Ellen (Polk) Cragin (abt. 1857 - abt. 1943)

Born about 10 Mar 1857 in Mississippi, United States

Died about 2 Jan 1943 at about age 85 in Arkansas, United States

Biography

Ellen (Polk) Cragin is a part of US Black heritage.

Ellen Cragin was interviewed in Little Rock, Arkansas in about 1937 about her life and her time as an enslaved person. The typescript is stamp dated May 31, 1938.

"I was born on the tenth of March in some year, I don't know what one. I don't know whether it was in the Civil War or before the Civil War. I forget it. I think that I was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi; I'm not sure but I think it was."

"And that was the last I seen of her until after freedom. She went out and got on an old cow she used to milk - Dolly, she called it. She rode away from the plantation, because she knew they would kill her if she stayed. My mother was named Luvenia Polk. She got plumb away and stayed away."

"My father was an Indian. 'Way back in the dark days his mother ran away, and when she came up, that's what she come with - a little Indian boy. They called him "Waw-hoo'che.' His master's name was Tom Polk. Tom Polk was my mother's master too. It was Tom Polk's boy that my mother beat up."

"My first baby was born to my husband. I didn't throw myself away. I married Mr. Cragin in 1867. He lived with me about fifteen years before he died."

"I married a second husband - if you could call it that - a n----r named Jones. He had a spoonful of sense. We didn't live together three months. He came in one day and I didn't have dinner ready. He slapped me. I had never been slapped by a man before."

Slave Owners

1. Tom Polk

Interview: Ellen Cragin was interviewed in Little Rock, Arkansas by Samuel S. Taylor as part of the Federal Writer's Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The results are made available by the Library of Congress. ^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ [1] Library of Congress - WPA - Slave Narrative - Ellen Cragin - Vol. 2, Arkansas, part 2; pages 42-49, images 46-53 of 358.

• "United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XMGH-Y8X : accessed 21 March 2023), Ellen Craigen, Little Rock, Pulaski, Arkansas, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 22, sheet 15A, line 17, family 338, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 91; FHL microfilm 2,339,826.

• Uncertain: "Arkansas Death Index, 1914-1950," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VJTM-FKP : 27 November 2014), Ella Craigen, 02 Jan 1943; derived from "Arkansas, Death Index, 1914-1950," database and images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : 2005); a multigenerational derivative citing Division of Vital Records, Arkansas Department of Health, Arkansas Death Index, 1914-1950 (Arkansas: Arkansas Genealogical Society).