Vanderburgh County
Lauana Creel
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5th District Vanderburgh County Lauana Creel |
From an Interview with Samuel Bell
That Samuel Bell is a highly respected citizen of Evansville, Indiana, is substantially proven by letters in his possession. These letters are from former employers for whom Samuel Bell has rendered perfect and obedient service.
Charles Leich states, that he has endorsed Uncle Samuel’s checks for $200.00 and would have endorsed checks for a higher denomination without hesitating. Samuel Bell, the subject of this review, held the janitorship at the Citizen National Bank for a number of years, and when a man can hold the key to an institution where thousands of dollars has been entrusted, he is a trusted and trustworthy man. For sixty-two years Uncle Samuel was entrusted with important business: Mr. Jesse Weil and Aaron Weil endorsed his character in the following statement, “Where Samuel Bell acted as janitor he has always been faithful and trustworthy.”
Dr. E. Conover certified [him] as a faithful, honest man. James Walker certifies that Samuel Bell has been known to him for forty years and recommends him for any kind of work and makes the following statement. “On one or two occasions, when there had been dishonesty from other persons in my office, he aided us materially in the recovery of a good portion of the stolen property.” James Walker further states that he is “Glad to recommend him for any kind of work he would consider doing.” James Walker is a Prominent attorney at law in the city of Evansville, as is his son, Henry Walker with offices in the Old National Bank Building, and Charles Leich is in the wholesale drug business, at 420 N.W. Fifth Street.
Another prominent man to compliment the character of Uncle Samuel Bell is Aaron Weil. His business is Insurance of all kinds with offices at 29 to 31 Main Street, in Evansville, Indiana.
Sidney L. Cumberts, 718 S.E. Sixth street, agent for Morton L. Ichenhauser United States Casualty Co., and the Sun Life Insurance Company, expresses his thanks to Uncle Samuel Bell for long and faithful service to his Uncle Mr. Alder, whom Samuel served thirty years.
Who is this man recommended for faithful service by prominent men of the city? He is a negro residing at no. 312 S. E. Fifth street, Evansville. Born a slave in 1853, both of Uncle Samuel’s parents were full blooded negroes. His master was John Bell who owned a plantation in Kentucky and whom Samuel served as a slave serves his master until he had passed his twelfth year of life.
“Was your master good to his slaves?” was the question asked the old negro man. “Yes he was a good and a just man and fed his slaves well. He only used the lash when it was absolutely necessary. You know how it is in the court! Well it was the same way on the plantations in slavery days. A good slave was seldom punished but mean negroes had to be punished to prevent their taking advantage of their master and the other slaves.” “Why do you compare the plantation slave rulers to our present day city courts, Uncle Samuel?” was the next question.
“Well it was like this: The negroes were not subject to the laws of the land and his punishment had to be governed by his deeds and errors. The Master’s will was the only law he was compelled to obey. When a slave refused to work he was flogged until he was willing to work. The master had to feed and clothe him and expected him to repay with work.”
When the Civil War came the negro was one of the central issues. The first pressing question was the treatment of fugitive slaves. Butler confiscated them as “Contraband of war” quoting the Encyclopedia Americana Vol. 20 p. 49. Large numbers of negroes became contraband goods and camps were established in which contraband negroes were housed. “Wherever these fugitives were massed, there grew up a system of controlled negro labor, under the guardianship of government officials.” (p. 49)
A Contraband camp was located at Clarksville, Tennessee and to this camp Samuel Bell, accompanied by his parents, brothers and sisters, was taken when scarcely twelve years of age. His physical comforts were well cared for while housed at the contraband camp and he was taught to read and write.
His father lived only a short time after being placed in the camp and after his death the mother asked to be allowed to return to Kentucky. Her request was granted and she procured work in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. She later returned to the camp to reclaim her children, then leaving them with their grandparents she continued to work to support them. Within a few years she died and her children were returned to Clarksville, Tennessee.
“The government was not well founded and the Freedmen’s Aid Society cared for the negroes. Colonel Eaton was in charge of the Freedman’s Aid Society in Tennessee and the contraband negroes were well treated in camp.” The foregoing is the testimony of Samuel Bell. Samuel soon tired of camp life and asked for permission to start out in life depending on his own labor; he therefore, came out of camp and farmed in Dunbar’s Hollow, a tract of farmland between two rivers; the Red River and the West Fork. I have gone through Dunbar’s Cave many times. It is a great natural cave formed by God’s own hand. A beautiful river forms a barrack, its music is beautiful to listen to: great pillars separate the cavern into many rooms. So, Uncle Samuel describes Dunbar’s Cave. Samuel worked on Captain Perkins’s cotton farm on the Cumberland River. He recalls the farm embraced 100 cabins and two cotton gins, after working in the cotton twelve months the negro youth traveled 20 miles to Brenton, situated ten miles out of Ashville, and found a pleasant home with Willie Newland’s mother, there he worked as houseboy for two years. “The Newland family wanted to give me an education and make me fit for a lawyer, but I worked against my own interest and refused to obey their wishes.” sorrowfully confessed the aged man of today.
“I have never been misused by the white man of America. He has always been my friend. I have been in bondage, orphaned by the death of my parents. I have lived in the contraband camps and toiled for both rich and poor, but I have never been given abuse.”
“What is the happiest recollection of your entire life?” was asked the old man?”
“When Jesus saved my soul and gave me the hope of eternal life,” answered he. “I was given the promise at a revival conducted by the Reverend W. H. Anderson in the Old McFarland Church at Evansville. Green McFarland baptized me and I have lived a Christian life since that day.”
Samuel Bell is a Mason and has received the 32nd degree. He has enjoyed fraternizing with the order but he declares; “Religion is worth the greatest fortune. It explains why man must labor and suffer and his trying experiences makes him more worthy of the great reward promised by the kind Father. When his years of sorrow are fulfilled he will understand and appreciate the reward which is Heaven.”
From reading letters in possession of Samuel Bell and from an interview with James Walker as well as an interview with Samuel Bell.
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“Ex-Slave Stories.” District #5. Vanderburgh County, Lauana Creel. |
Bibliography:
Interviews with Cornelius Cross; 405 S.E. Fifth Street, Evansville, Indiana
“I do not know the date of my birth for I was born a way back, I do not know when.”
These were the words of Cornelius Cross, ex-slave and for twenty years a resident of Evansville, Indiana and a laborer for the Evansville branch of the Southern Indiana Gas and Electric Company.
“Evansville is a good place to live in but I have not always lived in Indiana. I lived three years and six months at New Orleans. New Orleans was the first place I remember living at after the time my parents brought me from the Indian Territory, where we lived and where I was born.”
When asked about his memories of the Indian Territory, Cornelius Cross said that his memories are not so vivid. He recalls wearing moccasins, a wig of long black hair, beaded gauntlets and bright colored shirts and playing with the other Indian lads.
“The Indian Territory had not been joined to Oklahoma Territory.” He said. “The surface of the area is level but near the boundary in all directions you could see mountains in the distance.”
“Why did your parents leave the Indian Territory?” was the necessary question to ask the old man.
“My mother was named Henrietta and was a full blooded cherokee Indian. She had come across into Arkansas along with a band of her father’s people, when the band had seen the area East of the Territory, they decided to stay and make their home in Arkansas. Soon they became restless and traveled farther East until they came to the Mississippi Valley where hunting and fishing were profitable sports.”
“While the party of Indians were staying in Arkansas my mother met Ben, a negro slave of James Boulton, who was in the slave business, at Little Rock, Arkansas. Ben joined himself to the band of Indians and became the husband of Henrietta. Ben Boulton only became known as Ben Cross during the Civil War.”
“Ben and his Indian wife got along well together, Ben had escaped bondage but he feared being recaptured. The fear caused the Indians to travel into the Indiana Territory, where many slaves had gained freedom.”
“The negroes received kindness in Indiana, but there was much Indian trouble and soon the white settlers could stand the Indians as neighbors no longer.”
“I have never heard it said that my people had trouble with white families.” said the aged negro, “but all Indians suffered for the depredations of the uncivilized Indians.”
“I do not know whether my people were driven out of the Indiana Territory following King Phillips war or some Indian massacree, but I know my parents were driven back into the Indian Territory, lived there and made the territory their home. There they were well treated, well fed and had few cares.”
“The climate was delightful, the winters never severe, the summers not too warm for comfort and health. My mother was sorry to leave the territory but the old masters of slaves demanded that their property be returned to them and all the half-breeds with slave parents were mustered out of the area and returned to their owners.” “My mother was not a slave, but she came with my father and brought seven sons and five daughters to be auctioned off from the slave block at New Orleans.”
Cornelius Cross declared that he has been auctioned off more times than he has fingers and toes, but his mother was never separated from her family. He said she lived to raise her sons and daughters. Her sons were: Granduson; Ben; Sonny; Philip; Cornelius; Solomon and James. Her daughters were: Dee; Mary Jane; Racheal; Nancy and Addie. All these were born in the Indian Territory. Cornelius was born out in the field, where his mother worked in the kafircorn, while his father followed the chase.
After coming from the Indian Territory, the sons of Ben and Henrietta soon grew large and strong and were given employment in public places. Cornelius worked on a canal boat in the Wabash Erie Canal. The boats traveled from Terre Haute to Evansville, a distance of 150 miles. Receiving stations were built along the canal and distributing points called depots.
“The canal was a pretty sight.” said the aged half-breed, as he looks back on visions of the long ago. “A great deal of masonry was used. A beautiful arch was erected over Burnett’s creek. High bridges were placed above tressels and hand railings were built on each side of the bridges for safety.”
Cornelius Cross remembers the two big locks at Lockport, but he has forgotten the names of a number of locks and bridges.
“I worked for several years on a boat in the Ohio River from New Orleans, and Cincinnatti [sic]. I knew Jim Howard; Red Headed Jesse, from St. Louis, the same Red Headed Jesse was murdered at St. Louis by a deck hand. I knew Tom January, one of the best river men that sailed in the old river days.”
“Tell me more about the Canal.” said the interviewer. The old man answered the request by explaining several points of interest in the arrangements of the structures. “Where that big chimney stands on the property of the Indiana Gas and Electric Company’s property, was a canal depot. The canal boats used to be run up on what is now Fifth street and pass where the beautiful Central Library now stands.”
“The New South was one boat that carried a great deal of freight. There boats were double decked boats and carried both freight and passengers.”
“Many stories have been told of piracy on the Ohio River. A story of Cave In Rock is partly true as there was a large hotel at Cave In Rock and many things happened there. I do not know how many has been put in books and how much has been handed from one person to another. Many things happened which we did not understand, but I never did believe in ghosts nor haunts.”
Cornelius Cross, after leaving the boats, settled at Evansville. He said he was happy in slavery because he was allowed to stay near his mother during his childhood and youth. When he was older and was disobedient, his white master or mistress always punished him as the offense deserved. “We slave children did not wear pants, but a full long shirt or dress made of coarse home-spun cloth. When we were disobedient the master or mistress made us raise the skirt high and take a sound whipping on our bared skin. It soon taught us to be obedient and to respect discipline.” Henrietta Cross made her home in Hopkinsville, Kentucky at the home of her daughter. She lived to be one hundred and twenty years of age and only for a few months was she unable to do light house work. “She was a loved and loving and honored mother and was faithful to her family and to her work.” her son said.
Cornelius Cross recalls many kindnesses shown by his mother. The home of Cornelius Cross is a two storied frame building located at 405 South East Fifth street. He has toiled to pay the cost and upkeep of his property but on November the seventh, 1936, a drunken white man struck the negro as he worked at a street intersection where he greased the switches for the Southern Indiana Electric Company’s street car tracks. The negro was carried to the Deaconness Annex, a hospital maintained for negroes. There he lay for three months. His wife, Elmer Cross, passed away while he was at the hospital. He has been unable to work since that time and is in embarrassing financial circumstances.
Carefully folded away in an old trunk upstairs Cornelius Cross keeps the costume worn by himself when he was a small lad: a black hair wig, a pair of moccassins, a beaded gauntlet and a gay colored shirt. These and his memories are all that remain of that happy long ago, when an Indian mother sang to him in the free and beautiful days when he lived in the Indian Territory.
LAUANA CREEL,
1415 S. BARKER AVENUE,
EVANSVILLE, INDIANA.
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Monroe County District # 11 September 29, Slave Data |
Submitted by: Estella R. Dodson 1937 Bloomington, Ind. |
Reference:
Mrs. Hattie Fuller, 906 West Fifth Street, Bloomington, Indiana.
I was born in Kentucky. My father and mother were slaves. There were eight of us children. When we came to Indiana, we crossed the Ohio River. I have always enjoyed music. On the boat when we came across was someone picking a banjo. I have never forgotten it.
I was bound out to Dr. Durant. When I was fourteen, I married. The record of my binding out is in the court house. The people I was bound to gave me a dollar and told me to build a house. I have been building ever since. Nurre gave me that window because I am such a church worker. It is plate glass. Judge Wilson and Mrs. Wilson gave me that washstand. Lately I decided to build a rag house. When people asked me what I meant by a rag house, I said, “Never you mind; you’ll see.” I started last Saturday by papering this room.
I went to school in Louisville and learned how to make skin lotion and vanishing cream, which I sold for a living.
When anyone asks me my age, I say, “Never you mind,” and when they ask me how big a girl I was at the time of the Civil War, I say, “Never you mind.”
Once I went to Kentucky to visit old Mistress. I was told to go to the back door, as colored people were not allowed at the front door, so when I got there, I went to the back door. A colored woman opened the door. She said to old Mistress, “Here is Hattie, Cassie’s daughter, come to visit you.” They invited me in, and we had the best dinner I ever tasted. We sat up half the night, talking. They told me a lot of things about my father and mother that I never knew before. I stayed two weeks and had a fine time. When I came away, they gave me a lot of things.
I have lived in Bloomington forever. I have played and sang. I have sang myself to death. I have brought in $12,000 for my church. I would go places and play on my organ and sing. The white folks would crowd around and give me money for my church.
Here is my picture. There’s my organ and my cup. There’s my dress, and my beads, and my ear-rings and my slippers. That dress had a thousand beads on it. Some girls came one day and took my picture. I sell them for my church.
My brothers and sisters lived in Bloomington. They are all dead now. People are good to me. I can’t bear to give up my home and liberty. My father and mother were slaves, and I was bound. So I want to stay in my home.
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118 So. Clark St., Bloomington, Ind., Sept. 29, 1937 |
Mr. Doyle Joyce
Federal Writers’ Project, WPA
Box 294, Vincennes, Indiana
Dear Mr. Joyce:
Mrs. Fuller is about 82 or 83 years old, I am told by Mr. William C. East, Monroe County Auditor. Her name was Pierce, then she married a man named Jacobs, and after his death a man named Fuller. She is now a widow, and lives alone. She is a very nice old lady, and very devout. She is just a town institution, something like the original plat. Everyone either knows her or knows who she is. She has a small folding organ, which she is glad to play, while she sings church songs and Negro spirituels [sic].
I went to the court house to see if I could find any record of her being bound out. I reasoned that if the entire family came at once, it must have been after the Civil War. No record could be found. Mr. W. C. East, the Auditor, says that either no record was made, or else it has been lost. Some of the county records are missing, and it is possible that the record I want might be among them. At any rate, Mr. East knows of no records concerning Mrs. Fuller. He has made a very thorough study of the records over a period of years, and would have noticed a record concerning Mrs. Fuller as he has known who she is all his life.
I am told that Mr. Paul Feltus, of the Bloomington Star, has some material on Mrs. Fuller. I will see him and try to get some information from him.
Very truly yours,
Estella R. Dodson
(Signed)
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Submitted by: William Webb Tuttle District No. 2 Muncie, Indiana September 2, 1937 |
Reference: Francis Toney, 815 Ebright St., Muncie, Indiana
Mrs. Francis Gammons was born in 1835 on a tobacco plantation near Galliton, Tennessee. She died at the age of 96 at her home on east Jackson street, Muncie, Indiana. Mrs. Gammons while living and recalling her experiences as a slave stated that on the plantation of her master they were treated well on the average, as could be expected from the customs of the slave holders. When they were set free, she and her husband, Wesley Gammons, they walked off of the plantation and when they had located at Galliton they were married again under the law so that their children could be legally held in their union and not hazard the dangers of being claimed again by the slave customs under any ruse or scheme; or be persuaded to return. Wesley Gammons, the husband by slave marriage, ran away from the plantation and joined the army. He wanted to be free and declared that he was willing to take his share in securing this freedom, which he did by fighting for the Union. When the war was over the family resided a time at different more southern points until the year 1881 when they came to Muncie. Mr. Gammons was a hod carrier but died a few months after he came here.
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Martha Freeman Parker, Indiana District #2 |
REFERENCE: Haywood Patterson who lives two and one half miles south of Baltonia, then turn east to the second house on the south side of the road (colored man).
A full-blooded Irishman who had lived in Mississippi, left the south and came to live in Randolph county. He brought with him two colored women whom he succeeded in getting this far without them being captured. He built two houses just a stone’s throw apart, southeast across the field from where Mr. Patterson’s home is now located and placed one of the colored women in each house. He would live in one house a week and then in the other house a week, having children by both women, but being married to neither. Some of his descendants are still living. P.M.B. Thompson was a son and Betsy Reynolds and Sarah Howland were two of his granddaughters. Mrs. Haywood Patterson is also a granddaughter.
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Iris L. Cook District #4 Floyd Co. |
SLAVE STORY |
Reference: A. Mattie Brown Smith (colored), age about 55,645 W. 5th St., New Albany, Ind.
Note: There are two texts of the following interview in the WPA files. Although typed on different typewriters and with variations in paragraphing, they are virtually identical, except one text gives the date of the interview, May 12, 1936, and includes the following headnote:
TRUE STORY OF AN ESCAPE related to me by Mattie Smith. (B)
And one route undoubtedly crossed the Ohio at or near Jeffersonville, and more than probably the late Dr. Nathaniel Field, who once defused an anti-abolitionist mob successfully, knew something about it. In New Albany there was a strong abolition feeling and it showed itself in an armed resistance against slave hunters at a very early day when Justice Woodruff, with a number of quickly gathered citizens, met a force at the ferry and drove them back. Those were hectic days. (C)
“Yes ma’am,” said Mattie, “I can tell you something interesting about the escape of slaves across the river, but I don’t ever remember of hearing anything about any around here in New Albany. But we all came from Brandenburg, down in Meade County, Kentucky. My father was a slave and belonged to John Ditto; he didn’t exactly belong to him—John Ditto was a single man and my father was hired out to him. My mother belonged to the Foote’s. I’ve heard them tell all this many a time, til I could tell it in my sleep.”
“My uncle, Charles Woodford, was owned by Charlton Ditto, but was practically a free man, he was a blacksmith in Brandenburg, and come an’ went as he pleased. But Uncle Charlie had heard so much about the “escapes” that he decided he wanted to be free, too. A white man, a Canadian, named John Canade [spelled “Canada” below], worked in the blacksmith shop Uncle did, and when he found out Uncle wanted to “go across,” he got in touch with a certain man who ferried the runaways across the river. He was an old white man, named Charles Bell, living in Harrison County, just below Corydon—he lived in a log house about 5 miles back from the river—with no road leading to the house from the river—just a bridle path. Mr. Bell had a skiff which he used to carry the slaves over. So this man in the shop with my uncle, Mr. John Canada, got in touch with Bell and one dark night Uncle Charles got a few things together (in those days they carried what little they had in a tied-up handkerchief over a stick), and he sneaked around and told his wife and children goodbye, and they went down to the Ohio River, right at Moorman’s place, almost to the Salt Well. They couldn’t cross right at the town, that was too public, and the jail is right near the foot of Main Street, too, which leads right down to the river in Brandenburg—so they had to go up a piece.
Anyhow, Bell took Uncle Charlie across the river in the skiff, and on back through the woods on a mule to his house where he hid him a few weeks and then took him on up thru Corydon and across White river and he went on up to Canada and finally got out to California. I’ve heard that sometimes they were taken up through Indianapolis.
After a while Uncle Charlie wrote to his wife, Aunt Marietta, and got her in the notion to try to get “free” too, and [join] him. The plans were all laid for her to go, but she up and got scared and told the whole thing to Mr. Charlton Ditto, who had owned Uncle Charlie.
So, a bunch of white men from around Brandenburg, Peter Fountain was the sheriff, him and some others got together and one man who was fat and about the size of Aunt Marietta dresed up in her clothes—sunbonnet and all. And when Mr. Bell, the old man, came up in the skiff to get the colored folks, as had been arranged, this man got in the skiff, with another old colored man who was there, waiting to get across, and he hit Bell over the head with a pair of brass knucks and the men came out of hiding and took him to the Brandenburg jail, took the old colored man too. (D)
Mr. Bell laid there in jail a long time, and finally his daughter got word out to California to his sons who were there, and they came on back in a hurry. They went across the river in their skiff, and shot up the Brandenburg jail and got their father out. Yes maam! But the old colored man, who was in jail with Bell, wouldn’t come, he was too scared. So they got Mr. Bell out and took him back on home. (D)
But Uncle Charles came on back here from California when the War broke out, and served in the army. Yes maam, he sure did. My great-uncle, Horace Grigsby, he escaped by the same route. He belonged to John Ditto. (D)
There was lots of colored folks crossed the river at this point. I’ve heard my father and mother tell of it often. My father knew the Clark family—George Rogers Clark—yes’m. I’ve got a platter now that belonged to them, when they was down in Kentucky. And see that old safe in the kitchen—my father bought that in the auction sale of the Clark family. (D)
My great-grandfather was in the Revolutionary War, and my great-grandmother, Hester Starks, served Gen. Washington when she was only 11 years old, she used to tell all they had to eat, and said they had whole pigs with apples in they mouths and all! That was back in Virginia. (D)
But I don’t know of any “crossin” near here—never heard about any. (D)
I believe this story to be true because Mattie Smith is a well educated Negro, taught school at one time, and expresses herself in an excellent manner. Would have no reason to exaggerate to me.
(B—the writer)
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Monroe County District #11 October 6, 1937 |
Submitted by: Estella R. Dodson Bloomington, Ind. |
Reference:
(A) Pete Wilson, West Fifth Street, Bloomington, Ind.
“I was born in Shelby County, Kentucky, ninety-eight miles above Simpsonville. I have taken good care of myself, and so do not look as old as I am. I am eighty-five years old. I was born a slave. I was twelve years old when I was freed.
I saw soldiers lots of times during the war. I would be standing on the state road or on the farm, and would see soldiers going by. Sometimes they would stop and talk to us, and ask us how we were getting along, and give us what consolation they could.
Old Boss was ordinarily good to us. He never cursed or swore, and never got rough with us. He was nice to his hands. He tried to give us the best he knew how. There were ten or twelve of us boys on the farm. We were raised up to work. Of course, he never paid us wages.
My mother and father and ten children came to Indiana two years after we were freed. Wagons took us from Simpsonville to Louisville and put us on the Monon train. We stayed overnight in New Albany and then came to Bloomington. I have lived here ever since. The only one of the family besides myself still living is my sister. She lives in the south part of town. She was over to see me the other day. I bought a horse and wagon when I came here. Later I was married. I farmed, and raised a family of ten. Three of my boys are still living.
I got sick about five years ago. I am not able to do any work. I live here with my granddaughter.