Document text
Accession no.
c tt et
WPA L. C. PROJECT f UNIT
II ii
-,rj 11052
Date received
/e, /1/2/0
Consignment no.
Sidpped front
Amount
Form -8
Collection (or Type)
Title_j,a4k /4°..2--Ze--1--az-•••,--=--'
714.
Place of origiree‘x e Date 0 F.Ar
Project worker
Project editor
Remarks
Project #-1655
Phoebe Faucette
Hampton County
MRS. ADDIR PATTRRSON
76 Years
Airman, S. C.
195eS0
Records of the Past
Mrs. Patterson is a bright and cheery old lady with a some-
what ruddy look. A photograph, taken of her when she was
eighteen, shows a pretty face in a lace cap that covered her
head and fell down upon her shoulders. The white lace made a
most striking frame for the face with its bright dark eyes
and sweet expression. She is pretty still, but has rheumatism
and her hearing is bad. Her memory, however, is good,Asspec-
ially concerning the events of her childhood. She says:
*We used to have quilting parties. Oh yest And log-rollings.
They generally went together. The men had to burn everything
to get it all off the ground. They'd pile up great piles of
logs that'd be handsome timber now and set it afire. There
were no sawmills then and they had to clear the land to plant
it. Trees that would have been worth thousands of dollars if
they'd been sold in today's market and would be worth milliOns
today if they'd been sold to keep on growing. The piles would
burn all the night and on into the next day. While the men were
working with the logs the women would be quilting. And when
night came, they'd all have a big frolic men, women, and
childrent About time for the quilt to be taken out the young
men would come around, and whoever would get wrapped in the
quilt when they threw it out would get a kisst ometimes they'd
have rail-splittings, too, but not so often. They'd split the
rails for fences.
*If a man was sick, his neighbors would take turns giving him
W11052
S
Project #-1655
Phoebe Faucette
Hampton County
Page 2
a day's work until his crop was laid by.
"The folks used to live in pole houses. Stopped the cracks
with clay. Later on, they took to splitting the poles and ceil-
ing the houses. My father had started a new house when the mar
broke out. He had to get somebody else to finish it for him.
The lumber was sawed at RobertvilIe and planed by hand. It
had to be hauled here in wagons all the way from there. The
brick were made by hand burnt there on the place. The house
was made of splendid lumber, too, nice, wide lumber. Its stand-
ing today. It was set afire three times during the war, but the
folks that were in it said they weren't going to get out, so
they had to put the fire out.
"My father was in the battle of Honey Hill. Then he went to
Virginia. After the war he had to walk home from Virginial And
then after he got home, he had to walk to Savannth to take the
oath of allegiance. I was five years old when he got home. I
was born in 1860 December 27th, 1860.
"It took them three or four years to get started again on the
farms. They had to first raise the seed, and gradually got
enough feed, and stock enough to kill some to eat.
"Ve used to have candy-pullings. But the candy had to be made
of sorghum syrup. Didn't have the good sugar -cane they have now.
It was a good while after the war before sUgar-cane began to be
planted in this country.
"That was When we studied the old blue -back speller Webster's
Project #-1655
Phoebe Faucette
nampton County
Page -3
Elementary Speller. And that was about all we studied, toot
After each spelling lesson in the book there was a reading
lesson. The words we'd had in the spelling lesson were in
the reading lesson so we'd see how they were used. And I
tell you, after you'd learned all the woids in that speller,
you could spell! They taught us this way: anterior. a n,
lannl; t e, teal; r I, 'rye'; anteri o r 'or' anterior.
Some would say anterior.
"The little boys would wear a long shirt thattd come down
to their ankles. They'd have a split at the sides like night
shirts have to keep them fran falling when they ran. They'd
just wear that one garment. They wouldn't have any pants.
They'd be made out of cotton Osenberg's, a coarse unbleached
homespun. Later on they colored the cloth. They got to
raising indigo. That was a blue color. And they'd use bark
for dyeing. Sweet gum was a great thing they used, and they'd
set it with copperas or lye. They dyed their woolen cloth
with the green walnut hulls and set it with 17e. Then they'd
make a yellow dye out out the leaves of the walnut tree. The
cloth was woven by hand. And the thread was spun by hand. My
mother had a loom and a spinning -wheel. She'd have negro women
to spin for her. Then she'd get someone to come and stay a
week at a time to weave. There was a Miss Margaret Mixon that
_
was the best weaver I knew. She'd come and stay for two weeks
at a time. She could weave from five to seven yards of cloth a
Project #-1655
Phoebe Faucette
Hampton County
S
Page -4
day. "ut she was unusual. She could weave twill cloth, too.
.And she could check the cloth, and stripe it. I've %fora mazy
a dress that she had woven. She married a Long. I remember
just how she looked. She was unusual because her hair was so
light that it was right white, and her eyes were dark right
black. Aer father was an Irishman. Charlie Hurley was his
name.
"There weren't so many churches in those days. Steep Bottom
was here, and Cypress Creek. They burned Steep Bottom during
the war the first building. Then there was Beech Branch.
My grandfather was pastor at Steep Bottom for fifty years
off and on, for fifty years. He preached at Beech Branch,
too. hey used to have services once a month. He would go up
there on a Friday drive in a buggy and they'd have preach-
ing Saturday and Sunday. Held come back Monday.
"Miss Fannie Kitties would talk over all this with me when
she was living, but she's gone on, now. .She was a Kitties,
and married a Kitties, her cousin."
Source: Mrs. Addle Patterson, Furman, S. C.