expressed it, "In fox huntin' time" one brother was born in "Simmon
time", one in "Sweet tater time," and another in "Plantin' time."

--Negro lore.




Ex-Slave Stories
District #5
Vanderburgh County
Lauana Creel

THE LIFE STORY OF GEORGE TAYLOR BURNS
[HW: Personal Interview]


Ox-carts and flat boats, and pioneer surroundings; crowds of men and
women crowding to the rails of river steamboats; gay ladies in holiday
attire and gentleman in tall hats, low cut vests and silk mufflers; for
the excursion boats carried the gentry of every area.

A little negro boy clung to the ragged skirts of a slave mother, both
were engrossed in watching the great wheels that ploughed the
Mississippi river into foaming billows. Many boats stopped at Gregery's
Landing, Missouri to stow away wood, for many engines were fired with
wood in the early days.

The Burns brothers operated a wood yard at the Landing and the work of
cutting, hewing and piling wood for the commerce was performed by slaves