Ernestine Clemmons (primary interviewee) and Aaron Boyd interview recording, 1993 January 13

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Grace George	To start, before we start or just go ahead?	0:01
Unknown Interviewer	Yeah. I was just wondered right off the top, I just need a little bit of information on both of you, first off. So if you could just state your name, and just how long have you lived in James City? Just a very brief thumbnail, biographical sketch on yourself, start with your names.	0:04
Aaron Boyd	Aaron.	0:16
Unknown Interviewer	And your last name?	0:16
Aaron Boyd	Boyd, B-O-Y-D.	0:16
Unknown Interviewer	How long have you been in James City?	0:17
Aaron Boyd	All my life.	0:17
Unknown Interviewer	[indistinct 00:00:18].	0:17
Aaron Boyd	No, but I've been here ever since '43 in this farm.	0:17
Grace George	In this area.	0:49
Aaron Boyd	In this area since '43.	0:49
Grace George	But did your family live over in James City area? Did it go all the way back, the Boyds and?	0:53
Aaron Boyd	I can't recall that they live in James City. They live in this area.	1:00
Unknown Interviewer	How long did you, Mrs. Clemmons?	1:00
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, I was born and raised here, not in old James City, but in Brownsville, crossed over where that new highway is now. And I remember as a child, I remember what happened in old James City, but I was born over here. But I always would visit over in when I was a child, over in the other James City. So I've been here. I've been away, but I've been here and living here all my life. That's what I mean. I ain't living here, but I mean I've been away but I was born and raised here.	1:12
Unknown Interviewer	How long were your ancestors here?	1:54
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, right now I'll be 76, my birthday in March. So I think I remember from say my, when I was around about 10 or 12 years old or maybe younger, that a lot about the old people who used to be in James City. And I used to be interested in what happened in slavery time. And when the old people and Ms. Hank Jones, she used to live. She was some of the ones that was born in slavery and was freed. And she used to tell me about how the people come miles and miles to get to James City because if they could get to James City, they would be free.	1:59
Ernestine Clemmons	And so a lot of people come and build up. In fact, they said that if the federal government had given this place, James City to locate on and they all come here to try to be free. And so that's where they started building the community in old James City. And when I was a child, my mother used to have, she had a cow and she used to take milk and sell around in the areas. And I used to go with her and I met a lot of people and seen a lot of James City when I was growing up, before it changed.	2:55
Unknown Interviewer	Now, how far back do your ancestors date? Do your ancestors date all the way back to the 1800s?	3:50
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, I don't know. My ancestors goes way back. I think my great granddaddy would be, been way back in the 1800s. My mother would be in the 1800s. Her mother died and she was raised by the missionaries in James City. The lady, Ms., what was her name? Catherine.	4:00
Grace George	Catherine Midget?	4:33
Ernestine Clemmons	Midget. And she was raised by her, and the missionaries. And so she was back in the 1800s too.	4:34
Grace George	These missionaries came from Boston.	4:47
Ernestine Clemmons	Hm?	4:49
Grace George	Missionaries, most of them, where did they come from?	4:50
Ernestine Clemmons	Boston. Boston, Massachusetts. And my mother said when they go back to Boston they would take her and Ms.	4:53
Grace George	Catherine.	5:03
Ernestine Clemmons	Catherine with them. And so she just kept, my mother went to school in Boston, something down here too. So she was with the missionaries, first missionaries to come to James City. So I don't know, I remember a lot of the old people and where they lived and everything, but this is all over in the overly so I don't, so Aaron, you take it from.	5:04
Grace George	Well, I wanted to ask you before you go to Aaron, could you tell us? You remember you used to sit down, you tell me about how they made, everything they did, they had to make it how the houses and how the people say they made soap—	5:38
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, what far as I know is the people used to, I ring Aaron? You remember too that people used to make they chairs and stuff like that. And people could do things that like boards where they make bread, they would make it out of wood and stuff like that. They made about all their utensils that they could make out of wood.	5:50
Unknown Interviewer	Where did your ancestors, do your ancestors date all the way back to the formation of James City? And if so, do you know where they came from?	6:28
Aaron Boyd	Far back in James City. Yeah, far back in James City.	6:39
Unknown Interviewer	Well, when James City was being formed, of course a lot of the freed slaves came from different parts of the South. Did your ancestors come from outside of the area?	6:49
Aaron Boyd	No, I don't think we was in this area.	7:04
Unknown Interviewer	Okay. I guess what I really want from both of you and in some ways I can't ask questions about this, is I'd like to hear the, I guess the stories that your parents told you about the formation of James City and the times pretty much from the 1860s on, know there was a lot of happened to you say during that time. What are some of the earliest stories that you remember that your parents told you about the formation of James City, was there anything particular?	7:09
Aaron Boyd	I used to hear my father say when The Neuse was, a boat called The Neuse was running from here to New York, not New York, Norfolk because he got on the boat one time to sell something and it carried him all the way to Norfolk. See, he was supposed to get on the boat and get off. But they carried him all the way to Norfolk.	7:46
Grace George	When he was going to New Bern?	8:12
Aaron Boyd	No, he was going from here to, he was on the boat but he wasn't going to Norfolk. But when the boat took off, it carried him out on the Norfolk. Yeah, he called it Neuse.	8:14
Grace George	Aaron, tell them about the how things were, would you like to discuss? You had me laughing the other day about when you woke when your dad would go out, you'd have to stay home.	8:27
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	8:36
Grace George	Because you didn't have shoes.	8:37
Aaron Boyd	My father, he belonged to the Baptist Church, Jones Chapel AME Zion church. And when I was a boy, it was during the time, Depression and everything. He couldn't afford a pair of shoes, and I had shoes and I would stay home and let him go to church mornings and unless he had to go out church in the afternoon to a quarter meeting or something like that, then I'd take the shoes. I remember that.	8:39
Grace George	And you'd be hoping he didn't have no service afternoon so.	9:14
Aaron Boyd	Right. I'm hoping he didn't have no more service to go to in the afternoon. But if he did, I would let him go anyway so.	9:17
Grace George	We can laugh about it, but.	9:27
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, remember. Do you remember when the old bridge, the truck, the trestle bridge come from? James City, and then the other bridge where it was Solomon Philips store was down the foot of the bridge, do you remember that?	9:30
Aaron Boyd	Yeah, because his store was right there to the end of the—	9:47
Ernestine Clemmons	Right to the end of the bridge.	9:49
Aaron Boyd	End of the bridge, yeah.	9:49
Ernestine Clemmons	And I remember beside that, his place that it used to be a little poolroom.	9:56
Aaron Boyd	Right.	10:01
Ernestine Clemmons	And then from the poolroom was Ms. Julie Gratis little restaurant.	10:03
Aaron Boyd	Julie Gratis, she was on this side.	10:09
Ernestine Clemmons	Next to the railroad.	10:10
Aaron Boyd	Right.	10:11
Ernestine Clemmons	And then the railroad bridge.	10:14
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	10:14
Ernestine Clemmons	And this New Bern Bridge, the old bridge, I think it went up, didn't it go up George Street?	10:15
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	10:24
Ernestine Clemmons	The old bridge went.	10:25
Aaron Boyd	Up George Street.	10:28
Ernestine Clemmons	Right through to George Street and then it come across the bridge and in James City, that was populated in the old James City church, the one that Mount Shiloh.	10:29
Aaron Boyd	Mount Shiloh.	10:39
Ernestine Clemmons	I was a child, I used to go there. You come from across the bridge and you turn right straight upside the first road side there and over on the left, was it left or right? But the church was there. The same church that moved over here in Brownsville. And as a child, I went to church over there. I used to go across this trestle. This trestle over here and go across that trestle, you go around the road and go to the church. And the people, most of the people, the younger generations people was living on this side in that time. But the church was still in, the church was still in James City. So as I growed up, until they moved the church over here, I used to have to go there for Sunday school and church so all that was the real old James City.	10:41
Grace George	And let me say this to you, you know we are speaking of the historical James City. The people, these are the descendants that had to move out of old James City, which they speak about. This is James City called now. But that is really old, that's James City, the area which they're speaking about, this is called, there's four, there's different sections of this. This is called Graysville now, back there.	11:45
Unknown Interviewer	Right.	12:11
Grace George	And over there when you come across Scotts Creek were this big church.	12:12
Ernestine Clemmons	Brownsville.	12:15
Grace George	Was Brownsville. Then you come here where this here school where you just saw on the highway, that's Meadowsville, then you have Leesville. So they had all these sections, but it's the new James City on this side. They call it James City now. But the people that live over here know their sections, that this is Graysville. But before, everybody lived in James City, before they start to migrate over here to these areas before when the land was taken away from, they had to get out of there.	12:16
Unknown Interviewer	Of these four sections, they're the new James City?	12:48
Grace George	They're the new James City, okay. But back there, they called it what I just named it.	12:53
Unknown Interviewer	Right.	12:57
Grace George	But it was James City people. But they all came from old James City. Their ancestors was first settled because James City is surrounded by the Neuse, the Trent. And then you got Scotts Creek where you see that trestle. If you come over the bypass, you see that trestle over there? That water used to run to the Neuse. So that separated old James City. It was lack of peninsula, just enclosed. Okay, that's where these community that they are speaking about was, with the churches, the hospital, everything was over there. This was just nothing then for them. Then when they were told they had to leave that property, get out of there, the history of it, then they started to migrate it. 100 years ago, they were told to get off, 1893 so they filed it in the courts.	12:58
Unknown Interviewer	Was this the time?	13:55
Grace George	This was the period.	13:56
Unknown Interviewer	[indistinct 00:13:58] after they decided that the property didn't belong to.	14:01
Grace George	To the Blacks.	14:04
Unknown Interviewer	The residents, but belonged to the person who.	14:04
Grace George	Bryan. Or well, he was buying it.	14:07
Unknown Interviewer	Right.	14:09
Grace George	He bought it from Peter Evans way back. And Peter Evans, I think was a colonel according to your book and the research I did. And he sold it and that's when the problem started. They had lived there for 30 or more years on that property after the Civil War.	14:09
Unknown Interviewer	You started to run off the property.	14:32
Grace George	Yeah. And so it was, the people were told, and I remember this from my grandma because I lived in that area for many years as a child because my grandparents, which was Washington Spivey's daughter, Martha Green, refused to leave there. She stayed there. I grew up in the area. So they weren't able to do any repairs or they would be thrown off, that was the threat. The ones that said no, I'm not leaving. So finally the old houses went into the dust because they just would, some left, but they still, some stayed. And so when you hear them say, "Oh, that's where they talking about that area," how the people lived over there. But this is new James City, it's 100 years old. But this is new James City compared to, because they lived over there.	14:32
Aaron Boyd	Well, how about some of James City still left in that way down there where I see that ground mill was at that time.	15:17
Grace George	Okay.	15:30
Aaron Boyd	You turn off to go out to Columbus town.	15:32
Ernestine Clemmons	Madame Lane, up that way.	15:36
Aaron Boyd	There's some property still down in there. Yeah, I come up to the trestle.	15:39
Grace George	Okay, that whole area now you know where the, they're doing this building, this development is a big brick wall and they have a house in there now.	15:44
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	15:54
Grace George	So all of that's James City, old James City.	15:54
Ernestine Clemmons	Clean to the railroad.	15:59
Grace George	And on the other side is what he's speaking about that you saw with the mill. You can see this big iron piece and then you see this cement building, that was mill part of a mill yard that the Blacks worked at in those times they had mills, and you people could tell him more about—	16:00
Ernestine Clemmons	I remember the mills. I remember the mills in James City, you remember that?	16:18
Aaron Boyd	They had about three mills.	16:21
Ernestine Clemmons	Right next to the Trent and the Neuse.	16:23
Aaron Boyd	On that side.	16:23
Ernestine Clemmons	The Trent River over this side, it was two mills.	16:23
Aaron Boyd	There were three.	16:36
Ernestine Clemmons	And most of the people, men worked there to the mills. And later years, there was a big factory down here, fertilizer factory. You know about it, tell them about it Aaron.	16:38
Aaron Boyd	They had Mung and Bennett in James City. Then they had a planting mill that was two mills. Then Sanders, he had a mill further down. So that were three on that side. And on this side where the old graveyard was at, a mill called Adam Cooper's company, it made headings for barrels and stuff like that. It was on this side, but it was in James City so that was four mills in James City.	16:48
Ernestine Clemmons	What about this one out by the Trent? What was the name of that mill?	17:21
Aaron Boyd	Right there?	17:24
Ernestine Clemmons	Right over here where.	17:26
Aaron Boyd	You see where.	17:27
Ernestine Clemmons	Annie Stone lived down that street?	17:29
Aaron Boyd	Yeah, that was Adam Cooper's company.	17:31
Ernestine Clemmons	That's what that was.	17:34
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	17:35
Ernestine Clemmons	Yeah. That was this on—	17:35
Grace George	What'd you say they made?	17:35
Aaron Boyd	Heading for barrels. For barrels. Headings like you put in the bottom of a barrel.	17:35
Grace George	Oh, barrel. Okay. And mostly the federal government, I suppose, helped support these companies because these were people that came from slavery. It became free men and didn't, when they became free people, they had to set up some kind of way for them to support themselves through farming. And James City had mills where a lot of other areas didn't have that.	17:45
Aaron Boyd	James City was industrial. This way a lot of industrial, people from New Bern would come over to James City to wait. They ride their bicycles or some walk. You could see them coming over here to these mill over here from New Bern.	18:12
Ernestine Clemmons	And then too, this area used to have gardens. The people used to raise gardens and they cared the vegetables because me, myself, all the girl from over here, I used to take a little pool wagon and take vegetables in New Bern and sell, and a lot of people did that. And this picture that you see laid on the basket on the head, I think Ms. Hack Sawyer.	18:30
Aaron Boyd	It looked like it was Hack Sawyer.	19:02
Ernestine Clemmons	She used to go selling with two baskets on her arm and one on her head.	19:03
Aaron Boyd	One on her head.	19:08
Ernestine Clemmons	And so what we did, a lot of the people, the women that didn't work in the houses, they would, like my father, he had a vegetable farm. He had a vegetable place. So we would take the vegetables and sell to the stores and around the streets of New Bern to the White people. So that's the way a lot of people made they living from the mill, and them that worked on the little farms and little truck farms. So that's the way a lot of them survived. That's the way I was raised. My dad was a truck farmer and I used to work with him and just sell vegetables too. Helping him to sell the vegetable, get them and take them to town. So that's the way we survived.	19:08
Grace George	Now, tell him how you went to school. How you told me how you would go and take orders.	20:04
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, in the mornings, some mornings I had to take my little stuff, little pool wagon gathered up in the evening. And before I go to school mornings I get up and take it. Wicks' store, all these little grocery stores used to help me out. And they would get these baskets of collard greens and salads and stuff. So I would go out in the evening and pick it, and in the mornings I'd get up and go take it to town, and come back time enough to get ready to go to school by nine o'clock, and be ready to go to school. And some morning to be so cold to the little, my hand would be just like this, trying to pull the wagon across the bridge, you know the old bridge. But anyway, that's the way I did it for a long time.	20:10
Unknown Interviewer	Where did you go to school here?	21:06
Ernestine Clemmons	Hm?	21:09
Unknown Interviewer	Where did you go to school?	21:09
Ernestine Clemmons	Right out here. The first school I went to, Miles Sawyer, you remember Miles Sawyer?	21:10
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	21:17
Ernestine Clemmons	Had a little school in Solomon Philips Hall.	21:18
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	21:21
Ernestine Clemmons	And that's where I first started school. And then they built this school here. And that was the first really, because I was in, I think in first grade and when they moved over here, they built this school right across the road there. And that's where I went to school.	21:22
Unknown Interviewer	You're talking about the school that is now or eventually became a car dealership, right?	21:44
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, see I didn't go into old James City School because I never lived in old James City. But this man had a little private school when I first started school. A little old man, he used to take children and learn them how to read and the ABCs and stuff. And so when they opened the public school down here, everybody left and went to this school. And for a little while that public school had this, do you remember they used to teach in the Solomon Philips Hall, you remember that?	21:49
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	22:19
Ernestine Clemmons	That's before they built this school	22:19
Aaron Boyd	Then they had a school in James City right close to the railroad and.	22:19
Ernestine Clemmons	Between the two railroads where I told you.	22:31
Aaron Boyd	And it was a Masonic lodge and the school combined, Masonic lodge.	22:37
Ernestine Clemmons	That was the big old place between the old railroad.	22:41
Aaron Boyd	Right, yeah.	22:44
Ernestine Clemmons	Between them two railroads.	22:44
Grace George	But before then, what was it? What was the place before the school?	22:45
Ernestine Clemmons	It was always that as far as I know.	22:45
Aaron Boyd	Always there.	22:45
Grace George	Always? Was the missionaries or anybody in there?	22:53
Aaron Boyd	No.	22:54
Ernestine Clemmons	No.	22:54
Grace George	It was always a school.	22:54
Ernestine Clemmons	This was all a different place.	22:54
Aaron Boyd	The missionary was around the way and the store was there.	22:58
Ernestine Clemmons	It's where it is what you call them. So it's a different location together.	22:58
Grace George	Well, tell me about Ms. Caroline Alexander. You said you remember her as a teacher.	23:06
Aaron Boyd	She was around there, Anders' store. That's where the missionary was at. They was there before it was Mrs. Anders' store it was, before her time there.	23:12
Grace George	Well tell me, because I found it very interesting about traveling from James City to New Bern with the bridges. How did you go over, from what your parents said, how did you get there before the bridge was built other than on the railroad tracks?	23:18
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, I wasn't in that time but my mother was.	23:42
Grace George	Yeah, that's what I'm saying.	23:45
Ernestine Clemmons	And they used to have a ferry boat.	23:46
Aaron Boyd	Ferry boat.	23:48
Ernestine Clemmons	And she said that you would get on the ferry boat to go from James City to New Bern. That's how they'd go across the river on a ferry boat. So until they built the bridge.	23:49
Grace George	Now the bridge, the first bridge back in 1900s, how was that? You said you—	24:03
Ernestine Clemmons	I don't remember that.	24:08
Grace George	Just what they said. You told me about wooden planks.	24:09
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, it was all the bridge was wood, made out of wood. They didn't have no concrete bridge. I think this bridge here, I ain't for sure. Ain't this the first concrete bridge?	24:13
Aaron Boyd	Yeah, they're the first concrete.	24:25
Ernestine Clemmons	This is the first one. All of them from what I remember was made out of wood.	24:27
Grace George	And I got a picture. The picture that shows you.	24:29
Aaron Boyd	Oh, yeah.	24:35
Grace George	That is going to, I didn't have was intending to bring those pictures so you could take a look at what it looked like back there.	24:37
Ernestine Clemmons	It's just a plank bridge.	24:54
Grace George	Plank.	24:54
Ernestine Clemmons	Sometimes they had little creases between, I was scared—	24:54
Aaron Boyd	And wide cracks in there.	24:54
Ernestine Clemmons	Getting weighed down was a lot.	24:54
Grace George	There's a big hole and water.	24:54
Ernestine Clemmons	You could see the water, you walk over.	24:55
Aaron Boyd	When the cars would be going across there, you could hear them, cars hitting them planks, them boards.	25:00
Ernestine Clemmons	Them planks.	25:01
Aaron Boyd	Whatever.	25:02
Ernestine Clemmons	Yeah. It was scary, so that.	25:04
Grace George	This picture, I'm going to show you. It has the ox pulling a cart.	25:07
Ernestine Clemmons	Oh, I don't remember that.	25:09
Grace George	Oh, I know you don't. I'm just saying I know what you don't. You guys can't go that far back. But I'm saying somebody told you, that's what we want to say.	25:11
Ernestine Clemmons	Well I didn't, most of the people talk about was in my time James City, most of the people working to the meals and things. Now when of course, I think them was some of the first people got there. But in my day, my uncles had a horse and cart. My dad and all of them. You remember Uncle Bud?	25:20
Aaron Boyd	Yeah. All of them had a horse and cart.	25:43
Ernestine Clemmons	He used to have horse and cart. He had it till he died.	25:43
Aaron Boyd	Right.	25:43
Ernestine Clemmons	So as far as I can remember, that's far back as I can remember they had, I remember when they first had the first car. You remember when the first brought the new car? You don't want that far, but that's way up when they got the far.	25:56
Grace George	You can talk whatever you want to talk again. You tell us just get your.	26:10
Ernestine Clemmons	No, that was the way old James City. First, they had buggies and horses. You remember when they used to have funerals?	26:16
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	26:22
Ernestine Clemmons	And the horses pull the funeral and people walk. A lot of people, you remember that?	26:25
Aaron Boyd	Yeah. When they had a horse pulling.	26:34
Ernestine Clemmons	When they had a funeral.	26:34
Aaron Boyd	Funeral coach.	26:35
Ernestine Clemmons	Yeah, I remember that. That's the way the funeral.	26:36
Grace George	Was it any way like New Orleans? I know y'all don't remember that, but did you ever hear like they would march out there and—	26:42
Ernestine Clemmons	Sometimes, they had it.	26:48
Grace George	Band or music playing?	26:50
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, it depends on if you belong to the Masonics and these different organizations had in that time. But most of the people didn't have no cars or nothing. They had to walk or either had horse and buggy to go behind the fields, so that's what I can remember. Do you remember any of that?	26:51
Aaron Boyd	I remember the undertakers that they had. Haywood Sutton. He was one and I think. Whitley, I think she could come in there, some Whitley.	27:18
Grace George	Well, tell me about, remember you told me about when way back what grandma and all them told you when somebody died, how they would go about preserve, awakening him.	27:34
Ernestine Clemmons	When they died, they didn't take it, didn't have.	27:53
Grace George	Have no funeral.	27:56
Ernestine Clemmons	They didn't care for no funeral parlor. They bring them home and put them in your front room till you get ready to bear them, and they sit up nights.	27:56
Aaron Boyd	They called it swaging or something. I mean, that's what they do. They didn't take you to no funeral home. Whatever they did, they did it there to the house.	28:03
Ernestine Clemmons	And then when somebody died, you'd know because everybody get out the streets, start hollering. You know somebody dead.	28:10
Aaron Boyd	Yeah. They would have the wake at the house.	28:18
Ernestine Clemmons	That's the echo you would get when somebody died. And so they always take the bodies, if it died even. And mighty few went to the hospital. Most of them got sick and died right in the house. And they take them and put them, bring the coffin and put them in the coffin. Sit there in the living room until they get ready to bury them, and people would sit up nights around in the other part of the house eating, singing until the burial.	28:20
Unknown Interviewer	Did family members prepare the body?	29:01
Ernestine Clemmons	Huh?	29:02
Unknown Interviewer	Did family members prepare the body or was that done by, I guess you didn't have a funeral home but?	29:03
Ernestine Clemmons	No, they had a funeral. Whitley was the only one, wasn't it?	29:07
Aaron Boyd	Whitley I think.	29:12
Ernestine Clemmons	Whitley Funeral Home.	29:13
Aaron Boyd	Then Haywood Sutton, he come in.	29:15
Ernestine Clemmons	But they didn't keep the body. I don't know whether they, if people wanted it, but nobody never had, the bodies was always brought in the house. They do what they had to do to the body right in the house how they take them.	29:17
Aaron Boyd	They didn't have all that embalming stuff like that, because they did what they did right to the house.	29:32
Ernestine Clemmons	And then they take them from the house and take them to church and then bury them.	29:39
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	29:43
Grace George	About how many days would they keep them?	29:44
Ernestine Clemmons	Three days.	29:48
Aaron Boyd	About three days.	29:48
Ernestine Clemmons	That was the limit.	29:49
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	29:53
Ernestine Clemmons	Three days. You die and they keep you up three days, then they bury you.	29:54
Grace George	And the whole community would come to the family house.	30:00
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	30:03
Grace George	And sit up with them.	30:03
Ernestine Clemmons	Yeah. People come from, set up and.	30:04
Aaron Boyd	Set up for all night long.	30:06
Ernestine Clemmons	And the house would be full of people.	30:06
Grace George	Did they bring food or they?	30:09
Ernestine Clemmons	Yeah, eat.	30:11
Aaron Boyd	Drink coffee. Sing, same day, they had church in there and there about, because they sing and drink coffee all night long sometimes.	30:12
Ernestine Clemmons	All night long. Next morning.	30:23
Aaron Boyd	Next morning.	30:27
Ernestine Clemmons	And the body be in the living room. You wouldn't like that, scared dead people.	30:29
Aaron Boyd	I used to go to the, said nothing. But I would be scared to come out so I stay there all night long.	30:39
Ernestine Clemmons	But I used to, when I was little, when people die in New York, some of the people that die in New York, I'd be scared of them. And the way they in New York, and I'm here.	30:42
Grace George	I can see why, with the way they perform the ceremonies.	30:54
Ernestine Clemmons	And the only way that I got, even in the, grown lady, the only way I learned how to not be scared before.	30:56
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	31:10
Ernestine Clemmons	Her grandson died and they brought him from Baltimore and he and I were good pals, play together all the time. And I was so scared when they brought him home till I had a heart attack. So she made me, took my hand and went to the coffin. He was in her house, took my hand and rubbed all over his face and he dead. She said, "Now, is he? Do you think he can take—can he hurt you?" I said, "No." I still wasn't sure that that was it.	31:11
Ernestine Clemmons	So when my father died, this is stupid, but when my father died, I was so scared until my sister and my brother, my brother down, he and I got in the bed together. At that time, then they was taking over to keeping the body on New Bern that time. So I was scared, he was on New Bern and I was over here but I was scared. So when they buried him, I still was scared. And so when he died, I said I got to stop this stuff. So I go after my sister went out the house, nobody left there but me and her after Papa died.	31:53
Ernestine Clemmons	So I turned out all the lights, we had radios then, turned off the radio and I went out, had few darkness and his old car was still in the garage. I went in the garage, stayed in the car, I went in the house. I just went all the way around. I ain't seen nothing. I ain't heard nothing from that day on. I ain't even scared no more. But that's the way I had to convince myself because I was scared. If somebody, say somebody I know died in New York, I'd be scared to death. And they in New York and I'm here. That's the way I was. But I finally got to the place that I had to make myself stop being that stupid.	32:40
Grace George	That wasn't stupid, it's just the way the situation was.	33:21
Aaron Boyd	Of course.	33:22
Grace George	Yeah. And they had, you didn't have any, years ago it was very, even when I was a little girl, it was very dark in this area. You didn't have any lights.	33:26
Ernestine Clemmons	I know.	33:35
Grace George	You had to come at it pitch dark. And so you couldn't help but be afraid of the, what was out there.	33:35
Ernestine Clemmons	I remember the first light, the pole light was in Brownsville, you know up there by Jones Chapel Church, what is the lady name?	33:42
Grace George	Mary Brown?	33:52
Ernestine Clemmons	Mary Brown's mother.	33:53
Grace George	What's her name?	33:54
Aaron Boyd	Donna.	33:54
Grace George	Mary Brown's mother.	33:54
Aaron Boyd	Donna Brown.	33:57
Grace George	Donna Brown.	33:58
Ernestine Clemmons	Donna Brown. The first light, and the children were so glad that the light they go and play on it. That was the only light ain't changed, before we had some back times.	34:00
Grace George	These are the good times. We ain't go, we didn't go back yet. This is modern for them. Over 50, 60, 70 years ago.	34:11
Ernestine Clemmons	We cover, you.	34:17
Grace George	Modern time.	34:17
Ernestine Clemmons	When you live around here in 75 and 80 years, you can remember a lot been on in that between that time, because I can remember way back when I was a girl how we used to do. And now these children, I look at them, I say, "Y'all, you think it's hard?" We had to go hard for a little education to read it, write anything, we had to get it the hard way. From slavery up until the 1900s. It's still been rough. But somehow God suffered us to live through it. A lot of us still here. Aaron, I'm 76, and you, how old are you? You don't want to tell anything.	34:20
Grace George	Aaron. He ain't telling your age right Aaron?	35:11
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, you know.	35:13
Grace George	Well, we all have a.	35:15
Aaron Boyd	I got a cousin. She says she don't tell her age to nobody but the doctor and the social security people.	35:17
Grace George	Okay.	35:23
Ernestine Clemmons	Oh. Well, I think it's an honor to be old.	35:30
Aaron Boyd	Yeah, it is.	35:31
Ernestine Clemmons	Live to get old man. And I don't care who knows who how old I am because I enjoy being that old.	35:32
Aaron Boyd	Some people don't live to get that, our age.	35:39
Ernestine Clemmons	Yeah, for so many people. My sister died when she was 30 years old.	35:39
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	35:42
Ernestine Clemmons	So I got a lot to be thankful for up here for 76 years. So I think it's a lot to be thankful for, and I love appreciate the Lord letting me stay here to see these days.	35:42
Aaron Boyd	That's right.	35:57
Ernestine Clemmons	And feel it well as I do.	35:57
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	35:59
Ernestine Clemmons	So what else?	36:02
Unknown Interviewer	What about the churches in the area? I know, is this Mount Shiloh right up here?	36:04
Ernestine Clemmons	Yeah.	36:07
Unknown Interviewer	Okay. But there was another, the church across the road?	36:07
Ernestine Clemmons	Jones Chapel.	36:11
Unknown Interviewer	Right.	36:12
Grace George	It's a Methodist.	36:13
Ernestine Clemmons	And this is Methodist Church. This is Pilgrim Chapel.	36:13
Grace George	Baptist.	36:13
Ernestine Clemmons	Baptist.	36:13
Unknown Interviewer	Jones Chapel, is that the oldest church in James City?	36:18
Grace George	One of the oldest. You have two. Well, Jones Chapel, they have 1883.	36:21

Grace George	—had to move them out.	0:01
Ernestine Clemmons	Shiloh is back there. But this new Shiloh was in '24.	0:03
Grace George	Well, they moved over here in 1924, this Shiloh Church.	0:09
Ernestine Clemmons	Shiloh Church but it was in Old James City.	0:13
Grace George	Old James City, Jones Chapel, I think 1914 they bought it over here. And what is your church, Aaron? What year did you come over here? Do you remember?	0:16
Aaron Boyd	[indistinct 00:00:26].	0:25
Grace George	Or do you have any record of it? But they were all historical churches—	0:26
Ernestine Clemmons	In the 1800s.	0:31
Grace George	—in the 1800s. But they mentioned a lot about Jones Chapel and Mount Shiloh in the archives, but all of them were over there.	0:34
Ernestine Clemmons	Yeah, I remember when Old Shiloh was in James City and I remember Reform Shiloh was in James City. Them two churches I remember.	0:48
Grace George	Some of the last ones to come over here.	0:59
Ernestine Clemmons	Yeah.	0:59
Aaron Boyd	I might get it off the cornerstone. I forget what [indistinct 00:01:01] cornerstone.	0:59
Grace George	Okay. Okay.	0:59
Ernestine Clemmons	So that's the one that I remember is Reform and Mount Shiloh. They were in the Old James City. They moved over here in late years. But I don't remember Jones Chapel and Pilgrim Chapel. When I come along they were already here. So they must have come—	1:00
Grace George	They were some of the first ones to come on this side.	1:28
Ernestine Clemmons	Come over here. Mm-hmm.	1:28
Grace George	Oh, tell him something about—Remember you said that how church was back there, how anything that took place they would always ring the bells or church—	1:34
Ernestine Clemmons	No, that was on the funeral.	1:45
Grace George	Mm-hmm. Okay.	1:46
Ernestine Clemmons	When there was a funeral they'd ring the church bells.	1:46
Grace George	Mm-hmm. Some of the mornings—	1:51
Ernestine Clemmons	And then the mornings, I don't know whether they do it now or no, 11 o'clock church, they'd ring the bell for that. And any time in the morning, Sunday school, they'd ring the bell. But I don't know they ring it now or no. Because I thought I heard the bell in Shiloh one morning up here recently. But you could hear all the bells in all the churches be ringing Sunday mornings. They used to ring the bell for 11 o'clock for Sunday school and for 11 o'clock church. So I don't know. The older people did it, but I don't think the young people do it, keep it up. But a lot of things that the old people did the young people just dropped a lot of it.	1:54
Grace George	What about during the holidays you said that the churches was the center and they'd always served food or—	2:41
Ernestine Clemmons	No, it would be Christmas—Thanksgiving. Excuse me, Thanksgiving. When Thanksgiving was the older people that were sick and them that were disabled, they would have a big dinner. They'd have church in the morning, Thanksgiving—	2:50
Aaron Boyd	Pilgrim Chapel it was—	3:11
Ernestine Clemmons	Thanksgiving, and then they'd have a—	3:14
Aaron Boyd	—January 15th, 1915 when they come over here.	3:20
Grace George	When they came over here.	3:23
Ernestine Clemmons	That's when I was born.	3:23
Grace George	The same time Jones Chapel, y'all came about the same time over here.	3:23
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	3:23
Grace George	That's why you don't remember. Yeah.	3:23
Ernestine Clemmons	That's the year I was born.	3:23
Grace George	Okay.	3:23
Aaron Boyd	Yeah, that what's on the cornerstone. I think the man, the preacher, was Reverend Blackridge, 1915.	3:35
Grace George	What was you saying about the dinners?	3:37
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, you remember the time when Thanksgiving, they have a service and then everybody would take a basket and go and have dinner for the old people? You remember that?	3:50
Aaron Boyd	Yeah. Uh-huh.	3:52
Ernestine Clemmons	And after that they'd have dinner and everybody could come there, people would go get them and they'd come and eat. If they couldn't, they'd take the basket and take it to the home if they were disabled.	3:54
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	4:15
Ernestine Clemmons	You remember that?	4:15
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	4:17
Ernestine Clemmons	On Thanksgiving.	4:18
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	4:19
Ernestine Clemmons	That's what they used to do Thanksgiving. They'd always share Thanksgiving with the older people and sick people by helping, by fixing them dinner. And then Christmas, they'd always give them a little Christmas present. So that's how they used to do—We had Christmas trees in Sunday schools. I used to remember that. I'd look forward to it.	4:20
Grace George	Mm-hmm.	4:47
Unknown Interviewer	How important was the church to the community?	4:48
Ernestine Clemmons	Hmm?	4:49
Unknown Interviewer	When you were a child and from what your parents might have told you, how important was the church to the community?	4:51
Grace George	How important was the churches in the community to—	4:58
Ernestine Clemmons	Oh, that was it. Everybody, the church was, that's all they had. They were really dedicated, everybody. You'd go to church Sunday morning, if you wasn't there by 11 o'clock you wouldn't get a seat. Everybody. And them churches was full, each one.	5:02
Aaron Boyd	Yeah, they were full.	5:23
Ernestine Clemmons	Every member, you'd go to church Sunday morning. And the children, a lot of the children used to go to Sunday school. I had to get up Sunday morning and get ready in time to go to Sunday school and stay there sometimes till church, 11 o'clock church.	5:27
Aaron Boyd	Many people be going to Sunday school would be going to 11 o'clock service.	5:39
Grace George	And after 11 o'clock, what you do then, 11 o'clock service?	5:50
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, we 11 o'clock, after church, then sometimes there would be church three o'clock. But most of the children, after they get to church Sunday evening, walk out and go up to the railroad to see the train come from Morehead. You remember that?	5:52
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	6:09
Ernestine Clemmons	That was where all the young people would go at five o'clock Sunday evening you'd have people out [indistinct 00:06:17]. That's where you'd go five o'clock. And at night they always would have some kind of programs, some kind of little exercise and the kids and the grown people go to that Sunday night. So church was really the thing people looked forward to. They didn't have much but that.	6:09
Grace George	Would you go to church by yourself in the evening or at night?	6:39
Ernestine Clemmons	No, no, no, no, at night you wasn't going by yourself. You got to go with a grown person.	6:46
Aaron Boyd	A grown person.	6:50
Ernestine Clemmons	If your parents don't take you, you better have a grown person or you ain't going out of the house.	6:50
Aaron Boyd	You sure wasn't—you wasn't going by yourself.	6:50
Ernestine Clemmons	We would go around Sunday evening and get us somebody, a old lady, to take us to church.	6:59
Aaron Boyd	Get somebody to carry you to church.	7:05
Ernestine Clemmons	Yeah, Sunday night you wouldn't go to church by yourself. And Sunday evening, if you go out, you better be in there before the sun go down. That's every day. Our daddy, if I be out in the street and the sun going down, I'll beat it for home. You've got to be in that house when the sun go down. You better be in there.	7:08
Aaron Boyd	You'd see them running trying to get home before the sun go down.	7:28
Ernestine Clemmons	You better get there. If you don't you're going to get a licking when you get there.	7:30
Grace George	Tell me the little story where you say you wanted to go to church and you and some of your friends or your family would go to the [indistinct 00:07:43]	7:36
Ernestine Clemmons	Oh, you know Ms. Martha Ann Clark?	7:43
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	7:45
Ernestine Clemmons	You remember her?	7:45
Aaron Boyd	Oh yeah.	7:46
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, she was the only single lady, wasn't married at that time. And Martha Clark used to come to visit her as a friend, boyfriend or whatever. And he'd come there Sunday evening. We'd get mad because he wouldn't go home because we wanted to ask her to take us to church Sunday night. And so we would sit around and look at him, sit around, look at him and look at her until he leave. And then we had to ask her will she take us to church. So if she take you to church, she'd say, yeah, she'll take you to church but you couldn't go out that church. If you go outside, you better be right back. Because if she tell your mama you been outside any length of time, you wouldn't go no more. Your mama wouldn't let you go no more.	7:47
Ernestine Clemmons	So you'd had to go by the rules or else you didn't go nowhere but sit in the house. So when we'd go out, we would really model. We'd do just what we had to do. And in the evening, don't care if you out in the street playing, you better be in that house before the dark when that sun go down.	8:40
Grace George	When the sun go down and you go down.	8:57
Ernestine Clemmons	We go down. So we had a lot of rules and regulations. And one thing, the children lived by them.	9:06
Grace George	I know this is going back before you guys' time, but I was interested in when you talked about things that they used in the house way back, a little bit further back. You remember you told me something about how they made the brooms that they cleaned the floors with? They didn't have brooms or anything.	9:19
Ernestine Clemmons	Oh, you know them little—What you call them?	9:40
Aaron Boyd	Broom straw.	9:40
Ernestine Clemmons	Broom straw.	9:41
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	9:48
Ernestine Clemmons	They used to take them and tie them together.	9:48
Aaron Boyd	Tie them together.	9:48
Ernestine Clemmons	And make a broom out of them.	9:48
Aaron Boyd	That what they used for a broom coming out.	9:48
Ernestine Clemmons	And then after that then I always wonder why did they scrub the floors and then put sand on top.	9:51
Aaron Boyd	Put sand on the floor.	9:58
Ernestine Clemmons	After you scrubbed the floor.	9:59
Aaron Boyd	That's right.	10:02
Grace George	You never found out why?	10:02
Ernestine Clemmons	I ain't never found out. All my life I'm trying to figure out.	10:03
Aaron Boyd	I know Ms. Emmaline Foster, she lived on Whaler Street down in there. And she would do them floor Friday and she'd put the sand on the floor then that's why she sweeped it off. But it looked some kind of pretty.	10:07
Grace George	This was wooden floors?	10:26
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	10:27
Ernestine Clemmons	Wooden floors. And Ms. Ida Godfrey, you'd see them going down to the river shore with buckets after they scrubbed the floor and get white sand and put it on their floors. And they stay on there all the week and then brush it off and go do it again. I could never figure it out. Mama never did it. My mama wouldn't do it and so I couldn't figure out why they wash the floor—	10:27
Grace George	Yeah, most people—	10:58
Ernestine Clemmons	—and they go put sand on top of it.	10:59
Grace George	Would it be trying to keep oil from getting into the floor, like maybe—	11:02
Ernestine Clemmons	Cooking grease.	11:08
Grace George	—cooking oil or something, the fat fall on the floor?	11:09
Aaron Boyd	Well, it could be. It could be.	11:10
Grace George	Because I've tried to put it—We have a [indistinct 00:11:16]	11:12
Aaron Boyd	Whatever they would drop on the floor, that sand would catch it and then all you had to do was brush it right off.	11:17
Grace George	That would catch it before it would stain their floors.	11:20
Aaron Boyd	Yeah, yeah.	11:21
Grace George	That's about the most logic—	11:25
Aaron Boyd	That's all I could see what they were doing it for.	11:27
Grace George	Because to clean the floor and put sand on it, they'd have—But it must have been important.	11:29
Ernestine Clemmons	But they would put white sand, go to the river shore and be sure they got the pure white sand.	11:32
Aaron Boyd	White sand, yeah.	11:39
Ernestine Clemmons	Mm-hmm. And Ms. May Liz and Ms. Ida and them used to go there, and Julie Godfrey and all them used go down there and get buckets full of sand and go home and—	11:40
Grace George	Make sure they'd have a supply.	11:50
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	11:55
Ernestine Clemmons	And through the week they would take in washing, wash people clothes. Go over there with Tom. You remember Tom Godfrey used to go over there and get clothes?	11:56
Aaron Boyd	Yeah. Mm-hmm.	12:05
Ernestine Clemmons	A whole wagon load of clothes and they would wash them clothes. And I never seen, all the time I can remember, cold or hot, Ms. May Lizzie would be on her back porch washing. She'd never take the wash inside the house. And they had these great big iron wash pots out in the yard and put fire around them and that's the way they boil the clothes.	12:08
Aaron Boyd	Boil the clothes. Gosh.	12:31
Ernestine Clemmons	And did all that washing, all them clothes, and hang them on the line. And if it rained you couldn't walk in her kitchen for hanging clothes.	12:36
Aaron Boyd	Dried them all over in the house.	12:44
Ernestine Clemmons	All over the house, drying the clothes. So that's the way people back then did.	12:46
Grace George	Well, okay, I know they didn't have all this detergent and everything that we have today. What did they use?	12:54
Ernestine Clemmons	They made soap.	13:00
Aaron Boyd	They made soap.	13:01
Ernestine Clemmons	Made lye soap.	13:02
Aaron Boyd	Lye soap.	13:02
Ernestine Clemmons	They'd take—Was it lye and grease?	13:04
Aaron Boyd	Yeah, that was some strong soap too.	13:09
Ernestine Clemmons	Make soap out of it.	13:11
Grace George	Well, what? The fat from a animal or something?	13:12
Ernestine Clemmons	Yeah, the fat and lye. I don't know how they did it, but that's the way—And they'd make it in great big cakes. And that's the way they'd wash the clothes. And some they take and put in and boil the clothes with it. So they didn't have soap. The first soap I remember was oxen soap. You remember that?	13:17
Aaron Boyd	Right. Uh-huh.	13:34
Ernestine Clemmons	Yellow auction soap that you bought at the store. That's the first I remember, years after that. But most of the time the old people would—	13:36
Grace George	Make it?	13:49
Ernestine Clemmons	—make they soap.	13:49
Aaron Boyd	Make the soap.	13:50
Ernestine Clemmons	And they would raise they hogs from a pig. And corn and stuff, they'd take the corn and take it over to the grist mill. You remember that?	13:51
Aaron Boyd	Right.	14:02
Ernestine Clemmons	And make meal with it. Then they'd take the hog and kill him and take the grease and make lard out of it. And the rest of it, the corn or smoke or whatever, for the winter. And my mother, all she had to buy in her time, she canned stuff like vegetables and stuff and fruit, canned it. And then the only thing she had to buy in the wintertime would be flour. And she'd get a barrel of flour like them barrels you see. They'd get a barrel, half a barrel of flour, and they wouldn't have to go to the store all the winter. That's the way they fed their family, most of the people did. I know my mother did, and father, they raised everything. And she canned it in these glass jars. So all of that, I remember that when I was growing up.	14:03
Grace George	In other words, people were poor but they were very independent. They had no—	15:01
Ernestine Clemmons	Yeah, you didn't hear tell of nobody hungry.	15:13
Aaron Boyd	No.	15:13
Ernestine Clemmons	That they just wanted to be hungry. People raised they stuff. Everybody had a garden. Everybody raised stuff, vegetables. And then most of the people take the vegetables and canned it for the winter. And had their hog, raised their hog and kill them and have meats and stuff. So they had cows. So my mama had a cow. We had milk, had our own milk and own butter. So most of the people raised most of their stuff because the wages wasn't nothing so they had to do something.	15:13
Aaron Boyd	Sure right.	15:50
Grace George	Well, I know this is a little more modern, but I seen some of the records. They were making like 15 and 25 cents out here to this fertilizer factory. The men of James, most of the men. And there was a old man, Mr. Ike Long, he passed maybe a few years ago. He lived to be over a hundred years. And he was the record keeper at that time of the names and what they were making at that particular time, we're going to have that on exhibit, and telling you how much each person made, how many hours he worked and how much he made. And I was just so excited to see that—This was in the early thirties. Now this is, what? Over 60 years after they had settled in from the Old James City area and they were like making 25 cents an hour.	15:54
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, I made—	16:54
Grace George	In a day. I'm sorry, a day.	16:54
Ernestine Clemmons	I made 50 cent a day out there in Dix Hill when they had all them tomatoes out there. I worked all day out there in the hot sun for 50 cent a day. 50 cent, that's all I made a day, a whole day.	16:56
Grace George	Well, you were really making a lot of money. These men were making 25 cents a day. You were hitting jackpot.	17:10
Ernestine Clemmons	No, they made it in an hour. I wasn't making—	17:17
Grace George	No, a day, 25 cents.	17:19
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, that was later years. I got [indistinct 00:17:24]. Well, I went to New York when I was young and I worked a whole month for $25 in New York City.	17:22
Grace George	You went away to make money.	17:36
Ernestine Clemmons	Yeah, I had to go away. I went away, I'd go up there, work till I get tired and come home and rest up and go back again. Because I couldn't get no money down here. You'd work a whole week and wouldn't get but a dollar and a half or $2 the most for working out in service. So if you go to New York at least you'd get—After I stopped sleeping in, I made around $15 and $20 a week doing days work. So that was double the money you made down here, tripled about. So that's what I used to do to survive. Everybody used to wonder, "Why she going to New York all the time?" But I was going up there because my own needs needs me to go. I'd go up there to try to help myself and I'd go up there and stay till I get tired of working, come home and rest and go back again. So that's how I survived and a lot of people survived. A lot of people left here and went away to try to earn a living.	17:37
Aaron Boyd	Well, a lot of mens, they got work under Ike Long down there to this fertilizer house. The meadows had it. I think it was the meadows had it. And yeah, he was something like a supervisor. And the barges would come there. The boats come from Baltimore and all like that to bring some of the chemical and they'd mix it up at the fertilizer house. Baltimore, Norfolk and all that. They'd be lining up out there in that river waiting for one to get unloaded and the other one pull in.	18:46
Grace George	This was the barges?	19:28
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	19:29
Grace George	Isn't that something?	19:29
Aaron Boyd	Yeah. I remember not too many years ago, about two, three years ago when I was going to New York, I was looking over there in Baltimore, looking at them barges. My mind run back in James City when them barges were coming right up out there for the lineup for to be unloaded.	19:32
Grace George	So James City was an industrial area after the Civil War?	19:55
Aaron Boyd	Yeah. Mm-hmm.	19:59
Grace George	From then on.	20:01
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	20:01
Ernestine Clemmons	Yeah, that's why a lot of people come up here to work to James City. That's where most of the people—The mills and stuff.	20:02
Aaron Boyd	James City been their own support. I tell you that. James City been their own support.	20:11
Ernestine Clemmons	They were people, they were old and they were slave people, but they had sense enough to make a living.	20:18
Aaron Boyd	Old Man Richard Sawyer, I reckon y'all hear talk of him, he was a preacher. I remember one time he was preaching and his topic was should Christ come to James City? And then he said that anybody could come to James City and live because they could take a scrape tin and put a crook in it and get a worm and go out and catch a fish and—	20:26
Ernestine Clemmons	I told him about that.	20:56
Grace George	Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.	20:56
Aaron Boyd	Yeah, that's right.	20:56
Ernestine Clemmons	Get a string and tie it around there and throw a worm on it and go out there and catch all the fish you want.	20:56
Aaron Boyd	Fish, fish.	20:56
Grace George	[indistinct 00:21:08]	21:04
Aaron Boyd	James City come from somewhere. I tell you that. James City come from somewhere. And it was something too, James City. It was something.	21:11
Ernestine Clemmons	I remember when people used to get in the little rowboats and go out there and go out there in the Trent River and catch fish. So many fish that they had came around the street and sell them there'd be so many.	21:20
Aaron Boyd	Sell them.	21:30
Ernestine Clemmons	Catch them with a pole.	21:32
Aaron Boyd	Ten cent a bunch, all that [indistinct 00:21:36]. They left from bunch and went to pounds. Yeah.	21:34
Ernestine Clemmons	They all were smart people by taking care. But they didn't have all this riches and that but they lived and I think—	21:44
Aaron Boyd	Smart as they was, it look like James City ought still be there right now. It's there. It's there somewhere. It's still there.	21:52
Grace George	It's the young generation, they don't realize what they have.	22:01
Ernestine Clemmons	They—	22:03
Grace George	Other people recognize what you have.	22:05
Aaron Boyd	Right.	22:07
Grace George	Others recognize what James City is and what it can be.	22:08
Aaron Boyd	What it can be.	22:08
Grace George	But we have to recognize it and we don't. But the old, old people, they knew. Another interesting thing is about the cemeteries in James City. How our ancestors, how they made certain areas for cemeteries. It's like corn [indistinct 00:22:30]	22:12
Ernestine Clemmons	I know out there where the airport is, that was the old, old cemetery. I remember that. People burying people out there when I was a child. And my little brother is buried out there. But it was like you go in the forest. You remember that?	22:30
Aaron Boyd	Right.	22:50
Ernestine Clemmons	Coming from James City?	22:51
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	22:52
Ernestine Clemmons	And then you'd turn and in that whole area in there was the cemetery. And that's where a long time people buried people out there.	22:53
Aaron Boyd	Yeah, I remember when, I think it was on the first day of January, sometime when the James City band, they would march and go all the way around there [indistinct 00:23:17].	23:03
Ernestine Clemmons	Yeah, I remember that. They had queens and kings, me and Buster Dawson like froze to death on one of them wagons. They had horse and wagons and they had a parade and the little bands and stuff. And they could go all the way around the belt. They called it the belt.	23:17
Aaron Boyd	Right. They called it around the belt.	23:32
Ernestine Clemmons	Uh-huh, and come back to the school. And we used to dress up and Ms. Margaret Ann, I went and had—	23:35
Aaron Boyd	Ms. Margaret Ann [indistinct 00:23:43]	23:42
Ernestine Clemmons	They had you dressed up there and you'd freeze to death about with all them there thin clothes on to try to be the king and the queen. I was the queen and Buster Dawson one year was the king. I said, "No more. I almost froze to death on that wagon them horses were going so slow."	23:45
Aaron Boyd	James City, it's got a plenty of—	24:00
Ernestine Clemmons	But it was a lot of fun.	24:00
Aaron Boyd	It's got a plenty of history that you can pick up from though. A lot of years.	24:06
Ernestine Clemmons	They'd decorate them carts with this here paper, colored—What do you call the paper where you wrap stuff? The little thin crumple paper back then?	24:10
Grace George	Crepe paper. Crepe, that's something [indistinct 00:24:23]	24:21
Ernestine Clemmons	Crepe paper and stuff. And they would put it all around the wheels of the wagon and all upside. They would decorate them pretty with what they had.	24:22
Grace George	And the people would put on a parade or a show going? Because [indistinct 00:24:34]	24:31
Ernestine Clemmons	No, no, no, they'd just march, go all the way around the belt by the cemetery and come on back to the school.	24:34
Grace George	That's the old slave cemetery back by the airport.	24:42
Aaron Boyd	See, James City had a band then, James City Band.	24:43
Grace George	Okay. See this is what I still see that all these things that you used to have that was a thriving time. And people, I like to see bands and things, good time. It can happen [indistinct 00:25:03]	24:50
Ernestine Clemmons	I don't think the young generation would even be interested because we appreciated everything we had, everything somebody give us. Like for a little recreation, we appreciate it and we took it. And Easter, we had a big program for Easter and Christmas with Christ, I had all those—	25:05
Grace George	Pageants?	25:30
Ernestine Clemmons	—pageants and stuff, and everybody would get into it. And we just enjoyed it. But now these kids, they want everything but that.	25:32
Aaron Boyd	Well, I believe if you could call it back, I believe it would even be better times if you could call some of it back.	25:40
Grace George	Well, that's one of the things what I feel too. I feel that they have not been exposed, they have not heard. Because there are generations of people that have just blotted it out, see?	25:49
Aaron Boyd	Right.	25:59
Grace George	And so many of the young people today are not even aware of what took place here in James City.	25:59
Aaron Boyd	No.	26:06
Grace George	And so we are hoping one day that they will learn what did take place and pay attention to it. And I think their lives could be enriched through their heritage and what really took pla	26:07
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, I don't think they got nothing to be ashamed of because everybody out there was trying to live and let live. And I think people in James City was knitted. Because one time, don't you remember when they wouldn't let nobody come? If a boy from New Bern wanted to come see a girl in James City, they wouldn't let him come no further into the bridge and made him go back. You remember that?	26:19
Aaron Boyd	Yeah, I ought to say—and people over in New Bern were scared to come over here.	26:50
Grace George	Well, from what my little research and what I've talked to other people, I understand that most people were afraid to come to James City.	26:54
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	27:03
Grace George	They used to say that the people would not let them come over here. And I remember my old, old grandma, some of the last ones to leave the Old James City area, and I was young but she would say, "If you can't drink all that water and can't swim, don't you come over here fooling around. Because you're going to have to drink that water or drown, swim or drown." Because they were just that type. They just didn't let anybody come over here fooling around.	27:04
Ernestine Clemmons	But that was back there with Claude Fisher and all them boys, the young men then. And that time they didn't want no girl in James City to have any friends in New Bern. If they did, they would—	27:31
Unknown Interviewer	[indistinct 00:27:47]	27:46
Grace George	Yeah, we're still talking about—Well, this is in reference to Blacks because they were talking about their girls, young girls and their women. They were protective, that no outsider could come over here and suppose to come and date or take a girl from the area because they protected their own. They just figured that James City—	27:47
Ernestine Clemmons	They sure did.	28:08
Grace George	—was James City and nobody else could come in here. That's why they are the way they are. They are very close-knit people. They don't show it today as they did then but they are. When they really want something they stick together and get it done. But that's what they're saying. Mm-hmm.	28:10
Unknown Interviewer	I imagine the fact it was so difficult getting across the river I guess for a while that it just kind of sort of naturally insulated James City.	28:31
Grace George	Yes, yes. And it even goes back to even further back than what they're saying now. When their land was supposed to have been taken away or that the courts, they went through the courts and they lost their rights to the property, they still did not acknowledge it and would not let the people, the sheriff or any of them from New Bern or wherever, to come over here and tell them to get off. The sheriff came and they said that he was threatened to the point that he wrote to the governor and says, "No, I'm not going over there." So they had to send troops in. That's just how strong James City was even back there that you could not come in here. And how the governor and the troops came down to keep from shedding blood, bloodshed. They had people to talk to the community. Because from what I understand, they was in the streets ready to die.	28:39
Unknown Interviewer	I was going to ask, did your parents or grandparents ever tell you about when the troops did come down and then the governor? I guess that was, what? 1880, 1890 or so? Is that right?	29:36
Aaron Boyd	No, I never hear them say anything.	29:53
Grace George	He was saying—Did you hear what he said?	30:01
Ernestine Clemmons	Mm-mm.	30:02
Grace George	Did you ever hear of how when the troops came down from Raleigh to run the people off, did you ever hear any of the old people or your old parents talk about when they came here to run them off the land?	30:04
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, I ain't never heard that. But I heard that when the Civil War was—This was from Ms. Hank Edwards. She said when the Civil War was, the Black soldiers went and helped the North. And when the war was over, they said, the president or the government, somebody, "Give this land, Old James City, give it to the Black people for the service they had rendered in the Civil War." And that's when they said when the Black people got from the South, coming from the South from slavery, they'd get to James City they was free because the federal government had give them just Old James City. Now, that's what this old lady told me and said that it was supposed to never be sold because it was for the Black slave people.	30:17
Grace George	Generation after generation.	31:27
Ernestine Clemmons	The generation after generation. But I don't know, later years they got to going with it and I don't know what happened to it. But this old lady told me. And she was born in slavery because she was born in slavery and her parents brought her to James City, got free and got to James City. And she told me that's what they told her when she was growing up, that James City was supposed to be forever a Black community, slave community.	31:30
Grace George	Well, freed men because once they—	32:00
Ernestine Clemmons	Freed men and women to come to James City. And so I don't know what happened over the years, but that's what she told me when I used to go and sit there with her. You remember Ms. Hank Edwards? She used to stay over there?	32:01
Aaron Boyd	Yeah. Mm-hmm.	32:15
Ernestine Clemmons	I used to go there Sundays to sit down and listen to her talk about what happened in slavery and stuff like that when she was a child. And so I don't know, but that's the way she told me. It was supposed to been given to the Black soldiers, the North, when they won the Civil War. So I don't know what happened, but that's what she said.	32:16
Grace George	Well, I know my Grandma Martha which died, she would've been about 110 had she lived now I guess. She was along with Mr. Ike and all of them. And she would always say—But I was young and I just listened to let her talk. But she said that's why she never wanted to leave James City because they had been given that land and that land belonged to the Blacks. And her father, which was Washington Spivey, he was one of the leaders that went in during the court case when they told him they had to get off the land. He was one that went to court over that land. He represented the community, James City. And I think the committee was called A Committee of Twelve People from James City. You had—What was the name? Rob Davis, Paul Williams, Old Man Paul Williams, and all those people.	32:45
Grace George	Well, they were more or less leaders. And she would tell me that her father, Washington Spivey and all of them, that they said the land was theirs and they would never give it up. So there were some people that just would not get off that land. And they stayed there and we had to literally pick her up, my grandma, Martha Green, had to literally pick her up and bring her out of there because she'd gotten to the point she couldn't take care of herself properly. So she grieved from the time she left James City, which was the area that she wanted to stay in. She said she'll stay there till the house falls on her.	33:38
Grace George	But the family finally convinced her to come out of there after she was, I think, close to 80 or 90 years old and they brought her over to live with her daughter. And she never was happy after that. She would say, "Please, come on, take me back. Take me back." But she never wanted to leave because she said that was the Black people's property and that she wanted to die there. She wanted to die over there if she had to die. So that goes on back. But many things that they used to tell you that you'd just listen but you didn't take it as serious. You'd just let them talk.	34:20
Aaron Boyd	That's what I used to hear is that it belonged to the people. But when they left there, they could tear down the house and carry it with them if they wanted.	35:06
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, I remember when first they started making them pay 25 cents a week for rent in James City. And so some people would pay it, some people wouldn't. That's 25 cent. They just didn't believe they had to pay nothing because they thought that was their homes and they didn't have no right to pay nothing. So they couldn't get that together. So then they told them they couldn't fix the house. If something goes wrong, you can't repair it. If it repairs, you got to move. So the people had to stay in the house till the house fall down about. Or then they had to get out of it because they couldn't never repair or build another house. So that's how they got rid of James City. But the people, a lot of them stayed there until the house fell down on them, near about.	35:22
Grace George	My grandma was one [indistinct 00:36:10]	36:10
Ernestine Clemmons	But the diehards stayed right there.	36:10
Aaron Boyd	Now, who is the oldest person over here now from James City?	36:22
Ernestine Clemmons	A lot of them stayed right there.	36:25
Grace George	They passed on in the past year or so.	36:27
Aaron Boyd	No, I'm talking about living now.	36:30
Grace George	Right now?	36:31
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	36:31
Grace George	Well, Ms. Georgia Harris, they say she's in her eighties.	36:32
Aaron Boyd	Oh yeah.	36:36
Grace George	We will interview her. I'm hoping that we'll get a chance.	36:37
Ernestine Clemmons	Eighties?	36:40
Grace George	In her eighties.	36:40
Ernestine Clemmons	Georgia is older than that [indistinct 00:36:42]. She's near about 90.	36:40
Aaron Boyd	She older than that.	36:44
Ernestine Clemmons	What you think, Aaron?	36:45
Aaron Boyd	No [indistinct 00:36:47]	36:46
Ernestine Clemmons	I'm near about 80 myself.	36:46
Grace George	Aaron, you didn't tell yours so I'm guessing people are not telling me their ages.	36:46
Aaron Boyd	Well, I believe she older than I am.	36:46
Ernestine Clemmons	That's like Rebecca Davis. Rebecca Davis, when she had that wreck out here they said she was 82 or 80—I said, "Uh-uh, because I was the flower girl when she got married." I was one of the little flower girls.	36:57
Aaron Boyd	Well, anyway, I'm next to the oldest man in Pilgrim Chapel Church.	37:11
Grace George	Okay. Okay.	37:14
Aaron Boyd	So Herb Fisher is the oldest man in Pilgrim Chapel.	37:18
Grace George	He is? How old is Herb, about 90?	37:19
Ernestine Clemmons	Who?	37:21
Aaron Boyd	I reckon he hitting that.	37:21
Grace George	Herb Fisher.	37:21
Ernestine Clemmons	Herb Fisher about 90 years old.	37:21
Aaron Boyd	He's the oldest man in Pilgrim Chapel.	37:23
Grace George	He's about 90, you say? Well, see, these are some people, they don't talk.	37:28
Aaron Boyd	You're right.	37:33
Grace George	I'd love to talk to Herb but Herb won't talk so I'm not even going to [indistinct 00:37:37]	37:33
Ernestine Clemmons	No, Herb ain't going to talk to nobody.	37:37
Aaron Boyd	No.	37:37
Grace George	So I'm planning to talk to Ms. Georgia if she [indistinct 00:37:43]	37:40
Ernestine Clemmons	And I bet you Rebecca Davis knows a lot. Because if Rebecca ain't 90 years old, I ain't 76.	37:43
Aaron Boyd	That's right. Rebecca can tell something.	37:50
Ernestine Clemmons	She was a—	37:50
Aaron Boyd	Well, I know after Ike died, Herb was the next oldest man in that church then I'm next to him.	37:54
Grace George	Okay. All right. Now, watch out. I'm going to catch up with you after all.	38:06
Ernestine Clemmons	Because now I was I reckon about four or five years old I was the little flower girl to her wedding. I waited on her wedding. And she was a full grown woman. She looked like to me about 30 near about then because people waited a long time before they got married years ago. And I waited on her marriage because she can't be no 80 years old. She wasn't no five or six years old when she got married so she got to be.	38:11
Aaron Boyd	Who is? Who that?	38:38
Grace George	Davis, what's her name? Rebecca Davis?	38:39
Aaron Boyd	Rebecca Davis, yeah.	38:41
Ernestine Clemmons	Rebecca Davis.	38:41
Grace George	She's got to be in the nineties.	38:42
Ernestine Clemmons	She got to be in the nineties.	38:44
Aaron Boyd	She probably in her nineties because my sister is 92.	38:44
Grace George	All right.	38:44
Aaron Boyd	My sister is 92.	38:44
Ernestine Clemmons	Who, your sister?	38:44
Aaron Boyd	Yeah, Rowena.	38:44
Grace George	You think she'd want to talk to us sometime too?	38:56
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	38:57
Grace George	Okay. Okay. We'll get to her [indistinct 00:39:01]	38:58
Ernestine Clemmons	Rowena. It's a lot of people around here. And I tell you somebody else that's pretty old is—What is this girl name over here? Ben Joyner's wife?	39:02
Aaron Boyd	Louinie.	39:09
Ernestine Clemmons	Huh?	39:09
Aaron Boyd	Louinie Joyner.	39:09
Ernestine Clemmons	Yeah.	39:16
Aaron Boyd	Yeah, me and her about along there together.	39:16
Ernestine Clemmons	She'd be in her nineties because years ago she told me she was 75 years old, a long time ago. So all them people in their nineties. I know it.	39:21
Grace George	Okay.	39:28
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, it looks like we covered the territory.	39:37
Grace George	Well, maybe you'd like to say something now.	39:39
Unknown Interviewer	Again, going back before your time, did any of your parents or grandparents mention actually meeting with Mr. James himself when they founded the community?	39:47
Ernestine Clemmons	What's—	39:58
Unknown Interviewer	Horace James.	40:01
Grace George	Okay. Horace James, did you ever hear about this man that helped founded James City, that helped James City out? This is going way back. But if you heard any of the old people might say something about the man that founded James City? His name is Horace James and he was one of the soldiers during the Civil War that helped to find James City, helped James City out during the Freedmen Bureau time.	40:02
Ernestine Clemmons	No, I didn't never hear no—	40:30
Aaron Boyd	I never hear nothing—	40:34
Ernestine Clemmons	Never heard who founded James City. All I know they said that the government had given it to the Black people for the service they had—The Black soldiers served in the Civil War. The Northern people give it to them. That's all I ever heard. And whoever found it, I never knew.	40:34
Grace George	It was more or less named after him, Horace James. Tell him something, if he has the time, remember when you used to go on excursions? That was some of the enjoyment times—	40:55
Ernestine Clemmons	Oh boy, she's going back to everything. That was a later thing.	41:16
Grace George	Yeah, but still, you've got old people back at that time when you were a child [indistinct 00:41:23]	41:18
Ernestine Clemmons	Well, the church used to run the excursion. You remember that?	41:21
Aaron Boyd	Right.	41:21
Ernestine Clemmons	Each church in the summertime they'd go to Norfolk. And every Sunday people would go to Morehead City down to the beach down here to Morehead. And people would go down there on Sunday morning, stay all day and come back on the train. The train used to run from Morehead to New Bern, the passenger train. And then sometimes they'd have a excursion going to Norfolk on the train. Mostly though everybody went on the train. They'd run excursions and the community, most of the people in the community, go on the excursion.	41:29
Grace George	Did you take anything or did they prepare—	42:09
Ernestine Clemmons	No, they didn't have to but get on the train and—	42:13
Aaron Boyd	They had a refreshment car on—	42:15
Ernestine Clemmons	They had cars you could eat and things like that. So they'd go to Norfolk and different little places around North Carolina and Virginia.	42:19
Grace George	Most of your traveling was by train?	42:29
Ernestine Clemmons	All the traveling by train. It was the only way.	42:31
Aaron Boyd	But they had a boat running from Pollocksville and different places. Because it would load up out there to one of the mills out there.	42:36
Grace George	So it looked like you guys had more entertainment in those days than we have today. As a community and as a family they did more things together than we can do—	42:51
Aaron Boyd	Yeah, they had it.	43:06
Ernestine Clemmons	Yeah, because if you're going on an excursion, everybody getting ready to go. It was a good time for people to go to see—I remember the first excursion I went on, we went to Durham, Durham, North Carolina. Mama took me and sister on the excursion train and went to Durham. That's the first time I ever seen Durham.	43:08
Aaron Boyd	They would carry about five or six passenger train.	43:26
Grace George	And you mostly would get on the train at that railroad track—	43:30
Ernestine Clemmons	Right up there to—	43:39
Grace George	—that run right across—Do you know where the brick wall is? That little railroad, that was where they would get on the train and it would take them to Morehead or take them where—	43:40
Ernestine Clemmons	The same railroad running through there now.	43:48
Grace George	Right in there now, mm-hmm.	43:50
Ernestine Clemmons	Things be changed—	43:54
Grace George	When you're coming towards that [indistinct 00:43:56]	43:54
Ernestine Clemmons	I think that's the only—	43:54
Grace George	—or Madame Moore Lane going in that area. You know where the Ramada?	43:57
Unknown Interviewer	Yeah.	44:01
Grace George	That's the area they're talking about where the train would stop there. And [indistinct 00:44:06] that was the old road that they did train tracks to.	44:01
Unknown Interviewer	Yeah.	44:08
Ernestine Clemmons	Yeah, I sure would say that was the good old days. People didn't have that much to worry about.	44:16
Grace George	Everybody made the plans for you and you just went on and enjoyed yourself, right?	44:22
Ernestine Clemmons	That's right. They made their own plans. We didn't have to worry about electricity. We didn't have to work—We had the pump to pump the water. We had wood to burn the stoves and so we had kerosene—kerosene lamps and stuff like that in later years. And so you could live and be comfortable a lot. You wasn't in the Taj Mahal but at least you was living.	44:26
Grace George	Before you had lamps, and I know that was your time, I recall you telling me, or someone told me about they used—What did they use for light in the houses?	44:57
Ernestine Clemmons	They didn't have lamp. They didn't have lanterns. They had some kind of lights. Most of the people had fireplaces for lights in the house. You remember when they had these big fireplaces?	45:10
Aaron Boyd	Yeah.	45:21
Ernestine Clemmons	They'd make a big fire in the room and that would light up things. I don't remember too much—When I remember, people had lamps.	45:21
Grace George	Well, I've seen some old pictures and I see candles. How did they come out with candles, if you have any idea? I did hear a lady say something about they would use fat the same way and make the candles, the wax.	45:30
Ernestine Clemmons	I know what they—I remember a long time ago, don't you remember when people used to take rags and wrap it around and put the end of them and then light it?	45:51
Aaron Boyd	Yeah, make a wick.	45:58
Ernestine Clemmons	A big piece of rag and wrap it around and make it sharp and then put some kerosene on the end of it and light it.	45:59
Grace George	Was that felt material, something like a felt?	46:07
Ernestine Clemmons	No, just ordinary material. Just ordinary gingham or anything to wrap around.	46:10
Grace George	But what would they put it in for the light?	46:17
Ernestine Clemmons	A little can or something.	46:21
Aaron Boyd	Can, put it in a can.	46:22
Grace George	Well, when they drank water or anything of that nature—I know you had dippers and things by the time you guys got there but—	46:28
Ernestine Clemmons	The first people had gourds—	46:35
Aaron Boyd	Gourds.	46:36
Ernestine Clemmons	—before they got a dipper. You remember those gourds?	46:38
Aaron Boyd	Uh-huh. Yeah.	46:39
Ernestine Clemmons	You'd raise them and you'd cut all the seeds out of them and dry them out and make a—	46:39
Aaron Boyd	Dry them out. That was your dipper [indistinct 00:46:49]	46:47
Ernestine Clemmons	Make a dipper out of it. That's what they used for their—	46:47

Item Info

Title:

Ernestine Clemmons (primary interviewee) and Aaron Boyd interview recording, 1993 January 13

Date:

January 13, 1993

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Description:

Name: Ernestine Clemmons; Date of birth: unknown; Place of birth: unknown; Occupation: unknown; Residence: data not entered. Name: Aaron Boyd; Date of birth: unknown; Place of birth: unknown; Occupation: unknown; Residence: data not entered
Informant ID: 353; Informant ID: 354; Interviewer unknown.

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English

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Behind the Veil

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Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South interviews, photographs, and project records, circa 1864-2011, bulk 1990-1999

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The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library acquired the Records of the Behind the Veil Oral History Project from the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies in 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002.

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Copyright for content created by the Behind the Veil project is held by Duke University and made available to the public using a Creative Commons Attribution / Non-commercial (CC-BY-NC) license.

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Interview number: 443
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Ernestine Clemmons (primary interviewee) and Aaron Boyd interview recording, 1993 January 13

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1. Aaron Boyd administrative file, 1993

2. Aaron Boyd interview recording, 1993 July 27

3. Ernestine Clemmons (primary interviewee) and Grace George interview recording, 1993 July 30

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Ernestine Clemmons (primary interviewee) and Aaron Boyd interview recording, 1993 January 13

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