Ohio Guide
Ex-Slave Stories
Aug 15, 1937
SUSAN BLEDSOE
462-12th St. S.E., Canton, Ohio
"I was born on a plantation in Gilee County, near the
town of Elkton, in Tennessee, on August 15, 1845. My father's
name was Shedrick Daley and he was owned by Tom Daley and my
mother's name was Rhedia Jenkins and her master's name was Silas
Jenkins. I was owned by my mother's master but some of my
brothers and sisters—I had six brothers and six sisters—were
owned by Tom Daley.
I always worked in the fields with the men except when I was
called to the house to do work there. 'Masse' Jenkins was good
and kind to all us slaves and we had good times in the evening
after work. We got in groups in front of the cabins and sang and
danced to the music of banjoes until the overseer would come
along and make us go to bed. No, I don't remember what the songs
were, nothing in particular, I guess, just some we made up and
we would sing a line or two over and over again.
We were not allowed to work on Sunday but we could go to
church if we wanted to. There wasn't any colored church but we
could go to the white folks church if we went with our overseer.
His name was Charlie Bull and he was good to all of us.
Yes, they had to whip a slave sometimes, but only the bad
ones, and they deserved it. No, there wasn't any jail on the
plantation.
We all had to get up at sunup and work till sundown and we
always had good food and plenty of it; you see they had to feed
us well so we would be strong. I got better food when I was a
slave than I have ever had since.
Our beds were home made, they made them out of poplar wood
and gave us straw ticks to sleep on. I got two calico dresses a
year and these were my Sunday dresses and I was only allowed to
wear them on week days after they were almost worn out. Our
shoes were made right on the plantation.
When any slaves got sick, Mr. Bull, the overseer, got a
regular doctor and when a slave died we kept right on working
until it was time for the funeral, then we were called in but
had to go right back to work as soon as it was over. Coffins
were made by the slaves out of poplar lumber.
We didn't play many games, the only ones I can remember are
'ball' and 'marbles'. No, they would not let us play 'cards'.
One day I was sent out to clean the hen house and to burn the
straw. I cleaned the hen house, pushed the straw up on a pile
and set fire to it and burned the hen house down and I sure
thought I was going to get whipped, but I didn't, for I had a
good 'masse'.
We always got along fine with the children of the slave
owners but none of the colored people would have anything to do
with the 'poor white trash' who were too poor to own slaves and
had to do their own work.
There was never any uprisings on our plantations and I never
heard about any around where I lived. We were all happy and
contented and had good times.
Yes, I can remember when we were set free. Mr. Bull told us
and we cut long poles and fastened balls of cotton on the ends
and set fire to them. Then, we run around with them burning, a-singin'
and a-dancin'. No, we did not try to run away and never left the
plantation until Mr. Bull said we could go.
After the war, I worked for Mr. Bull for about a year on the
old plantation and was treated like one of the family. After
that I worked for my brother on a little farm near the old home
place. He was buying his farm from his master, Mr. Tom Daley.
I was married on my brother's place to Wade Bledsoe in 1870.
He has been dead now about 15 years. His master had given him a
small farm but I do not remember his master's name. Yes, I lived
in Tennessee until after my husband died. I came to Canton in
1929 to live with my granddaughter, Mrs. Algie Clark.
I had three children; they are all dead but I have 6
grandchildren, 8 great-grandchildren and 9
great-great-grandchildren, all living. No, I don't think the
children today are as good as they used to be, they are just not
raised like we were and do too much as they please.
I can't read or write as none of we slaves ever went to
school but I used to listen to the white folks talk and copied
after them as much as I could."
NOTE: The above is almost exactly as Mrs. Bledsoe
talked to our interviewer. Although she is a woman of no
schooling she talks well and uses the common negro dialect very
little. She is 92 years of age but her mind is clear and she is
very entertaining. She receives an Old Age Pension. (Interviewed
by Chas. McCullough.)
Submitted and Transcribed by Sandi Cummins
REV. WILLIAM McCAUGHEY, one of the prominent ministers of the
Presbyterian Church, now resides in Olney, (Illinois). His
many friends and acquaintances will be glad to see him
represented in this volume, and with pleasure we present this
record of his life to our readers. His paternal grandparents
were William and Jane (Jackson) McCaughey and were of
Scotch-Irish descent. The grandmother was an own cousin of
Andrew Jackson, President of the United States. Both were
members of what was once called the Seceder Church, but now
the United Presbyterian. The father of our subject, Robert
Jackson McCaughey, married Henrietta Crafft, daughter of
Frederick and Margaret Crafft, who were of German descent.
They resided near Frederick City, Md., and were members of the
Lutheran Church. Their daughter, however, was a member of the
Christian Church.
Rev. W. McCaughey of this sketch was born in Massillon, Stark
County, Ohio, September 25, 1829, and was the eldest of eight
children, three sons and five daughters. Two daughters,
Margaret and Keziah Belle, are now deceased. The latter left
two children, namely: Harry Eirst, a prominent railroad postal
clerk of Cincinnati, Ohio; and Mrs. Allie Kern, of
Minneapolis, Minn. The living children of the McCaughey family
are Mrs. Mary Alice Gildersleeve, of Hudson, McLean County,
Ill.; Helen Maria, wife of Columbus C. Sater, M. D., also of
Hudson; Thomas Corwin, a physician and druggist, of Hoopeston,
Vermilion County, Ill.; and Robert Jackson, a commercial
traveler of Ripley, Brown County, Ohio.
Our subject was married in Springfield, Ohio, March 25, 1858,
to Miss Lucy Elizabeth Alter, the ceremony being performed by
Rev. Samuel Sprecher, D. D., President of Wittenberg College.
The lady is the only sister of Hon. Franklin Alter, of
Cincinnati, Ohio. Their family was closely related to
ex-Governor Reutner, of Pennsylvania, and belongs to the
new-school Lutheran Church. The union of Rev. W. McCaughey and
his wife was blessed with a family of six children, as
follows: Mary Elizabeth; Henrietta Virginia, now the wife of
Frank S. Gordon, a dry-goods merchant of Greenville, Darke
County, Ohio; William Franklin, a prominent worker in, and
Assistant General Secretary of, the Y. M. C. A. State work of
Indiana, with headquarters at Indianapolis, Ind.; Henry Alter,
who is employed as book-keeper with Alms & Deopke,
wholesale and retail merchants of Cincinnati, Ohio; Walter
Secrist, who is solicitor and collector for D. Gray &
Co.'s underwriters' insurance agency of Cincinnati, Ohio; and
Laura Luella, who is now Mrs. Frederick C. Brehm, her husband
a wholesale paper merchant of Milwaukee, Wis. In speaking of
his family , Mr. McCaughey says, "Truly as parents we can
gay that we have been greatly blessed and comforted in our
children. In quite early life they gave God their hearts,
confessed Christ as their Savior, united with the church, were
heartily in sympathy with their father's life work, and had in
many ways greatly helped him toward the upbuilding of the
Master's kingdom. We have great reason to be thankful to our
Heavenly Father for the joy and comfort which our children
have been to us."
Speaking of his religious experience, Mr. McCaughey says that
he cannot recall a time, even in early childhood, when he did
not have religious impressions, and when he could not look
forward and see himself a minister of the Gospel. When quite a
small boy, he was much impressed by reading a simple story of
Joseph and his brethren. Not long afterward he heard a
pathetic sermon preached from the text, "Shall we
continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid."
Little William went home from the service deeply impressed,
and having to prepare a composition for school, he concluded
to take the same text as his subject. He did so, and in the
bar room or office of a large country tavern wrote six
four-line stanzas of jingling rhyme. Those stanzas attracted
considerable attention and he was considered a somewhat poetic
prodigy, for he was then a little flaxen-haired boy, whose
head would hardly reach the top of his mother's dinner table.
About the same time a lady came into the community and invited
the parents and their children to meet at a schoolhouse on
Sunday afternoon to organize a Sunday-school. Rev. Mr.
McCaughey then attended what was his first Sunday-school.
Many, many years after this, when Mr. McCaughey had become a
minister of the Gospel, an aged couple passed through his town
in northeastern Ohio, and, stopping at the hotel over Sunday,
they inquired of the proprietor, who was one of the officers
of Mr. McCaughey's church, concerning the principal church of
the place and its pastor. When told the name of the pastor,
the strange lady requested that he be sent for, and when he
arrived he found her to be his first Sundayschool teacher.
Calling him by name, she said, "You were the little boy
who sat on that rough board bench, your bare feet scarcely
touching the rough floor, your hair as white as your clean tow
pants, your eyes sparkling like two diamonds, your ears opened
to catch every word that I uttered. 1 could not but see, and I
felt it too, that there was in that little uncut diamond, that
little white-haired boy, a future minister of the Gospel, and
often spoke of it to my friends, then living in your
community."
Mr. McCaughey was converted under the preaching of Rev. Peter
J. Spangler, of the German Reformed Church, and was confirmed
by him into full membership of that church March 23, 1852, in
Manchester, Summit County, Ohio. The passage of scripture
which lead to his conversion was, "Repent ye, therefore,
and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out when the
times of refreshening shall come from the presence of the
Lord, " Acts iii, 19. At the time our subject was engaged
in teaching. When his school closed he made a trip through the
West, returning in the fall to Doylestown, Wayne County, Ohio,
to the home of his father, with whom he remained until the
latter's death, which occurred in February, 1853. The
following April, he became a student in Heidelberg University,
of Tiffin, Ohio. He had only $28, but he had faith that the
hand of Providence would aid him. He sawed wood, swept the
rooms, built fires, gathered ashes and sold them, worked in
the harvest fields during vacations and in this way prepared
himself for the Master's work. After an examination, he was
placed in the junior class of the scientific course, but he
felt that this permission so kindly granted was hardly
deserved, and he asked to be allowed to remain in the senior
class two years. This was granted, and he graduated with the
degree of A. M. in the Class of '56. The theological seminary
of that church being connected with the institution, he was
enabled to pursue both seminary and college branches, and
hence made double time. During his second year in the
seminary, he supplied a vacant church in an adjoining town,
and after the opening of the third year he was permitted by
the faculty of the seminary to accept a regular call from an
old and prominent church in Navarre, Ohio. He was examined and
licensed to preach the Gospel in the German Reformed Church of
the United States of America.
Rev. Mr. McCaughey 's ordination sermon was preached in
Navarre, January 14. 1857, by Rev. Louis Brumer, of Massillon,
Ohio, and he also delivered the charge to the pastor, while
Rev. Samuel B. Leiter, D. D., delivered the charge to the
people.
Rev. Mr. McCaughey remained in Navarre until October, 1860,
when he was called to the pastorate in Akron City. While there
he erected a fine house of worship, and laid the foundation
for that congregation of eight hundred members, now so
spiritually and financially, as well as numerically, strong.
In May, 1863, he removed to Springfield. Ohio, where he spent
about a year, though not officially employed, yet most of the
time engaged in the Master's work. In June, 1864, he was
called to Greenville, Ohio, where he organized and built up a
large and flourishing church, and erected a fine house of
worship. After eleven pleasant years spent at that place he
was forced to resign on account of his health, October 1,
1874. The succeeding winter and spring he traveled for the
benefit of his health. In the spring of 1875, he received a
unanimous call from the church at Miamisburg, Ohio, where he
served as pastor until April 1, 1881. Now came the change in
the life of Rev. Mr. McCaughey. He had faithfully served the
Reformed Church for many years, but he felt that the extensive
use of the German language was a hindrance to his personal
work. The Presbyterian Church was the church of his fathers,
and in the spring of 1881 he asked for a letter of dismissal
from the Reformed Church to the Dayton Presbytery of the
Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, and was
duly enrolled as a member of that Presbytery April 14, 1881,
at the regular spring meeting, at the Park Street Church,
Dayton, Ohio.
During the following summer and winter he was not employed
officially, but nevertheless generally preached twice a day
each Sunday. In the autumn of 1882, on account of the climate,
he went South and temporarily took charge of the Bethel
Presbyterian Church in Kingston, Tenn. In May, 1883, he came
North for the summer, and then again went to Kingston. On the
9th of July, 1884, entirely unsolicited on his part, he was
unanimously elected President of Sedalia University, a young
and flourishing Presbyterian school in Sedalia, Mo. He there
served until July 9, 1885, when on account of financial
reasons the connection was severed and April 1, 1886, he
became pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Rossville.
Vermilion County, Ill. To that church he had the largest
number of accessions on one day during his entire ministry,
sixty joining. Of these, thirty were young men, and
forty-three of the number were by the profession of faith.
Rev. Mr. McCaughey was unanimously called to the Olney Church,
February 1, 1889, and has since teen its pastor. Up to May 14,
1893, he had preached five thousand two hundred and
eighty-nine sermons, delivered two thousand one hundred and
seventy-five lectures, received six hundred into church
relationship and from four hundred to a thousand by
certificate, baptized six hundred and married three hundred
and thirty-nine couples. Speaking of his life, Mr. McCaughey
says, "The Lord has been remarkably propitious to me in
my family, in my health and in owning and blessing my work.
Nevertheless, I must confess that I have come far short of
doing all that I could for my blessed Master, arid my only
prayer is that in the end He may overlook my mistakes,
overrule my errors and with His compassionate and loving voice
say to me 'well done.'
Rev. Mr. McCaughey is a popular pulpit orator, being a logical
reasoner, a fluent, forcible, impressive speaker. By his
associates he is recognized as a scholarly, refined, Christian
gentleman. During his residence in Olney he has endeared
himself to the members of his congregation, and enjoys the
friendship and esteem of a large circle of acquaintances.
Portrait and Biographical Record of Effingham, Jasper and
Richland Counties Illinois, Containing Biographical Sketches
of Prominent and Representative Citizens, Governors of the
State, and the Presidents of the United States. (Chicago:
Chapman Brothers, 1887), p.595 -
Submitted by Judy Edwards
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