freein' the slaves, he said, 'Dad burn it.'
"I member a man called Jeff Davis. I know they sung and said, 'We'll
hand old Jeff Davis to the sour apple tree.'
"I been here a long time. Yes, honey, I been in Arkansas so long I say I
ain't goin' out--they got to bury me here. Arkansas dirt good enough for
me. I say I been here so long I got Arkansas 'stemper (distemper).
"My old master in Virginia was Joe Hudson. My father used to ketch
oysters and fish. We could look up the Patomac river and see the ships
comin' in. In Virginia I lived next to a free state and the runaways was
tryin' to get away. At Harper's Ferry--that's where old John Brown was
carryin' em across. My old mistis used to take the runaway folks when
the dogs had bit their legs, and keep em for a week and cure em up. This
time o' year you could hear the bull whip. But I was lucky, they was
good to me in Virginia and good to me in Arkansas.
"Yes, chile, I was in Alexandria, Virginia in Kinsale County when they
come after me by night. I was hired out to Captain Jim Allen. I had been
nursin' for Captain Allen. He sailed on the sea. He was a good man. He
was a Christian man. He never whipped me but once and that was for
tellin' a story, and I thank him for it. He landed his boat right at the
landin' on Saturday. Next day he asked me bout somethin' and I told him
a story. He said, 'I'm gwine whip you Monday morning!' He wouldn't whip
me on Sunday. He whipped me and I thank him for it. And to this day the
Lindsey's could trust me with anything they had.
"I was in Virginia a play-chile when the ships come down to get the
gopher wood to build the war ships. Old mistis had a son and a daughter
and we all played together and slep together. My white folks learned me
my A B C's.
"They come and got me and carried me to Richmond--that's where they sold
em. Sold five of us in one bunch. Sold my two brothers in New
Orleans--Robert and Jesse. Never seed them no more. Never seed my mother
again after I was sold.
"Yes, chile, I was here in Arkansas when the war started, so you know I
been here a long time.
"I was here when they fit the last battle in Pine Bluff. They called it
Marmaduke's Battle and they fit it on Sunday morning. They took the old
cotehouse for a battery and throwed up cotton bales for a breastworks.
They fit that Sunday and when the Yankees started firin' the Rebels went
back to Texas or wherever they come from.
"When we heard the Yankees was comin' we went out at night and hid the
silver spoons and silver in the toilet and buried the meat. After the
war was over and the Yankees had gone home and the jayhawkers had went
in--then we got the silver and the meat. Yes, honey, we seed a time--we
seed a time. I ain't grumblin'--I tell em I'm havin' a wusser time now
than I ever had.
"Yankees used to call me a 'know nothin' cause I wouldn't tell where
things was hid.
"Yes, chile, I'm this way--I like everbody in this world. I never was a
mother, but I raised everbody else's chillun. I ain't nothin' but a old
mammy. White and black calls me mamma. I'll answer at the name.
"I was married twice. My last husband and me lived together fifty years.
He was a preacher. My first husband, the old rascal--he was so mean to
me I had to get rid of him.
"Yes, I been here so long. I think the younger generation is goin' the
downward way. They ain't studyin' nothin' but wickedness. Yes, honey,
they tell me the future generation is goin' a do this and goin' a do
that, and they ain't done nothin'. And God don't like it.
"My white folks comes to see me and say as long as they got bread, I got
it.
"I went to school the second year after surrender. I can read but I
ain't got no glasses now. I want you to see this letter my mother sent
me in 1867. My baby sister writ it. Yes, honey, I keeps it for
remembrance.
"Don't know nothin' funny that happened 'ceptin stealin' my old master's
company's hoss and runnin' a race. White chillun too. Them as couldn't
ride sideways ridin' straddle. Better not ride Rob Roy--that was old
master's ridin' hoss and my mistis saddle hoss. That was the hoss he was
talkin' bout ridin' to the war when the last battle was fit in Helena.
But he was too old to go to war.
"Well, goodbye, honey--if I don't see you no more, come across the
Jordan."
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Gillie Hill
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Clark Hill
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