Although stories of specific slave breeding are rare, we found another one across the river in Kentucky, that of a stud slave in Ohio County.
Considerable social distance appeared to exist between the bottom land farmers and the owners of the poor hill farms. Various old tales and accounts of the activities of the respective families illustrate these distinctions and differences, many of which showed even more sharply during the Civil War.
One of these tales that told of the ante-bellum days in Ohio County was that of a huge and strong buck slave that was kept confined in a cabin in the hills back of the Old Hamilton Ford on Panther Creek and at the farm of old “Hickory Bill” Royal. The cabin doors and windows were barricaded with iron bars. This slave was kept for the purpose of service to the female slaves whose owners wished to bear strong children. It was told that he had to be chained up as he was too horny and too strong to be trusted loose. Report had it he was fed on raw meat and gunpowder.
Author’s Note:
A footnote in the book adds, “No documentation for this story was found. The Senior Author [Ellis Ford Hartford] thinks that the exact location of the cabin being given in the telling makes it partly true.” The 1850 census of Ohio Co., Kentucky, also noted a number of Royal households living in the same neighborhood, include ones for both a senior and junior William Royal, either one of which could be the “Hickory Bill” of the story.
Source:
Musgrave, Jon. “ ’Uncle Bob’ Wilson.” Slaves, Salt, Sex & Mr. Crenshaw: The Real Story of the Old Slave House and America's Reverse Underground R.R. Marion, IL: IllinoisHistory.com, 2004. 445. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Ellis Ford Hartford and James Fuqua Harford, 1983. Green River Gravel: A Heterogenous Collection of Historical and Humorous bits Concerning Life and Times in the Counties south of Green River. Utica, Ky.: McDowell Publications. 35, 38.
Further Reading:
I'll have to try that diet sometime