The Russellville Democrat. [volume] (Russellville, Ark.) 1875-1898, 1892-10-13
a WOMAN CONTRACTOR.
How Lizzie Young Raises the Dust
Carting Sand.

How Lizzie Young Raises the Dust DJ
Carting Sand.
In the shade just behind the Office
Of the w. G. Green Company, the
contractors for the Jacksonville
public building, sits a comely
colored woman, Lizzie Young, for
nearly twelve hours out of the
twenty-four. She is a business
woman, and the branches which she
follows are so unusual for woman
especially for colored woman
that her case has attracted good
deal OF attention about town.
Lizzie chad the job" for hauling
away the sand from the excavation
on the government lot, and she now
has another one of the same kind
for enlarging and deepening it. The
contractors pay her a stated price
per load, and she has the sand to
dispose of as she may choose. To a
Times Union reporter Lizzie
described how she managed the job.
~ have three drays of my own, /"
she said, "and am now employing
nearly twenty more. On the first
job had over thirty drays at work
for many days, but this job isn't
such a big one. / pay each dray-
man $3.50 day-but | have to set
stint on them. | call fourteen
loads days work. lie a driver falls
short, he gets his pay 'docked' or
has to make it up afterward; if he
goes over fourteen loads he gets pay
for it. So far | have managed to sell
every particle of the sand dug out.
The city waterworks is taking all |
can supply now"
"Do you find it proftableio
"Oh, it's better than doing moth
ing, amt itf'-and Lizzie smiled as
one who would say: ~ could tell
you something about the profits iflI
chose to-"
Now draymen in Jacksonville
look very much alike, but Lizzie
knows the face of every one of
those in her employ and can call
them by name. She sits on an inn
provised seat in the tall grass and
weeds, and all day long checks off
the loads as they go out. When
there is little lull in the work she
pulls out her crocheting and thus
never loses a minute. When The
Times Union man saw her on
Wednesday she was running up"
the seams on the skirt of a checked
Bingham dress, and was doing it
deity, too.
But 6raying isn't Lizzie's only
business. For six months or so
every year she runs an extensive
wood yard at her home in North
Springfield, not far from Evergreen
Cemetery. She keeps two or three
men in the forest chopping, two or
three more saving and split
ting in the yard, and four or FIVE
teams delivering and peddling the
wood. She keeps from forty TO
sixty head of hogs on her farm all
the time, and has swill route in
the city which supplies them with
nearly all the food necessary. Every
year she sells many hundred dollars
worth of pork. She is an extensive
chicken farmer, too, and drives a
good trade in poultry and eggs
For many years her husband has
been employed at Hunters mill.
They have eight children-the old
est boy big enough to drive dray.
Lizzie is only % years old. Besides
all her business and household du-
ties, she finds time to devote to the
church and to look after the proper
rearing of her children. She looks
as if her health were perfect and, if
she keeps on, she will be as rich as
Mrs. Hetty Green one of these days.
She is native of Ocala, but was
raised" here in jacksonville. -
Jacksonville Times Union.