When interviewed, Peter Gohagen was living at 648 West 6th Street in New Albany. The fieldworker reported that “It was a very hot July day as I trudged down the grassy path to Peter Gohagen’s little clapboard house under the mulberry tree. There he sat, with his old splint-bottomed chair tilted back against the porch. It is hard to tell his age, but he must be nearly 90, although he is big and strong of physique as yet. Taking off his battered felt hat, he revealed a grizzly, close-cropped head, as he invited me to a chair on the porch.... Hot as the day was, he wore a faded blue heavy shirt and overalls and wool socks and thick brogans—all topped by the battered felt hat. I looked around. His little house was neat and clean. Flowers grew in the yard. Chickens pecked in the grass. Just inside the house door his wife sat and rocked as she ‘jawed’ with a visitor. Peter was very polite but distant until I told him what I wanted—some stories. Then he thawed out gradually and then completely when he discovered he knew my ‘folks’ in Kentucky.” Here is Peter’s story:
Yes, ma’am, I can remember well before freedom was declared. Indeed, I can. We lived with the Gohagen family just fourteen miles west of Elizabethtown in Kentucky near Rough Creek. My mother was Mary Gohagen. She wasn’t really my mother. She just took me when I was little and raised me. She belonged to the Gohagens. I was about ten or twelve years old when freedom was declared. Some of the colored folks run off then, but we all had a good home, and some of us didn’t leave for years.
You say your grandpappy lived near White Mills? Mr. George Cook, I remember him well. He was a little, heavyset Englishman. He had a great big place and a large family, too. He had a lot of niggers, but his favorites was always Aunt Barbara and Uncle Flem, an’ when he died he left them a little farm on Nolin River. You say Aunt Barbara was your pa’s nurse? Well, now, I sure am glad to see you, miss. Seems like folks from home. I ain’t been back now for ten years. May never get back to the ol’ homeplace again now. Yes, ma’am, ol’ Aunt Barbara, what nursed your pa, was shore a mighty fine colored woman. She was low and heavyset and light-skinned. She nursed the Gohagen boys, too.
We used to have some fine times down in the valley. Used to have big barbecues down at White Mills on the different white folks’ places. It was a white folks’ affair, but we had just as good a time as they did. They’d roast whole sheep and beefs and pigs and chickens outdoors on spits over a big brick oven, and all the little ones would hang around for lickin’s. We all got plenty to eat—sure enough, we did!
Then they used to be what they called beef shoots. The men all gathered at one place for a shootin’ match. They all came for miles around. And the best shots would win a whole beef for a prize. They had plenty of eatin’ then, too, and some drinkin.
Do I remember the Big Dark [the total eclipse of the sun]? I sure does. About how long ago would that be now, ma’am? You say it was in the ’60s? Well, it was right after the war. I was ridin’ toward home on horseback, several of us. We noticed it kept gettin’ darker and darker. We thought it was goin’ to blow a storm and was anxious to get home before it hit. The women was all alone, and we knew they’d be scared.
We rode along as fast as we could, and every place we could see folks out lookin at the sky and chickens runnin’ and squawkin’ and goin’ to roost in the fence corner. Hogs hid under barns, and bosses got scared and kicked up their heels. Some of the fool chickens run against the rail fences and broke their necks. We could see dead chickens plumb till we got home.
There everybody was sure feared. Some of the colored folks was wringin’ their hands andprayin’ and some thought the end of the world had come. It kept gettin’ darker, and the stars come out just same as it was night. Everybody went in their houses, ’cept the white folks, to wait till it quit doin’ whatever it was doin’. Finally, it got light again, and everybody breathed easy again.
Yes, ma’am, I remember when Morgan and his soldiers went through Elizabethtown. The wagons and hosses was as long as from here, clear out of sight. A bunch of soldiers come through the place next to us. My Aunt Ceny lived on this place, and all the white folks and colored folks had hid their chickens ’cause they knew what would happen to them if they didn’t. Aunt Ceny had hid hers under the porch. All was fine. The soldiers hunted around and didn’t find much. Then Aunt Ceny’s old Dominick rooster come out from under the porch and flapped his wings and crowed like it was Judgment Day. That fixed things. Of course, the soldiers found all her chickens, wrung their necks, and carried ’em off.
Yes, ma’am, I used to go huntin’ with Bill and John Cook, Aunt Barbara’s boys. Bill was tall and black, and John was in between. We sure had some times. I remember one night we was trying to shake a possum out of a tree, and the possum missed holt an’ fell right on Bill Cook’s head!
Did I ever see a ghost? Well, I should say I has. Seen plenty of ’em in my day. Why, one time I was a-ridin’ one of Mr. Gohagen’s fine hosses—Jessie her name was. We was a-goin’ along through a woods, natural like. All at once I seen a possum in the road in front of us—walkin’ along. Now, everybody knows that no possum that was ever born can go that fast. They are just naturally slow. And when I started Jessie up to catch that possum, he keeps goin’ faster and faster, and here I was runnin’ and still I couldn’t catch that possum. He run along in the road ahead of me, just skimmin’ the ground. And ever once in a while he would turn around and look at me. I knew right then that that weren’t no natural possum ’cause possums ain’t made that can outrun a hoss, let alone Jessie. She could run, that hoss. But I kept a-goin’, and all of a sudden that possum just run up a hollow and disappeared. And I just kept on goin’ until I got where I was goin’—yes, ma’am. That was a ghost, if I ever seed a ghost. And right after that my aunt died.
I remember when I was a little boy my ma used to send me to the store in White Mills. Sometimes I rode; sometimes I walked. I always liked to go there, for there was a hotel there for summer folks, and I could see the fine white ladies and men folks drivin’ around in their carriages, and the store-man most always give me a lump of brown sugar.
Us folks used to have a mighty fine time down in the valley. After freedorn come, I stayed around until I was about thirty and finally come on across the river into Indiana. I come here about fifty-five years ago. Some of my children was born here.
It sure is good to get to talk to you, ma’am. It’s just like havin’ a visit back home.
