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16 YEARS a FOUNDER with a Postscript 16 YEARS A FOUNDER Documenting How One Of Thomas Jefferson’s Grandsons Was Misidentified As The Founder Of Florida State University (2002) – And How That Error Was Corrected (2018) With A Postscript - June, 2020 Mike Rashotte, Emeritus Professor of Psychology; FSU Faculty 1968-2003. Contact: [email protected] May, 2019 A Note of Explanation About This Paper This paper summarizes the main results of archival research I conducted between 2015 and 2018 to help me understand why FSU had not identified its “founder” until almost 150 years after the founding was said to have been done. As a retired FSU faculty member (Psychology: 1968-2003) I had free time in part of each year and I undertook the research out of sheer curiosity. I had no agenda other than to make sense of what seemed to me an historical oddity. My research efforts were certainly sporadic when I was in town, and came to a stop when I was out of town for a few months in 2017 and 2018. Before each stop, I summarized my findings up to that point which resulted in two papers mainly written for my own files. One was completed in June 2017, the other in May 2018. The major goal of the present paper is to provide interested parties with an integrated and somewhat streamlined rendition of the findings reported in my two earlier papers. 16 Years A Founder (2019; with a Postscript - June, 2020) Page 1 OVERVIEW For 16 years at the beginning of the 21st century Florida State University (FSU) claimed that a single individual from the 19th century had founded the institution. Although that individual’s founding activities had escaped notice in previous historical accounts of FSU’s origin and development, his appearance around the year 2000 could not have been better timed. FSU was about to celebrate the 150th anniversary of its ancestral institution being located in Tallahassee in 1857, and it would be pure celebratory catnip to have a previously unknown founder on hand to enliven the festivities. Indeed, the newly identified “founder” became the centerpiece of anniversary celebrations, and he seemed a very good catch to serve in that capacity. He was already well-known as a local historical figure, one of Tallahassee’s prominent white citizens who owned prosperous plantations. During the 40 years he spent in the area, he was appointed by the Governor as a Justice of the Peace in Leon County, he served as the elected city Intendant (mayor) on several occasions, and he played a key role in establishing Tallahassee’s Episcopal church. He also served on the Board of the ancestral institution once it began operation. His personal ancestry was the kind that public relations offices dream about: his grandfather, Thomas Jefferson, authored the Declaration of Independence, was the 3rd President of the United States, and had founded his own public university in Virginia What could possibly go wrong? Three things: 1. The “founder’s” much publicized resume omitted details that were important to some in the university community, and surfaced at an inconvenient time. FSU’s narrative routinely focused on the “founder’s” well-recorded accomplishments in local civic life, his local social status, and his distinguished ancestry. There was no mention of the fact that his local achievements and influence were importantly dependent on work done by a large number of enslaved people at his plantation. Of course, the “founder” was not exceptional in this regard: the wealth and standing of Tallahassee’s movers and shakers at the time depended on slavery, which was legal. It might be argued that it was unnecessary to draw attention to the “founder’s” slave-ownership because many people in today’s south would expect that plantation-owners succeeded in the ante-bellum era because of work done by their enslaved people. However, around the time of FSU’s 150th anniversary celebration students and faculty at other long-established universities and colleges were beginning to recognize the critical roles enslaved people had played in establishing and sustaining those institutions. In that inquiring spirit, some students at FSU eventually questioned whether the “founder’s” slave ownership, and his “enforcement activities” when serving as an appointed Justice of the Peace and as the elected mayor, were disqualifying for “founder” status at FSU. These students, and their cheeky questioning, became the subject of campus and public controversy which came to a head in 16 Years A Founder (2019; with a Postscript - June, 2020) Page 2 October, 2016, when FSU’s student body voted on the proposition that the “founder’s” campus recognitions should be removed because of his slave-ownership and “enforcement” history. Despite the proposal’s defeat at the ballot box, the very fact that it came to a vote was the first indication that trouble lay ahead for the “founder”. The historical cat was out of the bag, and slavery became part of the public discussion about FSU’s past for the first time. 2. FSU was faced with another challenging question that a university cannot avoid confronting: Was the “founder’s” status based on historical evidence? The “founder’s” advocates claimed that FSU’s ancestral institution came to be located in Tallahassee in 1857 because of the “founder’s” singular actions at the local and State levels. At the local level, his sustained and persuasive arguments were said to have been “vital” in convincing city officials and the public that the institution should be situated in town. Then, at the State Legislative level, the “founder” triumphed again when he was said to have overcome an earlier rejection by legislators and sealed the deal by making a generous offer of land and financial arrangements that legislators couldn’t refuse. The State soon awarded the much-coveted institution to Tallahassee, and it was inescapable that FSU’s newly identified “founder” had been the singular and key player who made this happen. FSU promoted this narrative about how its ancestral institution came to be, and the new idea of FSU having had a distinguished “founder” soon gained traction in the community and assumed the status of historical “fact’ in the media and on sites such as Wikipedia. Surprisingly, these impressive claims about the “founder’s” singular role in making FSU’s ancestral institution a reality in Tallahassee were not fact-checked against archival records located in the University’s own library. When the facts were eventually checked, it turned out that the crucial steps that brought the institution to Tallahassee had been undertaken over a period of several years without the recorded involvement of the “founder”. Even his appearance at the legislature with “generous offer” in hand during the final moments of the process which was recorded, turned out to have been fully choreographed by town council. It was successive town councils and mayors, prominent citizens, and (undoubtedly) enslaved people who did the heavy lifting that made FSU’s ancestral institution a reality in Tallahassee - none of which were credited in the founding narrative promulgated as part of the 150th anniversary festivities. Before the correct historical information was brought to light, however, FSU’s anniversary festivities peaked in 2002 when a handsome statue of the newly identified “founder” was installed at the university’s main gate. The inscription on an adjacent stone marker summarized it all: Francis Wayles Eppes, 1801-1881 Grandson of President Thomas Jefferson Founder of Florida State University A few years later, FSU’s poorly researched claims came home to roost in the form of a second challenge to its newly identified “founder”. 16 Years A Founder (2019; with a Postscript - June, 2020) Page 3 3. Dramatic events in August 2017 at the university founded by the “founder’s” own grandfather triggered a process at FSU that finally resolved issues surrounding the “founder”. In mid-August, 2017, white supremacist demonstrations at The University of Virginia and its home city included violence, protests about statues on campus and in town, and the death of one person. These events galvanized university leaders to take action that, in the words of FSU’s current President John Thrasher, were needed to “protect free speech while ensuring the safety and well-being of students, faculty and staff”. Thrasher’s statement was included in his announcement in September, 2017, of a 15-member President’s Advisory Panel on University Namings and Recognitions. The general charge to the panel was to “meet with university constituencies to seek input and feedback”, and to “examine and make recommendations on current university policies concerning campus names and markers, including statues and recognitions”. One of the specific topics for consideration was FSU’s recognitions of its “founder”, Francis Eppes, which at that time included his likeness in a statue at the main gate, his name on a nearby building, distinguished professorships bearing his name, and the revised narrative about the University’s beginning in which he was said to have played the “vital” role. All of Eppes’ recognitions and namings had appeared on campus during the excitement of the sesquicentennial festivities, only a few years earlier. The Advisory Panel considered much verbal and written input at several public meetings.1 Near the end of the process it heard from former FSU President Talbot D’Alemberte who had spearheaded the Eppes-As-Founder movement. The minutes of the meeting on April 2, 2018, summarize D’Alemberte’s remarkable admission that proper historical research had not been done about the “founder’s” role in bringing the ancestral institution to Tallahassee, and that he had mistakenly identified Francis Eppes as FSU’s “founder”2: He admitted that when he was President the conversation about Eppes should have included a fuller picture.
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