a trip to Cleveland

a trip to Cleveland

fiction
edward w Pritchard

see Sept 25 post a rifle, eight silver dollars and a brisk walk, for more on Moseby Whitsell


From the diaries of Moseby W.
New Guinea, Ohio 1871

1868
I have been having trouble getting full time work. Mostly I work as a laborer. There is much competition from recent Irish immigrants and sorry to say Black folk coming North following the Civil War.

Worked six months solid in 1868 for the Rosenberry brick company  as a brick layers assistant on the Alliance [ Ohio] opera house. Mr. Crew the developer of the project said my work was first rate. I was promoted to brick layer toward the end of the project because of the haste to finish the project. Since however I have difficulty finding jobs of such a nature because of the ups and down of the local economy and the changing attitudes toward colored workers here in Ohio. Now that the war is long over most people have forgotten their original feelings towards us black folks and have struggles of their own, finding jobs and making a living.

July 1870

Wow what a trip. I took Mrs. F Day to Cleveland Ohio for a feminist conference. Her husband Mr. Day gave me forty dollars for four days work, a small fortune to me, to accompany his wife. I drove a fine buggy and served as Mrs. Days bodyguard.

We took an old stage coach route from Alliance, up through Deerfield and Streetsboro and on to Cleveland. We had no trouble on the way. Once in Cleveland Mrs. Day stayed at her hotel where the convention was held and I slept out at the Beach on Lake Erie.

Staying on lake Erie was Ok with me for they had a colored beach out there where people from Cleveland went swimming and walked along a boardwalk. I never saw so many beautiful black women. One young girl had on black socks that came to her knees, a red sash around her waist, a silky black bathing suit and a fancy turban on her head. She walked and strutted about drinking some kind of juice drink. I just watched, I'm a married man, but I did enjoy that.

Sadly Mrs. Day was upset on the way home. The police had interrupted their meetings and a few of the women were threatened with arrest. The meeting was interrupted because the women were calling for voting rights for women. On the way back through Ravenna, [Ohio] Mrs. Day asked me to take her somewhere where she could have a drink. I was surprised as Mrs. Day is a good Christian lady. Well I took to a place I knew from back working on the railroads near where we were traveling. It's the only place in these parts where a black man and a white woman could get a drink together without trouble. After we got back to Alliance I mentioned to Mr. Day about the drink and the trouble at the convention Mrs. Day had. Mr. Day doesn't approve of his wife's beliefs at times I know but he doesn't interfere either. He gave me five more dollars for getting her home safe. I tried to refuse the five having been very well paid but Lucinda and I can use the money. We are trying ...[ script illegible ]

1872

Lucinda and I are no longer in New Guinea Ohio. Most of the colored folks who lived there have left, moving to the larger cities in Ohio or far West to find work. I hear the town is drying up and no one much lives there at all.

1874
Times are very hard now. They call this the panic of 1873 but it has been going on for over a year now. Work is scarce even in the growing cities. I have applied several times to work out West in a black cavalry fighting Indians. It's a horrible job for a Black man to do, fighting Indians and driving them off their homelands but one has to work. No matter, mostly they tell me I am too old to be a soldier now, even in these new all Black units.

1879

With College being so expensive both Lucinda and I have to work extra jobs to get money to pay our daughters tuition over at Oberlin. It's worth it to us both. Lucinda can't read or write and I have no formal schooling and now our daughter is going to College.

end