Ohio History Journal

WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH                                   205

influence on young Scarborough, helping him not only with his bookish

education, but, also as a master carpenter, with training in that craft. To

aid in this endeavor, Hall purchased a set of tools for the lad.

The father had early entered the employ of the Central Railroad of Georgia

and came to have a responsible position, instructing new employees--white

and Negro--in their duties, and often serving as conductor of excursion

trains.⁶ He was of a retiring disposition but enjoyed the companionship of

a few close friends. He had firm religious and moral convictions from which

he refused to swerve. While he made enemies, he was greatly revered by

his friends, and young people sought his advice and aid. He had joined the

Methodist Episcopal Church in his early years but later affiliated with the

African Methodist Episcopal Church when a congregation was established in

Macon after the close of the Civil War. A strict and loyal churchman, he

seemingly would rather have missed a meal than a church service, and he

earnestly sought to keep the congregation from difficulties of any kind. He

was rather indulgent toward the son, while the mother insisted on obedience,

good behavior, and good manners. As an only child the boy had to help with

household chores, even with the sweeping and dishwashing. As this work

sometimes kept him from playing with his friends, they often called him

"Miss Sallie."

The mother had been nominally the slave of Colonel William de Graffen-

reid, an aristocratic gentleman, able lawyer, and influential churchman, who

had most humane views regarding the Negro and was thoroughly liked by

all people of color who knew him. He enabled Scarborough's parents to

have (on Cotton Avenue, Macon) a home for themselves in which they could

rear their children. Later he provided all the books for young Scarborough's

college education.

Another helpful individual was J. C. Thomas, an intense southerner, who

usually opposed any progress for the Negro, but somehow took a remarkable

interest in Scarborough, building on the parents' efforts by teaching him to

read and write.⁷ He gave private lessons to the lad, in spite of the law which

provided fine and imprisonment for giving such instruction.⁸ It would seem

that this tutelage was known to people of both races, but De Graffenreid's

influence, the father's trusted position with the railroad company, and the

boy's popularity appear to have restrained criticism. Later some colored

friends gave him further instruction, which was made easier by the fact

that the family had a home of their own. Thus as a boy he was able to write

"permits" for Negro men to visit their families, justifying the fraud on

basic humanitarian grounds.

Even as a boy of five he carried the dinner pail to his father in the

206                                                  OHIO HISTORY

railroad yards two miles away, and once became temporarily lost because

of a storm. His father would sometimes let him ride in the cab with him on

an excursion train.

Before the boy was eight he had mastered "Webster's Blue-backed

Speller," and he studied arithmetic, geography, and history under a free

Negro family in the neighborhood. He loved to hunt, fish, swim, roam the

fields and woods, and, in general, take care of himself.

Most of his playmates were Irish boys of the neighborhood, some of

whom would defend him against larger boys and annoying outsiders. Boyish

fights were mostly with whites of the "cracker" class who resented any

advancement of Negro young people.

As he and his friends made youthful excursions into the pine woods near

Macon, they would often sit among the branches, talking by the hour. On one

occasion a lad told Scarborough that a terrible war was on its way. The

latter rushed home, and his parents then tried to explain the situation to him.

After the war began, Scarborough's father decided that the lad, while

continuing his studies privately, should learn another trade, that of shoe-

making, in addition to his training in carpentry. So the boy was apprenticed

to a friend of his father, a Mr. Gibson, a skilled workman. Each morning

the boy was supposed to clean up the shop, get things in readiness for the

day's work, and then read the news secretly to the workmen. During this

period, which lasted two years, he learned to make his own shoes and do

work for others, and he sought to read every book on which he could lay his

hands. Incentive was stimulated as hope arose that successes of Union arms

would lead to a greatly improved situation for the Negroes. Food of course

was high in price, and Negroes, unable to secure sugar, tea, and coffee, used

roasted corn or sweet potatoes as a substitute for coffee and used sugar cane

for sweetening. The Scarborough family moved several times, going from the

east to the west side of the Ocmulgee River in an effort to better their

condition. At last they moved back to East Macon, where the father's ability

at carpentry enabled him to build a home, where he lived the rest of his

life on land given him by Mr. Thomas.

During the war years Negro boys in the Macon area were often threatened

by white ruffians or seized on the streets and required to serve in the hospitals

where Confederate soldiers lay sick and dying. Young Scarborough had

several narrow escapes from violence or compulsion. His father, however,

not only went on the streets at will but visited the nearby camp to see rifle-

men drill. His important service on the railroad insured his exemption from

less crucial activity.9

As the war progressed, the family experienced alternate depression and

WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH                                   207

elation, and hoped that if the South should win, a sum set aside by the

railroad for the father's welfare could be used to enable him to go North,

and that friends might assist the mother to accompany him.

In the summer of 1864 Sherman began the siege of Atlanta.10 The

Scarboroughs in Macon could hear the gunfire seventy-five miles away. The

father had to labor on the railroad to help the cause which meant continued

subjection for his people, but it insured him against being forced on numerous

occasions to perform more dangerous duties. During the summer, Con-

federate soldiers, entrenched near the Scarborough home, compelled people

in the neighborhood to bring them water. On one occasion young Scar-

borough, without compunction, carried water to them in a dirty pail. As the

situation became more serious for the Confederates, those in Macon held

frantic prayer meetings on the town "green." When a Union attack failed,

and General George Stoneman and some of his cavalry staff passed the

Scarborough home as Confederate prisoners, the lad could not restrain

his tears.

Long before, of course, word had come of the Emancipation Proclamation

of January 1863. In September 1864, with the fall of Atlanta to the Union,

hopes of the family rose in expectation, but Lincoln's death in April 1865

was a cruel blow, followed by anxious forebodings. A few days later Macon

again faced alarm as the Union commander, General James H. Wilson,

once again approached the city.11 In East Macon the family was living

directly in front of the Confederate earthworks but did not move. Shells

were flying overhead, and everything was in a state of turmoil. Finally,

Confederate soldiers rode agitatedly into the city, giving the alarm that

Union forces were entering. As Union forces did come, the family slept

little that night. Later, the Scarboroughs learned that General Howell Cobb

had surrendered the city and that the bridge over the river had been saved

from destruction only by the prompt arrival of the vanguard of Union troops.

That the Union soldiers might not get possession of all of the supplies

provided for Confederate troops, the Macon authorities allowed the people

to take what they wished, and they poured quantities of liquor into the

streets. As the Union forces broke into the rest of the Confederate com-

missary stores, they permitted Negroes to take what northern soldiers would

not use. The Scarboroughs availed themselves of many needed articles, and

the lad obtained an abundant supply of pen points, pencils, envelopes,

and paper.

Soon General Wilson detailed officers to announce to the people the

effective emancipation of the former slaves. At a packed meeting in the

Presbyterian church, young Scarborough sat perched in an open window as

208                                                  OHIO HISTORY

members of his race rejoiced with cries and tears that their day of liberation

had come. The very next day in the Macon neighborhood almost every Negro

family which had served a white master moved out to seek a new life regard-

less of the trying adjustments.12

Macon, like some other southern towns, experienced a business revival

in 1865-66.13 Soon the youth was hired to work in a bookstore owned by

Mr. J. Burke, an ardent southerner, a sturdy Methodist, and a man of

generous human qualities. He allowed the lad to read widely and even

assisted teachers from the North who were arriving to advance Negro edu-

cation. A short time later the store was burned, but subsequently Burke

established another one.

The lad had earned his first greenback by selling, along with other white

and Negro newsboys, the Macon Telegraph, the city's chief paper. The boys

had permission to pass through the lines to sell papers to the soldiers.

Earlier, Scarborough had sold strawberries for a gardener at one hundred

dollars in Confederate script. Now it had lost its value, and United States

money was insisted upon. The lad made considerable profit through his

newspaper sales, the father carefully keeping it for him in a fine walnut box

with lock and key that had been fashioned by his carpenter uncle. Union

soldiers were very kind to the lad, as they often questioned him as to his

life ambitions, which already had been sharpened by knowledge of the

achievements of Frederick Douglass and John M. Langston.14

In May, Jefferson Davis was brought as a prisoner under special guard to

Macon.15 The boy, having climbed a tree in front of a hotel on Mulberry

Street, was only a few feet away as the former Confederate president was

taken into the establishment. Boyishly he exulted because of the turn of

events, but he was disappointed at the impression he received of the per-

sonality of the leader of the Lost Cause.16

As military rule under Union authority was established, young Scar-

borough witnessed the arrival of Negro troops to take the place of white

contingents in Macon. He also saw the resentment of southern people,

who nursed a poorly repressed feeling of disdain. Many times he noticed

white people going into the street gutters and mud, often to the detriment

of their attire, rather than walk under the Union flags flying above the

sidewalks.17

Soon, the Freedman's Bureau began to operate in Macon,18 and after a

time colored postmasters were appointed, Henry McNeil Turner, becoming

city postmaster and John G. Mitchell, assistant postmaster. Young Scar-

borough had first met Turner when the latter came to attend the first con-

ference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Macon.19 Mitchell,

WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH                                    209

an early graduate of Oberlin College (1858), was one with whom Scar-

borough was later to be associated very closely in his work in the North

(at Wilberforce). Another prominent Negro whom Scarborough met during

this period was the previously mentioned John M. Langston, who had come

to Macon to address a public meeting. From him the youth made his first

purchase of a significant book, one on the life and service of Abraham

Lincoln. In the meantime, Scarborough found employment at odd times

as a clerk in the Freedman's Bureau office in Macon.

Now, education could be pursued in a way which was freed from the

strain of the surreptitious, as the youth entered a school for Negro children,

opened in an upper room of the Triangular Block in Macon. A small tuition

fee was paid by each of about fifty students. The work was basically

elementary, but Scarborough had opportunity to refresh his knowledge of

the work previously done and to strengthen the weak aspects of it. He did

not remain long in this school, for the American Missionary Association

soon opened a school which first met in any available quarters. One of the

youth's teachers, Mrs. Sarah Ball, a schoolmistress from Townsend Harbor,

Massachusetts, later recalled how classes had met in the old slave quarters

of her home place near Spring Garden; in the old stable; in the old Methodist

church; in a former dwelling; in a chapel; and finally, in a new building.²⁰

She remembered Scarborough "as a large schoolboy with book ever in

hand, studious, obedient, and attentive." Scarborough developed enduring

admiration for those men and women who had left "comfort and ease" to

endure "ostracism, insult and calumny" from bitter southerners.²¹

The new building was Lewis High School, built by the American Mission-

ary Association, aided by the Freedman's Bureau. It was named for General

John R. Lewis, who, as a bureau officer, actively promoted its interests.²²

It was burned, as were the adjacent chapel and teachers' home, in December

1876, in the midst of the bitterly disputed Hayes-Tilden election. Apparently

the fire was of incendiary origin, for the school had many enemies. Later

it was rebuilt and renamed Ballard School. Among the teachers were John

R. Rockwell of Norwich, Connecticut, and the lady whom he subsequently

married. Rockwell, a Yale man of independent means, was forceful,

accurate, earnest, and a real gentleman, beloved by his pupils. He estab-

lished regular military drill, and Scarborough, before the end of his three

years of schooling there, had been made an officer in the cadet corps. During

these years the youth was absent only three times from classes, when he

was detained at home to help build the house.

Among the subjects studied were Latin, algebra, and geometry. Scar-

borough's advisor was a Dartmouth man, Samuel G. Haley, a person of

WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH                                     211

of his spare time working with other students in leveling the breastworks

and fortifications which remained on the campus from the wartime activities

of the Confederates.27

While at Atlanta University he took examinations with a state legislative

committee as visitors. He and others showed such proficiency in various

branches that the committee frankly admitted that the Negro could be trained

in such higher studies as Latin, Greek, algebra, and geometry. During one

vacation period the young man taught at Cuthbert, Georgia. The Franco-

Prussian War was in progress, and each afternoon after school he would

go to a friend's grocery store to spend an hour or more reading to those

who wanted to hear the latest war news. He was the first graduate of

Atlanta University. At the time there were no others and no graduation

exercises.28

At once he prepared to enter a northern college. He had planned to enter

Yale to become a lawyer, but a turn of events led him to Oberlin, and for

the first time in his life he left the South. On the journey at Nashville

another Negro attempted to rob him.

At Oberlin he lived with the family of a deceased professor, Henry E.

Peck, a leading figure in the activities of the Underground Railroad and a

participant in the famous Oberlin-Wellington rescue affair of 1859.29 Peck

had been diplomatic representative of the United States in Haiti before his

death there in 1867.30 Peck had accumulated a large library, to which the

young man had access. In this home of generous sympathies Scarborough

resided for the four years of his college training.³¹ The family entertained

noted visitors, including Dr. Richard Storrs, pastor of the influential Church

of the Pilgrims (Congregational), Brooklyn, New York; Dr. John Hall,

pastor of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York City; and Dr.

Leonard Bacon, pastor for a generation of First Church (Congregational),

New Haven, Connecticut. The indomitable Charles G. Finney, ex-president

of Oberlin College, was a frequent caller in the home. Scarborough also

drew inspiration from members of the Negro community in Oberlin. John

M. Langston, previously mentioned, who had been arrested for his part in

the Oberlin-Wellington rescue of 1859, lived opposite the Peck home, and

his son Arthur was an intimate college friend. Among Scarborough's

college friends were Arthur Langston, '77; Robert Bagby, '74, later a lawyer;

and Matthew Anderson, '74, who later attended Princeton Seminary, took

up work at Yale, and subsequently established a successful industrial school

in Philadelphia under Presbyterian auspices. Scarborough later recalled

the beginnings of a lifelong friendship with Mary Church, who later married

Judge Robert H. Terrell.³²

212                                                 OHIO HISTORY

The new environment presented a marked change for him, but he was

admitted to the college without conditions. Everywhere he met a helpful

spirit, and he was proud to wear the freshman cap with a blue visor, bearing

the letters "O.C.," and with a star in the center. He was surprised at the

small number of Negro students, for expenses were so low that one could

pay all expenses, attend concerts, and dress neatly on less than $300 a year.

Indeed, the college prospectus indicated that rooms, completely furnished,

in Council Hall, were free, and that total expenses ranged from $48 to $73.50

for a twelve-week term in 1874-75.33

His previous preparation had been such that he was able to assist fellow

students in their difficulties with Latin, Greek, and mathematics. He en-

deavored to continue at Oberlin his previously developed systematic habits

of study. After the noonday meal he spent an hour on the playground, and

somewhat later an hour in the reading room. Study in his room or a little

manual work followed thereafter. At night and again in the early morning

he would review his lesson preparations.

The college library was a great aid to him and he read two or three books

a week. History and biography, including Prescott's works; the writings of

Emerson and De Quincey; and Tom Brown at Oxford all brought him

exhilaration and inspiration. There were some Spanish students in residence,

and he made some progress in the language with their assistance.

There were monthly "Rhetoricals" and weekly Thursday "Literary"

gatherings, when all listened to addresses by faculty members or prominent

visitors. Of the three Greek letter societies, there being no fraternities or

secret organizations, Alpha Zeta was that with which Scarborough was

affiliated. Here the students obtained training in expression and debate, and

Scarborough afterwards recalled clashes in forensic skill with Theodore

Burton, '72, later congressman and senator from Ohio.34

He also developed a lasting friendship with Ernest Ingersoll, who became

a noted naturalist. The Musical Union helped to promote an interest, which

always remained with him, in vocal and instrumental music.

He found that socially he was always so generally accepted that he forgot

differences in color. The students sometimes attended theaters and other

places of amusement in nearby cities. Fun at Oberlin included a funeral

ceremony for Thucydides when the students had concluded their study of

that author. His parents sent him money regularly, but in his spare time

he added to his resources by sawing wood for the Peck family.

During a long winter vacation he taught for a time at Enterprise Academy,

Athens County, Ohio. There a Rev. Mr. Boles gave leadership to a student

constituency comprised chiefly of elementary students from West Virginia.

214                                                  OHIO HISTORY

This phase of the young man's life came to completion with the college

commencement on August 5, 1875, at First Church, Oberlin. There were

fifty-three who graduated this year,38 but these exercises were for the

thirty-six members of the classical course, each of whom spoke, Scar-

borough discoursing on "The Sphere and Influence of Genius.^"39

Now at twenty-three the young graduate faced the problem as to how he

might best use his efforts and even his life to advance the members of his

race. He decided that after four years of separation from his family he

would first return home, going via New York City and there taking a steamer

for Savannah. As he left Oberlin for Cleveland he was approached by two

Roman Catholic priests, who tried to interest him in going to Rome to

study for the priesthood. He had some warm Catholic friends at home, and

he considered the proposal at some length, but at last decided that his

Protestant background was too much a part of his makeup for him to follow

such a course.

En route to New York he stopped at Princeton to visit Matthew Anderson,

an Oberlin graduate. Two other Negro youths, Francis J. Grimke (from

Lincoln University) and Daniel W. Culp (from Biddle), were then enrolled

at Princeton Seminary.40 A rumor got around that he planned to enroll at

Princeton University to take graduate work, and this created some con-

sternation, for no Negro had ever been enrolled in the college. In New York

friends offered to seek a scholarship for him at Harvard Divinity School

so he could prepare himself for the Unitarian ministry, and he wondered

why various people wished him to join the ranks of the clergy.

In Macon there was a joyful reunion with his parents. He brought

testimonials, including one from President Fairchild commending his "high

character, good scholarship, and successful experience as a teacher." De-

ciding to remain in Macon and engage in teaching, he sought a position

at Atlanta University, but his old friend, E. A. Ware, while deploring the

fact, indicated that the "time was not ripe" as yet for a Negro teacher in

the university, for the trustees would not agree to such an appointment. Some

friends in Macon called a meeting to raise funds to compensate him for

teaching in a private school. Then after a brief period the American

Missionary Association appointed him as an assistant in Lewis High School.

In the summer of 1876 he went north, visiting the Centennial Exposition

in Philadelphia and friends in New York City. The Rev. Mr. Pike, a secre-

tary of the American Missionary Association, who was engaged in classifying

for publication records and papers relating to the Mendi Mission in Africa,

endeavored to interest him in going to Africa to devote himself to the study

WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH                                   215

of the languages and dialects with a view to the later translation of the

Bible into these tongues. Scarborough recognized the need for such studies

but decided to return to his work in Macon.

At the fall elections every effort was made to intimidate Negroes at the

polls, and it was deemed advisable to close the school on election day.

Ill feeling stirred up by the contested Hayes-Tilden election stimulated

much hatred and animosity. Negro schools, especially those taught by

northern teachers, became the target of attack, and in December the Lewis

High School was destroyed by fire. Along with political bitterness an

epidemic of yellow fever raged through the South during the autumn. Now

the American Missionary Association sent professors from Atlanta University

to confer with the teachers at Macon with regard to rebuilding or abandoning

the work there. Rather cramped temporary accommodations were secured

in the basement of the colored Presbyterian church, with living quarters in

a room warmed by a stove with the stove pipe projecting through an opening

made by removing a pane of glass. Two white teachers from the North

lived in the home of Mrs. John Rockwell across the street. After the close

of the school year the American Missionary Association debated whether

to continue the work at Macon or transfer the white teachers to Fisk Uni-

versity. The former was decided upon, but privations and overwork made

it necessary for the teachers to remain in the North for a period, and

Scarborough was forced to find employment elsewhere.

A new opportunity for him was provided by two leaders of the African

Methodist Episcopal Church, Bishop Richard H. Cain, a vigorous Negro

minister in South Carolina, who had been a member of congress and a

prominent leader during Reconstruction days,41 and the Rev. J. M. Brown,

who later became a bishop. The denomination had established a Negro

school known as Payne Institute at Cokesbury, and Scarborough was put

in charge. Later it was moved to Columbia, South Carolina, and eventually

became known as Allen University.

The period was one associated with the political struggle between Wade

Hampton and Governor Daniel H. Chamberlain and between the white

supremacists and the carpetbaggers for control of the state. The air was

rife with conflict, so that it was unsafe for any Negro to take a prominent

part in any aspect of public affairs.⁴² Following Hayes's inauguration, of

course, support was withdrawn from the carpetbag governments in the South

and they collapsed. Now, according to Scarborough, "many politicians who

had professed great love for the race and had made use of the Negro for

their personal aggrandizement in riches and power, turned against him."

A Negro, Richard T. Greener, a Harvard graduate who had been instructing

WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH                                     217

at that university. But with disconcerting frankness Payne voiced his own

belief that Scarborough was too young for the position. Scarborough later

asserted that he learned not to take Payne's "plain speech too much to

heart, and to interpret the twinkling eye and twitching lip that accompanied

his utterances." The young Oberlin graduate at this time asserted that he

would do his best to fill the place and would grow older with time. The

bishop, apparently reassured, abandoned his objection, and thereafter proved

to be a staunch friend and supporter. Possibly John Mitchell, an Oberlin

graduate and onetime Macon postmaster who was living at Wilberforce, may

have suggested Scarborough's name.

Wilberforce University had been a landmark in Negro education. In

Ohio, when public schools were established after 1821 and especially

beginning in 1825, Negroes were not expected to attend, and a law of

1829 even forbade their enrollment.⁴⁶ By a law of 1849 separate Negro

schools were provided in places where there were twenty or more Negro

students. Where there were fewer colored children of school age, the law

permitted them to attend the white schools, if there was no objection.⁴⁷

As the Negro population of Ohio increased,48 the African Methodist

Episcopal Church sought to implement Payne's concern for Negro educa-

tion. The four conferences of the denomination took steps to establish a

school on the manual training plan which would also prepare young men

for the ministry. The result was the securing of land twelve miles from

Columbus, Ohio, and the chartering of a school known at first as Union

Seminary. From 1847 until 1863 it operated under two persons who later

attained eminence as Negro leaders, John M. Brown, subsequently a bishop,

and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, destined to become a poet. In the

meantime, the Methodist Episcopal Church, North, was also stirred to

action, and in 1853 took steps resulting in the purchase of property known

as Tawawa ("Sweet Water") Springs, near Xenia. In the midst of the old

Shawnee Indian country, it had been a fashionable summer resort. The

school, incorporated as a university in August 1856, was named for William

Wilberforce, the noted English abolitionist. A white minister, Dr. Richard

Rust, served as president from 1858 to 1863. At first most of the students

were half-breed children of southern white planters, but the fathers by

1863 could no longer give financial support, and the school closed. Bishop

Payne, who had been associated with the enterprise since its inception,

bought the property for $10,000 in behalf of the African Methodist Episcopal

Church, although at the time he had no resources for the project but "faith

in God and friends of the race." Union Seminary was now merged with

the university. Rechartered, it became, according to Scarborough, "the oldest

WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH                                   219

was a well of never-failing water and in nearby ravines were the "Tawawa

Springs," which were said to have medicinal qualities derived from iron

and sulfur.

The school was supposedly organized in four departments. Of the faculty

members, four were Wilberforce graduates, four were white teachers in

the law department, who lived in Xenia, and two were white ladies living

at the school. Of the fewer than one hundred students, some were well

advanced in age. During this period teachers came from England and

Scotland and from Oberlin and Mount Holyoke. From the latter came

Mrs. Alice Adams ("Mother Adams"), whose son Myron later became

president of Atlanta University.

Having undertaken his responsibilities at Wilberforce, Scarborough sought

to make his class work more effective by designing cards for parsing and

for verb work in Latin grammar, and he wrote a textbook, First Lessons in

Greek.50 The head of the firm which published the work was a trustee of

Adelphi Academy, Brooklyn, New York, which school led the way in the

adoption of the text.51

During this period Scarborough married a white woman, Mrs. Sarah C.

Bierce, a graduate of Oswego Normal School in New York State. The two

had been fellow high school teachers at Macon, and she was teaching at

Wilberforce at the time of their marriage. There she served as professor

of natural science (1877-84); professor of French (1884-87); and principal

of the normal department (1887-1914). Scarborough later testified, "There-

after I had a faithful, loyal and untiring comrade, and our interests were

mutually shared."

In 1884 Benjamin F. Lee was made editor of the African Methodist

denominational paper, the Christian Recorder, and Wilberforce sought a

new head.52 The very able Dr. John G. Mitchell was chosen to fill the post,

but circumstances prevented his acceptance, and the position went to his

brother, Samuel T. Mitchell, then associated with the Springfield, Ohio,

public school system. Scarborough considered him to be a "man of ability

and energy." Mitchell was the first layman elected to the presidency, hence

he was at once ordained to the ministry to preserve "an inviolable tradition."

Scarborough now considered offers from other places, but the new presi-

dent and many friends urged him to remain. He had purchased a few acres

of land and a barn for a horse and carriage, and he contemplated building

a home. He found his classes and his student contacts stimulating. He,

moreover, had been promised the opportunity for literary expression and

additional financial compensation in helping prepare denominational litera-

ture. These prospects materialized, but in 1891, after he had been at

220                                                  OHIO HISTORY

Wilberforce for thirteen years of earnest activity, serious trouble developed.

He later explained that it seemed that he "had gone too far and too fast

to suit some people." The difficulties were of long standing and were due

to a clash of personalities and of educational ideals. Scarborough had

experienced frequent clashes in faculty meetings with Joseph P. Shorter

of the class of 1871, vice president (1884-92), and a member of the board

of trustees for over twenty years. Shorter was brusque, sarcastic, and

somewhat erratic, and was aggressively combative in faculty discussion.

Scarborough was interested in scholarly progress, especially in the classics,

while Shorter taught mathematics and sought to get the faculty to seek state

funds to establish a normal and industrial department. As a fitting climax

to Shorter's efforts he was made head of that department in 1892, serving

until his death in 1906.53

Scarborough also clashed with President Samuel T. Mitchell, who had

been Wilberforce's president since 1884 (and was to serve until 1900),

and who on the whole had harmonious relations with the faculty. Now, in

1892, the president had difficulty (arising from personal jealousies) with

Scarborough. After both sides had presented their case to the board of

trustees, a vote of confidence was given to Mitchell. Scarborough lost his

position, Horace Talbert being named to the professorship. The next day,

however, Scarborough was named to a professorship in a newly established

theological department, separately organized and governed by its own

board of trustees. It was named Payne Seminary after Bishop D. A. Payne.⁵⁴

During his first year in the seminary no provision was made for regular

salaries, each faculty member being expected to do what he could to raise

the necessary funds. Scarborough owed money on his home and could not

collect his back salary from the university. He later commented: "Had the

movement, taking me from college work, been an attempt to cripple me at a

critical time, it came near succeeding." But fortunately his wife's income

remained steady, for her position in the normal department had come under

state authority.

Scarborough later recalled: "My pen was my sole dependence. It looked

dark, but friends and creditors gave a helpful hand, as they realized the

situation with indignation. My wife and I redoubled our literary efforts."

Magazine work came to them. Bishop Payne, moreover, put in Mrs. Scar-

borough's hands the task of compiling from his voluminous diaries and

letters materials for the first volume of The History of the African Methodist

Episcopal Church and then for his Recollections. Scarborough's seminary

colleagues were on the whole congenial and cooperative. The new work,

however, called for the unpleasant task of begging for money, with frequent

222                                                  OHIO HISTORY

In 1897 Scarborough's services at Payne Seminary came to a close, as he

was appointed to his old professorship at Wilberforce and was made vice

president of the institution. He later said that he felt that his years at the

theological school had been years of spiritual growth, for he had come to

see that, like the Israelites, his own race had to go through trying experi-

ences. He had learned, he thought, the wisdom of the philosophy of Samuel

C. Armstrong, founder of Hampton Institute, that what one cannot change

he must endure.

The death of Bishop Benjamin Arnett, a close friend, in October 1906

was a severe blow to Scarborough, especially since plans were underway

for Wilberforce's golden jubilee in 1906-7. The observance, nevertheless,

took place, and during the festivities a reception was given at the Scar-

borough home for Booker T. Washington.55

Soon a drastic change was to take place in Scarborough's basic situation.

From 1900 to 1908 Joshua H. Jones had served as president of Wilber-

force, but growing dissatisfaction with the administration led to the appoint-

ment of Scarborough, who was to serve from 1908 to 1920. Since the

financial condition of the university was precarious, many friends advised

against his acceptance of the appointment. The welfare of the school,

however, was at stake, and the large amount of accumulated back pay (with

interest) owed to Scarborough would not be forthcoming unless the institution

could be placed on a sound financial basis. He accepted the position and

immediately saddled himself with personal obligations to meet university

debts and make university repairs.

Quite the antithesis of President Joshua Jones, Scarborough was "mild-

mannered, dignified, scholarly, impractical and eccentric. Moreover he

was a layman."⁵⁶ He received warm congratulations from William Howard

Taft, Senator Joseph B. Foraker, and others. Booker T. Washington, during

the previous year, in a national magazine, had paid tribute to Scarborough,

his "beautiful and well-kept" home, and his extensive library, associated

with the "refined, studious atmosphere of a scholar."⁵⁷

Wilberforce not only lacked funds for adequate educational services and

necessary expenses but faced suits for the payment of old debts. The

historian of Wilberforce tells us that Scarborough lacked outstanding

executive qualities, but his reputation as a scholar proved a valuable

asset. Scarborough was able to secure the advice and endorsement of

influential Negro and white friends, and he traveled extensively in the

East, meeting philanthropic individuals and boards and delivering addresses.

Thus he became "the best public relations officer that the school ever had."⁵⁸

Beginning in 1909, moreover, there had been a notable increase in financial

WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH                                     223

support from the African Methodist Episcopal Church conference. Reporting

to the university trustees in June 1911, Scarborough stated: "The problems

this year have been much the same as last. Many of the difficulties, however,

that we met in the past year have been overcome, and I am glad to say

that the future is bright. Through our efforts in the East many friends have

become interested in our institution and have promised tentative help....

Our great drawback has been the lack of advertisement.^"59

As early as 1908 Scarborough had been able to interest Andrew Carnegie,

whom he had met at Tuskegee, in providing help in erecting a badly needed

girls' dormitory. In March 1909 Carnegie had agreed to give half the

cost if the other half would first be raised elsewhere. Scarborough met

with major success in this effort. Miss Hallie Q. Brown of Wilberforce

had gone to a missionary convention in Scotland, and while in London

had conferred with a former Cincinnati resident, Miss E. J. Emery, who

wrote for detailed information regarding Wilberforce and later promised

to give a sum equal to the amount which she had provided for a building

at Tuskegee Institute. Booker T. Washington aided with his influence, and

the financial efforts were so successful that it was decided to build a larger

structure than the $35,000 one previously contemplated. Costing over

$50,000, the dormitory was named Kezia Emery Hall after a member of

the family of Miss Emery.60

Presidential responsibilities involved not only financial matters but efforts

to raise scholastic standards, duties in connection with commencement

exercises, and activities in the interest of alumni clubs. At the Wilber-

force commencement of 1909 Scarborough had delivered the baccalaureate

address, taking a Biblical text as the basis for his remarks. This had led

to considerable criticism by Wilberforce trustees, who considered that only

ordained clergymen should preach.

In stimulating alumni interest he arranged in 1910 for the Wilberforce

University Club of Washington, D.C., to join in a large meeting in the

capital attended by President Taft and other notables, an occasion which

brought widespread attention to the concerns of the university. In May

1912 he attended a reception in his honor given by the Wilberforce alumni

of Kansas City. These are illustrations of Scarborough's efforts to develop

an effective alumni association, but the years of his presidency did not

meet with success in this respect.⁶¹

During Scarborough's administration the Ohio flood of 1913, which was

especially disastrous in Dayton, cut off the Wilberforce community from

telephone, telegraph, and railroad connections with the surrounding country

for ten days. Pecuniary losses caused some parents to withdraw their

224                                                  OHIO HISTORY

children from the university, and financial aid to the school was impaired

by the catastrophe.

At the Wilberforce commencement in June 1915 Scarborough had as

his house guest and commencement speaker his Oberlin classmate Dr.

Hastings H. Hart, a brother of Professor Albert Bushnell Hart of Harvard

and a leader in the work of prison reform.⁶² During the early part of the

same year he had spent some time in Florida, recuperating from an accident,

and in the summer had made a trip to California. Returning from the

West he had met with Wilberforce alumni, reaching home in time to speak

on "The Educational Value of Environment" at the opening convocation

of the university. Scarborough's absence from a meeting of the bishops

of the church, an absence due to his convalescence in Florida, had pre-

vented him from meeting some criticisms which they had made of the

operation of the school. Now he found it necessary to reply with considerable

vehemence to the attacks upon his administration.

Since 1914 Europe had been involved in the First World War, with all

of its devastating fury, and in April 1917 the United States entered the

fray. With America's entry into the struggle, Scarborough became much

involved in affairs relating to it. Wilberforce students had received military

training since 1894. Indeed, it was the only Negro college in the country

with a military department supported by the national government and

with a regular military officer detailed as instructor. Now Wilberforce

became a center for the examination of applicants for the officers' training

camp at Des Moines, Iowa, and after examination thirty young men were

sent there for training. Many Wilberforce male students left school to

assist in food production. The university of course joined in various

wartime activities. Scarborough became a member of the Ohio Council

of National Defense, in reality the governor's war cabinet. He also served

as one of the staff of Frederick C. Croxton, federal food administrator for

Ohio; as one of three labor advisors in Ohio to represent Negro labor in

the interests of food conservation; and as a member of a special "Committee

of One Hundred" to assist in mobilizing public opinion in enthusiastic

support of the war aims of the nation.

During the summer of 1917 about 180 Negro soldiers were trained in

the Wilberforce University training detachment of the United States Army.

Scarborough also secured the establishment of a unit of the Student Army

Training Corps, which began its activities in September 1918. In general

the war department did not locate Negro and white trainees in the same

barracks, so Ohio Negroes who entered the corps were generally advised to

go to Wilberforce.

WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH                                     225

Professors and students from Wilberforce also went to a training camp

at Howard University to take intensive preparation for service as clerks in

France. Scarborough, interested in those from Wilberforce who went to

the officers' training camps, visited such centers and was always well re-

ceived.⁶³

After the signing of the armistice in November 1918, the S.A.T.C. was

soon demobilized, and a reserve officers' training unit was provided in its

place. For a time such training was unpopular, as the war spirit had defi-

nitely waned. Now Wilberforce also became a rehabilitation center for the

instruction of disabled soldiers in various lines of vocational work.⁶⁴

By this time the financial status of Wilberforce had improved. Not only

gifts from alumni and other Negro donors but also a gift of about $28,000

in assets from the closing of the Avery Institute in Pittsburgh had been

extremely helpful. At the same time at Wilberforce, local rivalries and

differing ideas of educational objectives found expression in attacks on the

college department, and even a few alumni were persuaded that it was their

duty to keep alive dissension between the church-supported department and

that which received state aid. Scarborough and his friends, however, were

able to prevent the passage of proposed state legislation which would have

cut the $5,000 annual appropriation to the university; to prevent the reduc-

tion of the number of Wilberforce trustees so that the college itself would

have had but two of seven members of the board, this proposal being vetoed

by the governor; and to defeat a measure which would have made the normal

and industrial department an independent institution with a head of its own.

This last proposal had resulted in a legislative committee being created that

spent two days at Wilberforce looking into the situation, but the legislature

took no further action and the status of the institution at this time remained

as before.

The strain of the war and of contentions on the campus had drawn heavily

on Scarborough's strength. During the war the influenza had broken out

among those in the student training corps, and every available hall had been

turned into a hospital. Scarborough had taken two preventative serum injec-

tions, and for some reason these had induced convulsions.

In March 1919 the death of Bishop Cornelius Shaffer, who presided over

the affairs of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the Wilberforce

area, was a severe blow to Scarborough, who had found in Shaffer a trusted

friend. The way was now paved for attacks on Scarborough by those wishing

to advance the interests of others.

By this time the condition of the university made the presidency a desir-

able one, and interested parties groomed their candidates for the place.

226                                                    OHIO HISTORY

Having served twelve years as a conscientious president, Scarborough could

give a favorable report of his services at the board meeting of the general

conference of the church. A modern system of accounting had been insti-

tuted; bank credit had been restored; considerable alumni interest had been

aroused; Founders' Day had been developed as a contribution to financial

success; and the curriculum had been revised, standards raised, and courses

enlarged and increased in numbers. Debts had been reduced to $25,000;

the endowment fund had been increased; state appropriations for the univer-

sity had been increased from $3,500 annually to $5,000; and Emery Hall

had been built and furnished.

Yet there was opposition to Scarborough. A long feud had existed be-

tween Joshua H. Jones, president of the board of trustees, and Scarborough.

Many believed that Jones now forced Scarborough's retirement in an effort

to secure the place for his son, Gilbert H. Jones. After two days of wrangling

among the board members, however, the post went to John Andrew Gregg,

then president of Edward Waters College, Jacksonville, Florida. Thus Scar-

borough's long official relations with Wilberforce had come to an end.

[To be concluded in the next issue]

THE AUTHOR: Francis P. Weisenburger

is a professor of history at Ohio State Uni-

versity. His latest book, Triumph of Faith:

Contributions of the Church to American Life,

1865-1900, was published earlier this year.