antation with him at Yates Mill. Marster's sister Mary was our missus
after he died. He died before the surrender. The war was going on when
he died. He was a Northern man. His sister came down to the funeral
from New York and then went back, then she came back to settle up the
estate. She stayed here a long time then. She told all the slaves they
were free. That was about the close of the war.

"Marster John Cane was buried in the Catholic Graveyard in Raleigh. His
wife had died in the North, so my mother told me. We had plenty of
something to eat, beans, peas, butter milk and butter and molasses and
plenty o' flour.[6] We made the wheat on the plantation and other
things to eat. We didn't have clothes like they have now but we had
plenty o' good and warm wove clothes. Our shoes had wooden bottoms, but
were all right.

"We had prayer meetings on the plantation and at times we went to the
white folks' church. Marster was a Catholic, but we went to the
Methodist Church[7], Edenton Street Methodist Church. My marster would
not allow anyone to whip his Negroes. If they were to be whipped he did
it himself and the licks he gave them would not hurt a flea. He was
good to all of us and we all loved him.

"We called our parents pappy and mammy most o' the time. My marster
looked like you, jes' the same complection and about your size. He
weighed around 200 pounds had curly hair like yours and was almost
always smiling like you. My marster was an Irishman from the North.
Mother and father said he was one o' the best white men that ever
lived. I remember seein' him settin' on the porch in his large arm
chair. He called me 'Lonnie', a nickname. He called me a lot to brush
off his shoes. I loved him he was so good.

"Our overseer was named John H. Whitelaw. He got killed at the Rock
Quarry near the Federal Cemetery when they were carrying a boiler to
the Rock Quarry a long time after the surrender about 14 or 15 years
ago. He and John were standing on the side of the boiler and the boiler
turned over and killed both of 'em. Marster's overseer was bad to us
after marster died. Nothing we could do would suit him, and he whipped
the Negroes. We never heard the word Negroes until we moved to Raleigh
after the surrender. They called us niggers and colored folks.

"We were darin' to have a book to study. It was against the
Confederates' rules at dat time, but marster called us in to have
prayer meeting on Sunday mornings.

"I hav