History of Greene County, Ohio: its people, industries and institutions, Volume II, Part 108

Author: Broadstone, Michael A., 1852- comp
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Indianapolis, B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1440

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Superintendent Joiner has continued actively engaged in continued re- search work since taking up his administrative labors at Wilberforce and has added to the degrees he brought with him to that school the accredited degree of Bachelor of Philosophy earned by four summers of work at Chi- cago University. In 1893 he had graduated from the law department of Howard University (valedictorian of his class), with the degree of Master of Laws and in 1902 was graduated from the pedagogical department of that same institution with the degree of Bachelor of Pedagogy, and in 1909 was given his degree of Master of Science by Wilberforce. During his high school days Superintendent Joiner was catcher on the school baseball team and also worked on the Springfield ( Illinois) Daily Monitor, which paper he afterward represented as Washington correspondent upon his removal to the capital. He published the "Ohio Book" for the Lincoln Jubilee, commemora- tive of the fiftieth anniversary of Negro emancipation, and lias also published a pamphlet, "History of Negro Education in the District of Columbia." On October 19, 1917, Superintendent Joiner was united in marriage to Ada A. Rountree, of Xenia. He and his wife are members of the African Methodist Episcopal church and he has a Sunday school class of fifty-one members, his work in connection with that class being one of the chief pleasures of his life.

REV. HORACE TALBERT, M. A., D. D.

With the recent passing of the Rev. Dr. Horace Talbert, long and more familiarly known as Secretary Talbert. Wilberforce University lost a factor that had for years been exerted in behalf of the interests of that institution and of the extension of its sphere of influence. Doctor Talbert was a product of Wilberforce and in his life and works ever honored the institution to which he felt he owed so much. After years of successful gospel ministry following his graduation and ordination he returned to his beloved alma mater in 1892 to accept there the chair of languages, but his executive ability soon convinced the trustees of the school that he was a man who could ac- complish splendid things for the university if placed in a larger sphere of usefulness, and, in 1896, he was elected secretary of the institution, a posi- tion he occupied for nearly twenty years, or until his resignation in October, 1915, ill health necessitating the reluctant relinquishment of an obligation of

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service that he had held as sacred in its binding force; for to Doctor Tal- bert the service he had so long rendered in behalf of Wilberforce was re- garded as special work for the Kingdom of God, and to that work he gave the best that there was in him. He did not long survive the relinquishment of his official duties and his death occurred at his home at Wilberforce on November 12, 1917, he then being in the sixty-fifth year of his age.

Horace Talbert was born in slavery in the city of Louisville, Kentucky, September 21, 1853, son of William and Jane Ellen (Dory) Talbert, and was the fifth in order of birth of the seven children born to that parentage. Though shut out by their servitude from all knowledge of books, William Talbert and his wife by natural endowment possessed the elements that go to the making of noble natures and strong characters. Of his mother Doctor Talbert long afterward wrote: "She planted the seeds of piety and truth in my heart," and her prayers in his behalf were the most tenderly cherished recollections of his early days. From the interesting narrative of his own recollections left by Doctor Talbert it is learned that before he was eleven years of age, one evening in October, 1864, he had dropped into old Asbury Chapel. in Louisville, where an evangelist was conducting services, and that the exhortations of the evangelist, based upon St. Paul's importunate plea, "O, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death," sank so deeply into his boyish heart that after several days of seek- ing he became convinced of his conversion. Even before his conversion the boy Horace had felt an ardent longing to become "some day" a minister of the gospel and after that the endeavors of his youth were directed toward the acquisition of an education that would fit him for the call to which in his boyhood he had responded with his whole heart. "Here am I," was his response to that call and he wanted to be ready when the time for service came.

Horace Talbert's first schooling was received in the school of the Rev. Basil L. Brooks, in Asbury Chapel, and later in the school of Prof. William H. Gibson at Quinn Chapel. When necessity presently compelled him to go to work, in the tobacco warehouses or on the river, he became enrolled in a night school and continued his studies, such of his wages as could be saved being laid by to defray the expenses of the college course to which he con- tinually looked forward. As a communicant at Asbury Chapel the lad came under the notice of the pastor who became convinced that young Talbert possessed no ordinary mind and, together with other influential friends, urged him to enter Berea College; but about this time the Rev. Robert G. Mortimer, who then was conducting a high school in the basement of his church in Louisville, was asked to take charge of the language department of Wilberforce University. A number of his pupils decided to go with him

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and Horace, then in his eighteenth year, was invited to join the party of students. He accepted and by the middle of, September, 1870, was enrolled as a student at Wilberforce, this being his introduction to the institution in the affairs of which he was destined later to take so influential a part. The young man's desire for the service of the church remained undiminished and in October, 1871, he was licensed to exhort. Four years later he received local preacher's orders and was taken into the Ohio conference, presently being appointed assistant to the pastor on the Springboro circuit. In two years more he had completed his studies in the English and classical depart- ments of the university and on the day of his graduation, June 17, 1877, was assigned by Bishop Wayman to the pastorate of the African Methodist Episcopal church at Cynthiana, Kentucky. In the following September he

was ordained to the diaconate at Midway, Kentucky, and in that same month returned to Wilberforce for a further season of study in the theological de- partment, with a view to preparation for entrance in the theological seminary of Princeton University, and in April, 1878; went East with Bishop Payne, but the journey was extended to Boston, where he was placed in charge of the church of his communion at Cambridge and was thus given opportunity to take the course he sought in Greek, Hebrew and philosophy at the Uni- versity of Boston. Ordination to the eldership came in June, 1878, and his next charge was at Lynn, Massachusetts, from which city he presently was sent by Bishop Brown to Bridgeport, Connecticut. About that time he mar- ried and was transferred to the New Jersey conference, being installed as pastor of the church at Bordentown. While thus engaged he was appointed recording secretary of the Sabbath School Union of the African Methodist Episcopal church and not long afterward was transferred to the New York conference and stationed at Albany, capital of the state, going thence to Elmira, New York, other pastorates following, in the course of his itinerary, at Oswego, Jamaica and East New York, during this latter pastorate being made the presiding elder of the Brooklyn district. While there he also founded the New York conference high school and assumed the editorship and management of The African Watchman. He next was sent to Buffalo, New York, and it was while serving in that city that he was called to the chair of languages at Wilberforce University, which meanwhile had not lost sight of his services in behalf of his church and his race and had conferred upon him his Master of Arts degree and his later degree of Doctor of Divin- ity. As noted above, it was in 1892 that Doctor Talbert returned to Wilber- force. Not long afterward he was elected secretary of the institution and it was in this capacity that he traveled extensively East and West in the inter- ests of the school and won hundreds of new friends for the institution, it being said of him that he collected more money for Wilberforce than any

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agent ever connected with the school. It was through his personal inter- view with Andrew Carnegie that the latter contributed the money for the erection of the library building that now graces the campus and for its fur- nishings, and numerous other liberal contributions for the extension of the university's usefulness were secured by the manner in which he presented the aims and needs of the institution.

The home life of Doctor Talbert was an exceedingly happy one. His house, facing the Columbus pike, in the immediate vicinity of the univer- sity, was planned by Mrs. Talbert and was built. for the most part, by the two elder sons, Eugene and Henry, who had their training in the carpentry department of the university. There Mrs. Talbert is still living with her children. She was born, S. Frankie Black, at Baltimore, Maryland, Novem- ber 6, 1859, daughter of William Henry and Anna M. (Gazaway) Black, both of whom also were born in Maryland ( free born). the latter the daugh- ter of an Indian mother who lived to be one hundred and twelve years of age. William Henry Black, who died at his home in Washington, D. C., in 1888, had early learned the trade of wheelwright and as a young man worked at that trade, later moving to the city of Baltimore, where he became engaged in the hotel and restaurant business. While there he formed some influen- tial acquaintances who secured for him in 1869 an appointment in the United State's postoffice department at Washington. When the postoffice money- order department later was created he was made a clerk in that department and continued serving in that capacity until his death. His widow survived him for many years, her death occurring on May 6, 1917. she then being eighty-one years of age. William H. Black and his wife were the parents of five children, of whom Mrs. Talbert was the fourth in order of birth. She supplemented the course of schooling received in the public schools of Wash- ington by a course at Wilberforce University and it was while attending the university that she became acquainted with Doctor Talbert, to whom she was married at her home in Washington on September 4, 1879.

To the Rev. Dr. Horace and S. Frankie ( Black) Talbert were born four- teen children, namely : Anna Augusta, who died at the age of three years; Eugene Hunter, born on December 12, 1881, a graduate of Wilberforce University, who married Tennie Montgomery and is now living in Chicago, where he is in charge of an automobile distributing agency; Horace, Jr., April 26, 1883, who died at the age of nineteen months; Henry Payne, March 13, 1884, a graduate of Wilberforce ( 1905), who married Dora Rus- sell and is still living at Wilberforce, connected with the university: Wen- dell Phillips, January 8, 1886, a musician connected with the lyceum stage, who married Florence Cole and makes his home at Detroit, Michigan; Will- iam Ellsworth, September 14, 1887, who married Melissa Richardson and is now living at Seattle, Washington, where he is employed in the postoffice ;

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Benjamin Blain, April 1, 1889, born at Jamaica, New York, and who died there on January 19, 1890: Ulysses Grant, October 29, 1890, who died at the age of fifteen years; Dumas Shorter, May 29, 1892, who died at the age of three months; Virgil and Homer (twins), October 28, 1893, the former of whom is now a student of the veterinary department of Ohio State Univer- sity, and the latter of whom married Nettie Russell and is now living at Wyoming, in Hamilton county, this state; Ruby, May 23, 1895, who is now engaged as a teacher of mathematics in the normal school at Florence, Ala- bama; Elizabeth Rebecca, November 16, 1900, now a student at Wilberforce, and Helen Jane, January 1, 1902, also a student in the university. In addi- tion to the labors performed by Doctor Talbert and which have been re- ferred to in the foregoing account of his life, it is but proper to state that in 1906 he published a book, "Sons of Allen," a volume of biography carrying sketches and intimate sidelights relating to many of the more prominent fig- ures in the African Methodist Episcopal church, which attracted considerable attention and which is highly valued in the church and in Negro educational circles.

HALLIE QUINN BROWN.

Among the many personal forces that have operated through the years since its establishment to bring to Wilberforce University worldwide recog- nition as a center of Negro education few, if any, have been exercised more widely and with greater force of direction than that so long exercised by Miss Hallie Quinn Brown, the famous Afro-American elocutionist, whose "Homewood Cottage" at Wilberforce has for years been an acknowledged center from which has radiated an influence of inestimable value to the race in whose behalf Miss Brown has been unselfishly laboring ever since the day when she was graduated from Wilberforce and started out on her mission of education and enlightenment, a mission whose successful accom- plishment has made her name well known in educational circles on two conti- nents.

"Who's Who In Lyceum" makes note of Miss Brown that she was "born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; educated Wilberforce Univ. (B. S. 1873; M. S. 1890); C. L. S. C. grad. of 1886; dean of Allen Univ., S. C., 1885-7; of Tuskegee Inst .. Tuskegee, Ala., 1892-3: prof. of elocution Wilberforce Univ. 1900-3; taught on Sonora Plantation, Miss., Yazoo City, Miss., and Day- ton, Ohio (4 yrs.) ; member and lecturer of British Woman's Temperance Ass'n. ; member W. C. T. U. of America ; member Royal Geog. Soc .. Edin- burgh, Scotland, and of International Woman's Congress, London, Eng., 1899 : pres. Ohio State Federation of Woman's Clubs. Author of : 'Bits and Odds,' 1880. Lecturer: 'The Progress of Negro Education and Advance-

Eng by E & Winans & Bro NY

Halle & Brown

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ment in America Since Emancipation,' 'The Status of the Afro-American Woman Before and Since the War,' 'Songs and Sorrows of the Negro Race,' 'The Life Work of Frederick Douglas, Slave, Freeman, Orator, Editor, Eman- cipator,' 'Negro Folklore and Folksong,' 'My Visit to Queen Victoria,' and 'Windsor Castle.' Reciter: 1894-1900 lectured in Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland, France, appearing before Queen Victoria 1899; entertainer at the Princess of Wales' dinner to the London poor children, 1897; was one of the seven members to form first British Chautauqua, Pwllheli, N. Wales, 1895; lectured at the Grindelwald conf., Switzerland, 1895." Miss Brown also was a speaker at the third biennial convention of the world's Woman's Christian Temperance Union held in London, June 14-23, 1895, Lady Henry Somerset presiding, and in June, 1899, was one of the representatives from the United States to the International Congress of Women held in London. On July 7 of this latter year Miss Brown was received by Queen Victoria, tea being served in St. George's Hall, the hall of the garter, Windsor Castle. During the time of the celebration of the queen's jubilee she was the guest of the lord mayor of London and his wife and later, of the mayor of Cory- don and wife, journeying with the latter in a private car to London, where special seats were reserved for the party near Westminster Abbey from which to view the procession and ceremonies. Miss Brown also was in attendance at the services in Westminster Abbey incident to the funeral of William E. Gladstone, her ticket of admission having been furnished to her by a member of parliament. On November 23, 1899, Miss Brown sang "Listen to the Angels" at the meeting of the National British Woman's Temperance Association at Victoria Hall, Hanley, Staffordshire, and on other occasions during her period of activity in Europe during the 'gos was accorded recognition of a high character. In 1912 she made a second trip to Europe, going as the representative of the Women's Missionary Societies of the African Methodist Episcopal church in the United States to the World's Missionary Conference held in that year at Edinburgh and was on the other side for seven months. While there she so greatly interested Miss E. J. Emery, a wealthy London philanthropist, in the work being done on behalf of the Negro race at Wilberforce University that Miss Emery gave to her fifteen thousand dollars with which to erect a new girls' dormitory at the university. The building thus so generously provided for was erected in 1913 and was called the Keziah Emery Hall and dedicated to the memory of Keziah Emery, mother of the donor.

As a reader and public entertainer Miss Brown has gained an interna- tional reputation. From the days of her girlhood her exceptional vocal and elocutionary talent has been recognized, but it was not until some years after her graduation from Wilberforce that she began to gain fame as a public

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entertainer. Worn out by the strain of the educational work she had been doing after leaving the university in 1873, she sought relaxation from the strain thus imposed and started out on a lecture tour in behalf of the uni- versity. Later she became connected with the Wilberforce Grand Concert Company and for several years traveled with that organization, giving bene- fits in behalf of the university, and in that connection lectured and read throughout the breadth and length of this land, being everywhere favorably and enthusiastically received; later pursuing a similar course in Europe, where she did much to bring to the favorable attention of those who might be interested, the work being done at Wilberforce. . Miss Brown continues her public appearances by appointment. making her home at "Homewood Cottage." Wilberforce, which has been her established home for years. Her lecture repertoire has been indicated above. She also has a very large and varied recital repertoire, some ninety pieces being available for her programs. and the press tributes paid to her performance in many of the leading cities in this country and in Great Britain are evidences of the entertaining character of those performances. As an interpreter of the poems of the late Paul Lawrence Dunbar. Miss Brown is particularly effective and her readings of that poet's works have gained for her the unstinted praise of discriminating critics.

Miss Brown was born in the city of Pittsburgh, but her girlhood was spent on a farm in the vicinity of Chatham, Ontario, Canada, to which her parents had moved upon leaving the city. It was there that her exceptional talents in the elocutionary way were discovered, but these were not system- atically developed until later when her parents returned to the United States and located at Wilberforce, where she entered the university and was graduated, as noted above, in 1873, among her classmates having been Mrs. Mary F. Lee, wife of Bishop B. F. Lee, and Samuel T. Mitchell, who later became president of the university. Miss Brown's father died at Wilber- force in 1882. he then being eighty years of age. His widow survived him for many years, her death occurring at "Homewood Cottage" on April 16. 1914. she then being one day past ninety-five years of age. Miss Brown was the last-born of the six children born to her parents, the others being Jere A. Brown, formerly and for years a resident of Cleveland, this state, who served his district as a member of the Ohio state Legislature and later became connected with the government service at Washington; Mrs. Belle Newman, deceased: Mrs. Anna E. Weaver, of Farmland, Indiana; Mary Frances, deceased, and John G., also deceased, who was a graduate of Wilber- force University and who was developing his excellent native powers as a lecturer and speaker when his promising career was brought to a close by death.

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PROF. CHARLES HENRY JOHNSON.

Prof. Charles Henry Johnson, head of the art department of Wilber- force University, is a product of Wilberforce, a member of the class of 1893. and has ever since his graduation devoted his life to teaching. In 1900 he was elected to take charge of the Normal Art Department of that institution and has ever since been at the head of the same. During the Jamestown Ex- position Professor Johnson, under government appointment, had charge of the Negro building at that exposition, collected much of the exhibit made in the same and had charge of the installation of the same. His special work in the university is the preparation of teachers for art work in public schools and his department has taken thirty-three prizes in contests mostly promoted by the School Arts Guild, in 1915 the Wilberforce art exhibit taking first place. Preparatory to these exhibitions all of Professor Johnson's advanced pupils submit their best efforts in the way of art production and from the collection thus submitted five pieces are chosen and this selective exhibit of five is then sent to the national exhibit. During the Lincoln Jubilee held at Chicago commemorative of the fiftieth anniversary of Negro emancipation Professor Johnson was appointed by the Ohio state commission to have charge of Ohio's exhibition at that jubilee demonstration, the state having appropriated the sum of ten thousand dollars to provide for adequate repre- sentation there. The Professor is an ardent temperance advocate and has delivered lectures on temperance all over the state. He also is an influential figure in the councils of the African Methodist Episcopal church and at the general conference of that church held at Kansas City in 1912 was elected general secretary of the laymen's missionary movement of that communion, a position he still occupies and in which connection he has traveled all over the United States promoting that cause and lecturing in its behalf. He was for six years president of the Ohio state organization of the Allen Endeavor League of his church and is still the president of the local society of the sanie.

Professor Johnson was born at Van Wert, Ohio, on September 27, 1873, son of Thomas W. and Margaret (Tooney) Johnson, both of whom were born in slavery, the former in Virginia and the latter in Tennessee, who were married in Ohio and the latter of whom is still living, now a resident of Nashville, Tennessee. Thomas Johnson made his way from Virginia to Ohio during the progress of the Civil War and enlisted his services in behalf of the Union cause, going to the front with an Ohio regiment and serving until the close of the war, for which service his widow is now drawing a pension from the government. After the war he married in Columbus. He later became a landowner and farmer in Van Wert county and there died in 1906, he then being sixty-nine years of age. He was a deacon in the Baptist

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church and his constant recognition of the necessity under which his race was bound with respect to education and educational influences prompted him to stimulate in the breasts of his children that desire for learning which even- tually resulted in all acquiring the benefits of excellent schooling. There were six of these children, of whom the subject of this biographical sketch was the second in order of birth, the others being the following: George, deceased ; John, who is engaged in business in the city of Chicago; Mrs. Lucia Ross, a teacher in Turner College at Nashville, Tennessee; Fred, a civil engineer, now living at Alberta, Canada, and Blanche, who was graduated from Knox- ville College and was engaged in teaching for a while before her marriage to Doctor Love, of Texas.

Reared on the home farm in Van Wert county, Charles Henry Johnson received his early schooling in the neighborhood district school and supple- mented the same by attendance for a while at the Van Wert schools, after which he entered the Normal Department of Wilberforce University, from which he was graduated in 1893. Upon receiving his diploma he accepted an invitation to join the faculty of one of the state colleges in Alabama and for a year thereafter was engaged in teaching music and mathematics in that institution. He then transferred his services to Kittrell College in North Carolina and was there engaged in teaching science and art for four years, at the end of which time he went to Chicago for the purpose of furthering his study in art and in 1900 completed the course in teachers and academic art at the Chicago Art Institute. Thus equipped he returned to his alma mater in 1900. Professor Johnson teaches general art, with particular reference to free-hand drawing, oil painting, both landscape and portrait, pastel work and clay modeling. He is a member of the Western Drawing Teachers Associa- tion and is a frequent contributor to art magazines. By political preference, he is a Republican. In 1917 Professor Johnson built a house on the Colum- bus pike, in the immediate vicinity of the university. This house is of tiled exterior and the Professor's taste in such matters is revealed in every line of the place. On the walls of this home are hanging many of the best products of his brush.

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History of Greene County, Ohio: its people, industries and institutions, Volume II, Part 108

Author: Broadstone, Michael A., 1852- comp Publication date: 1918 Publisher: Indianapolis, B.F. Bowen Number of Pages: 1440

Author: Broadstone, Michael A., 1852- comp
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Indianapolis, B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1440