"Mistress Hester believed I would be feeble either in mind or body
because of my unsatisfactory birth, but I developed as other children
did and was well treated by Mistress Hester, Mistress Lorainne and her
children.

"Master Patent George died and Mistress Hester married Mr. Lam, while
slaves kept working at the rolling mills and amassing greater wealth for
the George families.

"Five years before the outbreak of the Civil War Mistress Hester called
all the slaves together and gave us our freedom. Courtney, my
grandmother, kept house for Mistress Lorainne and wanted to stay on, so
I too was kept at the George home. There was a sincere friendship as
great as the tie of blood between the white family and the slaves. My
mother married a negro ex-slave of Ford George and bore children for
him. Her health failed and when Mistress Puss, the only daughter of
Mistress Lorainne, learned she was ill she persuaded the Negro man to
sell his property and bring Eliza back to live with her."

[TR: in following section the name George 'Fordman' is used twice.]

"Why are you called George Fordman when your name is Ford George?" was
the question asked the old man.

"Then the Freedsmen started teaching school in Kentucky the census taker
called to enlist me as a pupil. 'What do you call this child?' he asked
Mistress Lorainne. 'We call him the Little Captain because he carried
himself like a soldier,' said Mistress Lorainne. 'He is the son of my
husband and a slave woman but we are rearing him.' Mistress Lorainne
told the stranger that I had been named Ford George in derision and he