Rudolph D. O’Hara was interviewed about his relatives’ experiences as slaves on James W. O’Hara’s plantation near Horse Cave, Kentucky. When Rudolph’s grandfather ran away from the plantation, slaveholder O’Hara threatened to change his will: “If my slaves don’t show a more helpful spirit hereafter, I’m going to change my will and not let Louisa free them at her death.” Although O’Hara gathered a large number of men from his own and neighboring plantations to search for the runaway slave, their search was useless. Rudolph’s grandmother, Cynthia O’Hara, house slave to Louisa O’Hara, said it was “just like the ground had swallowed him up.” Cynthia was left with three small sons—James W., Willis, and Ruben—and a daughter, Florence. She knew Louisa O’Hara would take Florence into her home and teach her manners and how to be a valuable seamstress and housemaid, but the boys presented a different problem. She spent many days worrying about her sons and trying to control them. She never again heard from her husband.
After the deaths of James and Louisa O’Hara, their slaves, as promised, received their freedom. Cynthia came to Evansville with other liberated slaves, and there she worked harder to support her children than she had ever worked as a slave on the O’Hara plantation. She died before the Civil War started, and her sons and daughter remained at Evansville.
James W. O’Hara, her son, was a slave until the age of eleven, but he learned to read and write and became a prominent citizen. He was a member of the Evansville Light Infantry and a Christian who supported all movements to advance African Americans. His son, Rudolph, the informant, became a practicing attorney who served the black population of Evansville and Vanderburgh County. The fieldworker also interviewed Rudolph about George Washington Buckner (q.v.).