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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 128
went all the way across the back.” During the summer, her father would put boards and screen across the front porch so they could sleep there. The pump for the well was on the porch. Marcy said the fireplace was in the bedroom, and it “went through both sides” (opened in each bedroom). In the bedroom, they had beds and a big wooden box, a quilt box. They sat in rocking chairs and on trunks. They had a “big old wardrobe.” In addition, Marcy said, “We had a big old kitchen, with a big old side table where you would cook and hang up bread pans and iron pots.” Other Houses. Marcy noted, “There were “a lot of houses upon the face of the mountain.” Her house was further back, on the road. Marcy said there were three old log houses out there and some “slab houses as well.” She said they were built from rough boards: We called it barn lumber. The boards went straight up and kind of overlapped. Most of the wood was oak. After the boards seasoned out, you put little strips over the boards [to seal the cracks]. Marcy said the cracks in the log houses “weren't sealed that way. You can dig down below the topsoil to get the dirt, then add something, and you use that to chink between the logs.” In addition, to these houses, there was a bunkhouse. The bunkhouse, Marcy said, “slept four.” The hired hands that were single men stayed there. The hired hands who stayed there were Jack Anders, Ed Hugh, Ed Hornbuckle, Tommy Parker, and Ernie Stefans, commonly known as Jabbo. Marcy added, “Henry and Effie Lanier lived on the Young place. His brother lived in Pond Beat.” Tom Hatchett Tom Hatchett was living on the property when the Eliff family moved there. Marcy said: Uncle Tom Hatchett was an old Black man. He lived in an old log cabin up on the mountain. The house burned down in the winter of 1921. His wife died. I'm not sure if she burned up in the fire or was already dead. He moved into the bunkhouse. [The other men in the bunkhouse were White, so this is noteworthy, considering customs of the time.] He helped Daddy build our house on Bentley Young's land. He gave my Momma a cast iron tea kettle and a muffin tin after his cabin burned. [Marcy still has these.] He was as black as the ace of spades and a hardshell Baptist preacher. He was sweet. When momma was pregnant, 128 - (4161)