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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 20
everyone knows him as Buddy. Buddy, deaf now, in his older years, is a tenant farmer on the Schiffman property. He owns his own mules and equipment. His wife's name is Octavia. Her maiden name was Jamar. Octavia's mother, Lettie, was a cook on the James Jamar plantation and had three children fathered by the old white master. Even though the days of slavery were over (her oldest was born in 1876), she had no recourse in this, so about 1882, when her youngest was a babe in arms, she took the children and ran away. Octavia and Buddy don't have any grass in their yard. It is hard packed dirt, but Octavia sweeps the dirt, and it looks tidy. They have a vegetable garden and their own cows for milk, and hogs and chickens. During the winter, Buddy kills a hog and peddles pork and eggs to the other homes in Pond Beat. About a quarter mile further south, Loach Robertson lives in a tenant house. South, beyond him, is the Blount place, an old-style square plank house that appears to have about six rooms. Like most houses, it has a tin roof. Blount has his own barn and smoke house. A dirt road cuts through the Blount property. Nick Fitcheard owns a little piece of land bordered by Blounts' property on the north and west, and partially bordered by the road south to the river. Immediately beside the road, as if carved out of Fitcheard's property, is the New Mount Olive Church, and a cemetery is beside it. Black people use the church and cemetery. On down the road, the Robert Long family lives on the Schiffman and Co., Inc. land. Robert is the land manager so it's a nice house. The Longs know the house was built in 1855 because a piece of glass over the front door has “W.F. Owen 1855” engraved in it. It's a colonial style house with round columns out front. The roof is tin. The outside of the house is yellow poplar weather boarding (overlapping planks), painted solid white. All of the doors on the house are mahogany. The front doors, on the north side of the house, are double doors. The house has big windows. Steps go up to the front porch. Entering the front door, one steps into a hall, about 12 feet wide, which divides the house. The walls are plastered. An inside stairway goes up to a landing and a hall. Four bedrooms are upstairs. Downstairs, the two rooms on the west side of the hall are used as bedrooms. The room on the east side of the hall is the living room. The dining room is directly behind it. Mrs. Long cooks on a white enamel Warm Morning stove that stands on legs. It's the best kind of stove you can buy. It has a reserve on it to heat water. The top is solid, except for the round “eyes,” which can be lifted out, and then a pot can be set in the fire. The firebox is on the outside of the stove; it vents out through a flue. The stove was purchased at Rex Harrison's store on the corner of the square in Huntsville, which is where most people buy their stove. The icebox in the kitchen holds about a hundred pounds of ice, which lasts about four days in the summertime. The ice truck comes around twice a week. Sometimes the Longs buy a little extra to make ice cream. 20 - (4053)