mary jane strahan and james pascal smith aka poplar jimGoes by the name Poplar Jim.
" Pearl River County Before 1890"
I was born right over here on Ball Hill by the road to Col. Byrd's old home. The
old house has rotted down. The spot where the old red dirt chimney has fallen
down is the only mark left. A pine tree grew up in the middle of the old fallen
chimney, and was later cut down and carried to Columbia to Governor Hugh White's
saw mill.
My mother was bought in Mobile as a slave and was owned here by a Mrs. Howard.
My mother reared five children and it just so happened that Mrs. Howard had five
childten. So each one of Mrs. Howard's children was given a negro child as a
slave. It fell my lot to live with Mrs. Kennedy, where I remained until the
slaves were freed.
(Here I interrupted him and asked him where his father came from He immediately
replied that he didn't know who his father was or anything about him. Said the
colored people lived like stock in those days - they never married.)
My master was good to me. When the war (Civil War) came on, it was bad times. I
remember how the men would hide out to keep from going to war. I cooked and
carried many a pan of food to these men in Pearl River swamp. This I did for one
man regularly. All I had to do was to carry the food down after dark, and I was
so scared I was trembling, and while walking along the path in the swamp, pretty
soon he would step out from behind a tree and say, "Here Jeff" and then I would
hand it to him and run back to the house.
One day soldiers passed with wagons for four days going through to Mobile. At
that time the river road was the best road around.
We had no matches for fire, we used flint and steel. The first cotton gin I ever
saw was operated by a horse. Some people separated the cotton from the seed by
hand. The cloth was spun and woven. Some was bought in Gainesville, where they
went over by cart and bought "nit" and "lice" cloth (salt and pepper I should
think) for men's pants. Later gingham could be bought. This was considered very
fine cloth then.
Sometimes we had biscuits on Sunday, but one reason I am living and am healthy
is the food that I was raised on. We ate corn bread, meat, greens and peas.
People eat too much flour now and they use self-rising flour, which is most
unhealthful. The best way to make biscuit is with plain flour, soda and clabber,
or put a little vinegar in your soda and it will foam up and cook quick.
I know a case where a negro slave sold for $100. Simon and Hezekiah Wheat sold
him. Some of the men living around us at that time were: Joe Wheat, Billy Wheat,
another Joe Wheat, Redden Byrd, and Peter Harvey's grandad.
I remember when a Mr. Cooper would take his cart and go out and gather herbs for
medicine. Medicine now days is too weak. It has too much water or alcohol in it
and not enough medicine. Costs lots too. We used Sampson's snake root, black
snake root, fever grasses, tree barks and other medicines made from native trees
and herbs.
We used parched meal for coffee. Our corn meal was ground by a water mill.,You
see we even made what was used. Gall berries dyed black.
Two colors of thread were used to make pants and I mean this kind made good warm
ones. Wool was sold at Gainesville.
I never went to school-colored folks had no schools long ago. I knew Poplar Jim
Smith for whom Poplarville was named. I used to play with his boys. We played
all day and when we went in to eat we knew to carry a load of wood. People used
to cook on the fire places. That was the best cooking in the world. Food tasted
better. They sometimes made dirt ovens and used them to cook bread and sweet
potatoes in.
When the war was over the slaves couldn't do without their masters because they
had nothing on which to live and the masters needed the slaves, so when they
were freed, most of them stayed on and farmed for their masters on shares. This
gave the negroes a chance to have something for themselves.
