Chinese war refugees in South Carolina

Walter Yeh and his family in Columbia, SC in 1956
From Richland Library

The hiring of white faculty and especially the enrollment of a white student at Allen University attracted the public's attention. Unnoticed was that Allen also hired its first Asian professors in 1954, the year it broke with its tradition of maintaining an all-Black faculty.

The professors hired were music professor Walter Huai-deh Yeh and sociology professor Ju-Shu Pan. Their hiring was part of a general effort by Allen University president Higgins and AME bishop Reid to improve academics and integrate the university, and generally help the university adapt to the changes that were expected to follow the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education court decision.

For Drs. Yeh and Pan, their arrival in Columbia, South Carolina marked the end of a long path to escape political turmoil in China. Both had been born in the early 1910s. They had been college students in China during the 1930s, but their studies were disrupted by the war with Japan.

Pan was born in Zhejiang province, and he attended Tsing Hua National University in Beijing. He received an A.B. degree in 1937. This was timely as war broke out that year, and Beijing was captured by Japanese military forces in June. It is unclear what Dr. Pan did immediately after graduating, but he left China in 1944. He was able to secure passage on an army transport, and he landed in San Pedro, California on July 1, 1944. He moved to Chicago and enrolled as a graduate student.  

Walter Yeh in 1958
From the Allen University yearbook via Richland Library

Yeh also moved to the United States in 1944. He was born in Shanghai. For college, he pursued a B.A degree from St. John's University in Shanghai and then studied at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. St. John's University was a liberal arts college founded by American missionaries. It was known for offering superior academics, and the school maintained close relations with American universities. These experiences provided Yeh with familiarity with American culture, which would prove important when he moved to the U.S. 

Yeh graduated from the music conservatory in 1935. It is unclear what he did for the next five years, but in 1940, he was hired as a music professor at the conservatory. His studies took place at an incredibly difficult time as the city of Shanghai was a war zone. Japanese military forces tried to take control of the city in 1932. After encountering resistance from Chinese forces, they agreed to a cease fire, but fighting broke out again in 1937. Large parts of the city were destroyed, and the Chinese military was driven out. For the remainder of the war, until 1945, Shanghai was under Japanese occupation.

The exact date of his departure was not recorded, but he likely left in late 1943. Yeh's path to the United States was circuitous. He flew over the Himalayan mountains to Calcutta, India and then took a ship to Melbourne, Australia and then finally arrived in Los Angeles, California on February 8, 1912. In his arrival documents, Dr. Yeh wrote that he was traveling to Ann Arbor, likely to work or teach at the University of Michigan. However, he ended traveling further east and enrolled at the Eastman School of Music at University of Rochester, receiving an M.A. and a Mus. M. (in music theory) in 1945. He then studied at Harvard University and received an A.M. degree in 1948. He was awarded a Ph.D. by Rochester the next year. His dissertation was "The Chinese Symphony, with male chanters, solo baritone and solo soprano." He received the highest score (219 ell) of all graduating student, in fact all graduating students for several years.

After receiving his Ph.D., Dr. Yeh moved to Alaska to work at Sheldon Johnson Junior College. He only remained there a year, returning to Boston in August 1950. From 1951 to 1954, he worked as a researcher at Harvard. He left that position to move to South Carolina and hold a joint appointment at Benedict College and Allen University.

Ju-Shu Pan in 1958
From the Allen University yearbook via Richland Library

Dr. Pan also moved to Columbia in 1954. He was hired as a professor of social science. He had completed his Ph.D. in sociology in 1946. He then remained at Chicago, working as a researcher. Pan studied the experiences of elderly people who moved into retirement homes. In addition to his dissertation "A Study of the Personal and Social Adjustment of Old People in Homes for the Aged," he published five articles in academic journals (American Sociological Review, The Journal of Educational Sociology, Geriatrics, and The Journal of Social Psychology). Pan's job at Allen was his first permanent one.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate any detailed accounts of how Pen and Yeh came to be hired. Edwin Hoffman said that he'd been hired directly by President Higgins and Bishop Reid, and both were very candid about the situation in South Carolina. He was told that, if hired, he would be among the first white professors at the university, and they only wanted to employ faculty who fully supported civil rights for Blacks. Presumably, they had similar conversations with Pen and Yeh, although both would have had limited experience with the political issues.

In Columbia, Pan and Yeh stood out. Not only were they among the first non-Black faculty at Allen, but they were among the first Chinese immigrants in the city. In 1950, only eleven people in the entire metropolitan area were non-white, non-Black. 

The Social Science Club in 1958. Dr. Pan is in the back row, second from the right. Dr. Hoffman is second from the left.
From the Allen University yearbook via Richland Library

Both Pan and Yeh appear to have appreciated the stability of their jobs in Columbia as they largely remained there for the rest of the careers. After his first year, Dr. Pan moved to Waco, Texas to serve as department chair at Paul Quinn College, but he returned to Allen the next year.

Dr. Pan lived in an Allen University apartment complex for faculty. This was one of the few (possibly the only) racially integrated residences in the state, and he was neighbors with Edwin Hoffman, John G. Rideout, and Forrest O. Wiggins. Dr. Yeh may have lived there as well for a year or two, but by 1957, he had purchased his own home located near the University of South Carolina (at 615 Henderson).

In their accounts of their time in South Carolina, neither Hoffman nor Davis mention Yeh or Pan, so presumably they didn't interact much. Newspapers regularly reported on musical performances that Dr. Yeh helped organized, but otherwise, the two attracted little notice. They were not mentioned at all during the public fight over the employment of Hoffman, Rideout, and Wiggins. 

Certainly, both had good reasons to avoid getting involved in politics. As members of South Carolina's tiny Chinese immigrant community, they could expect minimal support if they became political targets. Dr. Pan was especially vulnerable since he was a non-U.S. citizen and thus could face deportation. 

Moreover, nether seemed to be interested in the political issues. On a form submitted as part of an application for citizenship, one of Pan's former professors at the University of Chicago said that, not only was Pan not member of the communist party, but he in fact was anti-communist. Dr. Yeh appears to have been perceived as someone who would stay out of politics as President Veal made him made chairman of the humanities department in 1957, following the removal of Rideout from this position.

Both Drs. Pan and Yeh remained at Allen for the rest of their careers. Pan published a translation of the Chinese ethnography report, The Lolo of Liang Shan by Yueh-Hua Lin, in 1961. This was a notable accomplishment for professor at a small university that had only began to pursue research ambitious. Unfortunately, this was the last academic work he published as he died two years later of natural causes.

Dr. Yeh lived until 1990. In Columbia, he was a well-regarded member of the community who regularly participated in music performances. He amassed a large music collection. The collection was donated to the University of South Carolina after Yeh's death, and it is currently housed in the Music Library.

The Communist Activities Committee: South Carolina's Baby HUAC

Reflecting the political mood, the cover of the 1958 legislative manual featured a statue of ex-Confederate Wade Hampton in front of a Confederate flag
From the South Carolina State Library

One of the long-lasting consequences of the political attacks on Benedict College and Allen University was the creation of the Committee to Investigate Communist Activities. The committee appears to have had its origins in Governor Timmerman's January 15, 1958 annual message to the General Assembly. A large part of his speech was devoted to accusing Allen University and Benedict College of harboring highly trained communist workers. His speech ended with a recommendation that the General Assembly create a committee to investigate communist activities in order to protect the state from the "communist menace."

The legislature quickly took up the governor's suggestion. The proposed bill was read for the first time in February. It was ratified into law two months later, on April 16, 1958.

The committee was charged with investigating communist activities within the state and regularly reporting to the state General Assembly. They were also to recommend legislation when their investigations suggested that new laws were needed to preserve the state government. 

The committee's main power was to the ability to subpoena witnesses to testify before hearing and provide records like personal books and papers. The committee also was allowed to administer oaths and enforce them by charging witnesses with perjury. The history of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and committees like it demonstrated how significant these powers could be. Just subpeona-ing someone to testify could draw the press's attention and lead to the person being fired from their job and generally ostracized by the community.

The committee members were also given financial resources. They were allowed to employ an executive secretary or general counsel and clerical staff, and were reimbursed for their work via a per diem of ten dollars and milage. For its first year, the committee was appropriated ten thousand dollars (comparable to $100,000 in 2022) from the state general fund for the first year.

An observer knowledable about the history of HUAC-like committees would have sounded alarm. A committee like this provided legislators with a powerful political weapon, creating pressure to expand it beyond its original scope.

Florida's Johns' Committee illustrated how the dynamic could play out. The committee was created two years earlier (in 1956) to investigate organizations that participated in violence or in violation of state law. This type of language was often used to target communist organizations, which were believed to support the violent overthrown the United States government. The committee began by investigating civil rights groups like the NAACP with the goal of establishing ties between these groups and communism. However, in 1961, the legislature broadened the committee's charge to include investigating homosexuality. The committee's activities began to focus on universities, and it started investigating not only suspected homosexuals but also research and teaching activities that committee members found objectionable. Activities that raised concern included the publication of a scholarly article on Beat writers which included mild profanity. The committee questioned university students and faculty, and a number of them ended up being expelled from university.

Senator Rebert C. Dennis, a member of the investigative committee
From the 1958 SC legislative manual via  South Carolina State Library

Remarkably, none of this happened in South Carolina. In its first report (issued in May 1959), the committee reported that they found no substantial evidence of Communist Party activity within the state and expressed the opinion that no new legislation was needed to combat "subversive activities." Two years year (in May 1961), the state legislature expanded the committee's charge to include creating an educational program that informs South Carolinians about the threat posed by communism. 

The committee's activities became focused on its educational mission. In its public reports, the committee continued to advocate remaining vigilant against communism activities, but they also acknowledged that they had found no evidence that such activities were taking place. The sole activity they reported was that a Black self-help organization on Johns Island (the Progressive Club) had received twenty-eight thousand dollars in funding from the Highlander Folk School, a social justice center that many conservatives believed was a communist front. 

Although it existed for decades, the committee never held a public hearing and never used its power to subpoena. Its investigative function appears to have been limited to passing on tips it received to state law enforcement, especially SLED (the statewide investigative law enforcement agency).

In its 1971, committee members expressed concern about the growth of the New Left and student activism on college campuses. Anticipating that its focus would shift to these new political movements and away from communism, the committee asked the legislature to  be renamed the Internal Security Committee. The name change was made 1973.

At the time of the name change, the committee was still meeting twice a month, but it had become largely irrelevant in the public's eyes. The Columbia Record newspaper described the committee as "long inactive" in a 1973 article on the name change. The committee issued no further public reports, and it's unclear what, if anything, the committee did as its records have been lost. 

Remarkably, the committee remained in existence until 1993 when it was disbanded as part of a general reorganization of the state government. In the early 1980s, one state representative (Jarvis R. Klapman) proposed that the committee should focus on guarding against terrorist attacks on critical facilities like the Savannah River nuclear power plant. Nothing came out of this, and by the late 1980s, the committee members were spending their time addressing safety concerns about the Statehouse parking garage. 

Senator Francis C. Jones, a member of the investigative committee
From the 1958 SC legislative manual via  South Carolina State Library

The failure of the investigative committee can be attributed to political factors. The committee's most vocal supporter was Governor Timmerman, and he left electoral politics shortly after the committee was created. Under the state constitution, Timmerman was limited to a single 4-year term in office, and when his term ended (on January 20, 1959), he was appointed as a federal court judge. He remained in the judgeship until his retirement.

While Timmerman served as governor during a pivotal time in South Carolina's history, his political influence was limited. He had been elected in the first gubernatorial election held after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. Throughout the south, voters (who were overwhelming white because of voter suppression laws) were outraged at the prospect of school desegregation, and gubernatorial elections were largely decided by candidates' positions on segregation. Timmerman had won the election by being the most vocal segregationist.

Senator John C. West, a member of the investigative committee
From the 1958 SC legislative manual via  South Carolina State Library

Timmerman's overt and heavy-handed attacks on desegregation ran counter to the approach taken by many state politicians. In 1991 newspaper interview, the investigative committee's first chairman, John C. West, later said that the committee was "kind of a hot potato" and senior legislators did not want it. West said that he'd been given the chairmanship because he was a junior state senator looking for more experience on committees.

West's remarks should be viewed critically. He had a long and successful career in politics, and the investigative committee looked like an embarrassment by the 1990s, so he had every reason to downplay the support for the committee. A close examination of the historical record both supports and complicates West's statements. 

Once the initial shock of the Brown court decision wore off, South Carolina legislators avoided the sort of overt repressive measures that Timmerman advocated. Instead, they planned for a managed compliance with desegregation in which major elements of racial segregation were preserved through covert means. For example, public teacher salaries had been determined by a pay scale that was explicitly racist: the set wage for a black teacher was lower than that of a white teacher with the same experience. This system was replaced by one that used standardized test scores to determine salary after legislatures discovered that they could set score cutoffs in a way to largely replicate the older, overtly racially biased system.

The evolution of the investigative committee shows a similar strategy at play. A major component of the committee's educational activities involved working with the University of South Carolina (especially the international studies professor Richard L. Walker) to develop a summer program for public school teachers designed to train them on how to educate students about the purported dangers of communisms and the superiority of American democracy. By doing so, they made university administrators and faculty complicit in the state government's efforts to suppress leftist politics, but unlike more heavily-handed efforts like demanding the firing of left-leaning professors, this collaboration was unlikely to draw public criticism.

In the long-term, Timmerman's attacks on higher education were a dead end. The dismissal of the Benedict and Allen professors was the last effort by state politicians to force out left-leaning professors. However, those attacks demonstrated South Carolina politicians' interest in controlling and repressing higher education within the state. Those politicians were successful in their efforts. In the years that followed, the state government desegregated its higher educational system while simultaneously implementing measures (like the use of standardized test scores in admissions) designed to largely leave intact the system of white supremacy that segregation had produced. This was done with the acquiescence, and sometimes even the cooperation, of university professors. Ultimately, the hope expressed by the dismissed Allen University professor Edwin D. Hoffman, that resisting Governor Timmerman would "encourage teachers to stand on their own hind legs and be men," was not realized. 

Rep. Paul S. McChesney, Jr., a member of the investigative committee
From the 1958 SC legislative manual via  South Carolina State Library

Rep. James A. Spruill, Jr., a member of the investigative committee
From the 1958 SC legislative manual via  South Carolina State Library

Rep. T. Emmet Walsh., a member of the investigative committee
From the 1958 SC legislative manual via  South Carolina State Library

Professor of Atlanta University: Horace Bumstead

From Jen Snoots via FindAGrave

Horace Bumstead
From Jen Snoots via FindAGrave

Horace Bumstead
From Wikipedia

Horace Bumstead
From Atlanta University via Wikipedia

Horace Bumstead (b. September 29, 1841; d. October 14, 1919)

Massachusetts. White.
Education: A.B. (Dartmouth), D.D. (New York University)
Occupation: clergyman

Horace Bumstead was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Josiah Freeman and Lucy Douglas (Willis) Bumstead. His father Josiah worked as a merchant and authored a number of schoolbooks written for primary schools. His father was concerned about the rights of African Americans. Before the Civil War, he served as superintendent of a Sunday school for African Americans, and during the war, he taught freed persons who had fled to the north.

Growing up, Horace attending public schools in Boston including the Boston Latin School. At Boston Latin, his teachers included a friend and former classmate of the abolitionist Wendall Phillips (Francis Gardner). Horace had several opportunities to hear Phillips and he was inspired by his speeches advocating for ending slavery. 

After graduating from the Lain School, in 1859, Horace entered Yale College. He graduated with honors in 1863.

After receiving his college degree, Horace decided to fight for the Union in the Civil War. He was commissioned as a major for the 43rd United States Colored Infantry Regiment. He served during the final year of the war and then for six more years. He was present at the sieges of Richmond and Petersburg. In the summer of 1865, after the war had ended, Horace was and his troops were sent to Texas, near Brownsville, for garrison duty. Horace was discharged from military service on December 1, 1865.

After leaving the military, Horace continued his studies by enrolling at Andover Theological Seminar. He attended from 1866 to 1870 and then traveled around Europe. He spent fourteen months on the continent and visited Austria, Belgium, France, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, and England. While in Germany, he spent two semesters studying at the University of Tubingen. He attended lectures by the distinguished theologians Johann Tobias Beck, Gustav Friedrich Oehler, and Karl Heinrich Weizsäcker.

The Franco-Prussian War was on-going while Horace was in Europe. He was in Paris shortly before the German army besieged, and he was there a second time after the Paris Commune was put down. 

After returning to America in February 1872, he moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota to serve as pastor at the Vine Street Congregational Church (now the Park Avenue Congregational Church). The church had only recently been formed with support from the American Home Missionary Society, and Horace was its first regular pastor. Horace found work at the church frustrated and began seeking alternative employment. In the summer of 1874, his classmate Edmund A. Ware, then founding president of Atlanta University, visited him. In college, the two had discussed moving to the south after the Civil War and working to educate freed persons. Excited by the prospect of realizing these plans, Horace resigned from his pastorship in spring 1875 and moved to Atlanta.

Horace planned to work at the university for a year as an experiment, but ultimately, he remained there for almost three decades. He first served as professor of natural science. In 1880, he became professor of Lain and treasurer, serving in the second position until 1886. The year after he received these positions (in 1887), he received a D.D. degree from New York University. This degree was honorary (rather than earned by studies), but the university had chosen to confer the degree in recognition of a recent publication of Horace's, "The Biblical Sanction for Wine." 

Following the death of Atlanta University's founding president Edmund A. Ware, the university had a series of acting presidents. Horace served as acting president for the 1886-87 academic year and then received a regular appointment as president, serving from 1888 and 1907.

Horace faced a major controversy during his first year. Atlanta University had long had a racially integrated student body with the children of white professors studying alongside African Americans. During Horace's first year as university president, state legislators became upset upon learning that white students were studying alongside African American students. They threatened to withdraw financial support that the state government had been proving if the university continued to allow white students to attend. Horace refused to segregate the university, and in response, the legislature followed through on their threat to withhold funding. This had serious consequences for the university. For much of Horace's presidency, the university faced financial difficulties.

Horace's resistance to pressure from the state legislature was indicative of his presidency. Horace's former student and colleague George A. Towns one of the first and best allies that African Americans had among white people. In addition to resisting the state government's efforts to impose segregation, Horace promoted offering a high-quality academic education at Atlanta University during a time when there was intense public pressure to only offer vocational or "industrial" education for African Americans. One particularly notable act was the hiring of the celebrated academic W. E. B. Du Bois in 1897. During Horace's presidency, Du Bois wrote his celebrated books The Philadelphia Negro and The Souls of Black Folk. 

As a figure on campus, Towns recalled Horace as a man with "[t]he culture of Beacon Street [in Boston] ... in his speech, his dress, and his very walk .... He was cultivated 'to his finger-tips;' yet with all he was a noble soldier in precision and in loyalty."  

After stepping down from the university presidency, Horce retired to Brookline, Massachusetts. In retirement, he continued to support Atlanta University through fundraising. Horace died in New Hampshire in 1919. His death certificate lists cause of death as "unknown." Horace is buried in Forest Hills Cemetery and Crematory in Jamaica Plain (in Boston). 

Publications

1. "The Biblical Sanction for Wine." The Bibliotheca Sacra. Vol. XXXVIII, No. CXLIX. January 1881. 47-113.

Sources

1. Obituary Record of Yale Graduates, 1919-1920. (New Haven, Connecticut; Yale University, August 1920), 1360-1362.

2. Towns, George A. "Horace Bumstead." The Southern Workman. December 1919. 630-631.

3. A History of the Class of 1863, Yale College. Being the fourth of those printed by order of the class. (New Haven, Connecticut; The Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Company, 1905). 47-56.

4. Towns, George A. “Phylon Profile, XVI: Horace Bumstead, Atlanta University President (1888-1907).” Phylon (1940-1956) 9, no. 2 (1948): 109–14.

5. New Hampshire Archives and Records Management; Concord, New Hampshire; New Hampshire Death Records, 1650-1969. Box number: 1104.

6. Year: 1850; Census Place: Boston Ward 6, Suffolk, Massachusetts; Roll: 336; Page: 326b.

7. Year: 1860; Census Place: Monson, Hampden, Massachusetts; Roll: M653_504; Page: 919; Family History Library Film: 803504.

8. Year: 1880; Census Place: Atlanta, Fulton, Georgia; Roll: 147; Page: 141B; Enumeration District: 089

9. Year: 1900; Census Place: Boston Ward 17, Suffolk, Massachusetts; Roll: 684; Page: 12; Enumeration District: 1407; FHL microfilm: 1240684

10. Year: 1910; Census Place: Brookline, Norfolk, Massachusetts; Roll: T624_608; Page: 26A; Enumeration District: 1085; FHL microfilm: 1374621N 

Professors of Atlanta University: Frank W. Smith

Frank Webster Smith (b. June 27, 1854; d. February 11, 1943)

Massachusetts. White.
Education: Harvard University (B.A., A.M.), University of Nebraska (Ph.D.)
Occupation: principal, teacher

Frank W. Smith was born in the town of Lincoln, Massachusetts to Francis and Abigail Prescott (Baker) Smith in 1854. His father was a farmer. He was a student at Phillips Academy (in Andover), graduating in 1873. He then attended Harvard University. He graduated from Harvard in 1877.

After receiving his undergraduate degree, he decided to work as a teacher. He was hired by Atlanta University that September. He served as the instructor of Greek and Latin, although his duties occasionally included teaching in other subjects. In an 1880 report to a Harvard alumni publication, Frank wrote that his experience at the university "has been varied and valuable, and I have had a good opportunity to become somewhat acquainted with an interesting part of the county."

Frank returned to the North around 1880. By 1883, he was teaching history and classics at the State Normal School in Westfield, Massachusetts. During this time, he continued his own education. Harvard awarded him an A.M. degree in 1882, although this was likely an honorary degree rather than an earned degree. Two years later he took classes at Harvard's summer school and then he attended the Teachers College at Columbia University from 1899 to 1900. Four years later, he received a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska. The degree was awarded for his dissertation "Studies in the evolution of the secondary school."

In 1896, Frank left his position at the State Normal School and moved out west. He settled in Grand Junction, Colorado and served as the superintendent of public schools. He moved to Salt Lake City, Utah and worked as a school principal and superintendent from 1900 to 1901. 

Frank returned to the northeast in 1905, after serving as an adjunct professor of education at the University of Nebraska from 1903 to 1905. He settled in the town of Paterson, New Jersey and served as principal of the City Normal School as well as the city examiner from 1905 to 1920. During this period, he wrote several articles and books on education, including Jesus - Teacher, The High School: A Study of Origins and Tendencies, and Historical Development of Secondary Education: From Prehistoric Times to the Christian Era (a version of his dissertation).

In1927, Frank retired to Winter Haven, Florida. He remained there until his death from heart problems in 1943.

Publications

1. "Studies in the evolution of the secondary school" (1904). ETD collection for University of Nebraska - Lincoln. AAIDP14152.

2. "The Normal School Ideal." Education. Vol. XXXIII, No. 1. September 1912.  19 - 26.

3. The High School: A Study of Origins and Tendencies (New York, New York; Sturgis & Walton Company, 1916).

4.  Jesus - Teacher: Principles of Education for both Public and Bible School Teachers (New York, New York; Sturgis & Walton Company, 1916). 

5. Historical Development of Secondary Education: From Prehistoric Times to the Christian Era (New York, New York; Sturgis & Walton Company, 1916). 

Sources

1. Year: 1860; Census Place: Lincoln, Middlesex, Massachusetts; Roll: M653_511; Page: 411; Family History Library Film: 803511

1. Year: 1910; Census Place: Paterson Ward 11, Passaic, New Jersey; Roll: T624_906; Page: 5B; Enumeration District: 0156; FHL microfilm: 1374919

2. Year: 1920; Census Place: Paterson Ward 5, Passaic, New Jersey; Roll: T625_1064; Page: 18B; Enumeration District: 107

3. Year: 1930; Census Place: Winter Haven, Polk, Florida; Page: 8A; Enumeration District: 0014; FHL microfilm: 2340065

4. Year: 1940; Census Place: Polk, Florida; Roll: m-t0627-00613; Page: 8A; Enumeration District: 53-39

5. Year: 1870; Census Place: Lincoln, Middlesex, Massachusetts; Roll: M593_626; Page: 352A

6. Harvard College: Class of 1877, Secretary's Report, No. II. (Cambridge, Mass; Riverside Press, 1880) 41-42.

7. Marquis, Albert Nelson. Who's Who in America: A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Living Men and Women of the United States: Vol. 12, 1922-1923. (Chicago, Illinois; A. N. Marquis & Company, 1923) 2849. 

Professors of Atlanta University: Cyrus W. Francis

Cyrus W. Francis
From A History of the Class of 1863, Yale College

Cyrus W. Francis
From A History of the Class of 1863, Yale College

Cyrus West Francis (b. June 17, 1838; d. June 12, 1916)

Connecticut. White.
Education: Yale College (B.A., B.D.)
Occupation: preacher, teacher, 

Cyrus W. Francis was born in 1838 in Newington, Connecticut to Cyrus and Nancy D. (Pratt) Francis. His parents ran a family farm. The family had deep roots in New England. Their ancestors had moved to the area in the 1600s, and one ancestor (Justus Francis) had served as a major in the Continental army during the Revolutionary War.

For school, Cyrus attended Dummer Academy in South Byfield, Massachusetts. He graduated valedictorian and then began attending Yale College. He attended Yale from 1859 to 1863, and was a standout student. He won third prize in an English composition competition and served as a deacon in the college church. He was classmates with Horace Bumstead and Edmund A. Ware, the founding president of Atlanta University.

After receiving his B.A. from Yale, he began studying in Yale's Theological Department. He completed a B.D. degree from the department in 1867.

His studies at Yale were interrupted towards the end of the Civil War. From 1864-65, he served in the U.S. Christian Commission, providing religious support with social services to Union soldiers. He was stationed in Washington, D. C. and in Summit Point in the Shenandoah Valley. 

By the time he graduated from Yale's Theological Department, Cyrus was licensed to preach and ordained as a missionary. In October 1867, he sent to Atlanta, Georgia by the American Missionary Association to perform religious and education work for freedmen. In March 1869, he was made pastor fo the First Congregational church. After serving as church pastor for four years, his wife became seriously ill, so he left his post and moved to California in the hope that a new climate would improve his wife's health. Sadly, her health problems persisted, and she died a few months after the move.

After his wife's death (in 1873), Francis returned to Georgia and became involved with Atlanta University. He remained at the university for almost two decades, until 1894. He held a number of important roles. He first held the professorship of systemic theology but was transferred to the position of professor of ethics and Christian evidences after one year. He also served as a trustee for twenty-seven years (from 1867 to 1893), librarian (from 1874 to 1887), and college church pastor (from 1874 to 1894). In the 1887-88 academic year, he served as acting president. 

In 1894, Francis left Georgia to return to Connecticut. He first served as pastor of the Congregational church in the town of Brookfield. After a decade (in 1904), his health began to fail, and he retired to the town of Hartford. Cyrus died of heart disease in 1916. He is buried in the Newington Cemetery. 

Sources

1. Obituary Record of Yale Graduates, 1915-1916.  (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University, June 1916), 50–51.

2. A History of the Class of 1863, Yale College. (New Haven, Connecticut; The Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Company, 1905), 90–91.

2. Year: 1880; Census Place: Atlanta, Fulton, Georgia; Roll: 148; Page: 186B; Enumeration District: 090

3. Year: 1900; Census Place: Brookfield, Fairfield, Connecticut; Roll: 132; Page: 4; Enumeration District: 0050; FHL microfilm: 1240132

4. Year: 1910; Census Place: Hartford Ward 4, Hartford, Connecticut; Roll: T624_132; Page: 6A; Enumeration District: 0171; FHL microfilm: 1374145

The Professors of Atlanta University: J. F. Fuller

J. F. Fuller
From First Congregational Church

Jesse Franklin Fuller (b. March 4, 1832; d. August 31, 1909)

Massachusetts.  White.
Education: A.B. (Amherst College), A.M. (Amhest College)
Occupation: bookkeeper, farmer, teacher.

J. F. Fuller was born in the town of Middleton, Massachusetts in 1832 to Abijah and Abigail Frances (Weston) Fuller. Like most residents of Middleton, the father Abijah ran a family farm. The son attended local schools until he was nineteen (in 1851) when he left to take college preparatory classes at Wilbraham Academy. After graduating from the academy in 1854, he enrolled in Amherst College. He received a degree from the college in 1858. 

After completing his college education, Fuller began teaching, the vocation that would occupy him for the next four decades. He taught for a year in the town of Gloucester, but in May 1859, he left Massachusetts to settle in Appleton, Wisconsin. There he worked as a teacher and as a school superintendent. He was also highly active in the First Congregational Church, serving as organist and clerk.

Fuller remained in Appleton for two decades, until 1871. That year he became active in the American Missionary Society's efforts to educate freedmen. He first moved to Straight University in New Orleans to serve as professor of mathematics. After teaching there for five years (in 1876), he moved to Atlanta University to hold a similar professorship.

Fuller left the south to return to Wisconsin in 1880. He first served as a high school principal and school superintendent in the town of De Pere. He returned to Appleton in 1884 and worked as an accountant until about 1897. Shortly before he retired from his work as an accountant, Fuller published a family genealogy. Four years later he published a history of the First Congregational Church in Appleton.

Fuller remained in Appleton until his death, due to heart disease, in 1909.  

Publications

1. A Brief Sketch of Thomas Fuller and His Descendants With Historical Notes. (Appleton, Wis.: Crescent Printing House, 1896).

2. The First Congregational Church, Appleton, Wis. Prepared for the Semi-centennial Anniversary, Dec. 18, 1900. (Appleton, Wis.: Appleton Printing Co, 1900?)

Sources

1. Obituary Record of Graduates of Amherst College, for the Academical Year Ending June 24, 1903.  (Amherst, Mass.: Amherst College, 1903), 332–333.

2.  Spencer, Elihu, The Pioneers of Outagamie County, Wisconsin.  (Appleton, Wis.: Post Publishing Company, 1895), 275–276.

3. Montague, W. L., Biographical Records of the Alumni of Amherst College During Its First Half Century, 1821–1871.  (Appleton, Wis.: ?, 1883), 326.

4. Year: 1850; Census Place: Middleton, Essex, Massachusetts; Roll: 315; Page: 359a

5. Year: 1870; Census Place: Appleton Ward 2, Outagamie, Wisconsin; Roll: M593_1730; Page: 372B

6. Year: 1900; Census Place: Appleton Ward 1, Outagamie, Wisconsin; Roll: 1809; Page: 12; Enumeration District: 0064; FHL microfilm: 1241809

Chesterfield, South Carolina during Reconstruction: Land sales!

This blogpost continues a series of posts on Chesterfield County. Other posts are:

1. Reconstruction in Chesterfield County
2. Unionists in a Confederate stronghold: Chesterfield during the Civil War
3. The Melton Murders
4. Letters from the Fox Family: Violence in Chesterfield County
5. The law students of the Radical University: Henry A. Fox
6. The students of the Radical University: Clarence W. Fox
7. The prep students of the Radical University: Irving P. Fox
8. The law students of the Radical University: Gil Dixon Fox
9. Chesterfield during Reconstruction: A murder on election day!

One of the most ambitious post-war efforts to reconstruct South Carolina was the efforts to develop northwestern Chesterfield County, specifically the area around modern Pageland. The efforts ended in scandal when an investigation by the General Assembly revealed that the developers had sold land to the state government at an inflated price. In contemporary historical memory, a key role was by the developer Henry J. Fox. Fox is remembered as a villainous carpetbagger from New York City who displaced whole  families by arranging to buy their land in delinquent land sales for pennies on the dollar. The community finally freed itself of him when public anger erupted in Ku Klux violence, with Fox either fleeing in the night after being threatened or being murdered. Here we take a close look at the existing records and try to separate fact from myth from fact.

Henry J. Fox set out his goals for developing Chesterfield County in part of a May 1, 1869 letter published in the New York Tribune: 

My object in this communication is to call the attention of farmers, struggling on small farms, to a section of the South not named by you, but which I think offers sure advantages to the immigrant. The "South Carolina Improvement and Trust Company," incorporated by the last Legislature of South Carolina, and to which has been granted a charter of great liberality, undertakes to do the very work [establishing farming communities] you recommend Northern associations undertake.

Its object is to buy large plantations, and divide them into small farms of 50 and 100 acres each. The farms it sells to actual settlers at a sum just sufficiently above the original cost to pay expenses of transfer, surveys, and other incidental expenses. The corporations are well known Northern men, and it is their purpose to make each colony the center of such political education, social and religious influences as shall conserve the blessings brought by the war.

(The full letter can be found in the entry "Letters from the Fox Family: Violence in Chesterfield County"):

At the time of his letter, Fox was in his forties and was serving as a Methodist minister in the town of Carmel, New York, near Poughkeepsie. Fox was originally from England, but he'd been living in the northeastern United States (Connecticut, the Catskill Mountains, and New York City) for the past twenty-some years. Except for a few years spent running a college preparatory school in the Catskills, most of his time had been spent as a Methodist minister. Through church activities, Fox had become involved in the debates over slavery (a major issue for the Methodist church), and by the time of the Civil War, he was active in the abolitionist movement.

The people Fox worked with appear to have changed over time. His original financial backers appear to have been Watson Sanford and Haskel A. Hogel. Both lived in the New York City area. Sanford worked in stove manufacturing and held a number of stove-related patents. Hogel was also an inventor who worked in manufacturing, but he worked in the fertilizer machine industry rather than stoves. Neither man appears to have been politically active, so they were likely interested in developing Chesterfield as a financial investment.

Although it offers few details, Fox's letter sets out of his goals in developing Chesterfield. The colony was not a purely commercial venture. Fox hoped to help remake the South. Growing the colony presented him with an opportunity to expand the northern Methodist church. During the antebellum, the Methodist church had split into a northern and a southern branch because of disagreements over slavery, and the end of the war presented northern Methodists with an opportunity to start churches in the south. There was particular interest in attracting freedmen who often had an antagonistic relationship with southern Methodism. Developing Chesterfield also connected with Fox's political interests. Uplifting freedmen and bringing northerners to South Carolina were ways to increase the number of Republican voters in the state. 

Fox and his backers left no records of their decision to develop northwestern Chesterfield (rather than another region), but the region had a number of features that recommended it. The region was sparsely populated, so there was plenty of space to set-up a new community. The area contained valuable mineral resources including one of the most valuable gold deposits in the southeast. The pine forests had the potential to support industries in timber and turpentine. Fox expressed particular enthusiasm for farming, but he likely misjudged the prospects. He had very limited knowledge of farming in the south: he had never lived in region and his farming experience was limited to running a family farm in the Catskills for a few years. The sandy soil of northwestern Chesterfield was poorly suited to growing cotton (the main cash crop), although the climate was mild and favorable to growing fruits and vegetables.

A gold mine in Chesterfield County in 1927
Postcard from South Caroliniana Library 

The first record of the activities of Fox, Hogel, and Sanford in South Carolina is a September 18, 1866 deed for a land purchase. Fox and his backers purchased a 2,455-acre plot of land for about $12.40 per acre (a huge sum of money) from Richard L. Edgeworth. Ownership of the land did not include mining (or mineral) rights. Those were purchased separately (for about $14.26 per acre) by a mining company that Sanford ran (the Challenge Gold, Silver, and Copper Mining Company).

Richard L. Edgeworth was a member of one of the most prominent families in the region. He was the fifth in a line of Richard L. Edgeworth's that were descended from the Anglo-Irish politician and inventor of the same name. The original Richard L. had moved to the Pee Dee shortly after the Revolutionary War, and his family was among the first to settle in northwestern Chesterfield. The land sold had been inherited by the fifth Richard L. from his father, the fourth Richard L. By the time of the Civil War, the family had built up a diversified subsistence farm that they ran with the help of fourteen enslaved workers. On the farm, they raised cattle and hogs and grew corn, oats, and potatoes. They also planted cotton, albeit a small amount relative to the size of the farm. By 1850, the younger Richard L. had struck out for himself and had left South Carolina for Cobb County, Georgia, where he started his own farm. His father died of natural causes during the first year of the Civil War. 

The sale to Fox and his financial backers was the largest sale that the Edgeworth family made, but it was not the only one. Before the war, the family had sold smaller plots to other farmers in the area, including William H. Sowell and David T. Griffith. These plots were purchased by Fox and his backers in 1867.

Plat map for land that Fox purchased from David T. Griffith
From Archive Viewer – Chesterfield County

Most of the Chesterfield land that came to be owned by Fox and his business partners had been the property of the Edgeworth family and another old Chesterfield family, the Blakeneys. The Blakeney family settled in the area in the 1760s, and one family member, Captain John Blakeney, had fought in Revolutionary War. By the time the Civil War broke out, the Blakeneys were among the few Chesterfield residents who had reached the status of planters. The patriarch, John Blakeney, owned 4,000 acres of land and cultivated 250 acres with the help of his family and fifty-one enslaved workers. The plantation was one of the most productive in the region, growing 20,000 pounds of cotton in 1860.

The Blakeney family was ruined by the war. Most of the Blakeney sons (Hugh, Louis, John C., and George W.) served in the Confederate army, and one, Hugh, was killed at the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse. Towards the end of the war, Sherman's troops passed through the area and seized provisions from the family. The emancipation of the Blakeney's slaves left the Blakeneys without a labor force. 

Facing financial difficulties, John Blakeney sold the most of his land, three thousand, seven hundred and twenty-six acres, to Henry J. Fox on January 14, 1868. Statistics show the extent of the Blakeney's troubles. Even though cotton prices were high, the farm only produced 300 pounds of it in 1870, a precipitous drop from pre-war productivity. 

After purchasing land from John Blakeney, Fox purchased a 750-acre farm from John Blakeney's son, William W. Evidently frustrated by his prospects in the South Carolina, William then left for Texas.

William W. Blakeney's decision to leave South Carolina was an increasingly common one among established farmers. William sold his land on February 9, 1869, and the four years since the war had seen drastic changes in the political fortunes of the state's planters. Although the Union military victory had forced the planter class to accept unwanted changes like the banning of slavery, planters maintained their traditional hold on state government for the first few years after the war. However, in 1868, they abruptly lost power following a state constitutional convention that gave freedmen the right to vote. Shortly after the election, a new state government dominated by freedmen and northern Republicans was elected. Chesterfield County was represented in the senate by R. J. Donaldson, a Methodist minister from England. He is described in greater detail in the entry "Reconstruction in Chesterfield County." 

Donaldson soon became heavily involved in efforts to developments in northwestern Chesterfield. Exactly when and how he became involved is unclear. Since he and Henry J. Fox were both Methodist ministers, they could have met each before Donaldson moved to the south, through church activities. The first record of Donaldson's involvement dates to July 1, 1867, about half a year before the vote on the constitutional convention. On that date, he and Fox each purchased half of a plot of land that one resident (David T. Griffith) had purchased from the Edgeworth family.

Once elected to the senate, Donaldson threw his political powers into remaking northwestern Chesterfield. In 1869, he successfully proposed three bills that incorporated companies intended to aid in development efforts. A close look at the companies provides some insight into plans.

The first company was the South Carolina Trust and Improvement Company, the company mentioned in Fox's Tribute letter. The company appears to have been closely tied to efforts to remake Old Store township. To white conservatives, the board of corporators was rogue's gallery. Not only were Henry J. Fox and Senator R. J. Donaldson on the board, but it also included John McCulla (later criminally charged for an election fraud scheme to re-elect Donaldson), Middleton S. Gill (later accused of being party to a corrupt sale to the state Land Commission), and U.S. Senator B. F. Whittemore (later to resign from the US Senate after being accused of selling appointments to the U.S. Military and Naval Academies). Also on the board was Orrin L. Jeralds. Orrin worked as a burnisher in New Haven, Connecticut, but he likely was on the board because of a family relation to Fox. (His wife was an Englishwoman named Sarah C. Fox Jeralds, the maiden name and birth nation suggesting a blood relation.)

The history of the company is confusing. In December (a few months after Fox's Tribute letter), the state legislature gave the company the powers of a bank and renamed it the South Carolina Bank and Trust Company. The bank operated in Columbia, and it appears to have had minimal involvement with developments in Chesterfield. However, land transactions in Chesterfield County continued to be made under the original name at least March 1871.

Another company that was incorporated was the South Carolina Plantation Company. The company is not as well documented as the Trust and Improvement Company, but it also purchased land in Chesterfield.

The third company that was created was a railroad company, the South Carolina Central Railroad. The company was charged with building a railroad to connect Charleston to Charlotte, North Carolina. The train line was to start in northwestern Chesterfield and end in Williamsburg County, where it was to connect with an existing train line that ran to Charleston. The line was to have stops in the town of Manning (in Clarendon County) and in Sumter County. 

The South Carolina Central Railroad was to run from Gourdin's Station (in the bottom right) to Clarendon County, Sumter County, and ending in northwestern Chesterfield (top center)
Lloyd's map of the southern states via Library of Congress

A look at the original charter suggests the railroad company was founded to support business interests in the towns of Manning and Sumter, and Chesterfield was an afterthought. The founding corporators included Franklin J. Moses Jr., a Sumter planter and a major Republican political figure. Others were merchants who stood to benefit financially from greater market access. The political aims appear to have been minimal as the charter members included a number of ex-Confederates and a wealthy planter (John A. Salters). 

Fox quickly began playing a leadership role at the railroad company. He served on the executive committee and was elected treasurer. Three months after the company was incorporated, several colleagues of Fox's were added as corporations. These men included two people involved with the Improvement and Trust Company (F. A. Babcock and D. Thomas) as well as a Baptist minister (William S. Clapp) who had worked with Fox in Carmel, New York.

Fox began making land sales in February 1868. Between February and May, he sold a total of eight land plots to men from England. The lots were small (100 to 500 acre) portions of the Blakeney farm. Fox himself started a farm on a 550-acre plot and focused on growing cotton. To support the new famers, he maintained two gristmills, a blacksmith shop, and a cotton gin.

In addition to the farmers from England, Fox was joined by another minister from Carmel, New York, Saurin E. Lane. Lane was a Presbyterian minister. Like Fox, he set up a farm and became active in the Republican party, serving as a trial justice and receiving the party nomination for county school commissioner. 

In his Tribune letter, Fox wrote that South Carolinians treated him and other newcomers "with kindness and according to their knowledge and training, with deference and respect." Any kindness shown was quickly abandoned as political tensions increased. Angry South Carolinians began sending the newcomers threatening letters and destroying their crops. It's unclear when the situation began to fall apart, but it was before the murder of Robert Melton. By August 1870, most of the new farms had been abandoned. Only the families of Henry J. Fox, S. E. Lane, and two Englishmen (Robert Singleton and John Woodcock) remained. 

It would be natural to expect that Fox and his colleagues abandoned their plans to develop Old Store township after the 1870 election as Fox's political patron, R. J. Donaldson, lost his senate chair. However, it appears that his plans had fallen apart months before the election ended. In March 1870 (many months before the election), Fox sold most of the land he held (4,556 acres) to the state Land Commission.

The Land Commission was subject to a good deal of public criticism and was the subject of an investigation by the state legislature. The Fox land sale came under particularly scrutiny as it was among the largest sales made. The entire transaction was handled by Senator Donaldson. He sold two tracts of land to the commission: the Fox property and a 2,462-acre plot owned by Daniel Wadsworth, a white famer and long-time resident of Chesterfield County.

If Governor Scott is believed, the price of the Chesterfield land was inflated so that interested parties could benefit financially. As a member of the commission's advisory board, Scott's approval was needed for land sales, and he testified under oath that Donaldson approached and pressured him to approve the land sales. With remarkable candor, he allegedly told Scott that he hadn't profited off the Fox sale and encouraged him to approve the Wadsworth sale as "it is the only one in which I make any money." 

The Fox sale was almost universally regarded as a fraud. An agent for the commission surveyed the land and reported that it was, "One vast sand-bed from one of end to the other." Governor Scott said that the land was so unproductive that "a blue bird could not live on a thousand acres of it." Francis Cardozo, then serving as land commissioner, said he could not sell the land for even 50 cents an acre, a fraction of what the land had been purchased for.

The financial numbers on the sale work out as follows. The land commission bought the Fox tract at about $8 per acre. Fox had originally purchased land from the Edgeworth family at $12 an acre but paid much less for other properties. Both William H. Sowell and John Blakeney sold their land at $4 an acre. It's unclear exactly which properties the land commission purchased, but the $8 an acre price is what one would get if the commission purchased the entire Edgeworth farm at $12 an acre and then 2,101 acres of less valuable land priced at $4 an acre. Was the land worth this much? Certainly, many politicians and much of the public thought not, but their opinions should be taken with a grain of salt as they were formed in a politically charged atmosphere. Scott and Cardozo gave their testimony in February 1876, a chaotic time when conservatives and Republicans were disputing the election. Both had motivation for playing up corruption in Chesterfield as it drew attention from their own involvement in questionable activities. 

The fact that Fox abandoned his plans to develop Old Store township shortly after the sale to the commission suggests that he was trying to unload his investment on the state government. However, he  certainly did not realize any large profit. At most, he recouped his original investment. If the land was indeed "one vast sand-bed," as one commission agent stated, then the state land commission overpaid for the land, but they were repeating the error Fox and his financial backers had made when making the original purchases.

After the land commission sale, Fox sold the remaining land he owned to private individuals. The last sale he made was the September 1871 sale of William W. Edgeworth's farm to a white conservative and planter (Albert Evans). Again, Fox did not see any profit for the transaction. He sold the land at $5 an acre, slightly less than the price he'd originally paid. Other properties were later lost in lawsuits. 

By December 1871, he had left Chesterfield County for the city of Charleston. While Fox would stay in South Carolian for the remainder of Reconstruction, he would have no further involvement in Chesterfield. 

The South Carolina Central Railroad would remain active into the 1870s, but the company's activities moved away from Chesterfield County, and they ultimately did not achieve much. The company only had a running train line in 1873, when it built a short wooden railroad connecting the town of Manning to the Northeastern Railroad (which ran to Charleston). The company was never listed in Poor's Manual of United States Railroads (a national listing of railroad companies).

It's unclear what ultimately happened to the land purchased by the land commission. The South Carolina Encyclopedia states that much of the land was purchased by "Messrs. McGregor, Maynard, Godfrey, and Sowell," but no further details are given. In general, the commission's mission to increase the number of small landowners was abandoned by the end of Reconstruction. The state government focused on selling off the land purely as a source of revenue. The sale of land in Chesterfield appears to have been complicated because of legal issues. As late as 1889, the state government and William Augustus Evans were engaged in a legal dispute over ownership of land sold by the Wadsworth family.

Fox's broader goals for transforming Old Store township met with failure. The region would only see major economic growth in the 1900s when the township was connected to Cheraw by a railroad. Fox's political aims were completely defeated. Conservative Democrats, who had been galvanized to action by the Republican political victories in 1868, would remain in full control of local government for over a generation.

Sources

1. "The State Capital." The Charleston daily news. [Charleston, SC], March 12, 1869, p. 1.

2. "A Wooden Railroad." Yorkville enquirer. [Yorkville, SC], July 31, 1873, p. 3.

3. "The State of South Carolina v. Evans" in Reports of Cases Heard and Determined by the Supreme Court of South Carolina Volume XXIII. Columbia, SC. James Woodrow & Co. 1891. pp. 184–190.