www.ancestry.com added "Slave Narratives' to their databases. Free for all a few days. This is the 1st hit I got for UNDERGROUND Ancestry.com - Slave NarrativesMember Login | Guest Registry | Why Join? Search > Record Type > Slave Narratives > Search ResultsFebruary 11, 2000 (Verbatim interview with Arnold Gragston, 97-year-old ex-slave whose early life was spent helping slaves to freedom across the Ohio River, while he, himself, remained in bondage. As he puts it, he guesses he could be called a 'conductor' on the underground railway, only we didn't call it that then. I don't know as we called it anything -- we just knew there was a lot of slaves always a-wantin' to get free, and I had to help 'em.") "Most of the slaves didn't know when they was born, but I did. You see, I was born on a Christmas mornin' -- it was in 1840; I was a full grown man when I finally lot my freedom." "Before I got it, though, I helped a lot of others get theirs. Lawd only knows how many; might have been as much as two-three hundred. It was 'way wore than a hundred, I know. "But that all came after I was a young man -- 'grown' enough to know a pretty girl when I saw one, and to go chasing after her, too. I was born on a plantation that b'longed to Mr. Jack Tabb in Mason County, just across the river in Kentucky." "Mr. Tabb was a pretty good man. He used to beat us, sure; but not nearly so much as others did, some of his own kin people, even. But he was kinda funny sometimes; he used to have a special slave who didn't have nothin' to do but teach the rest of us -- we had about ten on the plantation, and a lot on the (-50-) other plantations near us -- how to read and write and figger. Mr. Tabb liked us to know how to figger. But sometimes when he would send for us and we would be a long time comin', he would ask us where we had been. If we told him we had been learnin' to read, he would near beat the daylights out of us -- after gettin' somebody to teach us; I think he did some of that so that the other owners wouldn't say he was spoilin' his slaves." "He was funny about us marryin', too. He would let us go a-courtin' on the other plantations near anytime we liked, if we were good, and if we found somebody we wanted to marry, and she was on a plantation that b'longed to one of his kin folks or a friend, he would swap a slave so that the husband and wife could be together. Sometimes, when he couldn't do this, he would let a slave work all day on his plantation, and live with his wife at night on her plantation. Some of the other owners was always talking about his spoilin' us." "He wasn't a Dimmacrat like the rest of 'em in the county; he belonged to the 'know-nothin' party' and he was a real leader in it. He used to always be makin' speeches, and sometimes his best friends wouldn't be speaking to him for days at a time." "Mr. Tabb was always specially good to me. He used to let me go all about -- I guess he had to; couldn't get too much work out of me even when he kept me right under his eyes. I learned fast, too, and I think he kinda liked that. He used to call Sandy Davis, the slave who taught me, 'the smartest Nigger er Copyright 1998-2000, MyFamily.com Inc. and its subsidiaries. Terms & Conditions | Privacy Statement | Y2K| Contact Us Ancestry.com - Slave NarrativesMember Login | Guest Registry | Why Join? Advanced Search | Search by Locality | Search by Record Type | Search Help Database: Full Context of Slave Narratives in Kentucky.' "It was 'cause he used to let me go around in the day and night so much that I came to be the one who carried the runnin' away slaves over the river. It was funny the way I started it, too." "I didn't have no idea of ever gettin' mixed up in any sort of business like that until one special night. I hadn't even thought of rowing across the river myself." "But one night I had gone on another plantation 'courtin,' and the old woman whose house I went to told me she had a real pretty girl there who wanted to go across the river and would I take her? I was seared and backed out in a hurry. But then I saw the girl, and she was such a pretty little thing, brownskinned and kinda rosy, and looking as scared as I was feelin', so it wasn't long before I was listenin' to the old woman tell we when to take her and where to leave her on the other side." "I didn't have nerve enough to do it that night, though, and I told them to wait for me until tomorrow night. All the next day I kept seeing Mister Tabb laying a rawhide across my back, or shootin' me, and kept seeing that seared little brown girl back at the house, looking at me with her big eyes and askin me if I wouldn't just row her across to Ripley. Me and Mr. Tabb lost, and soon as dust settled that night, I was at the old lady's house." "I don't now how I ever rowed the boat across the (-52-) river the current was strong and I was trembling. I couldn't see a thing there in the dark, but I felt that girl's eyes. We didn't dare to whisper, so I couldn't tell her how sure I was that Mr. Tabb or some of the others owners would 'tear me up' when they found out what I had done. I just knew they would find out." "I was worried, too, about where to put her out of the boat. I couldn't ride her across the river all night, and I didn't know a thing about the other side. I had heard a lot a out it from other slaves but I thought it was just about like Mason County, with slaves and masters, overseers and rawhides; and so, I just knew that if I pulled the boat up and went to asking people where to take her I would get a beating or get killed." Copyright 1998-2000, MyFamily.com Inc. and its subsidiaries. Terms & Conditions | Privacy Statement | Y2K| Contact Us Ancestry.com - Slave NarrativesMember Login | Guest Registry | Why Join? Previous Page Next Page "I don't know whether it seemed like a long time or a short time, now - it's so long ago; I know it was a long time rowing there in the cold and worryin'. But it was short, too, 'cause as soon as I did get on the other side the big-eyed, brown-skin girl would be gone. Well, pretty soon I saw a tall light and I remembered what the old lady had told me about looking for that light and rowing to it. I did; and when I got up to it, two men reached town and grabbed her; I started tremblin' all over again, and prayin'. Then, are of the men took my arm and I just felt down inside of me that the Lord had got ready for me. 'You hungry, Soy?' is what he asked me, and if he hadn't been holdin' me I think I would have fell (-53-) backward into the river." "That was my first trip; it took me a long time to get over my seared feelin', but I finally did, and I soon found myself goin back across the river, with two and three people, and sometimes a whole boatload. I got so I used to make three and four trips a month. "What did my passengers look like? I can't tell you any more about it than you can, and you wasn't there. After that first girl -- no, I never did see her again -- I never saw my passengers. I would have to be the 'black nights' of the moon when I would carry them, and I would meet 'em out in the open or in a house without a single light. The only way I knew who they were was to ask them; "What you say?" And they would answer, "Menare." I don't know what that word meant -- it came from the Bible. I only know that that was the password I used, and all of them that I took over told it to me before I took them. "I guess you wonder what I did with them after I got them over the river. Well, there in Ripley was a man named Mr. Bank us; I think the rest of his name was John. He had a regular station there on his place for escaping slaves. You see, Ohio was a free state and once they got over the river from Kentucky or Virginia, Mr. Rankins could strut them all around town, and nobody would bother 'em. The only reason we used to land 'em quietly at night was so that whoever brought 'em could go back for more, and because we had to be careful that none of the (-54-) owners had followed us. Every once in a while they would follow a boat and catch their slaves back. Sometimes they would shoot at whoever was trying to save the poor devils. "Mr. Rankins had a regular 'station' for the slaves. He had a big lighthouse in his yard, about thirty feet high and he kept it burnin' all night. It always meant freedom for slave if he could get to this light. "Sometimes Mr. Rankins would have twenty or thirty slaves that had run away on his place at the time. It must have cost him a, whole lots to keep them and feed 'em, but I think some of his friends helped him. Copyright 1998-2000, MyFamily.com Inc. and its subsidiaries. Terms & Conditions | Privacy Statement | Y2K| Contact Us Ancestry.com - Slave NarrativesMember Login | Guest Registry | Why Join? Search > Record Type > Slave Narratives > Search ResultsFebruary 11, 2000 Search Results Database: Full Context of Slave Narratives Combined Matches: Previous Page Next Page "I almost ran the business in the ground after I had been carrying the slaves across for nearly four years. It was in 1963, and one night I carried across about twelve on the same night. Somebody must have seen us, because they set out after me as soon as I stepped out of the boat back on the Kentucky side; from that time on they were after me. Sometimes they would almost catch me; I had to run away from Mr. Tabb's plantation and live in the fields and in the woods. I didn't know what a bed was from one week to another. I would sleep in a cornfield tonight, up in the branches of a tree tomorrow sight, and buried in a hay pile the next night; the River, where I had carried so many across myself, was no good to me; it was watched too close. "Finally, I saw that I could never do any more good in Mason County, so I decided to take my freedom, too. I had a wife by this time, and one night we quietly slipped across and headed for Mr. Rankin's bell and light. It looked like we had (-57-) to go almost to Chinn to get across that river; I could hear the bell and see the light on Mr. Rankin's place, but the harder I rowed, the farther away it Cot, and I knew if I didn't make it I'd get killed. But finally. I pulled up by the light-house, and went on to my freedom -- just a few months before all of the slaves got their's. I didn't stay in Rinley, though; I wasn't taking no chances. I went on to Detroit and still live there with wout of 10 children and 31 grandchildren. "We bigger ones don't care so much about hearin' it now, but the little once never ot tired of hearin' how their grandpa brought Emancipation to loads of slaves he could touch and fool, but never could see." (-58-, FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECT, American Guide (Negro Writers' Unit), Jacksonville, Florida, Martin Richardson, Slave Interview, Arnold Gragston, REFERENCES) 1. Interview with subject, Arnold Gragston, present address, Robert Hungerford Colle a Campus, Eatonville (F. O. Maitland) Florida. (Subject is relative of President of Hangerford College and stays several months in Eatonville at frequent intervals. His home is Detroit, Michigan). (FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECT, American Guide, (Negro Writers' Unit), Jacksonville, Florida, Pearl Randolph, Field Worker, Complete, 1,601 Words, 8 Pages, Slave Interview, 18 Dec 1936, Harriett Gresham) Gresham, Harriett Copyright 1998-2000, MyFamily.com Inc. and its subsidiaries. Terms & Conditions | Privacy Statement | Y2K| Contact Us ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.