Phoebe Bost

Phoebe Bost was born on a plantation near New Orleans, Louisiana, and was told she was about fifteen when she was freed. Her first enslaver, a man named Simons, took her to a slave auction in Baltimore, where she was sold to a man whose name she gave as Vaul Mooney. She said both men were very mean and would whip at the slightest provocation. She worked as a nursemaid and had to hold the baby the whole time it slept; sometimes she got so sleepy she propped her eyes open with broom straws. No singing or dancing was allowed on the plantation.

After freedom she took the name Mooney and went to Stanly County, North Carolina, where she worked for wages, until she came north and married Peter Bost. When interviewed, widowed and nearly ninety but still active, she lived with her daughter at 3461 Wilson Avenue in Campbell, Ohio.