Byrd, E. L.

The following data is extracted from Arkansas Slave Narratives.

"I was born in 1862. I just can remember the Yankees. They come through there and got horses and money and anything else they wanted. To my reasoning that's the reason the North has got more now. They got all the money they could find. And they took one fellow belonged to the same man I did.

"My owner's name was Jack Byrd. We stayed with him about a year and then we farmed for ourselves.

"I never went to school much.

"My mother was a widow woman and I had to work. That was in South Carolina.

"I come to Arkansas in 1890. I didn't marry till I was about thirty-seven. I got one child living. That's my daughter; I live with her. She's a bookkeeper for Perry's Undertaking Company.

"When I come to Arkansas I stopped down here in Ashley County. I farmed till I come to Pine Bluff. I been here forty years. I worked at the stave mills. I just worked for three different firms in forty years.

"I used to own this place, but I had to let it go on account of taxes. Then my daughter bought it in.

"I been tryin' to get a pension but don't look like I'm go in' to get it.

"I have to stay here with these children while my daughter works. It takes all she makes to keep things goin'."

Source: Arkansas Slave Narratives

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