history

It was in in the clay hills of South Carolina in the cotton fields of Billy Hogg, the plantation owner, where the roots of the man named Ed had its origin.  One could not authenticate the history to be sure this is where it began, but the man named Ed said that his father, Henry Franklin, said his father, Henry Franklin, said his father, William Frank Hogg, told him of what he knew about his parents’ background.  William Frank said that he learned from his parents, whose names were not given, that there was a slave ship that came into the harbor of Savannah, Georgia, from Africa loaded with people form the Bush Country from beyond Kenya.  There was a woman with three sons put on the auction block for sale that were bought by Bill Hogg, the plantation owner’s father and took to South Carolina.  William Frank said that his father believed that one of those boys was his father .

 

William Frank Hogg, who was called Frank Hogg, was not a very profitable slave because he was not dependable.  That is why the plantation owner was slow about trading a slave to the Bradley Jenkins’ plantation owner for William’s wife, Grace, to live with her husband, William Frank Hogg.  

 

My daddy said that his daddy, Henry Hogg Franklin, said that his parents came from Africa on a cargo boat to Savannah, Georgia, in 1796.  They were auctioned off in Savannah, Georgia.  He said that it was an African woman who had three sons.  Her husband died on the boat coming over and was placed in the sea.  A man by the name of Billy Hogg bought them and took them to Allendale, South Carolina, to work in the cotton fields.  He said that they came from the Bush County of Africa; from somewhere near Kenya, Africa.  I asked him about their names.  He said that Pa (Henry Franklin) never called their names.  He told me that many Africans died on the boat coming to America and after they got to America many died because of the cold climate and where they came from was very hot.

 

Papa said that Pa (Henry) said that his father thought that one of those boys was his father.  But there is no proof to indicate that this is true.  Papa said that his grand daddy, William Frank, lived most of the time in the woods.  Papa said that William Frank lived and worked on Bill Hogg’s plantation and Grace Bradley lived on Bradley Jenkins’ plantation.  When William was sparking (courting) Grace, he would go to her home on Bradley Jenkins’ plantation.  The Hoggs did not like the Jenkinses and they would wait for William to come out of the house with dogs and horses and cow whips to beat him back to the Hogg Plantation.  But when William would come out of Grace’s house he would out run the dogs and horses and to the woods where they could not find him.

 

Papa said when a slave on one plantation married a person on another plantation, the only way they could live together was the plantation owners would have to sell or exchange (of his plantation) for the slave.  If he was a good slave, he would get two for one.

 

Papa said when freedom was declared and they knew about it on the 20th of May, Pa (his father) changed his name from Hogg to Franklin and moved to the Bradley Jenkins’ plantation where his mother was raised.  Pa (Papa’s father) married Johanna and (moved) her to the Bradley Jenkins Plantation.  Although freedom was declared and slaves were free to go on their own, John Allen did not want his daughter to go to the Bradley Jenkins plantation.  

 

Pa and his wife moved into a pole clay dobbed house between two railroads.  They were married the year Johanna finished from Claflin University in Orangeburg, South Carolina.   She never taught a day in her life.  She started having children and became a housewife and a mother.  She, Johanna, died in September of 1890.  Papa was four months old.  She was buried by her father, John Allen, in the white folk cemetery.  

 

Ed (Papa) said that John James died in the middle of the night from acute indigestion known then as cholera or food poisoning.  He ate some frost-bitten sweet potatoes right out of the field.  What year it was, Papa never said and I did not ask.  

 

Lottie, called Hon, died from what was called black fever.  Hon, Bill Henry and Papa were going home.  There was a pond along the road and Bill Henry and Ed went to swim.  When Hon got ready to go, Bill Henry and Ed would not come out so she went in to get them.  She was just entering womanhood, got wet and that stopped her menstrual cycle.  This gave her very high fever and she died.  Pa got a casket from the Allen store and put her in it and put it on his shoulder and took her to the white folk cemetery and buried her.

 

Anna, whose name was Johanna, but called Sister, died when she was twenty-three.  Ed was almost 7 years old.  She married a man called Redmon.  She gave birth to a boy baby.  The baby died.  Sister went back to cook for Mrs. Martha Jenkins, took consumption and died in 1897.

 

Pa married a lady named Lizzie Anderson when Ed was 4 years old.  She was the same age as Sister (Johanna).  Miss Lizzie was good to Ed and Bill.  She is the one who started them to learn to read and write.  Papa said that she was a potatly woman as strong as a man.  She came from Segal, South Carolina.  She had a brother.  Mrs. Lizzie and Pa would fight.  But Pa could not beat her.  It was tip for tap.

 

Papa said his sister, Ella, was 13, turning 14, when Johanna died in 1890.  She got married when she was about 15.  His name was (called him the Tiger).  Papa did not give his real name but he was a handsome Black man.   He made her lose her first child, a boy.  She, Aunt Ella, got pregnant again but the Tiger was killed in a skin game.  Aunt Ella married a man named Manny Mims before her second child was born.  Manny Mims was not Ann’s father, but the only father she knew.  And no one ever told her any different.  But Lottie was Manny Mims only child by Ella.

 

Manny and Ella had to move to Florida because Manny stole a hog from the Hogg Plantation and they had to move him out in a hurry to save his life.  He came to Florida and lived with Bessie and Jimmie Johns until he sent for Ella and family.  Papa said that Manny would steal the sweet out of biscuits and never break the crust.

 

Pa and Mrs. Lizzie had to come to Florida because of Bill and Ed’s white uncles.  John Allen had a plantation store in Cline, South Carolina.  Bill Henry and Ed were big boys.  They would go up to Cline where their uncles, the Allen, were.  Their uncles would make Ed and Bill fight those white . . . or make them wrestle them or make them box them.  Bill would get into things and Ed would have to protect him.  So, Bill Henry had a little gun?  Whenever they got into hot water they would run to their white uncle’s store and . . . could not bother them.  Bill Henry pulled the gun on someone.  Pa had to sell things to get out of South Carolina.  Pa left a crib of corn, a bank of potatoes, peas, chickens and hogs that he could not sell because of that.  Papa left his fat hogs and chickens that he could not sell.  They came to Florida on January 6, 1906.  Bill Henry was always causing trouble for Ed.  He was small and mean.  He also liked to fight.  He almost caused Ed to get beat to death by a bunch of white boys.  Ed’s white uncle came to his rescue.  Pa (meaning Henry) was glad to get those boys out of South Carolina, away from their white uncles, the Allen brothers.

 

When Pa, Lizzie, Bill Henry and Ed got off the train at Haynesworth, they were very disappointed.  They were looking for something different.  Instead, they found moss growing on trees.  Big pine trees at the depot where people came to drink and a big quarters where the railroad people lived called the section quarters.  They got to Haynesworth at night - Ella, Manny, Jimmie John and  them.  It was on a Friday.  The boys that Bill Henry pulled the gun on was Mr. Henry K. Creach’s sons.  

​

It was at this time that Ed and Bill Henry decided to be younger.  They changed their birth dates from 1988 to 1990 and Ed from 1990 to 1902.  They went with Ella and Manny to live on the Ellis’ plantation.  The Ellis plantation was on the Spring Road.  They went with Ella and Manny to a very small house.  On that Monday, Ed went to work with Jimmie John snaking cross ties out of a swamp with an ox.  The ox was named Billie.

​

Papa said to me . . . “I am tired of talking.”  This was on a Sunday.  We went to High Springs.)

​

Pa (Henry) share cropped with Douglas, Dave Fielder, the Ellis’s and with the Watkins.    From 1906 to 1910, he (Pa) would grow crops but made no money.  Pa was a poor businessman.  The owners would take everything from him.

 

In the fall of 1910, Ed asked Pa to let him manage the family.  Pa was very upset with Ed at first but in about two weeks, he (Pa) decided to let Ed take over.

​

Ed went up to Mr. Haynesworth—the man that owned the Haynesworth plantation, to see if he could buy him a home.  Ed had worked for Mr. Haynesworth before.  Ed was a very smart young man.  Mr. Haynesworth knew that Ed had white blood in him and Mr. Haynesworth liked Ed.  After some negotiations, Mr. Haynesworth sold Ed the farm at the Burnett Lake where Joe lived.  But Ed did not like that so he sold him 40 acres in the flat woods in Haynesworth for $196.  He sold Ed a reddish black stallion that was a racehorse made to farm, a buggy with all the trimmings.

​

What Ed could not understand about Pa and his brothers was when freedom was declared and slaves were allowed to homestead property from their plantation owners, why they would not homestead property like many other slaves.  Instead, they would rather sharecrop.  Pa changed his name from Hogg to Franklin because he was allowed to do so.  Why not homestead also?

​

At this time, Ann and Lottie were young missy girls.  Manny was sharecropping with the Watkins plantation owners.  Mr. Watkins owned the house where the Buckeyes live now and Ella and Manny lived.  That is where Manny died.  He died from some kind of chronic venereal disease.  There is where Ann ran away with Johnson and Lottie ran away with William Morrison.

​

When Ed bought the property from Mr. Haynes worth, the horse and buggy, he also bought a sock of grocery.  He promised Pa, his father, that when he died he would be in his own home, working his own farm.

​

Pa, Bill Henry and Ed had an agreement.  Pa and Bill would farm the land and Ed would work for Mr. Haynesworth to pay for the farm, horse and buggy.  Ed worked for Mr. Haynesworth for $12 a month and food.

​

Mr. Haynesworth was married to a lady from Virginia named Mrs. Edna and she had a sister named Mrs. Leigh.  Mrs. Edna bought Mary Smith with her to be the cook and housekeeper.  Ed started to date Mary.  He dated her from 1910 to 1912.  Ed was also dating many other girls.  When Joe Cohen married Patsy Anderson, Ed was trying to date Hester Anderson, but he was also dating Hester’s youngest aunt, Pheribel.  Pa came to the wedding and saw Hester.  He told Ed not to marry Mary because she would not make him a good wife, but Hester would be what he needed.  Ed broke up with Mary and she married Charlie Smith and, in 1914, in January, Ed married Hester.

 

Pa died in 1912 in the month of May.  In January of 1912, Ed told Bill Henry to go to Mr. Haynesworth and get the machine to cut up the cotton stalks to get ready to farm.  Bill Henry lay up in bed and slept.  Pa took St. John, the horse, and went to Mr. Haynesworth, got the machine and went to cut the cotton stalks down.  Pa fell off the machine and bumped his head on the machine.  He went to the doctor but was declared to be okay.  His head continued to bother him.  Finally, he had a hemorrhage, went into a coma, and died.

 

When Pa passed and left Ed, Bill and Ella Manny, Ed decided to settle down and get married.  In order to pay off the home, horse and buggy, Ed would work the months of October, November and December.    He'd go to a place named Macintosh, Florida and planted lettuce, cabbage, radish, cucumbers.

​

And the family continues...