 | Chapter Eighth Our teachers Papers of Philena Carkin |  |
8. Chapter Eighth
Our teachers
When Miss Anna Gardner was sent to Charlottesville
in the autumn of '65 she found a school for colored
children which had been opened by a Mr. Musgrove, a
white citizen of the place. She reported the
fact to the Society in Boston at once, and they
as promptly offered to adopt his school and pay
him a salary for his work. He was glad to
accept their offer, as he had been teaching for
such uncertain and meagre fees as the poor
colored people could pay, and the change to sure
and definite wages was naturally agreeable.
He held the position of teacher for the Society but a short
time, however. His methods of teaching the various
branches required were not up to the standard, and
the Committee felt that they could not afford to waste
the funds of the Society; so he was removed to make way
for one considered more satisfactory. We all regretted
that the Committee were not willing to have
given him a longer trial, as he had enlisted so
the Freedmen. It seemed to us that a few timely
hints as to methods and a little time given
for opportunity to improve would have been both
just and wise, and we made an appeal in
his favor, but they seemed to feel that the welfare
of the school depended upon the change, and so
the change was made, and Mr. Musgrove no longer
formed one of our corps of teachers.
Miss Anna Gardner, the first teacher sent to
Charlottesville by the Freedmens Aid Society organized
the school in the autumn of '65. She was a native
of Nantucket, and was a woman of middle age when
I made her acquaintance. She was an old time
abolitionist and had stood before furious pro-slavery
mobs with Garrison, Phillips, Steven & Abby Kelley
Foster, Lydia Maria Child, and others of the famous
anti-slavery people who fought the "sum of all villainies"
in those never-to-be-forgotten years that preceded the
Civil War. She was a Quaker by birth and education
but she was a soldier by nature although her Quaker
training made her deprecate bloodshed. But she
was always ready to meet the foe in argument, and
She used to say that she was a physical coward,
but she rightfully claimed that she was morally
brave. For the first two or thee years of our work
there she seemed to be in constant dread of danger
from mobs, or secret assassins, but in spite of her
fears she never hesitated to say or do the thing she
thought ought to be said or done regardless of the
irritation or anger it might cause among those
who were opposed, both to our work and our presence
among them. I think now it would have been
wiser had she taken a more conciliatory tone in her
dealings with a people who were sore from their
recent struggle and defeat. But she was aggressive
in the honesty of her opinions, and seemingly
could not make allowance for the difference views
held by her opponents.
She was a most excellent teacher, never
permitting a half understanding of any subject in her
pupils. Every step must be made perfectly clear before the
next was taken.
When the school was fairly
organized and graded she was placed at the head
as Principal, a position she held for more than five
first experience among the Freedmen. She had
previously taught in New Berne N. C. and after
leaving Charlottesville she taught some time in
Elizabeth N. C. Her interest in the colored people
had formed a part of her whole life. In 1838
when a very young woman, she opened a school
for the colored children of Nantucket who were
not then allowed public school privileges. She had
a beautiful, heart-shaped gold medal which those
pupils presented her, which was engraved with a
statement of this fact. She had aided many poor
fugitive slaves to escape by secreting them and in
other ways assisting them to gain their freedom
across the line in Canada.
She told me that
one of her first recollections was of a fugitive slave
whom the man hunter had traced to her fathers house.
She could never forget the contrast between his black
skin and the ashy whiteness of his lips when he
found they had come for him. Her father managed
to get him out of an obscure rear window while
the search was on, and other abolitionists aided his
escape. She came of good old anti slavery stock
Whittiers poem. Mrs Phebe Ann Hanaford was her
cousin, and she numbered among her friends
most of the noted people of the day She wrote
articles for various periodicals upon the burning
questions of the times — Temperance, Anti-slavery —
Woman Suffrage etc. Some of these with various
poems, and other articles from her pen were
gathered into a small volume called "Harvest
Gleanings" not many years before she died. This
work was done under the supervision of Mrs Hanaford
When well along in years Miss Gardner met
with a serious accident whichcrippled her for life. She
attempted to rescue a child which had been
thrown down in the street under the feet of a horse
and her hip was broken in doing so. Miss
Gardner lived beyond the four score mark and
was bright and active to the end. We
corresponded regularly for a number of years
until her eyesight failed her, and after that
occasional letters passed between us. She was
one upon whose friendship I felt I could always
rely. One who was never afraid to criticize my
me in the wrong, and for that reason I came
to feel that I could always learn the truth
from her — the truth as she saw it, and I knew
that a word of praise from her lips was of value
for she never bestowed it to flatter ones vanity
or win his good will. A good, brave, noble
woman, who always did the thing that seemed
right in her eyes.
Another teacher from the north had preceded
me by a few months — a young man from
Newburyport Mass., Mr. Charles H. Woodman. It was
a strange thing for the Society to do, particular as
they usually werecareful
not to send very young or inexperienced teachers into the field, that
they should have made
an exception of this wholly inexperienced and
immature boy of eighteen years. Two circumstances
evidently influenced them in his favor. He was
enthusiastic in the cause, and had the warm
friendship and admiration of an influential
member of the Teachers Committee. He was a
bright, intelligent well-meaninglad having a fair
teaching the Freedmen with the true missionary
spirit, ready and willing to make sacrifices if need
be in the cause. But he knew nothing of teaching
and the position in which he found himself held
many temptations for an immature young
man, whose moral stamina had not become
sufficiently strengthened by habits of self-control.
He remained until the close of the school
year at the end of June, but was not given a
position again in Charlottesville or elsewhere.
When I had been in Charlottesville about
two months a change was made in one of
the schools — Mr. Musgrove being removed and
his school put in charge of Mr. John Wesley
Pratt of Massachusetts who took charge of the
school the latter part of April. As I remember
Mr. Pratt I should say that he was upwards of forty
years old at that time. He was a successful teacher
but only remained in C. until the end of
the school year, as the Committee thought it
best to put some of the more advanced of
so Mr. Pratt, with his wife and young son were
sent to Orange Court House, Va where they taught
for some time — I do not now remember how
long, but probably as long as the Society continued
to support a school in that place.
The next teacher to assume her duties
under the auspices of the Society was a native
colored woman, Mrs Isabella Gibbons. I think
she opened her school in the fall of 1866. Her
husband was a Baptist preacher of a great deal
of untutored power and eloquence. They had
both been slaves and were especially happy to
be free, as they had a large family of children for
whose welfare they were naturally anxious. Mrs.
Gibbons was a handsome, capable woman, some
thirty-five years old. She made an excellent
teacher. She was one of the colored people who
had rendered much aid to sick and wounded
Union prisoners lodged in the hospitals around
Charlottesville. She continued in the work during
my stay there, and for several years after I came
In February 1867 a colored man Paul
Lewis, who like Mrs. Gibbons, was one of Miss Gardners
pupils was placed in charge of another school of
the same grade as that of Mrs. Gibbons. Both of
these teachers were given positions with the
understanding that they should continue their
studies while teaching. Paul Lewis was a slave
of Hon. Alexander Rives. His mother was the nurse
of Mr. Rives children. He was wholly unlike Mrs.
Gibbons who was very quick and bright. Paul was
slow, but deep. He made a good teacher, adopting
Miss Gardners methods of instruction, and drilling
his pupils very thoroughly. He continued in the
work for a year or two after I left, and then owing
to some trouble he had with a white resident, he
lost his position as teacher, and resumed his
old trade of shoe making.
In 1871 Miss Gardner thinking it best to
make a change, resigned her position as Principal
of the school at Charlottesville and I was promoted
Mass. was elected to the position made vacant by
my promotion. Miss Holmes had already had a
large experience as teacher among the Freedmen.
She had taught on the South Carolina islands, and
in Columbus and Jonesboro Ga. and Gordonsville
Va. and brought to the work in Charlottesville all
the advantages gained from that experience,
as well as her natural intelligence and enthusiasm
for the work. She possessed the gift of winning
the confidence and affection of her pupils in a
marked degree. She was very independent in
her views and actions, and set about rectifying
what seemed wrong in her eyes with absolute
fearlessness as regarded consequences.
Our relations were of the pleasantest nature,
and I felt the deepest regret when, at the end
of two years, the Society in Boston decided to
withdraw her from Charlottesville and put her to
work elsewhere. This was in accordance with
the rule they had made of gradually dropping
their work into the hands of the local school-boards.
Miss Holmes went again to Georgia, and I was left
remained two years longer. But our friendship
has survived more than thirty years of separation
fed by the remembrance of our work together, and
by occasional meetings and an irregular correspondence.
The isolated northern teachers felt for each other
something of the comradeship that soldiers feel
for their companions in march and battle.
We were, in a sense in the enemys country, and
looked to each other for companionship and support
amid trials which it would be difficult for the
uninitiated to understand, because only those
who have lived the life can know the brightness
of its sunshine or the darkness of its clouds. But
however black the clouds might sometime hover
I do not believe there is a surviving teacher of that
period who would say the she was sorry she had
been given the opportunity to taste the bitter as
well as the sweet of the life of a teacher among
the Freedmen.
See "Left Overs. Chap
| Chapter Eighth Our teachers Papers of Philena Carkin | |