Biography
W. H. Payne

This information generously donated to the Louisiana Genealogy Project - African American Archives by: Audrey Battiste - ABATTISTE@aol.com


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Taken from the book: The book  "Negro Stars in All Ages of the World"
William Harvey Quick, 1898. The submitter of this file is the great niece of
the author.

Prof. W. H. Payne was born at Covington, Kentucky, of free parents, in 1844,
who moved with him to Mercer county, Ohio, when he was four years old, where
they grew wealthy and gave their children a good education.

The subject of this sketch completed the common English branches in Ohio.
He then took four years teachers course at Liber College Institute, and then
spent four years at Alvian College, Michigan, one of the finest Institutions
in the North.  He led his classes in both colleges in mathematics; he not
only studied all the higher branches of mathematics and the sciences, but
devoted several years to the study of classics and the German and French
Languages.  He received many calls to lecture in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan,
while a student, and he became widely known on account of newspaper
comments.  He was invited by the Governor of Missouri (Thomas Fletcher) to
take charge of Lincoln Institute, while he was President of the school
several months before he had completed his degree.

His oration and composition on Commencement Day, in a class of white
students, took the premium, and a leading journal of Adrian City, declared
that "his efforts taken all together were the best of the day."

He took charge of Lincoln Institute, Missouri, in the fall of 1868, and on
account of the recommendations he brought from Dr. Mahan, the founder of
Oberlin College, and other distinguished educators, and the faculty of
Adrian, the Republican papers of St. Louis and Jefferson City declared him
to be the best educated young man in the State of Missouri.  He, with
Governor Fletcher, Hon. J. Wilton Turner and Hon. Arnold Krekel, United
States Circuit Judge, rendered valuable service in putting the institution
on a permanent foundation.

He was the founder of the Homestead Association of Mo. with Governor
McClurg, Senator Carl Schurtz and Senator C. D. Drake, as an Advisory Board,
an organization through which thousands of colored people obtained homes on
government lands.

He is a member of the Bar of Vidalia, La., and also of St. Louis, Mo. For a
number of years he represented Dun's Commercial Agency at Vidalia, La., and
while practicing law there, also represented Hon. Judge Wallace and George
H. Greenleaf, Esq., Bankers of Lebanon, Mo., in the purchase of lands in
large quantities and in the subdivision and sale of same in farms on the
installment plan.

He is one of the largest colored land dealers in the South, at the present
time he owns a plantation of 160 acres near Natchez, that will yield over a
bale of cotton to the acre on an average per annum.  and also a plantation
in Concordia Par., La., of 1,600 acres of as fine cotton land as is in the
cotton belt, this place has a large cotton gin, and grist mill on it, and
many tenants' houses.  He employs and estimable white man as agent to run
this place.

Prof. Payne also owns a large steam flouring mill in Ill., and several
pieces of real estate in the West.

He is one of the founders and the Supreme Business Manager of the Universal
Brotherhood and Mutual Aid Department, the largest Benevolent and Business
Institution conducted by colored people in the United States.  He is the
author of a large well bound blank stock book, and Late Lectures on Law and
Civil Government, at Natchez College, and is now devoting all his spare time
in writing a book on the progress of the colored race in the United States
since emancipation.