EXPLORING  the  PAST

                                                               By Reporter-B.C. Historical Survey Committee

AN INTERVIEW BETWEEN A FORMER SLAVE AND A MERRIFIELD PHEGLEY DESCENDANT
Submitted by:  Reba Parks

The following article, an interview between an elderly Negro and a descendant of the Merrifield Phegley family, was given to the Burleson County, Historical  Survey Committee by Mr. J. C.Storm and Mr. James Connor of Corpus Christie.  We wish to thank them and to express our appreciation to Mr. And Mrs. J. E. Phegley and Mrs. Frank Stubbs for their help in researching it.  The interview took place in 1941 and is surprisingly accurate, even though the old man was 88 years old at the time.

TO OLD MASTER & MISS ’ FAMILIES:

   (Part one of two parts)

Dear friends and ones that is close to me in the fact that I am loyal and have the honor of being the last living slave once belonging to the family of the Merry Fields Phegleys of Fraimville , Texas.  I am 88 and I am in a very good health and my wife is well too.  We have reared a large family of children, they have been good boys and girls and we think they are a credit to us in every way.

  I remember all your mothers very well and their pretty lady  manners as children and Miss Eleanora  ( Eleanora Phegley Hooten rp) teaching school in Fraimville and coming home crying her heart out when General Lee surrendered.  There is a picture somewhere of little Tommy Massengale in his brass toed boots with a stick of candy in his hand.  His Uncle Tom  (Thomas Lafayette Phegley rp) give him that candy.  Little Marse Rufus  (Rufus Phegley rp) had his picture to but that was for his Aunt Angie (Angeline Porter Tharp rp)   Po little Rufus just stayed here on this earth until he was sixteen then the Lord called him up on high to the better place where his ma had already gone before him.  Then Miss Alice and Miss Mollie-  (Alice Caroline & Mary Adoline Phegley rp) I remember them laughing and gay-Miss Mattie (Martha Angeline Phegley Capps rp), Po child, just twentyone, she had such pretty ways they all said.  She left two babies when she died.  I remember Marse Tom riding off to the Civil War and his gray horse, shining new saddle just a creaking and Old Miss crying.  I remember Mr. Jack Porter coming home-his dog met him and knew him.  Mr. Ben Blacklock-Captain John Blacklock all come home.  Captain Blacklock put his sword in an old dead tree years later to catch owls.  I saw him ridding and a waving it when he came home to get the deserter he and Marse Tom got.  I remember Mr. Bob Thompson and Miss Jennie  (Virginia Phegley Thompson rp) and all their children.  Little Sallie and Archie have been asleep so long-that the little bush in the cemetery is now a big tree and Lady Carrie that was mother to them all, and little Nonie and baby Jennie. (speaking of the children of Virginia Phegley Thompson rp)

  Sometimes in the day I goes in the shade of a pecan tree on the banks of the Brazos River that runs by my door and dreams of the agone days.  First I sees the trees around Old Masters place and the two story cedar house, the big gate, cedar trees in the yard-the long walk to the door with moss in bloom on the sides-roses-lilacs and honey suckle on the porch.  I sees Old Marster  (Merrifield Phegley rp) settin there cooling himself and his children running and playing in the yard.  Dear old Miss (Sally Ann Porter Phegley)  with soft brown eyes comes out in a wide hoop skirt and sits and smiles and knits.  Old Marster laugh until he could be heard for half a mile. None of his chilun ever laugh like that but Miss Carrie.  I sees my mother bring out the littlest one and give to old Miss.  I remember my mother Misy, she was so gentle and tender with them cause she loved them and they loved her.  I remember how Old Miss fainted when her sister Mary died  (Mary Porter Tharp rp) .  Then Old Miss she died begging Marse Tom to please be a good boy-and Miss Jennie took pneumonia an died.  Then Miss Mollie and Miss Alice and Miss Mattie and Marse Tom and the last that I heard Miss Eleanora was gone too.  She was the little sickly one and she stayed the longest of all-rest her soul.

I remember Mister Lummie, Mr. Cole, Mr. Bob, Mr. Walker when they come acourting and I remember Old Master taking from the quilt chest and giving $1000.00 what he promised to his girls when they got married.  I remember my brothers and our cabin at the back and the big trees and the swing in the yard-the big gully with the big swimming hole that was as blue as the sky and we could never find the bottom.  I remember Marsters good horse, and the one that won the silver cup at the fair.  Miss Frankie had it once on her back porch, and Marsters hogs, they were commandeered during the Civil War.  The strain he brought from Kentucky.  Marse Tom had one of them in 1906-they were great pacers, 4-(Old Texanna) The old times is gone and with it went the good times, in the fall of the South we all suffered, but some of us stayed loyal to  our white and have watched them grow through the years from children to men and women and some pass to their reward while we are still at our post of duty waiting the tender  voice of the Master to say “comeâ€�.  Now my hair is white yet my back is straight and strong.  I do my daily work not as easily as I once did, but I do it.  Things are a little harder for me now since my house just burned up.  I am not so comfortable, me and my good wife, all her quilts, dishes and everything gone, just us left a looking back at our warm home burning and 88-1941 (103 years of age in 1956.)

  I am giving you a little gift-an Indian head penny for a watch charm.  These pennies were given in change for money when a spinning wheel was sold. I am sending all Old Master’s childrens children one of them. 

Marse Tom’s wife is the only one of the old family here, She was the gentle and how she could tweedle him about and after he had been a batchler until 45 years old.  He’d look awful grouff-but he was all smiles inside and good natured.   (speaking of Thomas L. Phegley and wife Sallie Skinner rp)

  I remember when the lastest baby (Rufus) was coming.  Miss Eleanora took herself off upstairs and made all the babies things when she was just a little thing sixteen.  I remember a fine man that was sweet on Miss Eleanora, he was a preacher but old Marse didn’t like him because he was a German.  He told him to go-shaking his stick at him –and  he went.  I remember when they were cooking the cakes in the stove for Miss Alice’s wedding-just a browning the paper to see if the oven was just right.  I remember the long white dress and Miss Jennie and Miss Mattie in pink and blue and Miss Mollie in blue. 

  I remember when they heard about Sam Houston being dead.  I remember coming to the hose and talking about how us Negroes was going to be free and how scared I was not to have Old Marster.  I remember Dr. Dallas who afterwards said he dug a grave nearly every Sunday during the Civil War, as he and one other man was the only men left at home in Fraimville.  I remembers Clairisa, Old Miss’ mothers slave, cook and nurse, how she say “I’m not the one whats wants to leave-its him and the chilun, I am coming back,â€�

but she never did.    “I do not want to be free.â€�  She just wanted Miss Matilda  (speaking of Matilda J. Porter, wife of Benjamin)  Miss Matilda tried to hide her grief and the tears in her eyes when her Negroes went off-saying good-by just like a bunch of bad children going off on a picnic but they had hard enough time of it I know. 

  I remember Bro. Lacky  teaching white school and Marse Toms’s doe skin suit and hearing about the Klux Clan ariding thro’ the land gobbling people up and their all seeing eyes haunting us.  I remember the pet bears that never stopped walking until they wore out the trace chain that held them.

             PART II

I remember that we loved our Marster and his family and took pride in them having the prettiest girls and the finest horses and saddles in the country and the two story cedar house we thought grand, but Mother had come with them from Morgantown Kentucky.  You don’t know what a fine house was, but our big house was finer than Mr Sam Houston or Mr Edward Burlesons.  Mr  Burleson come to the big house many times and then Mother and us boys scurried around-killing chickens and cooking pies and cake.  He liked Chess pie the  bestest.  I remember he ate two pieces of it and then when passed another he said, “I can’t refuse-I like it so much.â€�  He took the third piece.  They all like him.  He had ridden from Houston on his way to Austin.    I thought he knew most everything.  I feared a Yankee-and when I was grown up I saw one and I was real surprised to see that he was just a meant man and had a real nice smile and could act decent and even kind.  He wouldn’t kill a grass snake because it wasn’t poison, or wear spurs.  One morning Master made the fire and just turned up the chip basket on the fire.  Too late he saw the little girls shoes ruined.  But Marse Tom, he say he will fix it up and

not to cry.  He put on his big boots and rode off to San Antonio.  Fust thing we know he come back with new shoes for the girls and a new dress for his ma, and peppermint candy-we all got some and I kept mine for days just to smell. Miss Matilda and old Marse took each ten silver dollars and sent them somewhere and their spoons made.  They were so soft they could be dented with the teeth.  The children would bite when they were so mad.  I heard old Master say that his father liked this country so much that he named his two girls America and Virginia and never did teach any of them to speak anything but English.  Old Master say his father John Phegley say that his father and mother came to America when he and his brother Peter were little boys.  John went to Kentucky and Peter to Illinois  (The Porters, Wilsons and Phegleys came on same boat to America)

 My mother say that they lived in Butler County, in a big house with big posts in front and a long row of Negro quarters in the back that they had lots of sugar maples and made sugar.  That the white folks went to Louisville to visit.  They fished on Green River. 

  Old Master say that when he was a little boy he and his father went to Hardin County, KY., to see about some land he saw.  A hard looking boy that was Abraham Lincoln but nobody would have ever guessed it then.  Old Marse was born on April 1st, 1818.  He say a boy is not like a horse which you can tell about whats in him, he say he had seen many a boy what had hardly no shirt but what had ambition, take up the lead when he was a man and he called Col.  I remember the long row of smoke in the evening at sunset that gave the place a name, our row of smoke joined in a long smoky row, blue, gray-beautiful.  (My mother say not so and we is remembering the Great Smokiesâ€�

When Marse Tom see it he say Smoky Row and that was what it was called.

  Old Marster tell that when Marse Tom was little he say Mammy and Daddy.  That wouldn’t do in Texas-So they say “ Tom, say “Paâ€� and say “Maâ€�.  He say, “No, but when the new cedar house is made I’ll say “Paâ€� and “Maâ€�.  And he did.  Little miss Mattie was all of thems favorite cause she was so gentle and didn’t say nothing or do anything to hurt nobody,  just  gentle.  All of them was gentle but she was not meant for this world.  Her baby boy was stillborn but miss Angie soaked him for an hour in warm water and he began to wiggle a little bit and catched his bref.  Then there was little Annie the baby came-her Pa a preachin all the time.  (speaking of the Porter sisters)

  Old Miss (Matilda P.) she wear a black dress with a white lace collar what came from Nashville.  Her sister Sallie Borroh gave it to her.  Old Marster gave my old Miss a pin, it had a face of a girl on it.  Old Miss was not ever well, and when I go out to the white folks cemetery and stand and look at their monuments, I wonder why they ever came to Burleson  CO., them and the Porters-away from their place-to a wilderness.  They and Miss Matilda and Mr. Ben and Miss Agnes and Mr. Blacklock-they built three little log houses in together-their slaves built them, and the white folks lived there for a long while. In 1845 they all with Bro.(Elder) and Sister Johnson organized the Macedonia Church at Fraimville.  I remember well when oxen drawn and covered wagons passed on these roads going to the west and people passed through leaving only the ashes of campfires to mark the way they went.  I can remember to when a man and women could marry and to out to a piece or land and start off with nothing but hard work and achieve a full life and be happy.  Be prosperous in a few years started from nothing.  That was in days before they was so much to want and everyone lived out of his own farm and garden-and had his own poultry and had to work.  There was no relief from Gov.which has ruined all the workers and causes them to be so sorry and just sit!  And let everything go to waste and ruin for need of laborers.  Mr. Bob lived in Yellow Prairie, Mr. Walter married again and was in Caldwell in 1868.  Mr. Lummie was a good man to.  Mr. Colie, Mr. Clay and Marster’s girls is all gone.  Marse Tom too- but Miss Sallie is the last.  Old Marster married again to Miss Mollie and they had three chiluns.  Old Marster’s sister, Miss America was born in 1812 a Mr. Martins in Kentucky.  His other sister was Virginia.  His brothers were Leo, Cicero, and Marion.  His mothers name was Delilah.  I remember bringing in wood for my mistress while my mother,  Misy,   and the other house girl cooked dinner.  It’s been a long time.  The bells will all ring some day and I’ll be there.

 The spots with odd symbols indicate spots in the narrative that were unintelligible.rp