Draft memoir referencing Joe and Nancy Clayton, by Victoria Clayton, before 1899
Item
- Title
- Draft memoir referencing Joe and Nancy Clayton, by Victoria Clayton, before 1899
- Description
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Excerpt from a draft of a memoir by Victoria Clayton, which discusses the role of Joe and Nancy in the life of her family. It would be published in 1899 as White and Black under the Old Regime. This passage discusses the immediate aftermath of the war.
Victoria was the wife of Henry Clayton, a plantation owner in Barbour County, Alabama.
CONTENT NOTE: This item contains a racial epithet that has been left as-is in the original document but is elided in the transcription. - Transcript
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FORMAT NOTE: In the second image [0113], X is marked to indicate where the text on a scrap of paper once pinned to the page [image 0114] should be inserted. We have rendered that text in its intended place , in {curly brackets}.
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For two years our farm was carried on in some measure as before, old Joe being the foreman on this plan, but then in the Fall as usual old Joe came up and my husband said well Joe what do you say about arrangements for next year, he replied well master what you say, he said both falls this as been the answer, Master what you say now I will reverse it. Joe what do you say. He said well Master these free n[-----]s give me right smart of trouble they feels dar freedom and if you please and willing I will be glad to have my own little farm to myself and not bother with these free n[-----]s any longer. My husband replied what land do you select for your farm and how do you wish to [do]. He soon found old Joe wanted to buy himself a home and he had an 80 acre farm some what detached from the main body of land that he had bought from a Mr. Jones a few years previous, with a comfortable log home on it. 2 large rooms & a hall was the home. I then had to give up my good cook Nancy and begin experimenting with
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with the freedman as house servants & sometimes we would have good servants and sometimes I would have to exercise patience and forbearance much. X {[image 0114]I well remember the first meal I undertook to prepare the difficulties I met with on every hand. I had long since learned how to make cakes, prepare desserts and different little delicacies for the sick but had never prepared a meal of substantials and my mistakes that day are laughable to me now when I look back to them.} Joe & Nancy moved to their new home some 2 miles from us and were very soon comfortably & happily settled old Joe often coming to his old master that he had [toted?] in infancy for advice. Nancy having lived with us as cook for so many years learned to preserve fruits of every kind, make wine, jellies and she could make most beautiful light bread & cakes. My rule had been for her as my cook to make a large loaf of old Virginia milk [?] bread every Friday for Sunday. Friday so that if she should fail in the rising she would have another day to prepare it. and Saturday was spent in cooking nice things for the Sabbath so that Sunday might in deed be a day of rest to all. She adopted then some rules in the management of her own house. My husband sold them the farm and necessary beginnings as a mule wagon &c and Joe year by year paid what he could [?] at [?] it was his and he received the Deed to it. He after a time purchased a horse & buggy and it offered Nancy much pleasure making the rounds of the town with milk, butter & vegetables for sale of a morning. The money she made in this way she considered her own and spent it for the supply of her table mostly. She would say no use to lay if up for [?] Daikins quarrel over when I am gone but we will enjoy it now. They had no children of their own but one adopted child whose mother died during the time of slavery & I was very much distressed about the child not knowing what best to do with him when she came forward and said Mistus give me the baby. I have none and I promise to be a mother to him. I gladly acceded to the proposition and she certainly was a good mother to the
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the unfortunate little one.
..... - Date
- before 1899
- Coverage
- Barbour County, Alabama
- Is Version Of
- Victoria Hunter Clayton, White and Black under the Old Regime, 1899
- Digitized item in Google Books (see page 168+)
- Site pages
- Joe and Nancy Clayton
