Moses Pipkin, Wayne County, NC

My mother's recollection, Lottie Lillian Pipkin Potts, of her grandfather, Moses 
Pipkin, was written in 1990 and is as follows:

My grandfather, Moses Pipkin, was a wonderful man to me. I wanted to think I was 
special to him because I was the first grandchild. When I was visiting in his 
home, I followed him around the farm. My memories are quite vague as to where we 
went and what we did. I was just happy to be with him. 

His history, before I remember, was given to me by my father, Ernest James 
Pipkin. He (Moses) owned a home on the hill of Falling Creek, between Corbit 
Hill and Grantham school. He had a large family and it was necessary to live at 
home in those days. He built a brick kiln and made bricks for a living. My 
father only went to school three months of the year and that was in the winter. 
He learned arithmetic by counting the bricks he put into the kiln. Other than 
arithmetic, his education was skimpy.

Moses lost the farm and moved near Falling Creek School next door to a Dr. 
Kennedy. I remember visiting there only once. For some reason, my father and 
mother decided to visit Dr. Kennedy on our way home. After we left Dr. 
Kennedy's, I remember that I had left something and we stopped to get it. When I 
jumped out of the buggy, I broke my right leg just above the ankle. Dr. Kennedy 
came to set it, when I awoke, I was lying on a pallet close to the door. It must 
have been too late to go home when everything was finished because we went home 
the next day. They took the lid off a chest, laid it across my mother's and 
father's laps to carry me home. 

I remember Dr. Kennedy visiting me once at home, bringing some white grapes 
wrapped in his pocket handkerchief. My mother told me the handkerchief was so 
dirty she was afraid I would become sick.

The next time I remember my grandfather, they were living at the old Whitfield 
place. By that time, he had retired from farming as far as I can remember. His 
two sons, Asher and Dan did most of it. My grandfather and grandmother had a 
daughter who was an invalid because of rheumatism. (Her name was Ella Mae 
Pipkin)

She had been stricken when she was six years old and became gradually more 
infirm. At the time that I first remember her, she could not move any part of 
her body except three fingers of her left hand and her right arm. She learned to 
read and write and as well as I remember, she was a well educated young woman. 
She died at the age of 28 years, 1918.

My grandparents lived there for many years then moved about half a mile toward 
highway 13, a part of the old Whitfield place. Sometimes while they were there 
they found some of the silverware the Whitfield's had buried during the Civil 
War. It was plain with a large "W" etched on the handles.

He moved his family and a married son and his wife over on highway 13 to the A. 
T. Griffin farm. While he was there, he learned the trade of basket making. He 
made bushel baskets, stand-up baskets (as I remember, they would hold three 
bushels), lunch baskets (my sisters and brother and I had one), ornamental 
flower baskets and bottomed chairs.

He and his son would go to the swamp looking a certain tree that would be easily 
riven into narrow slats. He had make a draw horse, a long board, one end 
weighted down on the ground, the other end stood on two legs. He cut a hole 
about eighteen inches from the upper end. Through that, he made a plunger to 
pass through the hole. At the top of the plunger, he carved a block of wood. The 
plunger was on an axis. He used his foot to push the plunger below the board 
backward which caused the forward pressing down on the slat he wanted to dress 
off with the drawing knife. 

The knife was a piece of metal with a knife edge (sharp) and a handle on each 
side. When the slats were riven, a lot of little strings of wood were left. He 
wanted all of those off so the slats would be smooth. Before he started weaving 
the slats, they were soaked overnight in a tub of water to make them easier to 
handle. The soaking kept them from splitting and breaking. 

His craft was known far and wide in this area and people came to buy his wares. 
After living there many years, my grandfather moved to Patetown, a small village 
on the other side of Goldsboro. By that time, my grandfather was too old to do 
anything, so he began to think about coming home to eastern Wayne County where 
he had lived so long. They moved to Union Academy Community. The children put 
him to bed when they arrived and he never arose from that bed.