Document text
Forms to be Filled out for Eacn Interview
FORM
Circumstarces cf Interviw
STATE
roax
NAME OF xtORKEA
LEVI C. l!UBUrf
ADDRESS
11191 West 119th Street* Manhattan
DATE
Oelieber Its*
SUBJECT
ARM TOMOCRE 410 WRY THOMAS
1. Date and time of inter7low
Oetaber 24 and 216 1938
2. Place of interview
836 Lost 119th Street* top floor
3. Name and addresE of i:foricut
Mrs. Mary Thomas* 323 iieet 319thStreet
4. Name and address of person, if any, w'Ao put yo ut in
touch with informant.
Mrs* collo* 4 ,Apet 112th tablet* Menhattan
5. Name and addres of pe7'son, if any, accompanying you
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc,
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
A hitwhenetto apartment* oonsisting of a bedrona and a small above
inwhiosh are an ioehos and a two burner gee stove with portable oven.
Part of a private house* 3 storied brit* whioh is given over largely
to roomers. Mrs. Thmass lives with her daughter, who is employed on
one of the sewing projects*
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
STATE
NAME “Y VOIIXER
ADD7)ESS
DATE.
SI:JECT
1. Ancestry
American Negro, came from a family who were ones slaves
but who, before the Rebellion, became fuLitives. LIAM by
the Axlersround Railroad and settled in the North
2. Place and date of birth
Personal history of informant
NEV; Y0i-LE
Lila Co IttkiENT
3,53 Lest 118th Street, Manhattan
(„:,ctober 25. 1938
AKE-2aiCk' LELai:‘ MARY ?ECUS
FOLKLORE
NE 'Y YOK
3. Family
i2orn around 1874, in ree Haven (now Lawnside) New Jersey
!Ter father was the son of an Afriean stolen from his !Tam
on the iipst Coast cc Africa. She lives now with her deuhter.
1. Places lived in, Aith dates
!!own in ,ree Haven (Dtanside), moved le Olio city in 1931,
after the &oat. of her husband.
5. Education, with dates
Gruner sohoolinc in an une,radedsehool in Free laver'.
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates
House wife
7. Special skills and interests
Despit great age, is interested in current events ard
possesses a keen memory of early history of her family.
8. CoLununity and religious J,ctivities
1,-0.13ber of ,athel African Zathodist piseopal iuh, 1:51nd
Jtreet and Lenox Avenue.
9. Description of informant
f. kom.eyed. wellopreserved, tidy little woman. Slightly hard of hearineo
but has remarkable memory, reads daily newspapers and unusually ifellw.informed
on psis t and present,'
10. Other Points gained in interview
FOUrC-LM'
STATE
NA!,,E OF M—NEd
ADDRESt-i
DATE
ST.T,JECT
MRK
AVIUT
363 eest 118th 6treet„ Liauhattan
'.)etoller 26, me
A •itJAL cOLYLUI we ALItY .0.!.`AS
As a child I remember hearin, the old folks tellint; me o their terrible life
whioh they led on the larip farms of 2aryland before tl _mencipation.
MY .;readfather had been e Chieftain's son and he remanbered the time when he was
a lit tb o1law, playinL; with some other boys on the banks of the sea, and a band
of men swooped down on thee and oarried them from their oun people. my cyandfather
remembered the heavy i.p].d bracelets and armlets of his rank and those slaveestealers
took :old ornaments from
'AY 6randfatherlgel a bleak mark about an inch wide runnin6 down his forehead to the
tip :A' his nose. This marl:was the tii,A,..)f his tribe. Ha was tall and VEIX muoh
respeoted by the other slaves and the slaveeholder down in Maryland. HQ married,
raised a %may. end L;rew old. :men in his old ace he was a valuable piece of prop..
t soon he boocure -seises in Ihe fields and his master a6reed Ave nim his
freedom.
But heold nen., my L'randfather, uaked ior the freedom of his youngest son, who was
my /lather. .1"is the nester refAied t o at first but at the earnest insistenee
of my ;rtuidfather, he a6r upon conditio that the on who uas a zrat sAmmer
and diver, should dive into the chesapeaks bay ehere a ship had exnk years before with
a load of iron. If the son were suceessfUl in bringing to the surface, this load of
iron, then Ri „;readfather and his son, my father, sheuld zo free.
Pegs 2.
My grandfather tied a rope around my father's waist and for over three months the two of
thin brought the plates of iron to the shore for old master. They say that sometimes the
eon stayed under the water so long that my grandfather had to dreg hi= up from the 'reek and
aisound
ley Limon the pope and work over him like you'd work ever a dreandied person.
Day after day the two worked hard and finally there won't no more iron down there and they
told the master so and he ammo down to the wreak and found out they was telling thetruth...
but still he wouldn't let them 00. The old men* yes* but not the son who was handy
around the plan* an' everything.
But my grandfather kept asking for his son, and the old master said that if the two of them
brought up the sound timbers of the old week* than he would keep his word and let them
goo So my grandfather and his on my father* between them brought up all the sound loose
timber that vas part of the wreak. It was cheaper to get this wood and iron from the week
than to buy it, so the nester wanted it.
The wreak had stayed dome an the bottom of the Chesapeake Bey for over twenty years but nobody
except ny father had been able to dive that deep. So you see it was just like trading off
some of the young slaves an the farm to be able to get the iron and mod.
When the two finished that *hors* end it was a mighty big *horse too* they vent up to the big
house and asked for their freedom.
The master sent them beak to their °thin and said that since the old man wasn't no good aey
more* and it just oost the master money to food him* he Gould go whenever he pleased* but
the **nine 3oin,:, to stay on the farm and if he tried am foolishness* he would sell him
south. Selli2v a slave south meant that the slave mould be taken to one of the slave
trader's jails and put on the block and be sold tome plantation way down south. And
no verger thin i; could happen. Many a family was separated like thationothers from
their ohildrou* Dithers from their ohildrer* wives from their husbands* and the old folks
soy that a pretty girl fetehed (brought) a higher pries and didn't have to veer in the
fields. Theee youn girls* with no one to protect them* were used by their masters and
Page 3.
bore ohildren for them. These white seaters were the ales who didn't respeot our
women end all the *taxing up today in the south is the result of this power the law
gave over our women.
(The old lady was full of horrible examples of the deprarrity of white masters in
the days of slavery. AM while sympathised Id th her completely. I managed to
get her back to the story of her greadfather.)
Well, when the old in and his son knee it was no use5 that their master did not
intend to let them zo. they began to plot an eleepe• They knew of the Undergrourd
Railaved. the.; knew that if they oalld got to Baltimore, they would meet friends
who would see them to Philadelphia and there the Tirierde (Quakers) mould either
lot than settle there or send them tro other people who would lot than safely over
the border into Canada.
11, one nizht ir cre.ndrather and my father made up their minds and ray grandfather
could read and write so he wrote hisself out a pass. Any slave who vent off the
farm had to have a pass si,Lned by the master or he would be picked up by a sheriff
and put in jail and be whipped.
So ray grao.dfather had t -is pass and ,,ot safely through to Baltimore. There they hid
for several days and mei ted for an agent of the Undergrout Railroad.
One ni6ht they were dressed in some calico ad homespun like a woman and rode to
Philadelphia on the back scat of a wean loaded with fish. In Philadelphia the
tow was beinL aearohed by slavemboldsre looking for nay slaves, so the people
where they were supposed to stay in Philadelphia hurried them across the river about
ten miles.
(Aocordin_, in the old lady, there were stations of the Underground Railroad all over
the East. The Line ran from Baltimore throuji rilaingtos. Delaware. to Philadelphia
and there breached off, sane of the trails going westward end cms leading into New Toxic.
with Canada the ultimate Leal.)
Pegs 4,
grandtither and my father stewed across the Delaware froa fhiladelphia helping
a farmer harvest his crepes and they built a cabin end soon other *seeped slaves from
amok; their former neighbors slipped into New Jersey where they were.
Finally there vaa almost a hundred escaped slaves in the one spot and because tbwir verso
free at last and this place was a 'given jAlt like the Bible talked about they deeided
to stay there and so thsy got Wether and mailed the place Free Navin.
My uncle aNys that he reaahed there by hiding in the weeds all day =dire:liking at night,
So napy peolAe came from Merylmod that the, changed the name of the little village to
Snow Hill. which vas the name of the tmrn nearest the farms frosavhieh all or sestet
the people had run away from. The poet officio people made thee ohmage the name again
and now it is Law:wide, but I VOA born there sixly.tour years ago and I still 'Link of
it as Free ;lawn.
*IP *a*