Document text
I
Project 1885 -1
From Field Notes
Spartanburg, Dist. 4
May 26, 1937
390068
FOLK -LORE: FOLK TALES
Edited by:
Elmer Turnage
When Sherman was ravaging in the State of
South Carolina during the Civil War, many people refugeed from
the lower part of the state to the upper part in order to escape
his cruelties. A Matthews family came from Charleston to Fish
Dam Township. They could find no suitable house within the
township, or even in the small village of Carlisle; so Mr.
George Hill, owner of "Hillside" Mansion, through the kind-
ness of his heart, tooV the family into his abode. He was a
widower at that time, and kept a Scotch woman to serve as his
housekeeper. The Matthews family accepted part of the mansion
for their private quarters. They brought with them from Charles-
ton a young house -girl known as "Tlaum" Sallie. At the time
she first began her sojourn in Carlisle, she was between the
age of twelve and fourteen years.
One day Mrs. Matthews died at "Hillside".
She is buried in the Fish Dam burial ground, where all of the
Hills are buried. After her death, her two daughters left
Carlisle, one of them ming to Greenville, S.C. But "Maum"
Sallie had fallen in love with a tall lanky darky whose name
was John Hill. John was Mr. Hill's best slave. So Sallie and
John were married at the slave church, by the pastor who always
preached to the Hill slaves on Sunday in this church.
Sallie
and John lived on the Hill plantation and reared two sons.
One of them still lives with Mrs. Wood, daughter of Mr. Hill,
who now resides at Hillside. His name is Tom, and he waits on
the "Cap" and the "Missus" of Hillside today.
When Sallie's little boys were up some size,
she married a negro much younger than she was and went with
him to Mississippi. She had not been there long when word
reached Carlisle that "Ma" Sallie was longing for her Carolina
sunshine. For years she lived in Mississippi and did not return
to her beloved plantation home. But each year word got back
that Naum" Sallie was coming back to see her folks. Pinally
the second husband died. He was buried in Mississippi. Sallie's
two sons in Carlisle got Narse" George to help them get up some
money to bring their =other back to Carlisle. With the help of
Mr. Hill, they got up twenty dollars and sent it to Sallie.
The day that she arrived, her sons with their families and the
other derkies who remembered her, were all at the station to
greet her. All of the derkies in Carlisle were proud to have
a woman in their midst called Naum". Some of them called her
simply that and left off "Sallie".
Sallie took up her old place at "Hillside" as
maid for the household. She had no trouble establishing her
old place in the community, even though all the darkies were
now free. She was ever faithful to her Ilihite folks" whom
she loved.
During the World War, after Mrs. Wood and
her sister, Mrs. W. B. May, had inherited Hillside, they
decided to entertain some of the soldiers at dinner one Sunday.
The soldiers whom they had invited were all Yankees. When dinner
was about ready, Mrs. Wood went into the kitchen where Sallie was
helping the cook. Sallie had become too old now to do any steady
work. Mrs. Wood, hoping to compliment her, said: "Sallie, I tell
you what you do. Since it is Sunday and at Christmas, too,
suppose you put on a fresh white apron and come in and wait on
the table today."
Mrs. Wood thought: how the soldiers would
enjoy this old slave -time darky. Sallie perked up very indignantly
and replied:
"Lawdy God& Miss Ruth, what ails you? Don't
you know dis nigger don' nebber want to see no mo' of dem
Yankees? Kaise ain't she been skeerd of dem ebber since she
left Charleston wid her fus' mistess? No maumlum, anything
dat youse wants des nigger to do for youse, she'll do it; but
she show to goodness ain't gwine to serve no Yankees at no
table, kaise she ain't even gwine to look at 'am."
Sallie died on the twenty-eighth of August 1921.
She is buried in the slave graveyard on the Hill plantation in
sight of the mansion.
SOURCE: Mr. and Mrs. George Wood; Jim Wallace (col.).
Carlisle, S.C. Interviewer: Caldwell Sims, Union, S.C.