Samuel Watson was born in Webster County, Kentucky, on February 14, 1862. His owner’s home was located two and a half miles from Clay, Kentucky, on Crab Orchard Creek. When interviewed, he was living with William Crosby on Southeast 5th Street in Evansville. According to the fieldworker, Samuel possessed an unusually clear memory. In fact, he claimed that he remembered seeing soldiers and hearing cannons when he was only an infant.
One story from his childhood that Samuel told was about how the slaveholder’s wife saved her husband’s horses. She and a number of slaves were walking one morning when they were startled by the sound of galloping horses. In the distance they saw a large number of mounted soldiers riding over a hill. Samuel later was told that the soldiers were on their way to Fort Donelson and were pressing horses and enlisting blacks into service. Samuel’s owner, Thomas Watson, had many able-bodied slaves and many good horses. Realizing the danger of losing their horses, Mrs. Watson opened a big gate that separated the corral from a forest and ran among the horses shouting and whacking them. The frightened horses ran into the forest toward the river. When the soldiers stopped at the Watson plantation they found only a few old work horses standing under a tree, and not wanting these, they went on their way. Samuel hid in a corner of the house by a large outside chimney, where his frightened mother later found him. He recalled that all the horses returned the following afternoon.
Samuel remembered when the war ended and the slaves were emancipated. He said that “some were happy” and “some were sad.” Many dreaded leaving their old homes and their masters’ families. When Samuel’s mother and three children were told that they were free, the owner asked his mother to take her children and leave. She took her family to the plantation of Jourdain James, hoping to work there and keep her family together; however, the wages they received failed to support them, so she left James’s plantation and worked from place to place until her children were half-starved, half-naked. The older children, Thomas and Laurah, remembering better and happier days, ran back to their former owner, Thomas Watson, who went to Dixon, Kentucky, and had an article of indenture drawn up binding them to his service for a number of years. Only Samuel remained with his mother, who took him to William Allen Price’s plantation, which was located in Webster County, Kentucky, about halfway between Providence and Clay on Crab Orchard Creek. Price had Samuel indentured to his service for eighteen years, so Samuel lived and worked on Price’s plantation for quite a while.
An indentured person was supposed to be given a fair education, a good horse with bridle and saddle, and a suit of clothes after years of hard work, but Price refused these things to Samuel because he said he did not deserve them. A lawyer friend sued on behalf of Samuel and received a judgment of $115. After paying the lawyer’s fee, Samuel was left with $95 and his freedom.
In 1882 Evansville became Samuel’s home. To get there he took the train to Henderson, Kentucky, then crossed the Ohio River on a transfer boat. Samuel was impressed by the boat and its crew and said he loved Evansville from the first glimpse. In 1890 he married an Evansville native who had experienced neither slavery nor indenture.
In Evansville, Samuel had several jobs. First, Dr. Bacon, a prominent citizen living at Chandler Avenue and 2nd Street, hired Samuel as a coachman. Next he was houseman for Levi Igleheart, who lived at 1010 Upper 2nd Street. Igleheart entrusted Samuel to care for his horses and manage some family business. Igleheart also recommended Samuel for a job at the Trinity Church, located at the corner of 3rd and Chestnut streets, and for six years this job paid him $30 a month. Then for several years a man named McKeely hired him as janitor for lodges and other organizations. Samuel also cleaned walls and hung paper and did pretty well, he claimed, until the Depression hit him, as it did others.
Samuel was entitled to an old-age pension, which he received from 1934 through 1935, but on January 15, 1936, the money was withheld for some reason and Samuel was sent to the poor house. Still, he said he was not unhappy and did what he could to make others happy. In 1936 he again applied for a pension and received $17 a month to pay for his upkeep. At the time of the interview, his only work was tending a little garden and doing light chores.