CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION in the Period Immediately Following The
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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION In the period immediately following the close of the Civil War, philanthropic endeavors were undertaken to reconstruct secessionist states, establish wide-scale peace among still- hostile factions, and develop efforts to enact social, legal, and educational support. This philanthropic era is characterized by the activities of a number of individual, denominational, organizational, including state and federal supporters that were subsequently responsible for engendering a Negro College Movement, which established institutions for providing freed slaves, and later, Negroes with advanced educational degrees. This dissertation studied: the genesis, unfolding, contributions, and demise issues in conjunction with the social, economic, and political forces that shaped one such institution in Harper’s Ferry (Jefferson County), West Virginia: Storer College, which was founded in 1865 as an outgrowth of several mission schools. By an Act of Congress, in 1868, the founders of Storer College initially were granted temporary use of four government buildings from which to create their campus.1 Over the next 90 years, until its closure in 1955, the college underwent four distinct developmental phases: (a) Mission School [Elementary], (b) Secondary Division, (c) a Secondary Expansion, and (d) Collegiate. Even today—as a result of another Act of Congress—it continues to exist, albeit in altered form: in 1960, the National Park Service branch of the United States Department of the Interior was named the legal curator of the 1 United States. Congress. Legislative, Department of War. An Act Providing for the Sale of Lands, Tenements, and Water Privileges Belonging to the United States at or Near Harpers Ferry, in the County of Jefferson, West Virginia (1868). 1 former college campus. The campus is currently being developed as part of the National 2 Monument consolidation. 2 United States Congress, Storer College and The Harpers Ferry National Monument, H.R. (1960); United States Congress, Addition of Lands to Harpers Ferry National Monument, S. Rep. No. 86-1219, (1960). 2 BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM This section will discuss the post-Civil War philanthropic and social activities that ultimately led to the creation of Storer College. Brief Historical Unfolding In 1867, during the post-Civil War philanthropic era which gave rise to the Negro College Movement, Storer College was established by the Free Will Baptist denomination in Lockwood House on Camp Hill, in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, as an outgrowth of the mission school that had existed there since 1865. 3 Since the end of the war, the Free Will Baptists, early anti-slavery activists, worked in collaboration with a number of agencies—among them, the Bureau of Refugees, Abandoned Lands, and Freedmen; United States Christian Commission; American Missionary Association; American Baptist Home Mission Society; [Free Will Baptist] Home Mission Society; and the Free Baptist Woman’s Missionary Society—to educate freedmen in southern states. In these formative years, they had established an entire network of mission schools throughout the Shenandoah Valley, and their Home Mission Society had in this manner invested in the 3 Gideon A. Burgess and John T. Ward, "Storer College," in Freewill Baptist Cyclopaedia (Chicago, IL: The Woman's Temperance Publication Association, 1889), 625. Storer’s founding denomination, over the course of three centuries, is intermittently referred to as: New Lights and Separate, or Separatist Baptists [re: Second Great Awakening]; Randalians; Arminian Baptists; Free Baptists; Freewill Baptists; and, Freewillers. This investigation will be particularly sensitive to the denomination’s theological orthodoxy as it was understood, in the 18th century, by Benjamin Randal since Randal’s emphasis on free will was a vital component of Randalian theology and therefore responsible for the denomination’s founding. The denomination will be consistently referred to throughout this investigation as Free Will Baptists in an effort to preserve not only the denomination’s historical integrity but also, and perhaps more importantly, to respect the denomination’s nineteenth-century missionary appeal; Also see: John Buzzell, The Life of Elder Benjamin Randal (Limerick, ME: Hobbs, Woodman & Company, 1827}, 10-15. Phyllis P. Medeiros, The Seeds and the Soil (Lanham, MD: University Press, 1998); "Storer College," The Morning Star (Dover, NH), August 26, 1867; Sarah Jane Foster, Sarah Jane Foster, Teacher of the Freedmen: A Diary and Letters, FWB Mission Teacher, Manuscript Diary, ed. Wayne E. Reilly (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1990), 32; Anne Dudley, "Anniversaries: Home Mission Society." Special Edition. The Morning Star (Dover, NH), Wednesday, 23 October 1867, 1-2. 3 moral, social, and educational uplifting of a number of the four million freedmen that were dependently indigent and grossly undereducated. 4 The Free Will Baptists were a New England denomination, with the first church established in 1770, in New Durham, New Hampshire by Benjamin Randal, a George Whitefield convert. 5 Whitefield, an 18th century British evangelist associated with the religious revival of the Second Great Awakening and influenced by the Age of Enlightenment, made several trips from England to Colonial America, which was indeed “reawakened” and “enlightened” as a result of such evangelical efforts to a greater sense of moral principle and social obligation through autonomous reasoning.6 Thus, through his conversion of Randal, Whitefield became the model for the evangelical fervor and missionary zeal closely connected with the Free Will Baptists.7 By the 19th century, the ecclesiastical concentration of the Free Will Baptist denomination had expanded to include Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont, and various points west and south. 4 John E. Stealey, III. "The Freedmen's Bureau in West Virginia." West Virginia History 39 (1978): 99-142; Henry T. McDonald. “U.S. Christian Commission.” (Storer College Archives: Harper’s Ferry National Historic Park, 1937); M. Davis. History of the Free Baptist Woman's Missionary Society. Boston, MA: The Morning Star Publishing House,1900; Gideon A. Burgess and John T. Ward, "Storer College," in Freewill Baptist Cyclopaedia (Chicago, IL: The Woman's Temperance Publication Association, 1889), 625; Norman A. Baxter. History of the Freewill Baptists: A Study in New England Separatism. (Rochester, NY: American Baptist Historical Society, 1957). 5 Burgess and Ward, "Free Baptist Cyclopaedia: Historical and Biographical," 206-214. The spelling of Randal’s name is period sensitive; in the 19th century, Randal is spelled as: Randall. For purposes of this exploration, the document will adhere to the original spelling as it appeared in 18th century denominational literature and Buzzell’s biographical account of Benjamin Randal, whose title indicates: The Life of Elder Benjamin Randal, Principally Taken From Documents Written by Himself. Hence, it is suggested by Buzzell that the founder of the Free Will Baptist denomination spelled his name as: Randal. 6 Norman Allen Baxter, History of the Freewill Baptists (Rochester, NY: American Baptist Historical Society, 1957); C.C. Goen, Revivalism and Separtism in New England (1740-1800: Strict Congregationalists and Separate Baptists in the Great Awakening (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), i-xx. Also see: George Whitefield, Eighteen Sermons Preached by the Late Rev. George Whitefield..Taken Verbatim in Short-Hand, and Faithfully, trans. Transcribed: Josephy Gurney, ed. Revised: Andrew Gifford (Newbury, Massachusetts: Edmund M. Blunt, 1797). 7 Stephen A. Marini, Radical Sects of Revolutionary New England (Cambridge & Oxford: Harvard University Press, 1999), 40-101; Burgess and Ward, "Free Baptist Cyclopaedia: Historical and Biographical," 557-561 4 In an effort to relieve the plight of a number of these four million freedmen, the denomination had already devised for them a gradated plan of education and founded several mission schools for that purpose throughout the Shenandoah Valley.8 Free Will Baptists readily and willingly relocated to the valley not only to establish the schools but also to organize the Shenandoah Mission center in Harper’s Ferry. After a period of time, however, their educational plan demanded further advancement. A high school was planned, but their ultimate goal was the establishment of a college for Negroes in the south.9 This missionary initiative eventually led to the establishment of Storer College, which developed incrementally: (a) mission school (elementary); (b) secondary division (Academic/Normal Department); (c) secondary expansion (Musical, Biblical, and Industrial Departments); and (d) collegiate divisions (junior/senior).10 While religious organizations, like the Free Will Baptists, did much in the post- war years to establish a standardized level of education for southern freedmen, the subject also gained the attention of northern philanthropists, who became equally involved in the cause. In fact, Franklin and Moss advocate that “[t]he philanthropists contributed substantially toward bringing about a new day for education in the south…philanthropists did much to stimulate self-help on the part of the individual, the institution, and the states of the South…” since the philanthropists began to specify definitive terms and 8 Sarah Jane Foster, Sarah Jane Foster, Teacher of the Freedmen: A Diary and Letters, FWB mission teacher diary, ed. Wayne E. Reilly (Charlottesville,