mes, when I gits de chanct I goes back
now. Course now de slave cabins am gone, ever' body am dead, an' dar
ain't nothin' familiar 'cept de bent Catawba tree; but it 'minds me of
de happy days.

N. C. District: No. 2 [320163]
Worker: T. Pat Matthews
No. Words: 1,566
Subject: JOHN C. BECTOM
Story Teller: John C. Bectom
Editor: Daisy Bailey Waitt

[TR: Date Stamp "JUN 1 1937"]

[HW: N. C.]

JOHN C. BECTOM

My name is John C. Bectom. I was born Oct. 7, 1862, near Fayetteville,
Cumberland County, North Carolina. My father's name was Simon Bectom. He
was 86 years of age when he died. He died in 1910 at Fayetteville, N. C.
My mother's name was Harriet Bectom. She died in 1907, May 23, when she
was seventy years old. My brother's were named Ed, Kato and Willie. I
was third of the boys. My sisters were Lucy, Anne and Alice. My father
first belonged to Robert Wooten of Craven County, N. C. Then he was sold
by the Wootens to the Bectoms of Wayne County, near Goldsboro, the
county seat. My mother first belonged to the McNeills of Cumberland
County. Miss Mary McNeill married a McFadden, and her parents gave my
mother to Mis' Mary. Mis' Mary's daughter in time married Ezekial King
and my mother was then given to her by Mis' Mary McFadden, her mother.
Mis' Lizzie McFadden became a King. My grandmother was named Lucy
Murphy. She belonged to the Murpheys. All the slaves were given off to
the children of the family as they married.

My father and mother told me stories of how they were treated at
different places. When my grandmother was with the Murpheys they would
make her get up, and begin burning logs in new grounds before daybreak.
They also made her plow, the same as any of the men on the plantation.
They plowed till dusk-dark before they left the fields to come to the
house. They were not allowed to attend any dances or parties unless they
slipped off unknowin's. They had candy pullings sometimes too. While
they would be there the patterollers would visit them. Sometimes the
patterollers whipped all they caught at this place, all they set their
hands on, unless they had a pass.

They fed us mighty good. The food was well cooked. They gave the slaves
an acre of ground to plant and they could sell the crop and have the
money. The work on this acre was done on moonshiny nights and holidays.
Sometimes slaves would steal the marster's chickens or a hog and slip
off t