Document text
Project #-1655
Phoebe Faucetto
nampton County
390014
Social Customs of the Past
ROBERT SOLOMONS, SR.
(Verbatim Conversation)
Mr. Bobbie Solomons has spent a very active life ona large
plantation. it is fitting that now in his old age be can en-
joy the comforts of his lovely country home, and spend the
time in reading, and talking with the many friends and rela-
tives who visit him.
"As regards the slaves that we held before the Civil War",
he began, when questioned about the olden times, "1 can only
give you detailed information about my father's. he kept two
seamstresses busy all the time, sewing for the ones that work-
ed in the fields. And cooks were kept on the place to prepare
the meals for them. Pne Sunday afternoons they would come to
the house for a study of the catechisms. Quantities were mem-
bers of the churches Lawtonviile and St. Peter's Churches.
After the war every slave left him& but later some of them
came back and sharecropped with him, he sharecropped his en-
tire place. The corn was divided right away when harvested;
the cotton, when sold. he had a negro who kept the commissary.
That was worked on shares, too. 4:114, old negro who kept it,
used to tell that one day when my father was settling up with
a crowd of negro4s, not thinking that he would get anything he
went off by himself back of the commissary. 'After a while;
he said, 'I hear de ole boss say, "Where Montague?" so I went
out to him and de ole boss put $150.00 in my handl And I
didn't think I had a cent. The negroes had good houses.
There was a row of them in the street along the road in sight
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Phoebe Faucet to
hampton County
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of the house. They were treated all right; but there was a man
who lived down the road who was cruel to his darkies. If you'd
meet them in the road they'd have an eye out, or a big scar
across their face. You could tell his darkies where you met
theml xhey had to sleep under the man's house. He had a house
built up high under the ground, and they stayed under there. It
was just a big open space, with no enclosure or walls around it.
"There was no such thing as a Ku -Klux -Klan in this country.
There were two garrisons stationed here after the war. One was at
Beech Branch, and one at Lawtonville. The one at Beath Bfanch
was made up of negroes under the auspices of the white one at
Lawtonville.
"There's a big change in the people now from that they used
to be. The people were better then. There might have been as
good a man living, but I know that there never was a better
Christian man living than my fathert he would walk four miles
every Sunday morning, and hold Prayer Meeting, then walk back.
Ee and Mr. Williams were stewards.
"For sometime after the war there was a lot of stealing done
by the darkies. We had a little pig that slept with the dog and
her puppies. She had seven pigs three a piece for my brother
and me and one for my little sister. They stole hers and all
three of my brothers. One year they kiDed fifteen head of
cattle, and twenty seven head of my brothers. After I had.
charge of the farm they stele half a bale of cotton from under
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Phoebe Faucette
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the house. I had to start sleeping in the ginhouse. Had a swing-
ing bed up there. I was fourteen years old when I began taking
care of the farm. My father had died in 1869, and when my elder
brother married, I had to take charge. There were eleven females
in the family for me to look out for. I remember one night there
was a party at Lawtonville. I was a member of a club down there
and I wanted to go. So I prepared to slip out so that none of
the darkies would know that I was gone. After dark I saddled my
horse and hitched her in a little thicket of woods that was near
the back of the house. When I went up into the ginhouse and
latched the door on the inside, and came on out through the lint
room. ,I got out and on my horse. When I came back about two
o'clock in the morning they had stole half a bale of cotton. One
time I had to go away and I set a negro to watching in my stead.
My mother said she heard a 'Bum Burnt'. when the watchman came
to the door calling her. "le said they had started off with some
cotton but when he fired they dropped it. Whe merchants would
buy it night or day or any time. I know I stayed with my uncle
Bob Gifford one year to help him with anything that would come
up. he was a merchant, and he'd buy at all times of night.
"I don't remember when I was a boy hearing of a white man kill-
ing a darkie, or a darkie killing a white man. But there was a
white man name, dam that broke into a widow's house, a Mrs. Con-
don. Me had blacked his face and thought he'd be disguised; but
she recognized him. he didn't let him know then; that she roc-
Project #-1655
Phoebe Faucette
Hampton County
kage 4
ognized him; but she did and he was convicted and hanged. Ale was
always referred to as ole Sam -gallows. tears after I had an old
darkie moving some beams for me. While he was working I said,
'You know, Jim, that's part of the gallows that hanged old man
Sam -gallows.' You should have seen that nigger drop that beau
and runt
"My daughter was telling me that near Savannah down on the
Savannah River the government has seventy-five or eighty negro
women digging up bones of Indians. I don't know exactly where
it is; but it must be somewhere near the sugar refinery. Each
one is given a five-foot square to dig, and they have to skim
off the dirt a little at a time with little shovels so as not to
disturb the bones. They find many of the skeletons complete
with the parts all together. °there the joints have become sep-
arated. They've probably been there since before America was
discoveredt I asked her how in the world did they get those
women to do that sort of thing. 'Well', she said, 'They are
women who are on relief; so I suppose it is that or starve. But
you ought to see them disappear when knockin, off time comes.
They don't tarry around there one minutet It's out in a lonely
desolate place. "eally I don't know what would became of one of
them should she be left alone and behind the others for any
reason.'"
Source: Mr. Robert Solomons, Sr., 79, Luray, S. C.