Katie Rose, aged widow of Patrick Rose, was living at 412 Sumner Street in Evansville when interviewed. She said, “Evansville has been a pleasant place to live in, and I am certainly glad to call it home.” According to Katie, however, Evansville was different when she was a young women. For example, she said that the courthouse was not located at Fourth Street between Vine and Division streets, as it was at the time of the interview, but stood at Main and Third streets. It was a two-story brick building, which, she said, looked very handsome. She especially admired the heavy columns that supported the portico. She recalled that the building of the new courthouse caused much comment in Evansville.
Katie told of other events that had taken place in Evansville. She remembered when Ben Sawyer was hanged for killing his wife with a smoothing iron. She said she had known Mrs. Sawyer very well. “We all called her Miss Lizzie, and she was a good woman. Ben Sawyer was hanged on Main Street, and a great crowd assembled from different parts of Indiana to see him strung up. I’ve got such a long remembrance. That’s what’s the matter with me,” she said.
Katie recalled that at parties black youths played a game called “Rock Candy.” She said the girls stood in two lines facing each other, and the boys stood at the foot of the two lines of girls. Facing one another, the girls placed their hands on each other’s shoulders, and they kept time to the rhythm of the song (cf. White 1965: 162):
A poor man, he sold me,
And a rich man, he bought me,
And sent me down to New Orleans,
To learn how to rock candy.
Rock candy, two and two.
Rock candy, two and two.
For it’s no harm to rock candy.
The song continued until all the boys had the opportunity to “rock candy” with the entire line of girls. The game was popular with both white and black youths, according to Katie; however, she said, “The preachers and church-going people hated for us to rock candy. They called it dancing, but that only made us more determined to play it.” Katie also said, “We often saw lights off in the woods, near the river. We called them jack-o’-my-lanterns, and we always tried to see how fast we could run home when we saw them. I was always afraid to even try.” Katie’s story of slavery follows:
Surest thing, you know, I was a slave in my girlhood, and I was smart and happy. I remember way hack before the Civil War and know a heap about slavery. My master was John Holloway, one good man, and his wife was named Laurah. I was a little child when Mistress Laurah took a fancy to me. She always petted me, and I followed her around like a dog follows its master.
Marse John lived in a fine white house about four miles from Henderson. Yes, I’m a Kentuckian. We lived on the old plank road, and I remember how us children used to stand out on the big front porch and listen to the sound of horses’ hoofs as the hunters and horseback riders galloped over that old plank road. Miles and miles of plank road reached from the Ohio River to away up the Alvis Hill and out into the woods. We could hear horses for miles away, and often they would leave the plank road and take the dirt road, and we wouldn’t see them as then they wouldn’t pass our house, and we would watch and watch for them but not catch a glimpse of them.
Young Marse Johnie and young Missus Nanny both were kind to us at home. Young Missus was sent away to school, and we only saw her twice a year. That was when she was home on a visit. We slave children would clap our hands when Old Missus called Mammy into the kitchen to bake ginger cake. Always she had her bake a big barrel full of the sweet cakes, and when Young Missus got home, Old Missus would blow a horn. She called it the farm horn. It was made from a cow’s horn and could be heard all over the farm. When she sounded that horn, the slaves all knew to come to the house and stopped whatever work they had started to do. When Young Missus got home, the big barrel of ginger cakes was rolled out on the front porch. Old Missus sounded the horn, and all of the slaves would come up and kiss Young Missus’ hand, and she would give us each a cake. She always smiled and stood there in her pretty dress all ruffled and clean, and she sure made a pretty picture. At night I slept in the cabin with my mother, but all day I followed Old Missus wherever she went.
The slaves sang songs when the moon was bright, and the young slaves danced and played games.
My father died, and soon my mother was allowed to marry a slave named Joe, but we called him that man. When I was a very young girl my stepfather died, and then I saw my first hant, or ghost. My stepfather was a hunter and owned a pack of big-mouthed dogs. Soon after he died, the dogs all went away. Then the hant began coming to our cabin. Mother cooked on the open fire in the big chimney, and every night the cabin window would fly open and in would come my stepfather and his dogs. “Mammy, Mammy,” I would call out, “That man’s here again.” He would go lift the lid from the dinner pot and eat. Then he would feed the pack of hungry dogs. A horn would blow far away, and the hunter and his dogs always left through the window. Next morning, I would tell my mother: “We will starve to death. I know because that man and his dogs will always eat up all our grub.” But Old Missus always gave us plenty to eat. That man and his pack of dogs never stopped coming until after the war. They kept it up as long as my mother cooked on the open fire and left the pot of food on the crane.
Everything was happy and lovely at the Holloway home until the Civil War started. Then some of the slaves enlisted to fight, and Young Marse John went to the war. Old Missus and Young Missus never seemed happy again. Things went from worse to worse, and soon the young marse was brought home in a coffin.
When he was buried out in the orchard, the orchard was full of soldiers because young Captain Johnie was fetched home by his regiment. When he was let down into the earth, a volley of shots were fired by the soldiers. “What’s them men a-shooting for?” I asked Old Missus, for I had stood clinging to her dress skirts, all the time enduring the funeral, and she said, “They’re a-shooting the Devil, Katie.” I went back to the house clapping my hands and yelling to the top of my voice, “Goody, goody, the Devil is dead!” A laugh went through the house. Even Old Missus laughed, but she was never happy again.
After the war was over, the slaves heard the old missus blow the farm horn for ’em to get to the house. When they got there, she said, “You are all free men and women.” Some soon went away, but many stayed on the place. I never left until I was almost grown. I was called a young lady when I got to Evansville. The Negroes always invited me to their picnics and parties. I went to a party on the Newburgh Road, and while the party was going on, some Negroes walked into the house. They had come from across the river from Kentucky, and when they got inside they commenced shooting pistols. The party broke up, and when I left the house, I went into the barnyard and hid under the first thing I found. It was an old farm mule used for plowing that somebody had hitched to a post. When the old mule wouldn’t stand still any longer, I started running down the road—and running and walking. I finally covered the road to Evansville.
I’m glad I’ve had so many years of freedom, although I can’t recall a single unkindness shown to any slave of Old Marse and Old Mistress Holloway. Everybody was happy at the Holloway home.