The Choctaw Freedmen Part 12

It now owns and controls school, church and manse properties that represent a value of one and a half million dollars.

Its permanent investments, that bring an annual income for the promotion of its work however, are yet only $200,202.50. In these days of big business, the evidence of unusual prosperity, it ought to have an endowment of one million dollars.

Education is the most costly of all philanthropic enterprises. The following reason recently expressed for a large endowment of the College Board applies with equal force to the Freedmen's Board.

"A million dollar corporation is now considerably more than twice as efficient, as an instrument to accomplish results than one of a half million. In this day of large things the men who are interested in education, prefer to employ as their agent, an organization whose resources are large enough to place its permanent and financial stability beyond question. A bank with a million dollars of capital has considerable advantage over one having only a quarter of a million. The law, 'To him that hath shall be given,' still prevails among the children of men."

The members of the Freedmen's Board have been selected, because of their manifest interest in the educational and spiritual welfare of the colored people; and they are conscientiously striving, to the best of their ability, to promote the interests of the Freedmen, in behalf of the great body of generous hearted christian people whom they represent.

The work of the Freedmen's Board has. .h.i.therto by its charter been limited to the Freedmen in southern states. At the next General a.s.sembly, an effort will be made to extend its work, so as to include the negroes in the northern states.

X

SPECIAL BENEFACTORS.

GEORGE PEABODY.--JOHN F. SLATER.--DANIEL HAND.--EMILINE CUSHING.--ANNA T. JEANES.--CAROLINE PHELPS STOKES.--JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER.--NEGRO PHILANTHROPISTS.

"He loveth our nation and hath built us a synagogue."

The educational needs of the Freedman have called forth several large benefactions from individual contributors. George Peabody of Danvers, Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1867 and 1869, established a fund of $3,500,000 for the promotion of general education in the South. One half of this amount happened to prove unavailable. A large part of the remainder was used in the establishment and endowment of the Peabody teachers college for whites at Nashville, Tennessee, leaving only a small part of it for use among the Freedmen.

In 1882, John F. Slater of Norwich, Connecticut, created a trust fund of $1,000,000, for the purpose of uplifting the emanc.i.p.ated population of the southern states and their posterity. The income of this fund, now increased to $1,500,000, is used to promote normal and industrial education.

In 1888 Daniel Hand of Guilford, Connecticut, gave the American Missionary a.s.sociation of the Congregational church $1,000,000, and a residuary estate of $500,000 to aid in the education of the Negro.

In 1895 Miss Emiline Cushing of Boston left $23,000 for the same object.

In 1907 Miss Anna T. Jeanes of Philadelphia, Pa., left an endowment fund of $1,000,000 to aid in maintaining elementary schools among the Freedmen. Booker T. Washington was named as one of two trustees of this fund. Its distribution contemplates a three fold plan. First, something additional is to be secured from the school authorities. Second, the co-operative efforts of the people are essential. Third, the effectiveness of the school is improved and its neighborhood influence widened by the introduction of industrial features. In 1911, the income from this fund was so widely distributed as to reach the work in as many as 111 counties in 12 different states; and summer schools were aided in six of them.

In 1909 Miss Caroline Phelps Stokes created a fund of $300,000 for the erection of tenement houses in New York City; and the education of negroes and Indians, through industrial schools.

From 1902 to 1909, John D. Rockefeller gave $53,000,000 to establish a fund for the promotion of general education in the United States. The schools of the Freedmen have received from this fund $532,015.

NEGRO PHILANTHROPISTS

The Freedmen have fallen heir to the estates of some free negroes, that became wealthy. It is interesting to note the following ones.

Tommy Lafon of New Orleans, a dealer in dry goods and real estate, in 1893, left for charitable purposes among his people, an estate appraised at $413,000.

Mary E. Shaw of New York City, left Tuskeegee Colored Inst.i.tute $38,000.

Col. John McKee of Philadelphia, at his death in 1902, left about $1,000,000 worth of property for education, including a provision for the establishment of a college to bear his name.

Anna Marie Fisher, of Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1911, having an estate of $65,000 left $26,000 for educational inst.i.tutions.

The successful achievement of these four free Negroes and their generous regard for the welfare of their kin-folks, suggest the possibilities of which they are capable, as financiers and philanthropists, when circ.u.mstances are favorable.

PART II

OAK HILL INDUSTRIAL ACADEMY

"It is said that the Athenians erected a statue to aesop, (564 B.

C.), who was born a slave; or as Phaedrus phrases it:

"They placed the slave upon an eternal pedestal,"

"Sir, for what the enfranchised slaves did for the cause of const.i.tutional liberty in this country, the American people should imitate the Athenians and, by training the slave for usefulness, place him upon an eternal pedestal. Their conduct has been beyond all praise.

"They have been patient and docile; they have been loyal to their masters, to the country, and to those with whom they are a.s.sociated; but, as I said before, no other people ever endured patiently such injustice and wrong. Despotism makes nihilists; tyranny makes socialists and communists; and injustice is the great manufacturer of dynamite. The thief robs himself; the adulterer pollutes himself; and the murderer inflicts a deeper wound upon himself than that which slays his victim.

"If my voice can reach this proscribed and unfortunate cla.s.s, I appeal to them to continue, as they have begun, to endure to the end; and thus to commend themselves to the favorable judgment of mankind; and to rely for their safety upon the ultimate appeal to the conscience of the human race."--John J. Ingalls, U. S. Senate, 1890.

THE NATIVE OAK HILL SCHOOL

1876-1886

CHURCH ORGANIZED JUNE 29, 1869.--SUNDAY SCHOOL IN 1876.--SCHOOL HOUSE, 1878.--OLD LOG HOUSE, 1884.--APPEAL FOR ACADEMY.

"The vineyard which thy right hand hath planted."

"Who hath despised the day of small things?"

As the preaching of the gospel and the organization of a church preceded the establishment of the school, the following facts in regard to the church are first noted.

THE OAK HILL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

The Oak Hill Presbyterian church was organized about June 29, 1869, with six members, namely, Henry Crittenden, who was ordained an elder, Teena Crittenden, his wife, J. Ross Shoals and his wife Hettie Shoals, Emily Harris and Reindeer Clark.

The services at first were held in the home and later in an arbor at the home of Henry Crittenden, one mile east of the present town of Valliant, and now known as the home of James and Johnson Shoals. After a few years the place of meeting was transferred to an arbor about two miles southwest of Crittenden's, and two years later, 1878, to the Oak Hill schoolhouse, a frame building erected that year on the main east and west road north of Red river. It was located on the southwest quarter of section 27, near the site on which Valliant was located in 1902. It is reported, that Henry Crittenden was the princ.i.p.al contributor towards the erection of this building. His cash income though meager was greater than others and he gave freely in order that a suitable place might be provided both for public worship and a day school for the neighborhood.

Parson Charles W. Stewart of Doaksville, a representative of the last generation of those who were slaves to the Indians, was the minister in charge from the time of organization until the spring of 1893, when he retired from the ministry. He was succeeded at Oak Hill by Rev. Edward G. Haymaker, the superintendent of the academy, who continued a period of eleven years. He was succeeded by Rev. R. E. Flickinger, whose pastorate of nearly eight years was eventfully ended at the dedication of the new colored Presbyterian church at Garvin, on October 3, 1912.

Rev. William H. Carroll, relinquishing his work on that same day as the first resident pastor of the Garvin church became the immediate successor at Oak Hill.

Those who served as elders of the Oak Hill church and are now dead were Henry Crittenden, J. Ross Shoals, Robert Hall, Jack A. Thomas and Samuel A. Folsom. The elders in 1912 are James R. Crabtree, Matt Brown and Solomon H. Buchanan.

In 1912 a site for a new chapel, intended only for the uses of the local congregation, was purchased in a suburb on the west side of Valliant.