The Journal of Negro History
Chapter 247 : Nashville city government during the days of reconstruction had among its members.h.i.

Nashville city government during the days of reconstruction had among its members.h.i.+p, perhaps, one-third colored members. These men were not of the same calibre as the colored members of the legislature. They were picked up in the different wards by their friends. They were chosen for their popularity rather than for fitness for the work before them.

Immediately following the reconstruction days, Josiah T. Settle was elected a.s.sistant Attorney General for Shelby county under General Patterson who afterwards served as Governor of the State of Tennessee.

Mr. Settle had previously been a member of the Mississippi Legislature.

In Knoxville men have served in the legislature of the city government.

When they changed the form of government in Nashville, there was a colored man a member of the Board of Aldermen. Two colored men were elected to the council. As a result, two fire companies were given to colored men. Mr. Charles Gowdey and Mr. J.C. Napier were the colored members of the council. The first two brick school houses were erected for colored children during their term. They were the Pearl High School and the Meigs School. At that time the people of Nashville, the Democrats especially, showed a very liberal spirit to the colored people and divided the positions with them. Shorty after this with a more liberal spirit, they erected the third brick school house in the city of Nashville, The Napier School.

After things went out of the hands of the Republicans in Tennessee, Capt. Sumner went down into Mississippi, entered politics and was elected Sheriff of Holmes county. He became quite wealthy. His family was of high standing. Owned property in Nashville and the descendants still own it.

Settle and Ca.s.sells were free men. Keeble was owned by a very distinguished Tennessee family named Keeble.

SCHOOLS FOR FREE NEGROS AND SLAVES

In Tennessee before the war there were schools for Negroes. There were no laws against schools for free colored people until the agitation that brought on the war.

At Nashville, Franklin college graduated three colored men; that is the school gave them graduation papers. They were prepared for the ministry in the Christian church (Disciples). These men were Samuel Lowery, Daniel Watkins and James T. Rapier. Lowery, Rapier and Watkins were all free men. Rapier served a term or two from Florence, Ala., in Congress during the Reconstruction Period. He was a man of some wealth, was very active and traveled a good deal. Lowery's father was also a minister, before him, in the Christian Church. He had a farm as well as city property. Franklin College was a Campbellite Inst.i.tution or what is now known as the Christian Church Inst.i.tution.

When the agitation came about preceding the Civil War they closed all of the colored schools.

Mr. Napier's father and mother with some other colored people had a man named Rufus Conrad come down from Cincinnati, Ohio, to teach their children. This was in 1859. Both free and slave children went to this school. The school had been open two or three months when one day, while the cla.s.s was spelling the word baker, an abrupt knock on the door interrupted the cla.s.s and then a man entered without waiting to be admitted. He said to the teacher, "What is your name?" The teacher answered, "Rufus Conrad." "Where did you come from?" was the next question. The teacher answered, "From Cincinnati, Ohio." The man said, "I have been authorized by the powers that be in Nashville to send these children home, to close the doors of this school and give you just 24 hours to leave this town." This ended this school.

There were three or four schools in Nashville, before the war. One was taught by Samuel Watkins. He taught school in an old church right over a branch. It was built up on stilts, and was a place of wors.h.i.+p built for the slaves by their owners. Another one was taught by a Mrs. Tate, who was of a very excellent family. Mrs. Sallie Player, a most delightful teacher taught another one of these schools. Mrs. Player was a free woman but her husband was a slave. He belonged to a very excellent family of white people, whose slaves enjoyed every privilege that free people enjoyed. They were protected by their owner. She was a woman of some education. Her husband also had some education, although a slave. There was another school taught by a white man and his wife whose name was Westbrooks. They came to Nashville from St.

Louis, Missouri and organized a school. These two gathered considerable money from the free and slave people who wanted to send their children to school. They taught school about three weeks when they suddenly disappeared.

SLAVES IN BUSINESS AND NEGROES WHO OWNED SLAVES

Slaves had more money than is generally thought. Henry Harding, a slave with some education, was a thorough business man from beginning to end. Everything he touched turned to money. His home in Nashville now is as pretty a home as you want to see. He was allowed every liberty by his owners that a free person enjoyed. He was a carpenter and contractor. He did all the construction work on three plantations, that of General Harding, his son's, John Harding and of David Gavock's. One of the Hardings was his father. He was held as a slave until Emanc.i.p.ation in '63. He immediately came to Nashville and went into business building houses. When he died he had considerable property.

Hardy Perry, a slave in Nashville, had a line of hacks and transfer teams during slavery time. He hired his own time. Steven Boyd and Mr.

Napier kept a livery stable.

My father's father was a pioneer iron man in middle Tennessee. His parents came from England and went to Dixon county and established what is still known as the Napier Iron Works. He was a man of considerable force of character and influence. He had four colored sons and daughters. He had these sons go to school along with the white children. When he died his will provided that they should leave Tennessee and go to a free state or to Liberia. They went to Ohio and lived on Walnut Hill where they bought a farm. They concluded to sell the farm on Walnut Hill, trading it for a farm at New Richmond, Ohio.

Two of the sons went to Richmond with my grandmother, another went to St. Louis, Mo., and my father went back to Nashville. Two of the brothers who went to Richmond with their mother became school teachers in Richmond. The one who went to Nashville went into the livery business.

My father's father was a physician, having graduated from the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania. He had great political influence and it was through his influence that one of the governors of Tennessee was elected.

Alice Bosley, whose husband was white, and her family owned two large plantations south of Nashville and the other north-east of Nashville.

They owned about twenty-five or thirty slaves. She was a thoroughly religious woman and every Sunday would have her slaves and children attend church.

Manse Bryant was another large land owner and slave owner.

VIRGINIA STATE LIBRARY RICHMOND, VA.

September 28, 1916.

MR. MONROE N. WORK, Editor, Tuskegee, Alabama.

_My Dear Sir_:--

The Journals of the Senate and House of Delegates for the years in which there have been Negro members do not indicate which of the members were white and which negro. The almanacs, however, do as a general thing though the almanacs are not extremely reliable. I have gotten the following information from the almanacs. The first year in which negroes were allowed to hold office in Virginia was 1869.

The almanac for the year 1870 (which was printed the latter part of 1869 and which gives, therefore, the members of the General a.s.sembly for the session of 1869-70) gives no negro members of the Senate of Virginia, but 18 negro members of the House. The total members.h.i.+p of the House was 137. The members.h.i.+p of the Senate was 40. For the session of 1870-71 there were, according to the almanac, no negro members of the Senate. For the session of 1870-71, I regret to say that the almanac does not differentiate between white and negro members. For the session of 1871-72, I regret to say that the almanac does not give the members of the House of Delegates; nor in the list of the members of the Senate does it differentiate between the two races. For the session of 1872-3 the almanac does not differentiate.

For the session of 1873-4 the almanac gives 3 negro members out of 40 in the Senate, and 17 out of 132 members in the House. For the session of 1874-5 there were three negro members out of 40 in the Senate, and there were 17 negro members in the House. In the session of 1875-6 there were 3 negro Senators, and 13 negro members of the House. In the session of 1876-77 there were three negro members in the Senate, and 12 negro members of the House. In 1877-78 there were 3 negro members of the Senate, and four negro members of the House. In 1878-9 there were three negro members of the Senate and four negro members of the House. For the session of 1879-80 the almanac gives no marks of differentiation. For the session of 1880-81 the almanac makes no distinction. For the 1881-2 session the almanac has no list of the members. For the session of 1882-3 the almanac does not differentiate.

For the session of 1883-4 there were 3 negro senators and 8 members of the House. For the session of 1884-5 there was one negro senator, and 7 members of the House, out of a total members.h.i.+p of one hundred. In the session of 1885-6 there was only one senator out of a members.h.i.+p of 39, and only one member of the House of Delegates, out of one hundred. In the session of 1886-7 there was one senator and one member of the House. In the session of 1887-8 there was one negro senator, and there were seven members of the House. In the session of 1889-9 there was one senator, and seven members of the House. In the session of 1889-90 there was one negro senator, and three members of the House. In the session of 1890-91 there was one negro senator, and three members of the House. In the session of 1891-2 there were no negroes in either the Senate or the House, that is, none marked. For the session of 1892-3 no negroes were marked. For the session of 1893-4 there seem to have been none. I have not looked further, but I do not believe there has been a negro member in either House since that time.

Very truly yours, (Signed) H. R. MCILWAINE _State Librarian._

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Compiled by Monroe N. Work.

[2] Beverly, _History of Alabama_, 202, 208.

[3] Not returned for the 1875-1876 session.

[4] Beverly, _History of Alabama_, pp. 202-208.

[5] Served only in the session of 1874-1875.

[6] Served only in the session of 1875-1876.

[7] Alexander is said to have been counted out. He is said to have held the position of postmaster at Madison and also to have had a deputy reserve collector.

[8] Lewis and Scott were the last Negro members of the Florida Legislature.

[9] Lewis and Scott were the last Negro members of the Florida Legislature.

[10] Letter on October 11, 1916, from L. L. Knight, official compiler of Georgia Records; Thompson, _Reconstruction in Georgia_, pp.

211-214, 262, 264.

[11] The names of these four were later stricken out. They were so nearly white that their race was indeterminate. They remained in the house after the others were expelled.--Thompson, _Reconstruction in Georgia_, p. 213; House Journal Georgia Legislature, p. 229.

[12] Letter on October 11, 1916, from L.L. Knight, official compiler of Georgia Records.

[13] Furnished by Major John R. Lynch, May 19, 1915.

[14] North Carolina Manual, by North Carolina Historical Commission, 1913, pp. 863-906.

[15] _Ibid._, pp. 481-862.

[16] Reynolds, _Reconstruction in South Carolina_, pp. 76-79.

[17] In 1895 South Carolina again revised her const.i.tution. In the convention held for this purpose there were found Negro delegates, viz.: Thomas E. Miller, L. R. Reed, Robert Smalls, W. J. Whipper and James Wigg, all from Beaufort County. Smalls and Whipper had been delegates in the 1868 convention. (Reported by H. H. Wallace.)