Joe. Joe took some of the slaves, his pa give him, and went to New
Mexico to shun the war. Uncle and pa went in the war as waiters. They
went in at the ending up. We lived on the big road that run to the
Atlantic Ocean. Not far from Richmond. Ma lived three or four miles from
Pa. She lived across big creek--now they call it Farrohs Run. Ma belong
to Harper Williams. Pa's folks was very good but Ma's folks was
unpleasant.

"Ma lived to be 103 years old. Pa died in 1905 and was 105 years old. I
used to set on Grandma's lap and she told me about how they used to
catch people in Africa. They herded them up like cattle and put them in
stalls and brought them on the ship and sold them. She said some they
captured they left bound till they come back and sometimes they never
went back to get them. They died. They had room in the stalls on the
boat to set down or lie down. They put several together. Put the men to
themselves and the women to themselves. When they sold Grandma and
Grandpa at a fishing dock called New Port, Va., they had their feet
bound down and their hands bound crossed, up on a platform. They sold
Grandma's daughter to somebody in Texas. She cried and begged to let
them be together. They didn't pay no 'tenshion to her. She couldn't talk
but she made them know she didn't want to be parted. Six years after
slavery they got together. When a boat was to come in people come and
wait to buy slaves. They had several days of selling. I never seen this
but that is the way it was told to me.

"The white folks had an iron clip that fastened the thumbs together and
they would swing the man or woman up in a tree and whoop them. I seen
that done in Virginia across from where I lived. I don't know what the
folks had done. They pulled the man up with block and tackle.