The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-12-20
OLD KENTUCKY SLAVE.
The Original "GeOrge Harris' of Mrs.
Stoves ''UncIe Toms Cabin

M. L. Rayne, in Chicago Times-Herald.
Under the caption Death of a Noted
Character" the new spapers record the pass
ing of Lewis George Clark, who is reminis-
cent of picturesque and tremendous past
which forms the background of the nine
teenth century, in which he figures as
runaway slave and the original of a lead
ing character in a famous novel, he being
the model for George Harris in Uncle
Toms Cabin" He is the last one connected
by real life with those tragic and dramatic
scenes which for forty or more years have
been enacted on the boards of provincial
theaters to admiring audiences, during a
large part of which period one of the main
actors has been down on his upperS''
struggling, not with the Dloodhounds that
fought him in youth, but batting the wolf
of poverty in his declining years Strange
to say-and it was himself who said tia
wOmans hand always was extended to help
him. When Mrs. Stowe was listening to his
detailed experiences as they are given in
the history of George Harris he was taken
care of by her father Rev. Lyman Beech
er. but in later years Clark had no settled
means of living, and supported himself as
he best could and was assisted by charit-
ably disposed persons. l knew him first in
1886.
At that time some women connected with
the Church of Our Father in Detroit. Mich,
held a function designated a church fes-
tival, and on looking around for features
of interest they discovered an old coiOred
man who spun flax on a little footwheel and
sold quaint photographs of himself and told
strange stories of his life in slavery. So
they engaged the old ex-slave as an attrac-
ton at once unique and pathetic. Detroit
is a town that had served the runaway
slave in the old war time by its under
ground railroad system, which within the
hour landed the runaway in the Queens
dominions. The scheme of the women was
a success, and the written account of a
character from one of Mrs. Stoves novels
living in the city reused an interest that
was not transient. but resulted in getting
some money into Lewis George Clark's
empty pocket. A dime museum manager at
once gave him an engagement, and he spun
his threads of flax and sold his photographs
to daily and hourly crowds. In the story
it will be remembered of George Harris
that Mrs. Stowe makes him spin flax. Clark
had been a house servant in the South
never a plantation hand-and he had carded
wool and spun it and handled flax. His phot-
ographs were very attractive. One was of
himself i'm his old age, when his head of
buShy curlS had turned white the other
was a comic picture of himself at the age
of seven, when he went to church dressed
in his masters high hat and white shirt
with the cooks mittenS his hands, said
mittenS being made-but here is his own
version as he gave ii to me personally:
II was seven years ole. an | nevah had
been to meetin'. ole masters folks was
away. an Aunt Sukey fixed me. She put on
old masters white shirt an the colah come
Up TO my ears--the shirt was made of old
fashioned loom cotton. A strip was torn off
the lower half to make me a necktie I wore
mittens fixed outen an old slave woman's
stocking legs. They was nothin' else. tho