( Stories from ex-slave8) DENNIS SIMMS, Ex-slave
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Reference:	Personal interview v~th Dennis Sitmns, ex-slave, September 19, 1937, at his home, 629 Mosher St., Baltimore.





	Born on a tobacco plantation at Contee, Prince Georges County, Maryland, June 17, 1841, Dennis Simris, Negro ex-‘slave, 628 Mosher Street, Baltimore, Maryland, is still working and expects to live to be a hundred years old.

	He has one brother living, Georgé Sixoms, of South River, Lr~aryland, who was born July 18, 1849. Both of them were born on the Contee tobacco plantation, ov~ned by Richard and Charless Contee, whose forbears were early settlers in the State.

Sizrtms aiwayscarries ~ rabbit‘s foot, to which he attributes his good health and long life. He has been married four times since he gained his freedom, His fourth wife; Eliza Siimiis, 67 years old, is now in the Providence Hispital, suffering from a broken hip she received in a fall, The aged Negro recalls many interesting and exciting incid3nts of slavery days • Mo re than a hundred slaves worked on the pi antation, s orne continuing to work for the Contee brothers when they were set free. It was a pretty hard and cruel life for the darkeys, declares the Negro.

	Describing the general conditions of Maryland slaves., he said~

	“We would work from sunrise to s~mset every day except Sundays and on New Year‘s Day. Christmas made little difference a.t Contes, except that we were given extra rations of food then. We had to toe the mark or be flogged with a rawhide whip, and almost every day there was froen two to ton thrashings given oit the plantations to disobedient Negro slaves.

	“when we behaved we were not ~whipped, but the overseer kept a
~t, 28, 1937 :~ t)()~~49 ~sbury