Ohio History Journal

NOTES

WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH

1 Dictionary of American Biography, VII, 578.

2 Thus Richard Bardolph in The Negro Vanguard (New York, 1959) makes six references to

Scarborough (pp. 116, 120, 124, 133, 135, 215).

3 The Dictionary of American Biography, XVI, 409, gives the middle name as Saunders, the

form which is used in the printed Library of Congress authors' cards. Other convenient sum-

maries of his life are in the National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, XII (New York,

1904), 55, and in the Journal of Negro History, XI (1926), 689-693.

4 Manuscript autobiography; Who Was Who in America.

5 In 1850 Georgia's free colored population of 2,931 included 1,930 males between 20 and

30 years of age. J. D. B. De Bow, Statistical View of the United States (Washington, D.C., 1854),

63, 70. The legal restrictions were such that "the lot of the free Negro must have been a difficult

one legally, and many must have wished to have responsible white men to look out for them."

W. McDowell Rogers, "Free Negro Legislation in Georgia Before 1850," Georgia Historical

Quarterly, XVI (March 1932), 35.

6 The main line was from Macon to Savannah. It was made unusable for a time by the

destruction wrought by Sherman's men, but the line was restored by the end of 1866. C. Mildred

Thompson, Reconstruction in Georgia (Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and

Public Law, LXIV, New York, 1915), 106. The elder Scarborough served the railroad until

his last illness. He died in Macon in 1883, after a second stroke of paralysis. See also Peter S.

McGuire, "The Railroads of Georgia, 1860-1880," Georgia Historical Quarterly, XVI (1932),

179-214.

7 The boy had a cousin named Matilda Thomas. Whether J. C. Thomas had some undisclosed

relationship to the Scarborough family is not revealed. The Journal of Negro History, XI, 689,

says that Thomas was a "native white of the bitterest type, reputed as intensely hating Negroes."

8 Carter G. Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 (New York, 1915), 161, 167.

9 For a discussion of the role of the railroads, see Robert C. Black, III, "The Railroads of

Georgia in the Confederate War Effort," Journal of Southern History, XIII (1947), 511-535.

10 See B. H. Liddell Hart, Sherman: Soldier, Realist, American (New York, 1958), 231-307.

11 See also "The Stoneman Raid" and "General Wilson's Capture of Macon" in Captain John A.

Cobb, "Civil War Incidents in Macon," Georgia Historical Quarterly, VII (1923), 282-284.

12 The adjustment in general was severe. In Macon during December 1865 about five hundred

Negroes died, more than twelve times the normal number. Thompson, Reconstruction in Georgia, 46.

13 Ibid., 103.

14 D.A.B., V, 406-7, and X, 597.

15 See Alfred J. Hanna, Flight Into Oblivion (Richmond, Va., 1938), 101-102.

16 Scarborough saw Davis only once thereafter, following the latter's liberation from prison,

when he made a speech in Atlanta.

17 For the general reaction in the South, see E. Merton Coulter, The South During Recon-

struction, 1865-1877 (Baton Rouge, La., 1947), 119-138. See also Thompson, Reconstruction in

Georgia, 171-198.

18 For early activities of the bureau in Georgia, see George R. Bentley, A History of the

Freedman's Bureau (Philadelphia, 1955), 68-69.

19 Turner came to Georgia in 1867. President Grant appointed him postmaster at Macon in

1869, but he had to resign because of "persecution." Carter G. Woodson, History of the Negro

Church (Washington, D.C., 1921), 232. Professor E. Merton Coulter refers to Turner as

"Georgia's negre terrible" and quotes a letter from a carpetbagger to Charles Sumner (October 5,

1868) characterizing him as "a licentious robber and counterfeiter, a vulgar blackguard, a sacri-

legious profaner of God's name, and a most consummate hypocrite." Coulter, The South During

Reconstruction, 60, 98-99, 146.

20 During this period the Freedman's Bureau usually provided buildings for schools, for which

aid societies like the American Missionary Association provided the teachers. Thompson,

Reconstruction in Georgia, 125. For references to Mrs. Ball, see Henry L. Swint, The Northern

Teacher in the South: 1862-1870 (Nashville, Tenn., 1941), 194.

21 Swint, The Northern Teacher in the South, 35-142. In 1866 the influential Macon Telegraph

had expressed admiration for the altruistic zeal of the teachers, but by 1868 opinion had hardened,

the retiring teachers were greeted with, "Here comes Hell," and there were threats to burn their

rented house. Ibid., 109, 98-99.

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288                                                                    OHIO HISTORY

 

 

22 Lewis became assistant commissioner for Georgia, October 16, 1869. Bentley, A History of

the Freedman's Bureau, 215. Lewis, a native of Pennsylvania, had been a Union army officer

and then a carpetbagger. Later, when appointed state school commissioner by Governor Rufus B.

Bullock in 1870, he was denounced by conservative whites as an "unscrupulous, greedy carpet-

bagger." R. R. Hollingsworth, "Education and Reconstruction in Georgia," Georgia Historical

Quarterly, XIX (1935), 128.

23 General Catalogue of Dartmouth Alumni (Hanover, N. H., 1911), 303.

24 He later testified to the salutary influence of many persons, including a pioneer educational

leader from the North, Mrs. Mary E. F. Smith, who later came to Macon to teach and was asso-

ciated with Scarborough in Lewis High School. Mrs. Smith had marked evangelistic zeal, and

wrote from Macon, May 18, 1868: "The only important news I wish to communicate is this:

Five of my day scholars have become Christians, and I have every reason to believe that their

hearts have been changed. I am so happy." Quoted in Swint, The Northern Teacher in the

South, 40. Scarborough had high respect for the leaders of the American Missionary Associa-

tion, whose efforts, he believed, had "vastly improved in an educational and moral way the

entire Negro people of the South."

25 See Henderson H. Donald, The Negro Freedman (New York, 1952), 102.

26 Swint says that Ware, highly educated, "devout, sincere, idealistic," represented the highest

type of northern teacher associated with the best of northern culture. He served as president of

Atlanta University from 1869 to his death in 1885. The Northern Teacher in the South, 46.

27 Later he recalled three students who attained distinction and became his lifelong friends: Miss

Lucy Laney, who built up Haynes High School in Augusta, Georgia; Henry O. Flippin, who became

the first Negro graduate of West Point and later served with United States Cavalry in Mexico

but got into difficulties with his superiors; and Robert Wright, who became president of Georgia

State Industrial College and a leading state politician and later president of a bank serving a

Negro clientele in Philadelphia.

28 For the general situation as to Negro education in the South, see Calvin D. Early, "Educa-

tion of the Negro in the South, 1861 to 1875" (unpublished M.A. thesis, Ohio State University,

1932).

29 William C. Cochran, The Western Reserve and the Fugitive Slave Law (Western Reserve

Historical Society, Collections, Publication No. 101, Cleveland, 1920).

30 James A. Padgett, "Diplomats to Haiti and Their Diplomacy," Journal of Negro History,

XXV (1940), 271-274.

31 Something of the character of the family is indicated by what President Fairchild said of

Peck: "Many town improvements received their first impulse from him. Many a struggling student

or citizen received from him a timely suggestion or needed help. . . . He had the rare faculty

of doing many things and doing them well. . . ." James H. Fairchild, Oberlin: The Colony and

the College, 1833-1883 (Oberlin, Ohio, 1883), 299.

32 Probably he met Mary Church when he later took postgraduate work at Oberlin. He

recalled her class as '77, but she spent eight years there in the academy and college, graduating

in 1884. She was said to be "the first colored woman elected to a board of education in the

United States." For an appraisal of her career, see the Journal of Negro History, XXXIX

(1954), 334-337. Her husband, a graduate of Groton School and Harvard Law School, was

appointed a municipal judge of the District of Columbia. George C. Osborn, "Woodrow Wilson

Appoints a Negro Judge," Journal of Southern History, XXIV (1958), 481-493.

33 Oberlin College Announcement for that year in Ohio Historical Society Library. For a

convenient description of the campus and student life in the ¹⁸⁷⁰'s, see Donald M. Love, Henry

Churchill King of Oberlin (New Haven, Conn., 1956), 1-25.

34 Forrest Crissey, Theodore Burton (Cleveland, 1956), 40-42. After his graduation Burton

remained for two years at Oberlin, tutoring and studying law.

35 Scarborough's autobiography refers to her as Washington's first wife (he was twice a

widower), but apparently did not recall that a first wife, Fannie Smith Washington, had died

in 1884. Olivia Davidson Washington brought "zeal, persistence, and devotion to her race which

matched Washington's in intensity," and an "abundance of native intelligence, tact, organizational

ability and a background which included broader training than his and a wealth of invaluable

contacts in the East." Samuel R. Spencer, Jr., Booker T. Washington and the Negro's Place in

American Life (Boston, 1955), 59-60. See also Basil Mathews, Booker T. Washington (Cam-

bridge, Mass., 1948), 70-71, 191-192.

36 Shurtleff was married to an older sister of Scarborough's college friend the later Senator

Theodore E. Burton.

37 See also Harriet L. Keeler, The Life of Adelia A. Field Johnston (Cleveland, 1912), and

"The Age of Madame Johnston" in Frances J. Hosford, Father Shipherd's Magna Charta: A

Century of Coeducation in Oberlin College (Boston, 1937), 139-165.

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NOTES                                                                                  289

 

 

38 Scarborough states in his autobiography that there were fifty-two in the class, but the

Oberlin Alumni Catalogue (Oberlin, 1937), gives fifty-three.

39 This was the last public appearance of President Finney, who died a few days later,

August 16.

40 The former was the son of Henry Grimke of South Carolina and Nancy Weston, a beautiful

family slave, and was graduated at Princeton Seminary in 1878. He had a long pastorate at

the 15th Street Presbyterian Church, Washington, D.C. Culp, born in Unionville, S. C., in

1852, served as a Presbyterian and Congregational minister, after graduating from the seminary

in 1879, and later became a physician. Edward H. Roberts, comp., Biographical Catalogue of the

Princeton Theological Seminary, 1815-1932 (Princeton, 1933), 321, 325.

41 For Cain's career, see Samuel D. Smith, The Negro in Congress, 1870-1907 (Chapel Hill,

N. C., 1940) 43, 65-67, 93-94.

42 Francis B. Simkins and Robert H. Woody, South Carolina During Reconstruction (Chapel

Hill, N. C., 1932), passim.

43 For this phase, see Daniel W. Hollis, University of South Carolina (Columbia, S. C., 1956),

II, 61-80. Greener became associated for a time with Howard University and later was United

States Consul at Vladivostok, Russia.

44 He received the M.A. in 1878. Alumni Catalogue, Oberlin College (Oberlin, 1937), 27.

45 He was president of Wilberforce, 1863-76.

46 E. A. Miller, "History of Educational Legislation in Ohio from 1803 to 1850," Ohio State

Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, XXVII (1918), 7-142.

47 With some changes in 1853 these laws remained on the statute books of Ohio until 1887.

48 For the general situation as to the Negro in Ohio, see James H. Rodabaugh, "The Negro in

Ohio," Journal of Negro History, XXXI (1946), 9-30.

49 Frederick A. McGinnis, A History and an Interpretation of Wilberforce University (Wilber-

force, Ohio, 1941), 41-50.

50 Published by A. S. Barnes and Company, New York, in 1881.

51 Scarborough found that his students were delighted to use a book written by their professor.

52 The Recorder had been started as the Christian Herald. J. M. Buckley, A History of

Methodists in the U. S. (New York, 1907), 584.

53 McGinnis, Wilberforce University, 148-149.

54 Payne was made dean; President Mitchell, professor of systematic theology and Hebrew;

the Rev. C. W. Priolean, professor of historical and pastoral theology; and Scarborough, pro-

fessor of New Testament Greek and literature. The home of President Mitchell was purchased

for the seminary.

55 Besides Washington, speakers were President William Oxley Thompson of Ohio State

University, United States Senators Joseph B. Foraker and Charles Dick, and the former speaker

of the national house of representatives J. Warren Kiefer. During the commencement of 1907

the Carnegie Library at the university was also dedicated. McGinnis, Wilberforce University, 74.

56 McGinnis, Wilberforce University, 68.

57 Booker T. Washington, "A Negro College Town," World's Work, XIV (1907), 9361-9367.

58 McGinnis, Wilberforce University, 68-70.

59 W. S. Scarborough, Forty-Eighth Annual Report of the President, Secretary and Treasurer

to the Trustees of Wilberforce University (Wilberforce, Ohio, 1911), 3.

60 Scarborough raised all but the $13,000 obtained through the efforts of Miss Hallie Q.

Brown.

61 McGinnis, Wilberforce University, 183.

62 After Scarborough's death Hastings Hart declared it his opinion that the three greatest

colored men of the period were Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and Scarborough,

"each great lights in their respective spheres."

63 W. S. Scarborough, Wilberforce in the War (Xenia, Ohio, 1918).

64 W. S. Scarborough, "Wilberforce War Work," The Wilberforcian, I, No. 6 (March 1919).

 

 

URBAN RIVALRY AND INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS

 

* Research for this article was supported by the Social Science Research Council. An earlier

version of the paper was read at the annual meeting of the Mississippi Valley Historical Asso-

ciation in April 1962. The author wishes to thank Professors Richard C. Wade and Howard R.

Lamar, and his colleagues in the department of history at Dartmouth College, for criticism and

suggestions.

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