The students of the Radical University: Samuel H. McCoy

Samuel Henry McCoy (b. Abt. 1858)
South Carolina. Black/mulatto.


Samuel McCoy was born around 1858 to unknown parents and living in Columbia, South Carolina by 1870.  He attended the Model School at Howard University for the 1870-71 academic year.  (The model school provided a curriculum that prepared students for Howard's normal and college preparatory programs.) Samuel was part of a cohort of 7 South Carolinians attending the Model School.  These students included William M. Nash, the son of state senator William Beverly Nash.  Attending Howard's (College) Preparatory Department at this time were a number of future University of South Carolina students, namely Paul J. Mishow, John M. Morris, and Alonzo G. Townsend.

McCoy registered at the University of South Carolina on October 5, 1874.  He entered in the college preparatory (or sub freshman) class, but by the January 1876, he was in the college class and on the classical studies track.  The university closed before he completed his degree.

McCoy continued his education after the university closure.  He attended Atlanta University from 1877-78 as a junior in the College Course.  In Atlanta, he was classmates with former U of SC students John L. Dart, J. J. Durham, Fletcher H. Henderson, Julius J. Holland, Robert Lloyd Smith, and Edward Johnson Stewart.  The next year McCoy left Atlanta University and married his former classmate Lillie Dale Flemister, a student from Atlanta.

Later McCoy and his wife move to Columbia.  McCoy worked as a custom house clerk, as a school principal, and in the railway mail service.  He last appears in the historical record working as a laborer in Columbia in 1912.


Sources
1). General Catalogue of Atlanta University, Atlanta, Georgia 1867-1918.  Atlanta University Press.  1918.

2). South Carolina Department of Archives and History; Columbia, South Carolina; South Carolina Death Records; Year Range: 1900-1924; Death County or Certificate Range: Richland.

3). 1870-71: Catalog of the Officers and Students of Howard University" (1870). Howard University Catalogs.

4). Columbia, South Carolina, City Directory, 1912