SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

30835 Q^'Q
Interviewer Samuel S. Taylor "
Person interviewed larren Taylor
3200 W. Seventeenth Street, Little Hock, Arkansas
Age 74
"My people are all from Richmond, Virginia* I was just four years old
when they come here* My father was in charge of all the machinery. He ran
the gin* Didn't do anything else* My mother was a house girl* The kids
learned her everything they learned in school* She knew everything* My
father died when I was young* My mother lived till she was eighty* But
the time she was fifty, I bought her a home and sat her down on Pulaski
Street in that home* And that is why I have so little trouble*
"My ma belonged to Hoffman. He sold her to Wiley Adams* He carried
her to Mississippi* She stayed there for a short time and then came to
Arkansas* He settled in a little place called Tulip, Arkansas. Then
freedom came and we came to Little Hock and settled at what is now Seventh
and Ringo Streets; but then it was just a stage road leading to Benton,
Arkadelphia, and other places* Stages passed twice a day with passengers
and freight. No railroads at all then* The government kept the roads up*
They had the arsenal hall where the city park is and had a regiment of
soldiers there* The work on that road was kept up.by the soldiers* That
was under Grant's administration* I never saw but three presidents—three
Democratic presidents—Cleveland, Wilson, and Roosevelt*
ff My father's master was named Lee. He married my mother back in
Virginia* My daddy's people when he was freed was named Taylor* He died
when I was young and he never gave me any details about them*