m, nevah wuz no singer, no time. Not on steamboats, nor nowheres.
Don't member any songs, except maybe the holler we useto set up when dey
wuz late wid de dinner when we wuked on de steamboat;--Dey sing-song lak
dis:"

'Ol hen, she flew
Ovah de ga-rden gate,
Fo' she wuz dat hungrey
She jes' couldn't wait.'

--but den dat ain't no real song."

"Kentucky river is place to fish--big cat fish. Cat fish an greens is
good eatin. Ah seen a cat fish cum outa de Kentucky river 'lon as a man
is tall; an them ol' fins slap mah laig when ah carries him ovah mah
shoulder, an he tail draggin' on mah feet.--Sho nuf!"

"No'em, ah jes cain't tell you all no cryin sad story 'bout beatin' an a
slave drivin, an ah don' know no ghost stories, ner nuthin'--ah is jes
dumb dat way--ah's sorry 'bout it, but ah Jes--is."

Samuel Sutton lives in north lane Lebanon, just back of the French
Creamery. He has one acre of land, a little unpainted, poorly furnished
and poorly kept. His daughter is a huge fleshy colored woman wears a
turban on her head. She has a fixed smile; says not a word. Samuel talks
easily; answers questions directly; is quick in his movements. He is
stooped and may 5'7" or 8" if standing straight. He wears an old
fashioned "Walrus" mustache, and has a grey wooley fringe of hair about
his smooth chocolate colored bald head. He is very dark in color, but
his son is darker yet. His hearing is good. His sight very poor. Being
so young when the Civil War was over, he remembers little or nothing
about what the colored people thought or expected from freedom. He just
remembers what a big time there was on that first "Free Fourth of July."

Ruth Thompson, Interviewing
Graff, Editing

Ex-Slave Interviews
Hamilton Co., District 12
Cincinnati

RICHARD TOLER
515 Poplar St.,
Cincinnati, O.

[Illustration: Richard Toler]

"Ah never fit in de wah; no suh, ah couldn't. Mah belly's been broke!
But ah sho' did want to, and ah went up to be examined, but they didn't
receive me on account of mah broken stomach. But ah sho' tried, 'cause
ah wanted to be free. Ah didn't like to be no slave. Dat wasn't good
times."

Richard Toler, 515 Poplar Street, century old former slave lifted a bony
knee with one gnarled hand and crossed his legs, then smoothed his thick
white beard. His rocking chair creaked, the flies droned, and through
the open, unscreened door came the bawling of a calf from the building
of a hide company a