a thing
about slavery while we fared mighty well; but it was bad on other
plantations.

"I don't know anything about Booker T. Washington, nor Jefferson Davis,
but I know Jim Young. He was a Negro politician. I do not know much
about Lincoln or Roosevelt.

"De[8] Yankees jes' shot hogs and cows and took everything on de
plantation dey wanted. I can see 'em now runnin' chickens. Dere was an
old rooster, he said, 'Cluck, cluck, cluck cluck,' as he run. Dey shot
his head off and he turned somersets awhile, and rolled over dead. Jes'
seemed lak if dem Yankees pointed a gun at a chicken or hog dey would
roll over dead. Dey had live geese tied on their hosses. One ole gander
would say, 'Quack, quack, quack,' as the hoss stepped along and jarred
him. Some o' de Yankee soldiers were carrying hams of hogs on deir
bayonets. Dat wus a time, Lawsy, Lawsy, a time. One ole hen, she had
sense. When de Yankees were killin' de res' o' de chickens she ran for
de piney woods and hid dere and stayed till de Yankees left Raleigh;
den she come home. Mammy caught her and raised about forty chickens off
her in Raleigh."

BN

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 5: [HW: Ramsgate Road--nicknamed Ramcat or Rhamkatte in
derision of Governor Tryon.]]

[Footnote 6: Yates Mill was a flour mill.]

[Footnote 7: [HW: St. Paul's A.M.E. Methodist Church moved to Edenton
St. site in 1853, formerly old Christ Church building.]]

[Footnote 8: The Negroes interviewed frequently speak fairly correctly
at first but when they begin to talk of old times lapse into dialect.]

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