A child slave at Spring Place

Levi Branham's My Life and Travels is the truly remarkable memoir of a former slave who was born in Murray County in 1852. 

Photograph courtesy of the Murray County Museum.

At some time in the 1850s Levi was sold to James Edmondson, the neighbor of his first owner. Levi tells us that his first owner, a Dr. Black, said he wanted to sell all his slaves to James Edmondson because he knew that Edmondson would not separate them. But in fact, as we learn later in the account, Levi's mother was working at a second farm owned by Edmondson, near Jasper, Tennessee. So, although Levi went back and forth to Jasper at times, most of the time he lived as a child in the Vann House, until 1863. That year the entire Edmondson household, white and black, "refugeed" down to Terrell County, Georgia, where apparently Edmondson had other property. Levi Branham returned to Murray County in 1873. He was living in Spring Place in the late 1920s, when he wrote his memoir.  

Here are excerpts from Levi Branham's memoir:

I spent a large portion of my life in the Chief Vann house with my old master, Mr. Edmondson. He had a daughter by the name of Jennie. Jennie had a waitress* who was named Tein. Another of his daughters was Sug,** whose waitress was Fannie. Another one of his daughters was Georgia whose waitress was Elvie. These were all of the single daughters that Mr. Edmondson had when I was with him, but he had three married daughters whose names were Harriet, Sallie and Sue. Harriet married Bob Anderson, Sue married Street, and Sallie married Dr. Mathis.

One of my young masters was John Edmondson, another, Tom Polk Edmondson. I was Tom Polk's waitman until he went to the Civil war between the North and South. Bill, the youngest, was quite small. All of the waitmen and waitresses stayed in the Edmondson house now known as the Chief Vann house. The room in which we stayed had a fine carpet on which we slept. Mr. Edmondson gave us fine blankets and we surely did sleep warm and comfortable.

My old mistress, "Miss Beckie", was very good to us. She took more pains with us darkies than our parents did, simply because she had more to care for us with, and too, she loved us. Occasionally "Miss Beckie" would give us tea for medicine. She had a hard time getting this tea in me, but I had to take it after all. Sometimes she would give us peach brandy which I was always glad to get. Sometimes we would pretend that we were sick so we could get sweetened coffee and buttered biscuits which certainly tasted good to us darkies. I thought as much of "Miss Beckie" as I did my mother.

When all the white boys and girls would be away "Miss Beckie" would gather the little negro children around the fire and talk with us. One day I said to "Miss Beckie": "Why do we little negro children have to work for you?" She said, "That's the way our fore-parents fixed the matter." I said to her, "when I get grown I am going to change the situation somewhat."

* "Waitress" and "waitman" were apparently the terms for slaves who were personal servants. The personal servants of the Edmondson sons and daughters were evidently children, as Levi was when he was "waitman" for Tom Polk Edmondson.  

** "Sug" was evidently the family name for Amanda Caroline. 

Lots of scholarly ink has been spilled over the literary conventions of published slave narratives, and how to interpret those narratives.Was this really such an idyllic childhood? Was "Miss Beckie," Rebecca Banks Edmondson, Amanda's mother, really like a mother to little Levi Branham? Well, that's what he tells us. My feeling is that his memoir requires several close readings. It's hard to know about those aspects of life that he has chosen not to  tell us; but it would be disrespectful to dismiss what he does choose to tell us. It's actually astonishing that we have this history at all. The vast majority of the enslaved were never able to speak so directly to us. So maybe the best we can do is to read this memoir with as much empathy as we can bring to the task, and as much humility and imagination as we can muster.  

The old Chief Vann house has been torn away considerably now from what it was when we lived there. There were large sliding doors in the house. Sometimes when there would be dances, there would be as many as sixteen in a set at one time. I have often seen old Mr. Frank Peeples on the dancing floor, but oh, my! he was cutting a shine. Now Mr. Peeples is like me, he is not able to do any dancing.

My old mistress would always say she was going to whip me, but she never whipped me but once. She was always threatening to whip me and one morning after the others had gone to work and I was still lying in the bed, my old mistress came upstairs to my room with an old cow hide and struck me three or four licks. I jumped up and ran to the field. That was the first cow hide and the last one that I have seen. She never had a chance to whip anyone else, or me either, because I took the hide and cut it in two with an axe and then I buried it.

I had a very bad time when I was small, and some very good times too. Mr. Edmondson, my master, owned two farms, one in Tennessee and another in Georgia. My mother was in Tennessee on his farm while I was in Georgia with my old mistress, whom I loved as well as my mother, for she was very dear to me.

What we do get in reading Branham's memoir is a rare glimpse, however much obscured, of the life of a privileged household just before and during the Civil War.  

In the dining room was a long table at which about fifteen or twenty could be served. In those days people used fly brushes, so Mrs. Rebecka had a large one over the table with a great long string that reached to the other end of the dining room and I had to pull the string. Oh! how I would pull and watch the white folks eat. They would eat and sit there and talk until I would get so hungry looking at the food my mouth would water. I always got plenty to eat, but just to stand there and look at the good food would make me hungry.

When I was a boy living in the Chief Vann or Edmondson house, my work was to mind the calves, carry water, churn and pull the fly bush, but some times I would give them the dodge. Up in the garret in the Chief Vann house Mr. Edmondson kept all of his sugar and it was my job to go up every morning and bring down enough sugar for breakfast and while I was up there, I would always fill my pockets with sugar, and go around all day eating sugar when I got ready. My pocket would get so stiff sometimes it felt like it had been starched.

One day when I was a boy one of my young masters came home and said that Breckenridge, Douglas and Abe Lincoln were running for president, and that if Mr. Abe Lincoln was elected that the negroes would be free. Then he asked me if I wanted to be free and I told him "yes."

Some stories hint at the intimacy of these complex relationships: 

Mr. Edmondson had a cur dog by the name of Watch, which we children did not like; he was a very good dog, too. One day Mr. Westfield gave "Miss Rebecka" a drove of sheep, about fifty, I suppose, so to do injury to the dog, Mr. Edmondson's children and I took some sheep wool and packed it between the dog's teeth, then carried the dog to "Miss Rebecka" Edmondson and told her that the dog had been killing her sheep. She ordered the dog to be killed, believing that he was killing sheep, but the poor dog was innocent. I have thought over and over how bad it was that we told what was not true on the poor dog, and I am compelled to say that I hate to think how bad it was for us to do a trick like that. But you know how boys are.

When I was a boy, an old colored man wanted a white boy and me to get some whisky for him, as the colored people could not get any whisky in those days. So Bill Ellis the white boy that went with me, he was about my age, bought the whisky and had it put in a jug. We started on back, and on our way we had to pass through a place called "the haunted holler." There we stopped and began to draw us some of the whisky. We had a bottle but could not see how to pour the whisky, so we drew it out in our mouths and then emptied it into the bottle until we had the bottle full. We then took up our load and began to travel. When I got home and sat down by the fire it made me sick, and "Miss Rebecka" asked me what was the matter, so I told her that I had been to town and some one had shocked me on the shocking machine. She said, "all right, I will see about it," and Mrs. Scythe Luffman came along and told her that she had seen Bill and me with some whisky, so she asked me again and I had to tell her the truth. She then asked Bill about it and made it so plain that he had to tell her just how it was. I tell you Mrs. Rebecka was hard to fool, but we sure did fool her about Watch (the dog) killing her sheep.

 And some vignettes cast light on the vastly different worlds of slave and master. Levi was about thirteen years old when the following exchange took place: 

During the Civil war, 1865, Old Man Dover sent all the negroes over to a little town called Dover in Terrell county to fast and pray. Another little negro boy and I got our fish hooks and started to go fishing. He told us if we did not go to fast and pray that we would have to get our hoes and go to the field and work, so we went on to Dover with the rest of the colored people and I got down and prayed the best I knew how. This was the words of my prayer: "O Lord, please help Abraham Lincoln to whip Jefferson Davis." When we were all through praying we went back home. Mr. Edmondson said to me, "what did you pray?" and I told him that I prayed like this: "Oh Lord, please help Jefferson Davis to whip Abraham Lincoln," and he said, "you prayed right," and handed me a half dollar. I was afraid to tell him what I prayed.

Levi did not return to Murray County from the Edmondson refuge in Terrell County until 1873. By then, the life of the Edmondson family had drastically changed. Rebecca Banks Edmondson died in 1871, and her husband James in 1873. When the household left the Vann House in 1863 they never returned to it. 

My master owned all land west from the Chief Vann house to the Conasauga river, which is a distance of about four miles. He owned thirty-five or forty slaves. Mr. Edmondson never had any overseers, but had a foreman. After crops were laid by, Mr. Edmondson would give a picnic for his slaves. He would take part in the picnic. I tell you we surely did have a jubilee time.

When the war was in its highest state, Mr. Edmondson sold the Chief Vann house and his land to Colonel Tibbs. The latter kept it eight or nine years and sold it to Goins from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Mr. Goins sold it to Mr. Dill and Dill sold it to Chip Owens. Later Mr. Owens sold it to Mr. D. Kemp. Mr. Kemp sold it to Mr. Dooly; Dooly sold it to Sellers. Sellers sold it to Higdon. Higdon sold it to Dr. Bradford who still owns it. I live now at the place where I was born and raised. As soon as I step out on my front porch I can see the old Edmondson house now known as the Chief Vann house. 

When I was living at the Chief Vann house, I was young and active. I could run, jump and leap like a frog. I used to think that there were only two boys that could hold me a light and they were a white boy named Rob Rembert and a colored boy named George Edmondson. We would always tie when we would try to throw stones at one another.   

In 1862, Spring Place was a wealthy little town. Mr. Edmondson, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Seay were very good to their negroes. Some of them around were regular speculators. I knew a preacher by the name of Selvidge who preached around Spring Place to the negroes, and his text was "Servant obey your master." And he would have the negroes washed and dressed then he would put them on the block and bid them off like a group of horses or mules.

My master always said that his negroes did not pay him anything; what he had, he had made in the Legislature. He used to own a large plantation in Tennessee, and he allowed the negroes to run an account there, and when they did not or could not pay up he would let them work on Sunday at a sawmill, paying them one dollar a day, until they paid up their debts.

I am always thinking of the old Chief Vann house. I left there the latter part of 1863 and had not been inside the house since then until about three weeks ago. Mrs. Cox, the lady who now lives there seemed to take great pleasure in showing me the different rooms in the house after I told her that I lived there in my boyhood with Mr. Edmondson. It seems that the house has been changed a great deal since I was there. The plastered walls seem to be falling, and when I was a boy that old house seemed like Heaven to me. It resembled Hardwick's bank in Dalton that, it seemed too good for a fly to light upon.

The Vann House in 1934, about the time Levi Branham took his tour inside.
 Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

The grandchildren and great grandchildren of Mr. Edmondson seem to think a lots of me and my wife. Always when they come from South Georgia and from places in the north they would bring me and my wife something nice to eat and wear. It seems that they cannot come to North Georgia without coming to see "Uncle Boisey" and "Aunt Amanda."

Levi Branham, historian, 1852-1944. Photograph courtesy of the Murray County Museum.

Levi Branham, My Life and Travels, Dalton, Ga.: The A. J. Showalter Co. Printers and Publishers, 1929.  © This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.  The full text can be read here.