Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1870-09-03
ANCIENT DARBY OF THE PERIOD.
Sixty Years Ago Worked In Ten
nessee Printing ONCE.
A Curious old Character.

except Sunday, venerable African,
who is the head Of firm engaged in the
peanut trade. His head is white with
the cotton Of many summers, and he looks
old enough to have been George Wash
ington's traditional body servant. lfhe
ever sells anything he has not been
caught in the act Day after day he
sits there on the stairs munching peanut
shells and decayed apples with the most
economical serenity. Having lost his
teeth many years ago, it takes him day
to eat good four-cornered meal. But
he is always there and always eating.
Go as early as you will, and you find
him on the stops beside his little stall as
if set out there by somebody for sign,
like wooden Indian or Dutchman in
front Of tobacco store. AS sign for
the courthouse, he represents the trea-
sury to be in low state of funds.
He appears as independent as a turtle
on log, conscious that he can drop off
any time, and firmly resolved to live
high while there is any thread left ON
the spool of life. Hence his extrava-
gance in eating ten or twelve hours a
day and doubtless several hours through
the night. This antiquated uncle would
make capital sketch for Harpers
Weekly Like the most of his race, he
lives fully up with his means, and is al
ways ready to accept the few nickels
thrown in his horny palm. He belongs
to the old-fashioned race of darkies
rapidly passing away, which by another
generation will be numbered with the
curiosities of history and tradition. Very
few are .e he found now who are as
polite as they were before the war. They
have been translated into freedmen and
taught that one of their principal rights
is impudence to their former masters.
This is not the case, however, with Uncle
Moses, the peanut vender. He still calls
the white folks massa, and he delights to
talk of the days long ago when he be-
longed to somebody up in East Tennessee.
As interviewing representative men is
the order of the day, we dispatched a
reporter yesterday to interview Moses,
at his post on the courthouse steps.
Moses regarded the intruder as census
taker at first, and it was not until the
two scraped up an acquaintance as old
East Tennesseeans that Moses became
communicative at all. When once
warmed into life, he displays consider
able vivacity and common sense. His
conversational powers are about equal,
perhaps little superior, to General
Grants, and Photographic report of
his talk would be fully as entertaining
and instructive as many other printed
interviews with such men as Jim Fisk,
Henry Ward Beecher and old Father
Jesse Grant. Here is specimen:
Reporter-How old are you, uncle2
Moses-Gwine on eighty-two, massa.
Reporter-How do you know that?
Moses responded by going down the
long route of cayernous pocket and
coming back With faded piece of pa
per which, to all appearances, might
have been dug up at the base of the
Pyramids in Egypt He passed it over
with, "js read dat writin, massa." 1t
was a record of his family, purporting to
have been copied from the Dunlap fami-
ly Bible many years ago. The birth of
Moses is dated in February, 1889, which
shows him to be in his eighty-second
year.
Reporter-Where were you born
Moses2
Moses-Was horned in Virginny till l
was four years old, and then come out
wild my massa to East Tennessee
worked on farm at the mouth of French
Broad river awhile, den went to work in
Wilson's printing office, in Knoxville.
Reporter-H long ago was that2
Moses-Qh dat was good while ago; it
was in the year 1910, afore you was
born, | spec.
Reporter-Yes, slightly; just four
years previous to the birth of my father;
but what did you do in the printing
ofiice-set type?
Moses-I was pressman. followed
dat business for thirty-five years, but
never set much type. When massa Viii
son was elected State printer he took me
to Nashville with him, and ] lived dere
till ls49. Oh yes, Massa, ! knowed all
de big men long ago, General jackson
and
He went on with quite list not one
of whom is living to-day that we know
of. 1t was like talking with one risen
from the dead. The gray-headed old
negro lives in the past, but not to-day.
The events of fifty or sixty years ago
are fresh Up his mind. He is quite an
encyclopedia in his way, and possesses
stock of knowledge which has been over
looked by Ramsey in his annals of Ten
nessee, by Parton in his life of Jackson,
by Prescott and host of others who
have written upon the history of the
State. He has mueh to say of those
good old times, but not much Of the
present. The old fellow is cheerful and
contented and looks as if he could make |
out his century without fatigue. He has
charge of a colored church in South |
Memphis, as sexton, he says and sweeps /
out hall somewhere, and thus makes a
living. He has brother-in-law here
about his own age, who once belonged |
to the Montgomerys, two miles east of
Maryville, in Blount county. This one
is a rag picker and seems to pick M a
living. To see them together they are .
quite curiosity. On the subject of
politics Moses is reticent; he always gets