~j. ~	~~‘\	lia B. Prine, 33
		~	Mobile, Alabama.
		~	 NB~L~QN BIRDSONO
	.		REMEMBERS HIS MASTER.

	Nelson Blrdsong who lives on Front Street In the old. suburb of Summerville, about three rafles from MobIle, Alabama, was born a slave. A tall dark Negro man ‚ with whit e hair and. whi skers ‚ he says he was born at Montgomery Hill, Alabama in Baldwin County, and that his people and he were owned by Mr. Tom Adkins.

.	Nelson said he was very small at the time of the Surrender, and. could not tell very much about slavery days. In fact, he adds, ‘You know, missie, old. folks in dem days did‘nt ‘low chillun to stan‘ ‘roun‘ when dey wuz talking. We chillun wuz lack a shot out of a gui~t when any~ body come in. We wuz glad. when folks come in ‘cause we c‘ud. run out an! play. Chillun now-a—days knows as much as we did. when we wuz twenty— five years old.‘

	Nelson does remember his ‘massa‘ saying he neber wuz going to ‘let dat little nigger work. ‚

	He did not remember much about coming to Mobile, but ‘seemed lack his mammy worked for Mrs. Dunn on Monroe street, and later dey moved out in old. Napoleonvllle,‘ (whIch ~.s now Crichton, Alabama.a suburb of Mobile.) He said his ‘Pa and. Mammy den worked to‘ gris‘ mill out dere, and also owned a big gris‘ mill in de fork whar de big fire station 1g now“ (which is located at the intersection of St. Francis Street and Washington Avenue, the latter formerly Wilkinson street.) Thj~ grist mill was burned in the 1870‘s.

	Nelson says the first work he remembered doing was ‘nussing a baby boy of Mr. Bramwell Burden, a gran‘son of old. man Burden.‘

	Nelson has owned his little farm and three—room house until the
pagt two or three years. He said he ‘scuffled and tried to pay de