Wes Brady

Wes Brady , a native of Harrison County, was born in 1849, as a slave of John Jeems , who then resided on the old Jefferson Road, five miles north of Marshall. He left the Jeems with his mother about six months after Emancipation and has resided in Harrison County all of his life. He has always earned a livelihood from farming, and now lives with friends on the Long's Camp Road, about 15 miles northeast of Marshall, and draws a $11.00 per month pension from the Government. I was bo'n and raised in Harrison County. I was 88 years old this July past and has wore myself out here in this county. I was bo'n on Master John Jeem' s place on the old Jefferson Road, five miles north of Marshall. My father was Peter Calloway . He was bo'n in Alabama and his whole family was brought to Texas by the Nigger traders. My mother was Harriet Ellis , but I don't know where she was from. I had two brothers: George and Andrew , and four sisters, Lula , Judy , Mary and Sallie . I knowed my father's father, Phil Calloway . I'se heard him tell how his white fo'ks help run the Indians off the land they settled on. He showed us chil'ren how the Indians march round the camp-fire. That was 'bout all we done on Sunday, playing Indian. We put feathers in our hair and march round and round hollering "Whoop, Whoop". I 'members my grandpa telling 'bout meeting his Master. Master Jeems has three or four places and Grandpa hadn't seed him. He say once he was sent to one of the other places and met a man going down the road. The man say to him, "Who you belong to". Grandpa say "Master Jeems ". The man say, "Is he a mean man?" Grandpa say to him, "I don't know him, but they say he is pretty tight". It was Master Jeems he was talking to and he laughed and give Grandpa $5.00. We lived in log houses in slavery time and slep on hay mattresses with lowell civers (covers). We et fat po'k, co'n bread, lasses and all kinds of garden stuff. We knowed nothing more bout flour on Sunday than Monday. If we et flour bread, the wimmen fo'ks had to slip the flour siftings from Mistress' kitchen. They done that but darsn't let the white fo'ks know it. We wore one rigging of lowell clothes a year, but they was better than the stuff you gets now. I never had shoes on till after surrender come. I run 'round all over the place till I was a big chap in jest a long shirt with a string tied 'round the bottom for a belt. I went with my young Master that way when he hunted in the woods to tote (carry) squirrels for him. Some of the white fo'ks may want to put me back in slavery if I tells how we was used in slavery time, but you ask me for the truth and I is gwyne (going) to tell what I seed and what I know is the gospel. The overseer was straddle his big horse at three o'clock in the morning, rousting the hands off to the fiel'. He got them all lined up and then come back to the house for breakfast.The rows was a mile long and no matter how much grass was in them, if you left one sprig on your row they beat you nearly to death. The hands had to work till after dark. Lots of time they weighed cotton by candle light. They had to be to the house, have supper et and be in bed by ten o'clock. If you move' round at night you was trying to steal something and had to be whipped. All the fiel' hands took dinner with them to the fiel' in buckets. The overseer giv' them fifteen minutes to eat dinner. He didn't tell us when the time to go back to work, but when he started cuffing some of them over the head we knowed it was time to go to work. Every Nigger's bucket was marked. When they was back at work the overseer looked in every bucket to see if a piece of bread or anything was left. Then he go to the house and eat his dinner. When he come back to the fiel' he looked in all the buckets again. If a piece of bread of anything was in the bucket when he left was gone when he come back, he say that meant you was losing time when he warn't there and had to be whipped. I'se seed them drive four stakes in the ground and tie Niggers down and beat them till they was raw. Then they take a brick and grind it up in a powder and mix it with lard and put all over him and roll him in a sheet. Sometimes it was two days 'fore he could work again. I seed one man whipped and done that way for stealing a meat bone from the smoke-house. Mistress had a meat bone in the meat house and it come up missing. She send for Master who was working on a feed mill and told him 'bout it. He found it at one of the Niggers houses and had the overseer stake him out and put on 1500 lashes. The little chaps would pick up egg shells round the Master's house and bring to the quarters. If the overseer see them round your quarter he told Master you was stealing eggs and need beating. We lived on the Marshall and Jefferson road. I'se seed long lines of slaves chained together being driv' by a white man on a horse jest like animals. They had two or three trusties along to give them water. The first work I done in slavery was drapping (dropping) co'n. Then I was cow-pen boy and sheep herder. All us house chaps had to shell a half bushel of co'n every night for to feed the sheep. I had a cousin that was as mean as any woman you ever saw. One day she made me churn till I nearly give out. I hear Master say that he needed another hoer in the fiel'. I slipped off from my cousin and got me a broom handle and piece of tin and made me a hoe and went to the fiel'. Master come to the fiel' and say, "Boy, what you doing here?" I told him and after that he let me work in the fiel till surrender. Many times I has walked through the quarters when I was a little chap crying for my mother. We mostly only saw her on Sunday. They worked in the fiel' until Saturday night and then have to come in and wash their clothes and be ready for Sunday. The chil'ren was still in bed when the fo'ks went to the fiel' and when they come home at night. So we generally didn't see our mammy till Sunday. I 'members waking up at night lots of times and see mammy making her a little mush on the coals in the fire place, but she was allus sure the overseer was sound sleep fore she stirred round. When we layed by the co'n we had to pull roasting ears. The overseer come over in the fiel' and left the fence down. The stock got in the fiel' and he cused an old man of leaving the fence down and jumped on him and broke his neck. When he seed the old man was dead he run off to the woods. Master come over in the fiel' find the old man and asked for the overseer. Some of the hands get him and say Master say for him to come back, the old man as just got over-het and died. That was done to him for something he didn't do. We went to a church there on the place. You ought to have heard that "Hellish" preaching.."Obey your Master and Mistress, don't steal chickens, don't steal eggs and meat", and nary word 'bout having a soul to save. All of the slaves had to go toChurch. They preached to the whites in the morning and the colored in the afternoon.Old Master was a mighty hunter and every spring would go on camp-hunts. When he was gone the Niggers had prayer meetings and sung and prayed. Once on a camp hunt Master got sick and couldn't come home. He was camped 'bout three miles from the house. The Holy Ghost got among the Niggers in one of their prayer meeting and Master heard the carrying-ons. He sent word by young Master Bob he was going to give them 1500 lashes when he got well. Niggers is fools and allus will be I guess. They used to steal off and pray and turn a wash pot up-side down to drown the sound. Master tracked them with the dogs and say, "Don't you pray".We had all the parties we wanted to have on Saturday night. Master would come out and show us new steps. They allus had a little extra job for us on Sunday, pulling fodder or tending to the stock. They let us have Christmas Day and give you all the meat you want. If you had any money you had better hide it, you warn't 'lowed to go to town and spend it.I'se seed something that look like a ghost. I had a cousin Charles that was allus trotting round over the place like a mule. One day I was setting on the kitchen steps eating plums and I heard a sound just like my cousin make. I thought it was Charles . It brushed by me right quick and run on out of the yard. It look like a person but when I saw it warn't Charles , I swallowed the plums seed and all.They tended to us good when we was sick. Soon as one got ailing old Master had the Doctor come quick. Lots of them warn't sick when they was sick. They was just playing off to get out of work. The old white Doctor that tended to us helped them get out of work. He took a little flour and meal and water and made pills. Then he say to the Master, "That Nigger is pretty sick". Master would come over most every day to see how you was getting along. He say, "How is the pills doing". The Nigger would say, "Working me nearly to death". Sometime they stay in bed three or four days taking flour pills.I 'members 'bout the war. The fighting was done off from us. Daddy went to war as a servant of Josh Calloway . Jeems hated the shadow of a Nigger and let my daddy go to war with Josh Calloway . Daddy never come back from the war. Old Master Jeems was getting the papers and dispatches from the war all the time. When he read them he just grunted and say, "I don't believe it; the Niggers will never get free". He cussed and 'bused the Niggers more ever time he read in the papers that the Niggers was going to be free. He stepped off to Hell 'bout six months 'fore we got free. He took sick and died. If there is a Hell, old Master sho' went there for the way he used the innocent Niggers. We heard we was free from Marshall. When the proclamation was signed they beat drums and shot cannons at Marshall and we knowed we was free. I worked on 'bout seven months after surrender so hard that I couldn't hardly raise my foot over a straw and didn't get a chaw of tobacco even. Me and my mother left and went to farming for ourselves.I'se lived in Harrison County all my life. I wore myself out right here. That's all I know, and now I is too old to work. These fo'ks I live with takes good care of me and the Government gives me $11.00 a month that I is proud to get.I 'members the Ku Kluxers but I never seed them. They say they rode up and down the road in white suits and wore shiny swords on their side, and that they would cut the arms and heads off of a Nigger just cause he was free. I don't know if they did or not, but the Niggers sho' was fraid of them.I'se voted in the President election. The Nigger not being 'lowed to vote is better for the other fellow. I ain't got much to say for the young Niggers. They do lots of devilment and don't pay no attention to us old fo'ks. I don't know what they is coming to. The penitentiary if they don't behave, I guess.