Between January - when the soldiers of the 62nd U.S. Colored Infantry decided around a campfire in southern Texas to create a school for newly-freed slaves - and September of 1866, when the school opened, essential details were underway.
On this day 150 years ago, the Lincoln Institute board of trustees was incorporated.
After being discharged upon the unit's consolidation, Richard Baxter Foster, assisted by Lt. Aron Adamson, was given charge of about $5,000 donated from his regiment and nearly $1,400 from another black regiment from Missouri, the 65th U.S.C.I., to make the soldiers' dream a reality.
The 62nd, during its service from 1863-66 in Louisiana and Texas, made literacy a priority. Lt. Col. David Branson issued a general order in July 1864 that all non-commissioned officers who could not read by January 1865 would be reduced in rank, and five were.
"All soldiers of this command who have by any means learned to read or write, will aid and assist to the extent of their ability their fellow soldiers to learn these invaluable arts, without which no man is properly fitted to perform the duties of a free citizen," Branson's order said.
In his farewell to arms address Jan. 4, 1866, Col. Theodore Barrett said, "Of 431 men, 99 have learned to read and write understandingly; 284 can read, 337 can spell in words of two syllables and are learning to read, not more than 10 men have failed to learn the alphabet," according to the National Archive.
The soldiers sent Foster and Adamson with a resolution saying, "Whereas the freedom of the black race has been achieved by war, and its education is the next necessity thereof."
The school's founders had three directives, that it be:
- "Designed for the special benefit of the freed blacks."
- Located in Missouri.
- A combination of study and labor "so that the old habits of those who have always labored, but never studied, shall not be thereby changed and that the emancipated slaves, who have neither capital to spend nor time to lose, may obtain an education."
In his history of the institute, Foster wrote: "The fundamental idea was indeed that it should be for their special benefit; but special does not necessarily mean exclusive, while in this case it means precisely the contrary.
"It is not for the benefit of the colored people to encourage the spirit of caste that would make one school white and another black; that would mark the race inferior denying them an equal right in those public institutions, the school, the church, the railway carriage, which are open to all others alike, without question of social standing.
"The caste spirit is the legitimate child of slavery, reproducing with fidelity all her temper, all the hateful lineaments of her face."
With that in mind, Foster tried first to put together a school in St. Louis while raising additional funds.
"They hoped to interest some philanthropic organization but were unsuccessful," Albert Marshall wrote for Lincoln's 100th anniversary.
A Board of Trustees, formed in February 1866, included James E. Yeatman, J.W. McIntyre, Foster, Henry Brown, Harrison Dubois, W.R. Parsons, Dr. Corodon Allen and Adamson, according to the Cole County Historical Society. Most of these first leaders were former officers from the 62nd Colored Infantry.
Brown was a first sergeant with the 62nd's Company D and likely the only black trustee. Born in Marion County, the slave of Constantine Brown, he also was one of the school's first two students.
He enlisted at age 26 in Jefferson City on Dec. 3, 1863. Less than a month after being mustered in at Benton Barracks in St. Louis, Brown was appointed sergeant. He was promoted to first sergeant in January 1865 while the regiment was in Brazos Santiago, Texas.
"Brown embodied the power of emancipation that the 62nd had nurtured, and that they had made into a legacy for Abraham Lincoln," wrote Adam Arenson in a 2013 New York Times blog.
Foster consulted with other men interested in education for the newly-freed slaves, but he wrote in his diary on Feb. 18, 1866: "All seem to think that our enterprise will fail."
A similar effort was being developed by the Methodist Episcopal Church. When Foster met with them, they proposed the troops' donations should be given to their school project, which ultimately was dropped.
Foster's diary said it was Providence the Lincoln dream was not injured by that. Then, he said, "irksome details followed."
He had a deadline. The officers of the 62nd agreed if $20,000 were not raised by July 1, 1867, the contributions would be refunded, Arenson reported in the 2013 New York Times blog.
The board of curators incorporated June 25, 1866, according to the Cole County Recorder of Deeds volumes.
Those charter members included Gov. Thomas Fletcher, state school superintendent Thomas A. Parker, Judge Arnold Krekel, R.F. Wingate, Emory Foster, State Treasurer William Bishop and the Rev. Addison Whitaker. Three trustees also were curators Brown, Foster and Yeatman.
That board of trustees adopted a brief constitution, "leaving the school free to develop according to circumstances," Foster's notes said.
That initial constitution included an article prohibiting a test founded on race or color to determine election of trustees, hiring of teachers or admission of students.
During the summer, Foster headed east to add to the $6,000 seed money. But, he realized money could not be raised at that time.
"I still felt a strong confidence that if the school were established, and proved worthy to live, it would find the means of life," Foster wrote.
At the same time, the American Missionary Association had established a school for black students in Jefferson City's black congregation Baptist church, but the two teachers at that school were stoned in the city streets.
"It was their fate, as it has been of thousands before and will be of thousands to come, to sow in tears, but not to reap in joy, to lay foundations on which others should build," Foster wrote.
He applied to the black Methodist congregation, offering to repair its facilities as well as pay rent, if he could open the Lincoln Institute in the building. The church trustees consented, but the minister refused because Foster, the teacher, was white, he said.
Then, Foster approached the white northern Methodist congregation. Again, the church trustees were willing to allow the school to be housed in the basement, in exchange for repairs and rent, but the minister refused - this time because the scholars would be black.
Foster eventually retained a former schoolhouse on top of Hobo Hill - the first public school in Jefferson City, and the site where Simonsen 9th Grade Center is today. Foster held his first classes in September 1866, with two students - Brown and Cornelius Chappelle, soon filling the dilapidated structure.
Link: