John Rudd sat in a rocking chair under a shade tree during the interview. His nose was straight and aquiline, according to the fieldworker, for his mother, Liza Rudd, was part Native American. At eighty-three [or eighty-six, according to his obituary below], he still held fond memories of his mother, and her misfortunes still grieved him. “Yes, I was a slave,” he said, “and I’ll say this to the whole world; slavery was the worst curse ever visited on the people of the United States.”
John was born on Christmas Day in 1854 [or 1851 in the obituary below] in the home of Benjamin Simms at Springfield, Kentucky. His mother was the housemaid for Mrs. Simms, his godmother, and John remembered that he and his mother were treated kindly by all the members of the Simms family. When John was a small boy, Benjamin Simms died, and the Simms slaves were auctioned to the highest bidders. “If you want to know what unhappiness means,” John said, “just you stand on the slave block and hear the auctioneer’s voice selling you away from the folks you love.” John explained how mothers and fathers were often separated from their dearly loved children at the auction block. John, his younger brother, Thomas, and his mother, however, were fortunate, as they were bought by the same master. An older brother, Henry, though, was separated from his family. He became the property of George Snyder and thereafter was called Henry Snyder.
Liza Rudd and her two small sons left the slave block as the property of Henry Moore, who lived a few miles from Springfield. John said that unhappiness met them at the threshold of Moore’s estate. Liza was made cook, housemaid, and plowhand, while he and Thomas had to hoe, carry wood, and care for the Moores’ small children.
John had been at the Moore home only a few months when he saw several slaves being badly beaten. Henry Moore kept a white overseer, and several white men were employed to whip slaves. John discovered that a large barrel standing near the slave quarters was used as a whipping post. Slaves were strapped across the side of the barrel, and two strong men wielded the “cat-o’-nine-tails” until blood flowed from the slaves’ flesh. The cries and prayers of the whipped slaves were ignored; they were beaten until the floggers became exhausted.
One day when several slaves had just recovered from a beating, John was playing in the front yard of Moore’s house and heard a soft voice calling him. The voice belonged to Shell Moore, one of his best friends on the Moore estate. Shell was one of those who had been severely beaten, and John had been grieving over his friend’s misfortune. “Shell had been in the habit of whittling out whistles for me and pampering me. I went to see what he wanted with me, and he said, ‘Johnnie, you’ll never see Shellie alive after today.’“ Shell made his way toward the cornfield, but John, watching him go, did not realize what Shell had on his mind. That night the owner announced that Shell had run away again, and the slaves were ordered to search the fields and woods. Three days later Rhoder McQuirk found Shell’s body dangling from a rafter of Moore’s corn-crib, where the unhappy slave had hanged himself with a leather halter.
Shell was a good worker and was well worth a thousand dollars. If he had been fairly treated, he would have been glad to work to repay the kindness. According to John, “Marse Henry would have been better to all of us, only Mistress Jane was always rilin’ him up.” Jane Moore was the daughter of “Old Thomas Rakin,” one of the meanest of slaveholders, and she learned “the slave drivin’ business from her daddy.” John related the following story about his mother’s experience with Jane Moore:
Mama had been workin’ in the cornfield all day ‘till time to cook supper. She was just standin in the smokehouse that was built back of the big kitchen when Mistress walks in. She had a long whip hid under her apron and began whippin’ Mama across the shoulders without tellin’ her why. Mama wheeled around from where she was slicin’ ham and started runnin’ after Ol’ Missus Jane. Ol’ Missus run so fast Mama couldn’t catch up with her, so she throwed the butcher knife and stuck it in the wall up to the hilt. I was scared. I was ‘fraid when Marse Henry come in. I believed he would have Mama whipped to death.
“Where’s Jane?” said Marse Henry. “She’s upstairs with the door locked,” said Mama. Then she told Ol’ Marse Henry the truth about how Mistress Jane whipped her and showed him the marks of the whip. She showed him the butcher knife stickin’ in the wall. “Get your clothes together” said Marse Henry.
John then had to be parted from his mother. Henry Moore believed that the slaves were going to be set free. War had been declared, and he wanted to send Liza deeper into the southern states, where the price of a good slave was higher than in Kentucky. When he reached Louisville, though, he was offered a good price for her services and hired her out to cook at a hotel. John grieved over the loss of his mother, but afterwards he learned that she had been well treated at Louisville. John continued to work for Henry Moore until the Civil War ended. Then his brother, Henry Snyder, came to the Moore home and demanded that his brothers be released to his charge.
Henry had enlisted in the Federal army and had fought throughout the war. He had leased seven acres of good farmland seven miles below Owensboro, Kentucky, and there in Daviess County Liza Rudd and her three sons were reunited. John had never seen a river until he made the trip to Owensboro with Henry. They made the trip on the big Gray Eagle, and John said, “I was sure thrilled to get that boat ride.”
When John grew to manhood, he worked on farms in Daviess County near Owensboro for several years before working fifteen years as a porter for John Sporree, hotelkeeper at Owensboro. As porter, he met trains and boats arriving at Owensboro, and he recalled the Morning Star and Guiding Star, both excursion boats that carried people on pleasure trips up and down the Ohio River. For eight years he worked as janitor at the Boehne Tuberculosis Hospital. A fall he experienced while working there crippled him, and at the time of his interview he was walking with a cane. Nevertheless, he could still do a little work around his house and was able to visit friends.
John married Teena Queen, his first wife, at Owensboro, and they had one son, though John had not seen his son or heard from him for thirty years and believed that he was dead. His second wife, Minnie Dixon, still lived with John in Evansville at the time of the interview. They were living on an old-age pension of $14 a month.
When asked his political views, John claimed that his politics were his love for his government. A devout Catholic, he believed that religion and freedom were the two richest blessings ever given to human beings. John said he had had some trouble proving his age, so he had a friend write to the Catholic church at Springfield, Kentucky, where, thanks to his godmother, Mrs. Simms, his birth and christening were recorded in the church records.
John related other incidents of runaway slaves, remembered his fear of the Ku Kluxers, and recalled seeing seven ex-slaves hanging from one tree near the top of Grimes Hill just after the close of the war; however, the fieldworker did not record the details of any of these events.
John’s obituary in the Evansville Courier (March 28, 1947) was brief: “John Rudd, 96, died at 7 o’clock last night at his home, 605 Oak street. He is survived by his wife, Minnie; and a nephew, Henry Taylor. The body is at the Thompson and Boatright funeral home.”