.'

"Our marster did not whip us or allow anyone else to whip us.

"When the Yankees took New Bern, two years before the war ended, we all
were refuged to Franklin County to keep them from setting us free. All
who could swim the river and get to the Yankees were free. Some of the
men swum the river and got to Jones County, then to New Bern and
freedom. One of these was Alec Parker. The White Oak River was in
Onslow County bordering Jones County. There was a lot of slaves who did
this, but he is the only one I personally remember.

"When we got to Franklin County, we saw plenty of patterollers, and
many of the men were whipped. Mother's husband was beat unmercifully by
them.

"There was no churches on the plantation, but we went to the white
folks church and sat on the back seats. The white people was friendly
to us in the eastern part of the state. Indeed it was more stiff up in
Franklin County. Some of the slave-owners was very mean to their
slaves. I remember seeing some of the slaves almost beat to death.
Lawsy mercy, that was a time. I saw a slave-owner whip a colored woman
named Lucy, his servant. He was named John Ellis, Judge Ellis's son in
Franklinton.

"My mother cooked for Judge Ellis then. John Ellis whipped Lucy because
he found a piece of pickle outside the pantry door. He accused her of
stealing it. There was a string attached to a bell, near where Lucy
stayed. She was a house girl. He accused her of stealing the pickle and
leaving it there when the bell rung, and she had to go in the house.
He made her strip to her waist and then he made her hug a tree. He
whipped her with a cowhide whip until she could only say in a weak
voice, 'Oh pray! Marster John'. Major Thomason was there, and he went
to Marse John and said 'John, don't kill the dam nigger.'

"A lot of the white folks hid in the woods and in caves and swamps.
They hired slaves out when they didn't need 'em themselves. They hid
jewelry in hoss stables by digging holes, putting the jewelry in, and
then replacing the straw.

"When the slaves was sent from White Oak to Franklinton before Lee
surrendered they had to walk all the way. We children was carried in
dump carts drawn by mules. My marster nor none of his boys was ever in
the Confederate Army. When they got us to Franklinton they put us in
jail for safe keeping.

"If a woman was a good breeder she brought a good price on the auction
block. The slave buyers would come around and jab them