County an' worked on his farm. We stayed there ten or twelve years
an' I married while we wus there. I married Albert Stephenson. We
stayed right on there about six years after we married. We then went to
Mr. Lonnie Stephen's place, the man who onct owned my husband's father.
We stayed there two years workin' as day hands, then we rented a farm
from Mr. Joe Smith. Dis wus de fust time any of us had ever farmed for
ourselves. We kept it up until old age made us unable to farm an' all
de chilluns had got grown an' lef' us.

"We had thirteen chilluns, an' six is livin' yet. My husband died two
years ago dis comin' August.

"Slavery from what I knows an' whats been tole me wus a mighty bad
thing. Don' see how some of de slaves stood it. I never did min' work
but I is unable to work now. I has got a good will but I is worn out.
De only way I lives is by goin' 'round 'mong my people. I have no home
of my own."

LE

N.C. District: No. 2
Worker: Mary A. Hicks
No. Words: 1519
Subject: SAM T. STEWART, EX-SLAVE
Person Interviewed: Sam T. Stewart
Editor: Daisy Bailey Waitt

[TR: Date stamp: JUN 1 1937]

[Illustration: Sam T. Stewart]

SAM T. STEWART [HW: 84 years.]

"My name is Sam T. Stewart. I was born in Wake County, North Carolina
Dec. 11, 1853. My father was a slave, A.H. Stewart, belonging to James
Arch Stewart, a slave owner, whose plantation was in Wake County near
what is now the Harnett County line of Southern Wake. Tiresa was my
mother's name. James Arch Stewart, a preacher, raised my father, but my
mother was raised by Lorenzo Franks, a Quaker in Wake County. When I
was two years old James Arch Stewart sold my father to speculators, and
he was shipped to Mississippi. I was too young to know my father.

"The names of the speculators were--Carter Harrison, and--, and a man
named Roulhac. I never saw my father again, but I heard from him the
second year of the surrender, through his brother and my aunt. My
father died in Mississippi.

"The speculators bought up Negroes as a drover would buy up mules. They
would get them together by 'Negro drivers', as the white men employed
by the speculators were called. Their names were,----Jim Harris of
Raleigh, and----yes, Dred Thomas, who lived near Holly Springs in Wake
County. Wagon trains carried the rations on the trip to Mississippi.
The drivers would not start until they had a large drove. Then t