Wes Woods
From:
Kentucky
Garrard County. Ex-Slave Stories.
(Eliza Ison)
Interview with Ex-Slave Uncle Wes Woods:
My first visit to uncle Wes Wood, and his wife Aunt Lizzie Wood, found
them in their own comfortable little home in Duncantown, a nice urban
section of the town, where most of the inhabitants are of the better
class of colored people. A small yard with a picket fence and gate
surround the yard, which had tall hollyhocks, rearing their heads high
above the fence.
A knock on the front door brought the cordial invitation "to come in".
Upon entering, I was invited to have a chair and "rest my hat". After
seating myself and making inquiry as to their health, I told them the
object of my visit, and their faces beamed when I asked if they
remembered "slave days". Aunt Lizzie set down the can of beans she was
preparing for their meal and said with a clasp of her hands, "Lawsey,
Honey, what I do know would fill a book".
Uncle Wes had been a "shut-in" for eleven months, and was in bed, but
was cheerful and bright with an intelligent memory, rarely found in one
his age. Uncle Wes tells me that he was born May 21, 1864 in Garrard
County, near Cartersville, and was first a slave of Mrs. Eliza Kennedy,
who later married John Yeakey, of that section of the county. "My
father's name was Ben Woods, my mother's name was Janie Woods, but I do
not know what family she belonged to except the Woods. My master owned
about three or four hundred acres of land, and there were about twenty
slaves, including the children.
There were three or four cabins for the slaves to live in, not so very
far from the house. The cabin where my mother and father lived was the
closest to the house, for my mother did the cooking. Our cabin was one
long room, with a loft above, which we reached with a ladder. There was
one big bed, with a trundle bed, which was on wooden rollers and was
shoved under the big bed in the daytime. The oldest boys slept in a big
wooden bed in the loft. The cabins were built of logs and chinked with
rock and mud. The ceiling was of joists, and my mother used to hang the
seed that we gathered in the fall, to dry from these joists. Some of the
chimneys were made with sticks and chinked with mud, and would sometimes
catch on fire. Later people learned to build chimneys of rock with big
wide fire places, and a hearth of stone, which made them safer from
fire.
Second Interview:
"I chopped corn and pulled weeds and the other work hands would let me
ride behind them beck to the big house, and My! how hungry I wuz and how
we did eat. We would have beans, cooked in a big kettle in the back
yard, cabbage and potatoes, with corn pone bread, baked in a big oven In
the yard and plenty of good buttermilk to drink.
"My young bosses, when I lived in the Kennedy family would take the dogs
and let me go coon hunting at night with them, and what big times we
had. The possums were skinned and cooked in a big kettle hung over the
fire, then taken out and put in a big oven to take. A piece of streaked
meat was put in and a small pod of red pepper--My-My what eatin' we had!
"We fished with a stock pole and a twine string. We had big times
hunting fishing worms for bait. We used to catch Hockney, Hads and
Chubs. My mistus would not let me go fishing on Sunday, but I would slip
off and go anyhow. I nearly always had a good string caught and I would
tie them to a branch on the creek until the next day; then I would go
fishing and in about two hours I would come back with the fish, and she
would say, "Wes, you had good luck today"; and I would say, "Yes Mistus,
I did", but never did I tell her when I caught the fish.
"My first wife was Lou Burnsides and we had five children: Eliza,
Fannie, George, Julia, and Jennie. All of them are dead but two. I have
no children by my present wife.
"I never saw a slave whipped or in chains. My boss did not believe in
that kind of punishment. If the children needed whipping, it was done
like all other children are whipped when they need it.
"The first colored preacher I recall was named John Reed, a Baptist
preacher at Paint Lick. I joined the church at Lowell, not very far from
here. The preachers name was Leroy Estill, a "Predestinerian".
"Marse Woods had five children, two boys and three girls, none of them
are living.
"We were glad when the news came that we were free, but none of us left
for a long time, not until the Woods family was broken up. My father
hired me out to work for my vituals and clothes, and I got $25.00 at the
end of the year. I do not remember of any wedding or death in my old
masters house.
"I believe in heart-felt religion and prayer. The Good Book teaches us
we must be prepared for another world after this. I want to go to Heaven
when I die, and I try to live by the Bible."
Bibliography:
Interview with Wes Woods, Ex-Slave of Garrard County.
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Edd Shirley
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