He has one brother living, George Simms, of South River, Maryland, who
was born July 18, 1849. Both of them were born on the Contee tobacco
plantation, owned by Richard and Charles Contee, whose forbears were
early settlers in the State.

Simms always carries a rabbit's foot, to which he attributes his good
health and long life. He has been married four times since he gained his
freedom. His fourth wife, Eliza Simms, 67 years old, is now in the
Providence Hospital, suffering from a broken hip she received in a fall.
The aged Negro recalls many interesting and exciting incidents of
slavery days. More than a hundred slaves worked on the plantation, some
continuing to work for the Contee brothers when they were set free. It
was a pretty hard and cruel life for the darkeys, declares the Negro.

Describing the general conditions of Maryland slaves, he said: "We would
work from sunrise to sunset every day except Sundays and on New Year's
Day. Christmas made little difference at Contee, except that we were
given extra rations of food then. We had to toe the mark or be flogged
with a rawhide whip, and almost every day there was from two to ten
thrashings given on the plantations to disobedient Negro slaves.

"When we behaved we were not whipped, but the overseer kept a pretty
close eye on us. We all hated what they called the 'nine ninety-nine',
usually a flogging until fell over unconscious or begged for mercy. We
stuck pretty close to the cabins after dark, for if we were caught
roaming about we would be unmercifully whipped. If a slave was caught
beyond the limits of the plantation where he was employed, without the
company of a white person or without written permit of his master, any
person who apprehended him was permitted to give him 20 lashes across
the bare back.