b-% Tape Log Interviewer: Will Jones Tape#: 5.20.95-S.R.l Interviewee: Shaird Robinson Mono: Stereo: X No. of Sides: 2 No. of Tapes: 1 Interview Date: May 20, 1995 Location: New Bern, NC. 000 Introduction 004 Born 1905 in Riverdale. Talks about grandmother taking him to a farm in Riverdale after his mother died. 022 Father stayed in town. He cut wood and farmed. 027 Mother taught school in Riverdale and near James City. 034 Grandmother, Nellie Williams was 13 yrs. old when the slaves were freed. She didn't talk about that very much. She was half white. "The old monster got a child by one of the slaves." He took her into the big house when she was born. 058 Father's family was in Pitt County near Greenwood. His name was Ed Robins. He would hall logs for a living. Had a big horse. Worked in Camp Perrys in the "log woods." He would pass the Williams house on his way back and forth to work. They would give him water and "that's how he got friendly with my mother." 089 Old man Jessie Brooks was a black man who lived in James City on the Neuse River. He hired men to go down to where Grantham is now and clear lumber. He built a big house for himself with a big kitchen, shed and porch. Grandmother and mother moved there. The Hicks boys lived there too. One drove a cab from James City into New Bern. 121 Mr. Robinson caught Tuberculosis and moved to Wilson to the state sanitarium. Stayed for a year and then the doctor gave him a job so he would not have to return to the fertilizer factory. Worked in Wilson for 20 some years. 132 Talks about 1922 fire in New Bern. Was driving a truck for the fertilizer company. Hauled dynamite to blow up houses so the fire would cross George Street. The were nice houses in that area before then. The fire leapt from one house to another. Sfe-c^SfeA ot\h "SQ^ \CJCJO
156 Grandmother cooked for Mr. McGowan. They all lived on his farm. Every Friday they would go to the smoke house to get food. Dan Stafford, an old white employee, was trusted with giving out meat. 172 Seven or eight families lived on the farm. All the people who lived in the area worked on the farm -the Whites and the Slades. Mr. McGowan would have 25-30 women working in the fields. Chopping cotton and corn. He planted over 100 acres of cotton. This was south of James City on Beaufort Rd. Near Bakers Dairy. Old Man Westbrunt had a 2-3 horse farm down there, grew tobacco. McGowan would plant tobacco back then. "Cotton was the money crop." You could pick a bale per acre. 202 Went to School in Grantham. St. Luke Baptist Church had a school right next to it. Ms Anne Reynolds was the teacher. It had one room with a big four legged heater. People would go into the woods and collect wood and "lid wood knots." (easily lit pieces of wood) Would go out a fill a wagon with wood. Mr. McGowan would let them take a team of horses to haul wood. 250 Talks about Simon Phillips' store by the bridge to New Bern. Before they had a bridge they had a ferry. Some people would walk the railroad bridge. For a nickel or a dime, there was a man who would row you to New Bern. The railroad bridge was dangerous. Simon Phillips had a horse lot and sold feed. People would ride to the store and leave their horses. If you had a buggy, you would have to leave it at Simon Phillips. The bridge was built before Mr. Robinson's time. 294 Norfolk and Southern railroad ran from Morehead City into New Bern and on to Raleigh. When he went to town on Saturday morning, grandmother would wave the train down with a handkerchief. Engineer would blow the whistle and they would stop. Conductor would put a stool down so they could get on and sit down. They would pay 10 cents to go the 4-5 miles to New Bern. 314 Ms. Anne Reynolds taught for a few years until Ms. Aldeney Fenner took over. She taught until they built a brick school in James City. Mr. Robinson got a job at Mr. Phillips store. We would go to school in New Bern Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Monday and Friday he had to work. He delivered and sold groceries. The store was at the foot of the county bridge. 351 Simon Phillips was a black man. He lived in the back of the store. 361 Married Robina. She would come by the store and they married after she got pregnant. 373 Sister Nellie lived in New Bern and he would go over to visit her. 374 Got married and had seven children. Four boys and three girls. Talks about what his children do now.
409 Went to Mt. Shiloh church in James City. 421 Started working at the fertilizer factory when he was 17 years old. Worked there for 20 years. The same year he got married. He did every thing there. Sewed bags, rolled carts. They had a big hole to mix the chemicals. "They said you couldn't fill it up because they'd keep taking everything you'd put in there." The mixer would mix it like cement. They would dump it into a hopper and then weigh it into bags. 470 Describes the chemicals used to make fertilizer. Used different chemicals for different crops. 487 He was baptized by Rev. Manuel in the river by the factory. Mr. Robinson and Mr. Attmore talk about a few preachers in James City. Miles Spruell at Cavalry. Alonzo Dudley brought a puppy from Pamlico County. Gave it to Robinson. He grew up to be a deer dog. 527 Talks about hunting in the woods. Had three rabbit dogs and two deer dogs. He would go down to Riverdale and they would run deer out for him to shoot. 561 Worked at Meadows Fertilizer Company in New Bern for over 20 years. Meadows went broke and Davis and Trent Fertilizer in Baltimore Maryland took it over. Meadows also owned a large lumber mill. SideB 000 Got T.B. while working for Davis and Trent. They used a "garbage base." Meadows didn't buy it. But Davis and Trent had a base plant in Baltimore. They would ship it down to New Bern. It was dusty and messy. It had dead stuff "cooked and burnt and ground up." They would take the trash from the big city. A small city would bury that stuff. Places like Morehead City would make fish meal with herring. It made good fertilizer. Two or three people (out of 40-50) got T.B. 035 Went to Dr. Duffy, the company doctor. Dr. Cafus was there also. They sent him to the health department to take pictures. He had a cloudy lung. Sent him to Wilson for 10-15 weeks. He ended up being restricted for over 9 months. When he had been there a year, he went to McCain near Fayetteville. They took out the upper lobe of his lung. 077 He went back to Wilson and Dr. Easton let him walk around, but he didn't want him to go back to the fertilizer plant. He got a part time job as an orderly while still living in the hospital. He would help with the "strick" (stricken?) patients who had to stay in bed. Tells about life in the hospital. He would go back to James City on the weekends, but he never came back to live. He worked at the sanitarium until he retired. His wife died 12-13 years ago. 3 years ago he moved back.
Mt 132 He doesn't know many people in James City anymore. Sees the "favor" of older people in people, but he doesn't know them. 141 He was in Wilson when they built Cherry Point. People came from Wilson, Goldsboro, and Kenton to work there. When Jacksonville opened that brought even more. They built all the buildings down there. He drove a Coca Cola truck for a while. He would deliver to Cherry Point and Jacksonville. Had self serve coolers down there. He would have to keep them filled. Coke had a plant in New Bern and he worked there before he got T.B. 194 New Bern wasn't supporting people before the base. Cherry Point brought jobs. The people who had the jobs spent their money in New Bern. 213 Soldiers came into town every night. Syrians and Greeks. They had beer and wine. "Even the Jews had a little dry goods place." He didn't hang around where they were. They were rowdy. 232 There were black Marines. Some in Jacksonville, some in Cherry Point, a lot in Fayetteville. Fayetteville was the roughest of the others because there were more service men there. 248 After the War things slowed down. 254 He never thought the War would come to New Bern. Authorities would talk about it. They were safe there. They bombed some ships in California, but "that's a long way from here." 268 There were lots of American submarines off of Morehead City, in the deep water. 279 The military really helped this part of the country out. It put people to work and it still does. Lots of people from New Bern go to Cherry Point and Jacksonville. The Republicans and talking about doing away with these places. If they do "it gonna make it pitiful." People are living off of them. People have been able to buy land and raise their children. 346 Talks about when they built the airstrip in James City. He never understood what happened in James City, with the land. They kept taking more and more land. The only good thing they ever did there was to build the saw mills. They kept people alive. People could get wood to build their houses. 378 Talks about James White and Lawrence Davis. They did very well in the early days. They had nice houses built. Other people had little shacks. Alfred Sparow had a nice house also.
412 White and Davis built big houses. Old Man Gander White and Uncle Sam built their houses outside of James City in MeadowsviUe. When Meadows sold his land he named it after himself. The cemetery is there now. (Meadows Cemetery) There was an older cemetery by the airport. It's still there, they call it the big graveyard. They were going to move it but they couldn't. Meadows cemetery is near Brownsville. 470 Brownsville, MeadowsviUe, and Graysville are each named after the men who owned that land. Meadows bought Gray's property. Now white folks live there. He remembers when there were no houses between James City and Morehead City. Now/ there are lots of them.