WASHINGTON 1941
Brooks, Lucy
Coles, Charles
Deane, James V.
Fayman, Mrs. M.S.
Foote, Thomas
Gassaway, Menellis
Hammond, Caroline
Harris, Page
Henson, Annie Young
Jackson, Rev. Silas
James, James Calhart
James, Mary Moriah Anne Susanna
Johnson, Phillip
Jones, George
Lewis, Alice
Lewis, Perry
Macks, Richard
Randall, Tom
Simms, Dennis
Taylor, Jim
Wiggins, James
Williams, Rezin (Parson)
[TR: Interviews were stamped at left side with state name, date, and interviewer's name. These stamps were often partially cut off. Where month could not be determined [--] substituted. Interviewers' names reconstructed from other, complete entries.]
Aunt Lucy, an ex-slave, lives with her son, Lafayette Brooks, in a shack on the Carroll Inn Springs property at Forest Glen, Montgomery County, Md.
To go to her home from Rockville, leave the Court House going east on Montgomery Ave. and follow US Highway No. 240, otherwise known as the Rockville Pike, in its southeasterly direction, four and one half miles to the junction with it on the left (east) of the Garrett Park Road. This junction is directly opposite the entrance to the Georgetown Preparatory School, which is on the west of this road. Turn left on the Garrett Park Road and follow it through that place and crossing Rock Creek go to Kensington. Here cross the tracks of the B.&O. R.R. and parallel them onward to Forest Glen. From the railroad station in this place go onward to Forest Glen. From the railroad station in this place go onward on the same road to the third lane branching off to the left. This lane will be identified by the sign "Carroll Springs Inn". Turn left here and enter the grounds of the inn. But do not go up in front of the inn itself which is one quarter of a mile from the road. Instead, where the drive swings to the right to go to the inn, bear to the left and continue downward fifty yards toward the swimming pool. Lucy's shack is on the left and one hundred feet west of the pool. It is about eleven miles from Rockville.
Lucy is an usual type of Negro and most probably is a descendant of less remotely removed African ancestors than the average plantation Negroes. She does not appear to be a mixed blood—a good guess would be that she is pure blooded Senegambian. She is tall and very thin, and considering her evident great age, very erect, her head is very broad, overhanging ears, her forehead broad and not so receeding as that of the average. Her eyes are wide apart and are bright and keen. She has no defect in hearing.
Following are some questions and her answers:
"Lucy, did you belong to the Carrolls before the war?" "Nosah, I didne lib around heah den. Ise born don on de bay".
"How old are you?"
"Dunno sah. Miss Anne, she had it written down in her book, but she said twas too much trouble for her to be always lookin it up". (Her son, Lafayette, says he was her eldest child and that he was born on the Severn River, in Maryland, the 15th day of October, 1872. Supposing the mother was twenty-five years old then, she would be about ninety now. Some think she is more than a hundred years old).
"Who did you belong to?"
"I belonged to Missus Ann Garner".
"Did she have many slaves?"
"Yassuh. She had seventy-five left she hadnt sold when the war ended".
"What kind of work did you have to do?"
"O, she would set me to pickin up feathers round de yaird. She had a powerful lot of geese. Den when I got a little bigger she had me set the table. I was just a little gal then. Missus used to say that she was going to make a nurse outen me. Said she was gwine to sen me to Baltimo to learn to be a nurse".
"And what did you think about that?"
"Oh; I thought that would be fine, but he war came befo I got big enough to learn to be a nurse".
"I remebers when the soldiers came. I think they were Yankee soldiers. De never hurt anybody but they took what they could find to eat and they made us cook for them. I remebers that me and some other lil gals had a play house, but when they came nigh I got skeered. I just ducked through a hole in the fence and ran out in the field. One of the soldiers seed me and he hollers 'look at that rat run'."
"I remebers when the Great Eastern (steamship which laid the Atlantic cable) came into the bay. Missus Ann, and all the white folks went down to Fairhaven wharf to see dat big shep".
"I stayed on de plantation awhile after de war and heped de Missus in de house. Den I went away".
"Ise had eight chillun. Dey all died and thisun and his brother (referring to Lafayette). Den his brother died too. I said he ought ter died instid o his brother."
"Why?"
"Because thisun got so skeered when he was little bein carried on a hos that he los his speech and de wouldt let me see im for two days. It was a long time befor he learned to talk again". (To this day he has such an impediment of speech that it is painful to hear him make the effort to talk).
"What did you have to eat down on the plantation, Aunt Lucy?"
"I hab mostly clabber, fish and corn bread. We gets plenty of fish down on de bay".
"When we cum up here we works in the ole Forest Glen hotel. Mistah Charley Keys owned the place then. We stayed there after Mr. Cassidy come. (Mr. Cassidy was the founder of the National Park Seminary, a school for girls). My son Lafayette worked there for thirty five years. Then we cum to Carroll Springs Inn".
"I was born near Pisgah, a small village in the western part of Charles County, about 1851. I do not know who my parents were nor my relatives. I was reared on a large farm owned by a man by the name of Silas Dorsey, a fine Christian gentleman and a member of the Catholic Church.
"Mr. Dorsey was a man of excellent reputation and character, was loved by all who knew him, black and white, especially his slaves. He was never known to be harsh or cruel to any of his slaves, of which he had more than 75.
"The slaves were Mr. Dorsey's family group, he and his wife were very considerate in all their dealings. In the winter the slaves wore good heavy clothes and shoes and in summer they were dressed in fine clothes.
"I have been told that the Dorseys' farm contained about 3500 acres, on which were 75 slaves. We had no overseers. Mr. and Mrs. Dorsey managed the farm. They required the farm hands to work from 7 A.M. to 6:00 P.M.; after that their time was their own.
"There were no jails nor was any whipping done on the farm. No one was bought or sold. Mr. and Mrs. Dorsey conducted regular religious services of the Catholic church on the farm in a chapel erected for that purpose and in which the slaves were taught the catechism and some learned how to read and write and were assisted by some Catholic priests who came to the farm on church holidays and on Sundays for that purpose. When a child was born, it was baptised by the priest, and given names and they were recorded in the Bible. We were taught the rituals of the Catholic church and when any one died, the funeral was conducted by a priest, the corpse was buried in the Dorseys' graveyard, a lot of about 1-1/2 acres, surrounded by cedar trees and well cared for. The only difference in the graves was that the Dorsey people had marble markers and the slaves had plain stones.
"I have never heard of any of the Dorseys' slaves running away. We did not have any trouble with the white people.
"The slaves lived in good quarters, each house was weather-boarded and stripped to keep out the cold. I do not remember whether the slaves worked or not on Saturdays, but I know the holidays were their own. Mr. Dorsey did not have dances and other kinds of antics that you expected to find on other plantations.
"We had many marbles and toys that poor children had, in that day my favorite game was marbles.