an' friendly. He was real smart an' good too,
'cause his colored folks all loved 'im. He worked in the bank an' when
the Yankees come, 'stead of shuttin' the door 'gainst 'em like the
others did, he bid 'em welcome. (Betty's nodding head, expansive smile
and wide-spread hands eloquently pantomime the banker's greeting.) So
the Yankees done took the bank but give it back to 'im for his very own
an' he kep' it but there was lots of bad feelin' 'cause he never give
folks the money they put in the old bank. (Possibly this explains the
closing of the branch of the Cape Fear Bank in Salem and opening of
Israel Lash's own institution, the First National Bank of Salem, 1866.)

"I saw General Robert E. Lee, too. After the war he come with some
friends to a meeting at Five Forks Baptist Church. All the white folks
gathered 'round an' shook his hand an' I peeked 'tween their legs an'
got a good look at' im. But he didn't have no whiskers, he was
smooth-face! (Pictures of General Lee all show him with beard and
mustache)

"Miss Ella died two years ago. I was sick in the hospital but the doctor
come to tell me. I couldn't go to her buryin'. I sure missed her.
(Poignant grief moistens Betty's eyes and thickens her voice). There
wasn't ever no one like her. Miss Kate an' young Miss Julia still live
at 'the house' with their brother, Marse Lucian (all children of the
first Beverly Jones and 'old Miss Julia',) but it don't seem right with
Miss Ella gone. Life seems dif'rent, some how, 'though there' lots of my
young white folks an' my own kin livin' round an' they're real good to
me. But Miss Ella's gone!

"Goodday, Ma'am. Come anytime. You're welcome to. I'm right glad to have
visitors 'cause I can't get out much." A bobbing little curtsy
accompanies Betty's cordial farewell.

Although a freed woman for 71 years, property owner for half of them,
and now revered head of a clan of self respecting, self-supporting
colored citizens, she is still at heart a "Jones negro," and all the
distinguished descendants of her beloved Marse Beverly and Miss Julia
will be her "own folks" as long as she lives.

N. C. District: No. 2 [320188]
No. Words: 340
Worker: Mary A. Hicks
Subject: Ex-slave Story
Story Teller: John Coggin
Editor: Daisy Bailey Waitt

[TR: No Date Stamp]

JOHN COGGIN.
Ex-Slave Story.

An interview with John Coggin 85, of Method, N. C.

When the interviewer first v