The source of the narratives of Anthony Battle and Spear Pitman (q.v.) seems to be an article in the April 11, 1929, Rockville Republican, in which former slaves in Greencastle related their experiences. According to the fieldworker, there were not many former slaves still living in the area in the 1930s, though Greencastle had a few, and G. E. Black interviewed them for the Greencastle Banner. These elderly blacks were part of a large group of six hundred former slaves who had left the South in 1880. Once in the north, they scattered over several states, and those living in this area said they “just happened” to come here.
Anthony Battle, who had been a slave in Battleboro, North Carolina, said that he was seventy-eight years old, but the reporter said he appeared to be older, because rheumatism had crippled him. Still, according to the reporter, “it is easy to see how that in his prime he was a fine specimen of manhood, which was much admired by slave buyers.” Here is Anthony’s narrative:
There was about three hundred of us slaves on old Marse Turner Battle’s plantation—little and big. He bought me when I was a little fellow. When old Marse Turner died, his boys, Jake and Joe, divided the place. We had to work terrible hard.
Sometimes when a slave man was being chased for doing something that they would kill him for, his owner would help get him away over what we called the “underground railway” and would sell him away off from home, where he wouldn’t be found. They did that because they couldn’t afford to lose the money they would lose if the slave was killed by those who were after him.
Lots of slaves ran away, and when the dogs got after them, some would kill the dogs and never be caught. I never knew how they could kill one of those big dogs, but lots of dogs got killed that way.