The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1874-06-25
A RELIC OF THE PAST.

\ newspaper correspondent, writing from
Washington, Warren county, n. j., de
tails a visit which he made to Mrs Isabel
Ia Moore, colored woman born in 1870,
and who Is, consequently, lei years old.
The correspondent writes:
She is hale and healthy, and talks of oc-
currences that transpired near century
ago. She was born few miles above the
Delaware Water Gap, in Pennsylvania, free
woman, and the records at Stroudsburg
show that she was ''bound out" to John
Chambers in 177S, to serve to 1888, when
she would be Is years old. Her maiden
name was Isabella Harkless, and she mar
ried Abraham Moore, d slave in 1899. and
if she lives few months more will have
been married eighty-six years, rearing the
moderate-sized family of fourteen children.
She has had 1876 children, grandchildren
and great grandchildren, more than one
hundred Of whom are now living.
The old woman remembers the soldiers
of the revolution marching to join their
commands, and describes two very fat oxen
they were driving along for beef as though
she had seen them yesterday She says
while she was bound out, she went to school
five days ito make up, as she expresses
it, for that many days "a bound boy had
missed"
did they ride horseback generally in
those days ?" we asked.
''The laws, yes, honey, everybody 20 that
way then, and there was nobody could ride
better than l could in Pennsylwaney"
She has been member of the church
ninety-one years, and sang two hymns for
us in not an unmuiscal voice, remem-
bering every line of ''Oh when shall see
Jesus ?'' and another hymn that must have
been forgotten before we remembered
hymns.
She thinks colored people, and white,
too, are getting worthless nowadays, and
says when she was girl she used to walk
six miles and rake and bind after a cradle
all day, plant and hoe potatoes and corn,
NOW grass, rake and pitch hay, and then
do housework, all for three shillmgs a week.
She says, though, that there were some
very lazy people then. One she describes
as being too lazy to chew tabacco. but
the gals now" she adds, ''don't know how
to put collar on a critter, or which would
be best to catch him with, salt or shayings." "
She tells us how she rode to harrow on
an island in the Delaware, and black
snake wound himself around the horses
neck and choked him down in the gears,
and how she cut the snake in two with
knife.
The aoitators Of tobacco reform can get
no encouragement from the old lady, as she
has smoked ninety-three years, and enjoys
good heath, bidding fair to live to good,
ripe old age to enjoy her pipe Her sight
is bad, although she is not entirely blind.
She walks about the house, and talks Of go
ing to Oxford (three miles), but says she
suppose5 if she goes, she must go as the
GIRL went to get married, afoot and alone.
At the late gathering Of the Old Line
Abolitionists in Chicago, an interesting ac-
count of ''the man with the branded hand
was given. Jonathan Walker is his name,
and for his Abolition principles he was, in
1913, branded in his right hand with two
letters rs. S." signifying slave stealer, by
order Of the United States Marshall of
Florida. He is now seyenty-seyen years
of age, and lives in Muskegon, Illinois, and
but for his poverty would have been in at
tendence at the reunion. In moment of
enthusiasm the convention proposed con-
tribution for him, and good round sum
was raised,