TX BIOS:  B. E. Jenkins
   Selected and converted.American Memory, Library of Congress.
   
   Washington, 1994.
   
   Preceding element provides place and date of transcription only.
   
   This transcription intended to be 99.95% accurate.
   
   For more information about this text and this American Memory
   collection, refer to accompanying matter.
   
   U.S. Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers' Project (Folklore
   Project, Life Histories, 1936-39); Manuscript Division, Library of
   Congress.Copyright status not determined.
   
   00011
   
   [Belief's & Customs -?] Folk Stuff FOLKLORE
   
   Mrs. Ada Davis P. W.
   
   McLennan County, Texas.
   
   District No. 8.
   
   No. of words 960
   
   File No. 240
   
   Page No. 1 Reference
   
   Interview with Mr. B. E. Jenkins, Waco McLennan County, Texas.
   
   Mr. B. E. Jenkins was born in Georgia, 1859. Twelve families left Rock
   Mart, Georgia in 1862 and came to Texas in ox-wagons. They were four
   months making the trip. One ox was lost on the road. Mr. Joseph
   Jenkins pulled in place of the ox for five miles, until they could buy
   another. They paid about ten dollars for an ox. The colony was led by
   B. L. Dehay, whose grand-son is Waco City Secretary. They came to East
   Waco and crossed in a ferry boat, where the new county bridge is, at
   the foot of Washington Avenue. They went to the Bob Wilson farm, now
   on Fifteenth and Herring, where Mr. Jenkins built a double log house
   of cedar. Mr. Jenkins later moved to Bosqueville where he remained
   until the Civil war broke out.
   
   War was brewing in Georgia at the time thry sold out to come to Texas.
   They thought they would probably miss the war by coming to Texas.
   However they had been in Texas only a short time, about four months,
   when they were all conscripted, except a crippled man. They had to go
   back to Georgia to join the home regiment. The men went back to
   Georgia on horse back. Mr Jenkins' mother, grand-mother and two aunts
   with five little boys from eight to twelve years of age were left in
   Texas. Most of the slaves in Georgia were sold. When the war broke
   out, Mr. Jenkins and his mother moved to the old Blocker farm which is
   now the summer home of Wm. Cameron on Bosque Bluff. With the help of
   Mr. Blocker, the slaves ran the farm. The farm was managed by an old
   colored man named Lewis Friday. Every one called his wife "aunty
   Creasy," she would steal roasting-ears and baked pies and sweet
   potatoes and slip them to the boys unmindful of old Lewis. The five
   boys grew up like baby bears on the Bosque hills and cedar brakes
   especially Lover's Leap.
   
     NOTE: C12 - [???] Texas
     
   00022The cedar brakes were full of wild Spanish goats which the boys
   tried to catch. They would hide up on Lover's Leap bluff and holler,
   the goats would jump over the bluff, and even though the boys were
   like squirrels, they could not catch them. They would climb up the
   bluff from the bottom and dare the goat and each other to jump. It was
   very dangerous, because the bluff was from fifty to seventy-five feet
   high. They would have just too hold on the [ [DEL: clif? :DEL] ]
   cliff, but they were little dare devils. The cattle and horses would
   run in every direction from the scent of Indians and thus warn the
   people. But the Indians around Waco were friendly. The white
   bushwhackers stole during the war. The settlers had to bury meat to
   hide it from them. His family ran out of salt during the war, so they
   dug up the dirt floor of the old smoke house boiled it and skimmed off
   the top to get the salt. They used parched wheat and corn meal for
   coffee. The second year of the war, they got coffee at Richey's store
   on Bridge Street. About one-thousand Tonkaway Indians were [located?]
   at the Bosque Bridge for about two years during the war. One very cold
   day, an Indian squaw came to the Jenkin's home with two papooses, one
   naked and blankets around the other. Mrs. Jenkins put her dress on the
   squaw and dressed the children like white people. The next day, the
   squaw returned with the dress ripped up and made into a blanket.
   
   The boys [played?] with the Indians every day at that time Mrs.
   [Dannie?] Sparks was a girl and played with them. The Indians taught
   them how to make a short bow and arrow. They were lots of white
   hopping-grashoppers which had no wings. The Indians would catch these
   by buckets full and fry them crisp, put salt on them and eat them with
   pancakes. They would cook stacks of pancakes and pans of grasshoppers.
   The Indians would beg the boys to eat them, but they couldn't stand
   the idea. Turkeys, deer and prairie chickens were plentiful but they
   had to go to Coryell county for [DEL: buffalo meat to eat. Dye for
   clothing was made from dry cedar and shumate :DEL] 00033buffalo meat
   to eat. Dye for clothing was made from dry cedar and shumate bark. The
   spinning wheel and looms were used to make cloth for clothing. They
   raised a patch of cotton and a garden. The seed was picked from the
   cotton by hand, then the cotton was carded, spun and wove into cloth.
   The boys went barefooted and wore a big, long shirt something like a
   cotton-picking sack, they wore only one garment until they were grown.
   They had no trouble about dressing. They wore underwear in winter but
   no shoes till after winter, and it had snowed some.
   
   Mr. Jenkin's mother bought green coffee and had to parch it in a
   skillet on the fire-place, then beat it with pestle. Coffee sold for
   four dollars a pound about the close of the War. There were no wood
   cook-stoves. Mrs. Jennings bought a "four-eyed" cook-stove from Mr.
   Richey, at the time there were only four houses on Rat Row, which is
   now Bridge Street. She learned how to "fire up that stove", Mrs.
   Clinker, who lived in the edge of the cedar brake on what is now
   nineteenth Street at the old Tom Price home, got a stove and wouldn't
   use it. She sent for Mrs. Jenkins to show her how to "fire up" the
   stove and warm it up gradually as it might explode.
   
   Two years after the war, Jenkins bought a farm, from Price Standifer,
   near [Speegleville?]. He built a log house which had two large rooms
   and a shed, with puncheon-floor and clap board [rood?], fastened with
   peg fasteners. The doors were made out of [puncheon?] boards, and
   there were wooden hinges; the windows had wooden shutters. There were
   two plank doors with wooden hinges and one window, but there were-not
   any porches or steps. They had home made furniture. The bed had rope
   cord for spring. Their bed was somewhat better than most of the beds
   at that time, because it was a frame entirely separate from the wall.
   They used straw mattresses and feather beds to sleep on. They had just
   two home made chairs.
   
   Mr. Jenkind married fifty-eight years ago. when he and his wife began
   housekeeping they started in a one-room log house and cook on the
   fireplace because there were very stoves at that time. Mr. Jenkins
   still 00044lives [on?] the Old Prather farm, on the hill above Lake
   Waco where highway number seven crosses highway numver sixty-seven.

************************************************************************
USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE:  These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced 
in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or
persons.  Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must
obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative
of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of
this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives
to store the file permanently for free access.

http://www.usgwarchives.net/

Thanks to the Library of Congress
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/txcat.html
***********************************************************************