“Den ah Mashed His Head all to Pieces..

..and Throwd him in a Hole,” says Old Southern Slave in his Reminiscences.

The Laughter and Tears of an Afternoon’s visit to Welland Industrial Home-Stories of Slavery Days.

[Welland Telegraph, 24 October 1911]

Picture to yourself an immense brick building standing back some distance from the road, a large, well-kept lawn fronting it, farm buildings in the rear and a properly cultivated farm adjoining the main building on three sides; old men and women who gaze at you curiously as you walk or drive up the gravel approach-picture this in your mind, and you have the Welland Industrial Home.

SPIRIT OF SADNESS

One cannot help but feel that a spirit of sadness prevails among these old people who have gathered here from the four corners of the county, penniless, and one might say friendless, to spend the remainder of their days in silent meditation and to wait patiently for the end.

Some of them have been wealthy in their day, but by some misfortune, unfair dealing or other trial or tribulation, their worldly possessions has left them and they find themselves face to face with poverty and the poor house.

PITIFUL STORIES

If each man and woman housed there and given shelter through the mercy of the county were to unfold their life story to you as you sat and listened, it would indeed be a tearful scene. It seems  hard that these aged people when they near the end of life’s journey should have to depend upon charity to feed, clothe and shelter their aged bodies until life slips gently away.

Perhaps some day they enjoyed the comforts of life, were respected and had many friends. But when money slipped away, the friends went too. Simultaneously the two disappeared. Had they been wealthy the story would have been different. Still there would be no Industrial Home then and no need for one, either.

A VISIT

A representative of The Telegraph was shown over the building and the grounds by the genial keeper, Mr. Kottmeier, on Thursday afternoon. To describe the faces seen there would be almost impossible. On the countenance of nearly all those who are nearing the three score and ten years there was little expression, save one, and that that from their heart all hope had fled. Some sat around, pitiful excuses of human beings, their heads bowed down as if in thought. Others moved around engaged in some occupation or other while still others sat in the sun smoking and talking. One old man in chatting to The Telegraph reporter said that he was ending his days in the Home because he was foolish enough to give away his property which he had worked hard for, to his relatives, and when he became old and feeble they thought a nice place for him would be the poor house. There are many other cases of this kind, but not all are attributable to this cause.

One old man who is in the home has travelled over nearly the whole world and is well educated. But he  can do no work, has no relatives, and as a consequence he is where he is-in the home.

RECALL OLD TIMES

When there is no work to be done the old men gather in their sitting room and smoke while the woman also congregate in their sitting room and converse with one another over their knitting. Deserted and thrown among strange acquaintances they seem forlorn but make the best of their new friends. The men recall their past lives and tell one another stories of their past, what it was and what it might have been.

MANY CHARACTERS

Among both the men and women there are some peculiar characters. Some are weak-minded, others are childish, some are quiet, others talkative. Some huddle up on their chairs, their bent frames and withered bodies remaining almost motionless.

Almost all occupations are represented. An aged Arabian woman is one of the occupants and a colored man who does not know his age, is another. One lunatic, not of a dangerous character, is kept in the Home. She has little to say, walking up and down with her head bowed on her chest, her hair in vile disorder.

WHAT THEY DO

In the summer time the sixty-acre farm must be tilled and crops raised and harvested. This is done mostly by the inmates who not only raise enough for their own use, but also have a surplus, which is sold. This work occupies much of their time. A large number of pigs are kept and also a number of cattle and horses. Food for this stock must also be grown. The inmates attend to most of the chores about the farm during the winter. There is also a carpenter shop and work shop where some engage themselves. A barber’s chair, where the inmates shave themselves, adorns one corner. Of course, some of the inmates are unable to work, and they bide their time by sitting around talking with one another.

THE BUILDINGS

In connection with the main building there is a small hospital where a number of men are incarcerated at all times, being attended by the Home physician.

In the main building there are the sleeping and eating quarters, the sitting rooms, kitchen, laundry, etc. The men and women have separate eating compartments.

One thing noticeable about the whole building is its absolute cleanliness and the neat and orderly appearance of everything. The Telegraph man called unexpectedly on a day which was not visiting day and he found everything as it should be. The bedrooms and the beds, and in fact, everything was perfectly clean.

FIRE ESCAPES

“How about fire escapes?” asked the reporter, having in mind the recent report of the grand jury.

Mr. Kottmeier pointed out the different avenues of escape in the building. There are four or five exits and two fire escapes, making it quite easy to get out of the building in case of fire. “I was not home at the time the grand jury called and consequently they were not shown over the entire building, and they did not see all the exits,” he stated.

GOOD MANAGEMENT

With such a diversified and forsaken class of people a good deal of patience and kind treatment is necessary. Mr. Kottmeier combines these two qualities and looks after the inmates with the greatest of consideration.

ONCE A SLAVE

Probably the most interesting character at the Home is an old man named Henderson. The old fellow is one of the happiest old inmates in the Home and is enjoying life very well. He doesn’t know just exactly how old he is, but thinks he has been on this sphere somewhere between ninety and a hundred years. He is a typical southern fellow and still has a noticable accent. His laugh is as hearty as that of a young man and he delights to tell of “dem agonizing, cruel, slavery days.”

Mr. Kottmeier and a reporter were walking over the farm on Thursday afternoon when coming down the field with a cane in each hand, was the old man.

“Come here, Henderson,” called Mr. Kottmeier, and the old man came over to where the two were standing. In one hand the cane consisted of a short bent piece of stout wood, while in the other was a piece of a broomstick, with many wires around one end.

“How old are you?” asked Mr. Kottmeier by way of opening the conversation.

“Lor’ master, I dunno, Ah guess ah is about ninety, Whah wa ah bohn? Ah was born in Florida near No’th Ca’olina, and ah was bohn in slavery, too.”

SLAVERY DAYS

Here the old man went into a violent fit of laughter.

Recovering himself again he recited about the time when Lincoln tuk his seat and he was freed. After that he came to Canada. He said many Canadians fought in the armies of the North to try and free the Southern slaves. He said Lincoln saw how the black people were being killed like dogs and he objected to their being used in that manner. The people in the North agreed and helped the President to free them.

FOUGHT IN WAR

“Did you fight in the war?” he was asked.

“Did ah? Why suttingly ah did, of course, ah did. Looka at dat thumb,” he declared, holding up the stub of what was once the thumb of his right hand.

MULTIPLIED LIKE CATTLE

The old fellow laughed again when he told of his early life. He said that during slavery days his race lived like cattle and multiplied in much the same way. When a child was born it was tabulated and kept track of. As a rule a child was not put to work until it was ten years old.

HAD SEVEN WIVES

“Ah had seben wives in mah time,” he said by way of explanation and laughed heartily over it as if it were a good joke. “I raised many black ones,” he declared.

According to the old fellow many black people were killed off when they did not obey their master. Often they were thrown in the rivers or old wells to “get them out of the way.”

DID THE WASHING

To the lot of this particular man fell the dishwashing and cooking of a Southern plantation. He related that he was led to believe that his master was lord of all he surveyed. Nearly all of the Southern slave drivers were very wealthy, he stated.

One incident, when he was watchman of a slave driver’s farm, he related with great satisfaction. A colored man had stolen two thousand dollars and skipped. He (Henderson) was appointed to the leadership of a band to search for the man. With a big mob at his back and over one hundred bloodhounds on the trail he set out, and after hunting about a day found the runaway and “fotched him back.”

KNEW JESSE JAMES

Henderson says that the original Jesse James was not the man known to most of the people in America today. Jesse James, the first, led a far more desperate life than the latter one is credited with, but his career, was far shorter for he was shot down by a Southern plantation owner.

During his conversation with the reporter the old man would frequently say, “Why, suttingly, of cose,” as if what he was saying could not be otherwise.

When he referred to Abraham Lincoln he spoke in quiet tones and spoke of him as a great savior of the colored race.

LITTLE REGARD OF HUMAN LIFE

He told of many incidents of the shooting of colored people, showing clearly how little human life was regarded in the South in the early periods.

Amid laughter he told of how he himself had once killed a fellow workman in the field. He had warned the man that he must cease his immoral relations with his daughter, he said. The man had refused and had beaten him with his whip. Finally becoming desperate one day, he (Henderson) had killed him. His story of the killing is best told in his own words:

“Ah jus’ naturally picked up a rock and knocked him down, vessah. Den ah mashed his haid all to pieces. When ah had his head all mashed ah throwed him in a hole. Da mastah huh about it and come aftah me but ah told him ah mash his head too. Ah was so mad.”

The old fellow said they finally tied chains around him and landed him in jail. His wife saved him from being hung. At that time a woman’s command was law, the women frequently taking the law in their own hands. His wife read about the affair in the papers. She came to the jail and demanded that the doors be opened. When the jailor refused she brandished a pistol and in this way gained entrance. Then she brought her husband out and drove away with him, and that was the last he heard of the affair. He said his wife had threatened to blow up “da jailah and da hull____jail.” unless her husband was released. “Cuss words” were commonly used by women in those days.

Henderson said he received but one beating from a slave driver, nevertheless, he was glad when slavery was outlawed. Children in those days, he said, were raised to be sold like cattle. There was no moral law.

The old Southerner pulled an immense pipe from his pocket and asked for some tobacco. The bowl on the pipe was fully four inches high, two inches around and the stem was about an inch around. The pipe consisted of a piece of gas pipe covered with a big piece of wood, the stem being a long piece of wood through which a hole had been pierced.

He continued to talk of his early life in Florida and of the country and its ways in early times. He has now grown old and his form is bent with years. His face is well preserved, and his beard is unusally long for a black man.