DARE Interview: Hoboken, Georgia; Primary Informant GA048

Informant Data:

GA048: White; male; age: 84 (old); community type: rural

Media Files:

Full Interview 1 (Tape 0314-S1).

Content:

00:10 Making clothes from homegrown cotton. Grandfather was an illegitimate child of Robert E. Lee, who bought grandfather some land

07:20 Family lived alone on Billy's Island until timber company came. Raising food to sell the timber workers

12:10 Spinning thread from carded cotton onto a broach, which goes onto loom. Indigo and maple bark to make dyes

18:30 Sewing own clothes. Isolated on island, no school. Sixteen children on farm. He ran away

22:20 Running away and heading west over river. Describes the flat, or river ferry

27:20 Poling ferry across with two people. Into next county by second day

30:10 Taken care of by Black trainman. First saw a Black as hunting party cook and guitar player/singer

34:10 Tape end

Full Interview 2 (Tape 0314-S2).

00:10 Swamp guiding and alligator hunting. Shine lights in alligator's eyes to find him at night. Salting hides

05:00 Hornbacking alligators with feet. Selling the hides. Shooting and killing them from close range so the body is easy to collect

10:00 Easy to approach an alligator with light in its eyes, also works with some fowl

15:10 Don't eat all the carcasses, although the meat is as good as turtle. Types of turtles and shells

21:30 Poisonous snakes—moccasins and rattlers. Time his brother was bitten by a moccasin

26:50 Other brother rode off to get treatment, brother was fine eventually

29:50 Can't suck poison with bad teeth. Salting snake hides to make belts

Full Interview 3 (Tape 0315-S1).

00:10 When they moved to island in 1884, they found a tanning trough made of hollowed cypress

05:40 How to tan hides—softening in water, lime to remove hair, soak in ooze made of red bay

10:00 Soak ooze through hide, and then wash and work it. Used for harnesses or traces

14:55 Making own shoes with shoemaker's tools. Clubfooted father shot in back in hunting accident

20:15 Getting father to a doctor. Keeping bees until they got blown off of their bench and attacked the family

26:35 The bee attack, almost killed one brother. Father burning out the bees

30:30 Tape end

Full Interview 4 (Tape 0315-S2).

00:10 Tupelo flowers make great honey. So do gallberry flowers. Gallberries and huckleberries

05:40 Lived on Billy's Island a long time, ran lumber company's boarding house there

11:50 Farming elsewhere by the time the government took the swamp. Growing rice to feed wild ducks

16:20 Salt licks; difference of east side of swamp. Man visiting family had a migraine attack. Informant looked after him

22:05 "River Styx" and Cypress Creek. St. Mary's River doesn't flow out of the swamp

26:50 Discussing various local plants

30:35 Tape end