Cornelius Cross said he had been auctioned off more times than he had fingers and toes, but that his mother was never separated from her family. His mother had seven sons (Granduson, Ben, Sonny, Philip, Cornelius, Solomon, and James) and five daughters (Dee, Mary Jane, Rachel, Nancy, and Addie). All of her children were born in the Indian Territory. Cornelius was born in a sorghum field, where his mother worked. He said he was happy in slavery because he always was allowed to stay near his mother during his childhood. When he was older, though, his white owners frequently punished him when he was disobedient.
After coming to Indiana, Cornelius worked on a canal boat on the Wabash and Erie Canal and traveled between Evansville and Terre Haute. He remembered two big locks at Lockport (Riley), but had forgotten the names of a number of locks and bridges. After leaving the canal boats, Cornelius settled in Evansville, where he lived for twenty years and worked for the Evansville branch of the Southern Indiana Gas and Electric Company.
On November 7, 1936, as he greased switches of the Southern Indiana Gas and Electric Company’s streetcar tracks, Cornelius was struck by a drunken white man and was hospitalized for three months. While he was in the hospital, his wife died. Cornelius died on July 16, 1944, and his obituary was published in the Evansville Courier on July 17, 1944 (p. 23):
Cornelius Cross, 80, Negro, of 405 Southeast Fifth street, an employee of the Southern Indiana Gas and Electric company for more than 40 years, died yesterday. Mr. Cross, who went to work for the utility firm in 1902, recently retired.
Surviving are four daughters, Mrs. Elizabeth Riley and Mrs. Delia Scott, Evansville; Mrs. Pearl Wilson, of Dayton, O., and Mrs. Estella Swancie, Indianapolis, and two sisters, Mrs. Dee Shipp, Hopkinsville, Ky., and Mrs. Rachel Weekly, Pembroke, Ky.
The body is at the Gaines funeral home.
At the time of the following interview, Cornelius was out of work and out of money.
I do not know the date of my birth, for I was born a way back. I do not know when. Evansville is a good place to live in, but I have not always lived in Indiana. I lived three years and six months at New Orleans. New Orleans was the first place I remember living at after the time my parents brought me from the Indian Territory, where we lived and where I was born. The Indian Territory had not been joined to the Oklahoma Territory. The surface of the area is level, but near the boundary in all directions you could see mountains in the distance.
My mother was named Henrietta and was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian. She was a loved and loving and honored mother and was faithful to her family and to her work. She had come across into Arkansas along with a band of her father’s people. When the band had seen the area east of the Territory, they decided to stay and make their home in Arkansas. Soon they became restless and traveled farther east until they came to the Mississippi Valley, where hunting and fishing were profitable. While the party of Indians was staying in Arkansas, my mother met Ben [Boulton], a Negro slave of James Boulton, who was in the slave business at Little Rock, Arkansas. Ben joined the band of Indians and became the husband of Henrietta. Ben Boulton only became known as Ben Cross during the Civil War.
Ben and his Indian wife got along well together. Ben had escaped bondage, but he feared being recaptured. This fear caused the Indians to travel into the Indiana [Indian?] Territory, where many slaves had gained freedom. The Negroes received kindness in Indiana [Indian Territory?], but there was much Indian trouble, and soon the white settlers could no longer stand the Indians as neighbors. I have never heard it said that my people had trouble with white families, but all Indians suffered for the depredations of the uncivilized Indians.
I do not know whether my people were driven out of the Indian Territory following King Philip’s War [1675–76?] or some Indian massacre, but I know my parents were driven back into the Indian Territory, lived there, and made the Territory their home. There they were well treated, well fed, and had few cares. The climate was delightful—the winters never severe, the summers not too warm for comfort and health. My mother was sorry to leave the Territory, but the old masters of slaves demanded that their property he returned to them, and all the half-breeds with slave parents were mustered out of the area and returned to their owners. My mother was not a slave, hut she came with my father and brought seven sons and five daughters to be auctioned off from the slave block at New Orleans. We slave children did not wear pants, but a full, long shirt or dress made of coarse homespun cloth. When we were disobedient, the master or his wife made us raise the skirt high and take a sound whipping on our bared skin. It soon taught us to be obedient and to respect discipline.
I worked for several years on a boat on the the Ohio River from New Orleans and Cincinnati. I knew Jim Howard ... Red-Headed Jesse from St. Louis—the same Red-Headed Jesse was murdered at St. Louis by a deck hand. I knew Tom January, one of the best river men that sailed in the old river days.
The [Wabash and Erie] canal was a pretty sight. A great deal of masonry was used. A beautiful arch was erected over Burnett’s Creek. High bridges were placed above trestles, and handrailings were built on each side of the bridges for safety.
Where that big chimney stands on the property of the Indiana Gas and Electric Company’s property was a canal depot. The canal boats used to be run up on what is now Fifth Street and pass where the beautiful Central Library now stands. The New South was one boat that carried a great deal of freight. These boats were double-decked boats and carried both freight and passengers.
Many stories have been told of piracy on the Ohio River. A story of Cave-In Rock is partly true, as there was a large hotel at Cave-In Rock, and many things happened there. I do not know how many have been put in books and how much has been handed down from one person to another. Many things happened which we did not understand, but I never did believe in ghosts or haunts.