14 July 1927--OUR HUNTSVILLE LETTER, By W. T. Dameron .--Don’t Celebrate Now --Jim Dysart is the name of one of Huntsville’s good old time darkeys. Everybody in Huntsville knows “Uncle Jim,” as he is called. He has done a great deal of work for the city, and still works, with pick and shovel, when his services are needed, and he always does good work. While Uncle Jim is an old time negro in ways and manners, he is not as old as one would take him to be. He says he is about 73 years old, but does not know his exact age. Before his freedom he belonged to the late Nicholas Dysart and says out of the 18 slaves Mr. Dysart owned when freedom was declared, he and one other, Warren Dysart, of St. Louis, are the only ones now living. He says Mr. Dysart always treated his slaves right and had no trouble with them, which was not the case with another large slave and land owner whom he named, in the vicinity of the Dysart place. Jim has no use for a trifling, lazy negro, nor a no account white man either, and says he knows some here that ought to be in bondage or put somewhere where they could be made to work. The first money Jim ever earned for himself after he was set free was paid him by the writer’s father. He paid Jim $20 per month and board, and Jim said, “and I got plenty to eat, too.” Later Jim married a girl that belonged to my father, who set all his negroes free before Lincoln issued his emancipation proclamation. The Ku Klux Klan doesn’t impress Uncle Jim very favorably, but he says there are cases with both blacks and whites that a good flogging would do them more good than any fine of jail sentence. Then he referred to a case that happened here many years ago. He said: “There were two colored girls that came here one time. They were soon discovered to be bad girls morally, and said to be diseased. They had rooms rented in Shufflefoot, but the white authorities had no evidence against them to oust them, but we colored folks knew that they were bad women, and one night seven or eight colored men kidnapped them, took them to a big draw east of the Farquason place, and while a man held each arm with their dresses and skirts pulled over their shoulders, another man with a good buggy whip sho’ laid it onto their naked backs and down to their legs. They kicked and screamed and begged and promised to be better women, and to leave town and stay away. If any people in the neighborhood heard them scream they never went to where the flogging was gon on. The man that used the buggy whip on them is dead, but he sho’ made ‘em dance with pain. None of the men knew their names nor where they come from, or went from here, but they never made their appearance in this town any more.” While speaking of his old master, Uncle Nick Dysart, and how kind he was to his slaves, Jim said: “Mars’ Nick had to go to St. Louis one time in slave days, and took me to Renick with him, where he took a train, and I was to bring back the horses. I had heard something about a railroad, but I had never seen a train. We stopped at the edge of town, Mars’ Nick got off his horse and handed me the bridle reigns. About that time I saw the train coming, and it excited me as well as the horses, and I yelled, “Oh, Mars Nick, yonder comes the train, but thare’s nor horses hitched to it.” Mars Nick laughed and said, “Jim, hold on to them horses,” I thought the train had to be pulled by horses or mules. I gripped the horse’s mane that I was riding with both bridle reins over my arms and held on, while the horses galloped off towards home.” Knowing that Uncle Jim liked a drink of liquor pretty well, and the “old timer’s” July 4th celebration in mind, I asked Uncle Jim how long it had been since he had celebrated the 4th with a little “old crow” under his belt. “Well,” said Jim, “I haven’t celebrated the 4th nor Christmas in an organizin’ way since the wimmin got in politics, an’ that fellow “Volsehead” got in Washington an’ raised the price of good whisky. Course, I’ve tasted some of this pizen a time or two what bootleggers sells, but I’m not ready to die yet an’ I don’t bother with it any more.” At this junction Dr. Barnhartt passed by and he said to me, “Get Jim to tell you how he come to fall in a cellar in a drug store one time.” Jim laughed and said: “I was janitor in a drug store in the Stricker building away back yonder when Mr. Claude Ferguson and Mr. Walter Roberts run a store there, and in them times I got my dram regularly befo’ breakfast, an’ after breakfast, too, when I wanted it. That was in free liberty times, when there was no spies ‘bout pokin’ their noses in other people’s bizness, but if you got too much good liker under yo’ belly ban’ an’ got on the street a copy would put you up til you sobered up and paid a little fine. Yes, one Christmas morning while I was cleaning up fur them two boys, they stirred up a pretty good sized egg-nog. Mr. Claude put some of it in a little tin bucket and had me to take it down to his father’s house. While I was gone they left some for me to drink. They spiked it with more whisky than what they drank. But I stayed with it, but not as long as it stayed with me. I was leaning on a railing at a cellar door and I commenced feelin’ myself givin’ way, and grabbed hold of the railin’ and like a squirrel what is shot, hanging to the limb and slippin’ before it falls, my hands kept slippin’ and all at once I kerflumixed into the cellar in a heap, but it didn’t hurt me much. After the boys found that I was not hurt, they had lots of fun at my expense, but I did not feel like celebratin’ any more that day. No, I don’t celebrate any more, but spec I would though if I could get some good licker to make me feel just ripe enough to pull one off on the 4th and Christmas.” (Transcription of the Old Higbee News by-Kathy Bowlin.)
Posted on: Sat, 13 Jul 2013 12:19:36 +0000
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