Lowndes County AlArchives History - Schools .....History Of The Calhoun Colored School 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 September 16, 2008, 12:32 am

   CALHOUN Colored School is located at Calhoun, in the agricultural County of
Lowndes, southern Alabama, 27 miles south of Montgomery, on the main line of the
Louisville and Nashville Railroad. Eighty-five per cent of the people of the
County are Colored, 95 per cent of the precinct.

   The School was founded in 1892 by Miss Mabel W. Dillingham and Miss Charlotte
R. Thorn, Northern white workers at Hampton Institute. Shortly before nearly
forty Negroes of the vicinity had lost their lives in a race conflict. After
this catastrophe the people held religious services for two weeks, praying for a
school from the North.

   Among the original trustees were Booker T. Washington, who continued in that
office until his death, John Bigelow, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who was
succeeded by Richard P. Hallowell. General Armstrong, though in failing health,
gave invaluable endorsement and counsel.

   Lowndes and the adjacent Counties south and west were of the most neglected
regions of the South. There was almost no Negro ownership of land. The crop lien
tenancy conditions were unusually repressive. The cabins lacked even the crudest
sanitary equipment. The meager public school funds of Lowndes County were
divided between White and Colored in the ratio of thirteen to one per child.

   Conditions at once shaped the work into the following departments: First, the
school centre for a limited number of boarding pupils, with farm and industries;
second, instruction of pupils from the cabins; third, community work; fourth
extension work into the County and gradually beyond.

   Miss Dilliigham survived only two years of Calhoun's early toils and
hardships. Miss Thorn is still principal.

   In 1896, 3,283 acres adjoining the school were purchased for resale to
Negroes for $21,565.00. The resale was virtually at cost price, with the legal
rate of 8 per cent interest on notes. Lots averaged 40 acres. Notwithstanding
the purchasers lack of capital, tools, and stock, and against a series of
unfavorable seasons, all payments were completed within seven years.

   In 1907, 600 additional acres in the vicinity were brought under Negro
ownership. There are now 83 proprietors on a tract of about 4000 acres, of whom
two-fifths have built cottages of from three to seven rooms. Nearly all these
homes are paid for.

   The result of this land movement is a community which is described by
standard books on the South as exceptionally moral, intelligent, and
progressive, with far-reaching influence, and intimately co-operative with all
the work of the school. The enlargement of this Negro land ownership under
Calhoun s direction is earnestly desired by the people and urged by educational
authorities South and North.

   Calhoun had in the year 1916-17, 35 salaried workers, White and Colored, in
nearly equal numbers. 405 pupils were enrolled, 32 in excess of any previous
year. There are 92 boarding students, boys and girls. Over 150 additional
applications were refused for lack of room. The graduating class numbered 18.

   The endowment May 31, 1917, was $107,039.25. The value of land, 21 buildings,
and equipment was $95,307.36. This includes a water system with complete fire
protection. The library numbers 3,853 volumes, and is well supplied with daily
papers and periodicals. The following buildings have been contracted for: new
barn, silo, grist and saw mm with tractor engine, and a three-room school. The
rapid and permanent increase of pupils demands an addition of three large
buildings for assembly hall, class rooms, shops, and dormitory space for 200
boarding pupils.
   The property is vested in an independent board of trustees: H. B. Frissell,
president, Hampton Institute ; Paul Revere Frothingham, vice-president, Boston;
Charlotte R. Thorn, Treasurer, Calhoun; Pitt Dillingham, Secretary, Boston;
Henry W. Farnaw, chairman Investment Committee, New Haven ; N. Penrose
Hallowell, member Investment Committee, Boston ; William Jay Schieffelin, member
Investment Commtttee, New York; Henry Ware Sprague, Buffalo; Joseph O. Thompson,
Birmingham.

   The support is mainly from contributions. There is no State aid. The total
income of the last fiscal year was $73,236.26. Of this sum $31,803.07 was for
endowment, buildings, permanent improvement, and equipment.

   The purpose of Calhoun is the progress of the agricultural region of southern
Alabama. The first obligation is to its own neighborhood, then to the County,
then to further sections as its work extends and develops. It is in intimate and
uncompetitive co-operation with the larger institutions which serve the Colored
population of the South generally, and with schools of higher education.

   The academic course, originally limited to the six lowest grades, has
gradually increased to ten with the progressive needs of the people. Thorough
drill is united with inspirational teaching, with training is given as far as
the limits of the course outlooks into the world s life and thought. Normal will
permit, as graduates are in great demand for public school teaching. Calhoun
graduates teach more than 1400 public school children in Lowndes County alone.
Teachers of Calhoun's higher academic grades have all been trained in Northern
colleges and universities. Those in charge of the lower grades are graduates of
colleges or standard normal schools. Moral and religious training is prominent,
in which the school's undenominational character is an advantage under the
conditions of the field.

   Agricultural training is of chief importance. The school farm has 388 acres
under intensive cultivation; 300 acres of this are rented, from necessity. There
are three expert farmers and teachers. A fourth directs the people s farming and
business. The Colored farm demonstrator of the County is paid in part by the
school. This department held last year a County Fair and eight farmers
conferences. Its counsel is sought continually by farmers of the region. Public
conferences and extension lectures on farming are increasing through an
enlarging number of communities. The response to President Wilson s appeal for
more food production to meet the needs of the world war was answered by Calhoun
with a doubling of farm acreage, large increase in buildings, equipment, stock
and summer force of working students.

   The trades taught are carpentry, house building, repairing and painting,
blacksmithing, cobbling, with harness repairing, cooking, sewing, laundry, and
domestic crafts. Certificates are given in blacksmithing, cobbling and domestic
arts, also in agriculture. The addition of a year ^to the course ensures the
equivalent of two years trade school instruction in carpentry and building.

   Community and extension work is no less prominent than the school work
proper. Community clubs and classes are held. Medical assistance is given by the
school nurses at a low cost. Community sales held weekly through the term
provide second-hand clothing from the North. The school's community and
extension workers and others of the force are continually among the people,
whose visits to the school are frequent for meetings, entertainments, and
private counsel. The life of home, farm, church, public school, and lodge is
open to the school s directive influence through an ever widening area, in a way
to develop initiative. The County and extension work is largely done through
approved persons, graduates and others, who render enthusiastic and unintrusive
service.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

The National Cyclopedia of The Colored Race

Editor-in-Chief

CLEMENT RICHARDSON
President of Lincoln Institute
Jefferson City, Mo.

ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Dr. C. V. ROMAN,
Nashville, Tenn.
Professor of Meharry Medical College.

W. T. B. WILLIAMS, Hampton Institute, Va.
Field Agent of the Jeannes and Slater Funds.

H. M. MINTON, M. D., Philadelphia, Pa.
Board of Directors Mercy Hospital.

SILAS X. FLOYD, Augusta, Ga.
Principal of City Schools.

DR. R. E. JONES, New Orleans, La.
Editor of South Western Christian Advocate.

DR. A. F. OWENS, Selma, Ala.
Dean of Theological Dept. Selma university.

FRED MOORE, New York City.
Editor New York Age.

ADVISORY BOARD

EMMETT J. SCOTT, Chairman,
Secretary of Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee Institute, Ala.

N. B. YOUNG, Tallahassee, Fla.
President of A. and M. College.

DR. J. W. E. BOWEN, Atlanta, Ga.
Dean of Gammon Theological Seminary.

J. R. E. LEE, Kansas City, Mo.
Principal of Lincoln High School.

J. S. CLARK, Baton Route, La.
President of Southern University.

DR. M. W. DOGAN, Marshall, Texas.
President of Wiley University.

Volume One
NATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, Inc.
PUBLISHERS
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA
1919

COPYRIGHT 1919
NATIONAL PUBLISHING CO., Inc.
MONTGOMERY, ALA.


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