The Professors of Alcorn State: Lawrence W. Minor

Lawrence W. Minor
From Friends of Eastern Cemetery

Lawrence Washburne Minor (b. Abt. 1829; d. November 5, 1880)

Louisiana. Black.
Education: Oberlin College (A.B., A.M.)
Occupation: steam-boat porter, teacher.

Lawrence W. Minor was born in Ascension Parish, Louisiana in 1880 to the planter Philip Minor and a woman he enslaved, Lucy. Lawrence was one of three children produced by Philip and Lucy. 

By the time Lawrence was born, the Minor family was well-established. They had lived in Louisiana since the area had been under Spanish rule, and they accumulated significant wealth. By 1830, there were fifty-five enslaved workers on Philip Minor's plantation. Among the slaves, Lucy's family received special treatment. At the suggestions of some of Philip's relatives, he provided Lawrence and his siblings with private tutors. Philip died when Lawrence was only seven years old (in 1836), but in his will, he emancipated Lucy's family (the only slaves freed in his will). 

Before he died, Philip had been planning on sending Lucy's children north to receive further education. In his will, he bequeathed to her a significant amount of money with the expectation that it would be used towards educating their children. 

With the money provided by Philip, Lucy and her family moved north to Ohio, a free state. In fall 1839, at ten years of age, Lawrence began attending Oberlin College. He was at the college for a decade, attending the first the college preparatory program and then the college program itself. Accounts are contradictory as to how Lawrence's time at Oberlin ended. Oberlin records document that he got a degree in 1851, but a newspaper article reported that was dismissed because he refused to apologize to a tutor with whom he had a "slight difficulty." Later, in 1873, the college would award him a M.A. degree, although this was an honorary degree rather than a degree for academic work.  

After completing his degree, Lawrence moved to New Orleans. There he worked as a teacher and opened a store. While in the city, he appears to have met with personal difficulty. In September 1851, he was assaulted by two free persons of color (James Penn and Louis Poree). According a later account, Lawrence remained in the city for three more years and then returned to Ohio. 

Lawrence settled in the city of Cincinnati, where his mother was living. Both Lawrence and his brother Philip found work as porters on steamships. Lawrence first served on a steamer that ran between the cities of Louisville and Henderson and then on one that ran between St. Louis and Cincinnati. Working on a steamer was common as Cincinnati was an important river port, but it was a somewhat unusual choice for Lawrence as his college education made him as of the best educated Black men in the city. In a newspaper interview he gave in 1871, he explained his decision: it provided him with a "comfortable subsistence," and he was forbidden by "provisions for his family" (presumably meaning arrangements between Philip's family and Lucy's) from any "political aspirations." (Steamboat porter was widely seen as an "appropriate," or less "political," occupation for a free person of color, unlike a skilled job that used Lawrence's college education.)

The General Lytle, a steamboat on which L. W. Minor worked
From the Ohio History Connection

Lawrence's status as a free person created legal difficulties for him in late November 1854. That month the steamship he was working on docked in St. Louis. After he disembarked, he came under suspicion of being an escaped slave and was temporarily imprisoned after he was unable to prove his status as a freeman. 

There is no direct account of Lawrence's activities during the Civil War, but he presumably continued to work on a steamer. His brother Patrick enlisted in the Union army. He was an officer in the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment and saw combat in Missouri and Arkansas. While serving, he contracted "maladies" which took his life.

Lawrence continued working on steamships after the end of the war. He ran into legal problems for a second time in 1870. That year, he was working as a barber on the mailboat the "General Lytle." On Sunday August 7, while the boat was traveling from Madison, Indiana to Cincinnati, it was discovered that someone had broken into a drawer used to store valuables. Missing were $100 belonging to the steamer, as well as $75 and a gold watch belonging to the boat's clerk W. T. Fenton. The clerk suspected that the items had been stolen by Lawrence and William Merrian, the boat's "colored porter." A few hours after the boat arrived in Cincinnati, Fenton reported his suspicions to the police, and two officers arrested Lawrence and William. Both were imprisoned while a police officer searched the boat. No evidence incriminating Lawrence was found, so he was released from police custody, but the missing gold watch was found hidden in William's bed, so he was detained.

Lawrence left working on the Mississippi River for higher education in 1871. That summer he was hired as Alcorn University's first professor of Greek and Latin. Course offerings in classical languages were limited, so he also became the university's English professor. It is unclear how long Lawrence remained at the university, but he had left by November 1874 as all faculty resigned in response to student protests.

Lawrence's activities immediately after leaving the university are not well-documented, but he remained in Mississippi. In 1877, he was serving as chief clerk for state government under the newly elected governor John Marshall Stone, the state's first Democratic governor since the start of Reconstruction.

Lawrence only served in the Mississippi state government for a brief period. In spring 1878, he left the state for Texas to teach at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now Prairie View A&M). The college was the state's public HBCU, and it had been created two years earlier. Lawrence was hired by the college's first president, Thomas S. Gathright, who was "intimately acquainted" with him. It is unclear exactly what Lawrence's position was. Both the college's website and a contemporary newspaper article state that Lawrence was hired as president, replacing Gathright, but a report in the journal of the state senate states that Lawrence was hired as an instructor. 

The college opened its doors to students shortly after Lawrence was hired, on March 11, 1878. The college proved a failure. Only eight students arrived for classes, and the college was closed after a year. Lawrence's position was terminated in February 1879.

Lawrence remained in Texas, but he died the next year. The cause of death was "congestive chill." His remains were moved to Louisville, Kentucky, and he was buried in Eastern Cemetery in an unmarked grave.

Sources

1. "The Colored Professor." The Cairo daily bulletin., July 16, 1871, p. 3

2. "Chair in Alcorn University – From a Porter to a Professor." New Orleans Republican. [volume], July 19, 1871, Page 2, Image 2

3. Seventy-fifth Anniversary General Catalogue of Oberlin College. p. 676. 

4.The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M432; Residence Date: 1850; Home in 1850: Cincinnati Ward 1, Hamilton, Ohio; Roll: 687; Page: 49a

5.  The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M653; Residence Date: 1860; Home in 1860: Louisville Ward 8, Jefferson, Kentucky; Roll: M653_376; Page: 764; Family History Library Film: 803376

6. The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M432; Residence Date: 1850; Home in 1850: Cincinnati Ward 1, Hamilton, Ohio; Roll: 687; Page: 49a

6. The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M653; Residence Date: 1860; Home in 1860: Louisville Ward 8, Jefferson, Kentucky; Roll: M653_376; Page: 764; Family History Library Film: 803376

6. Year: 1880; Census Place: Precinct 1, Waller, Texas; Roll: 1331; Page: 400B; Enumeration District: 158

7. "River and Weather." Nashville union and American, August 10, 1870, p. 4.

8. "General Directory" The Daily clarion, January 11, 1877, p. 1.

9. The weekly democratic statesman. [Austin, TX], February 28, 1878, p. 2.

10. Journal of the State Senate of Texas.