SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

30843 239
Interviewer Samuel S« Taylor
Person interviewed Jaaase Henry Stith
2223 WV nineteenth Street
72 Little Rockf Arkansas
"I was born in Sparta in Hancock County, Georgia, in January 26, 1866•
My father waa named William Henry Stith, and I was a little tot less than
two years old when my mother died* My father haa called her name often but
I forget it* I forget the namaa of my father 9 a father, too, and of mother's
people* That la too far hack*
■My father waa born in 1818* He waa born in Georgia* His master was
named W. W* Simpson* He had a master before Simpson* Simpson bought him
from somebody else* I never can remember the man 1 8 name*
Houaea
*2he first houses I saw in Georgia were frame or brick houses* There
weren 9 t any log houaea 9 round where X waa brought up* Georgia waan 9 t a log
house state—leastwise, not the part I lived in* In another part there
were plenty of sawmllla* That made lumber coniaon. You could get long leaf
pine eighty to ninety feet long if you wanted it* Some little towns dldn 9 t
have no planing mills and you would have to send to Augusta or to Atlanta
for the planing work or elae they would make planed lumber by hand* I hare
worked for four and five weeka at a time dreaalng lumber—flooring, ceiling*
siding, moldings, and ao on*
"My father waa still with Simpson when I remembered anything*) At that
time the house we lived in waa a weatherboarded house just like the
ones we live in now* It waa a house that had been built since freedoefe
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