AFTER several of the colored people learned that I could read and write pretty well a colored man named Blank Rivers begged me to teach school for the colored people. There was a white man named Major Wilson who begged me to teach. I told him that I was not able. He told me if I did not teach the black children of Murray county he would force the Ku Klux upon me. I told him that I would do the best I could. Mr. Wilson wrote an article for me to go around to the houses of the colored people to get them to assign their children to me.
In 1877, the third Monday in July I began teaching school. The school house had no floors and planks were nailed on the sleepers to make benches for the children to sit upon. The school session was three months long. I received sixty-two ($62) dollars for the three months' work.
After teaching three months I went to Terrell county, Dawson, Georgia, to attend a three months' school. When I came back to Murray county I taught three months again in 1878. I received sixty-six ($66) for the second three months and I decided I would go to Dalton to a three months' school.
At this time in the Murray county school I had between twenty and twenty-five scholars. There were some twenty-five and thirty year olds who did not know the alphabet. One woman came who had a son old enough to attend school.
In those days the colored people of Murray county were very much in the dark. Sometimes I sit and think how much we colored people have become enlightened. I had to teach Sabbath school. Every Sabbath morning the children would assemble and we would say the Lord's prayer. I taught Sunday school from the blue back speller.
The second year I taught Sabbath school from a book called Catechism. The next year I taught from a testament.
I don't know whether my teaching was a success or not, but I believe it was. One of my scholars named Leon McCamy became a preacher and is preaching in Dalton now. West S. Bailey, a student who came to the first school I taught is preaching in LaFayette, Ga.
I have taught a lot of boys and girls and always tried to teach them to be honest, just and polite to everybody. I have not heard of any of them stealing or swindling, but, some of them perhaps, have been in a little row about whiskey, which is a bad thing and will get everybody in trouble who follows it.
Mr. Edmondson and I were talking one day, and I said to him, "I believe that they will do away with whiskey now," and he said to me, "no." The Indians deeded this land to the white man, and said as long as grass grows and water runs, this will be your land. And as long as corn grows, and water runs, the white man will make whiskey," and I said, "one catching up would nip me in the bud."
Once I was talking with a white woman about whiskey, and she said, "a bootlegger's wife dresses awful fine, but a poor man's wife must do the best she can."
Whiskey is the greatest evil we have. Every court seems to be filled with whiskey cases, sending men to prison, etc. Whiskey is a good thing in some cases, and a bad thing in others if not used in the right way. Corn liquor has cost the life of a lot of good men who would have been living now. It has caused widows to weep and mourn. Whiskey that is made these days will kill a horse, much less a man. I am thankful that I have never been in any trouble about whiskey, and hope I never will.
I went to Dalton to a bar-room where there was a man selling pictures. Behind these pictures were different pieces of money. Some of them had twenty-five cents; some one dollar; some ten dollars and so on behind them and some did not have any money behind the mat all. A man walking up and down the counter saying, "fifty cents, or a half-dollar buys the choicest pictures on the board." I kept on buying pictures until I won about fifty dollars. There were some young white men with me. Colonel Maddox was one of them, and after I won the money Colonel Maddox told me to go. I went off down the street pretending that I was gone, but I came back. Of course I did not let Colonel Maddox know that I went back. I lost all the money that I won and seven dollars of my own money that I carried there with me. I did not tell Mr. Maddox that I went back until this year (1929). I was planning on going to school, yet I was throwing my money away. As it happened Mr. Edmondson owed me some money which I was very glad to get because I had to pay board. In those days Dalton was quite a small town; no factories there; only foundries and bar rooms were there. I was over there the other day and saw how much Dalton had improved.
After going to school in Dalton I taught school in Murray in 1879. I always had plenty of good friends in Dalton and Spring Place. Huse Henry, the school commissioner of Murray county, begged me to go to Carters, Georgia, and teach there, but I went to Dalton one day and met the commissioner there, Mr. Berry, and he begged me to teach in his ward, Cohutta, Georgia. I told him that I could not teach there. He wanted to know why, so I told him that I heard that some of the scholars there were studying Greek and Latin. He said that was not so and I consented to teach. I went there and taught two sessions. The people all liked me, both white and colored. After leaving Cohutta I taught in Murray county about eight or ten years. When I taught in Cohutta, I had about forty or fifty scholars all the while. I had no trouble in any way. The scholars were very obedient and some of the scholars I taught there have grandchildren now.
When I left Murray county in 1863 war was going on in Chattanooga and Chickamauga. The guns and cannons were making such noise one could hardly hear anything else.
I have had plenty of good luck and bad luck too, all of my life. I think I have had very few enemies, my friends greatly outnumbered, and still outnumber my enemies. I have lost hundreds of dollars on security debts. I went a man's (Henry Johnson) security for a suit of clothes at Tate, Eaton & Coffey's, Dalton, Georgia. Mr. Johnson paid me. The next time Mr. Johnson bought something at Mr. Coffey's he wanted me to go his security again. Mr. Coffey told me to be careful about going Johnson's security, but I told him that I was not afraid that Mr. Johnson would not pay me because he paid off the first debt. Johnson shot a man and did not pay Mr. Coffey, so Mr. Coffey made me pay the debt of fifteen dollars. He said, "I tried to keep you out of this, but you went into it anyway." I never saw Johnson any more.
Mr. Hardwick, a Dalton banker, used to call me into the bank to warm during the cold days. He would see me in Dalton and we would sit and talk for hours at a time. He said to me, "I don't see how an ex-slave ever learned to read and write. It's a hidden mystery to me." He seemed to be a very good friend of mine. He always advised me not to go a man's security unless he was able to go mine, but I never took heed, therefore I lost lots of money.
My master owned all land west from the Chief Vann house to the Conasauga river, which is a distance of about four miles. He owned thirty-five or forty slaves. Mr. Edmondson never had any overseers, but had a foreman. After crops were laid by, Mr. Edmondson would give a picnic for his slaves. He would take part in the picnic. I tell you we surely did have a jubilee time.
When the war was in its highest state, Mr. Edmondson sold the Chief Vann house and his land to Colonel Tibbs. The latter kept it eight or nine years and sold it to Goins from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Mr. Goins sold it to Mr. Dill and Dill sold it to Chip Owens. Later Mr. Owens sold it to Mr. D. Kemp. Mr. Kemp sold it to Mr. Dooly; Dooly sold it to Sellers. Sellers sold it to Higdon. Higdon sold it to Dr. Bradford who still owns it. I live now at the place where I was born and raised. As soon as I step out on my front porch I can see the old Edmondson house now known as the Chief Vann house. When I was living at the Chief Vann house, I was young and active. I could run, jump and leap like a frog. I used to think that there were only two boys that could hold me a light and they were a white boy named Rob Rembert and a colored boy named George Edmondson. We would always tie when we would try to throw stones at one another.
I have, and am still helping the unfortunate, such as those who have lost their buildings by fire and those who are sick. I am hoping to still remain able to help the needy.
Memoirs Of A Slave