2.
The prominent members of the 1899 protest movement included Rev. John H. Travis, pastor of Calvary; his son, Robert, graduate of East Orange High School's two-year commercial course and later a bookkeeper; Dr. John H. Stillwell, physician and Republican Committeeman from Orange; James H. Vandervall, owner of the Essex Steam Carpet Cleaning Company; William Blunt, a coachman; Lee R. Montague, an insurance agent and editor of a local Negro newspaper (the files of which do not exist); Rev. A. P. Cooper, pastor of the “society” St. Paul A.M.E. Church in Orange; Isaiah King, a contractor; and Rev. George W. Krygar, a native of Germany, educated at the Universities of Heidelberg and Berlin, who had migrated to the United States, married a Negro, and become pastor of the Mt. Olive Baptist Church. Most of these men were also prominent in the 1905–1906 movement. Others who became active at that time included Luther Tate, owner of a carpet-cleaning business; Daniel R. Watkins, proprietor of a blacksmith shop; Rev. D. D. Turpeau, pastor of St. John's Methodist Church in Orange; James E. Churchman, an undertaker and active Republican leader; and Robert Foster, variously listed as a laborer and a gardener. Occupational information was derived mainly from Baldwin's Directory of the Oranges and Townships of Essex County, editions of 1899–1900, 1901–1902, 1904, 1905–1906, 1908. Additional biographical data and the social standing of the different churches were obtained through interviews with old residents of East Orange and their descendants. It should be noted that because of limited economic opportunities, the criteria for membership in the middle and upper classes of the Negro community have differed from the criteria employed among whites. This was even more true sixty years ago than it is today. At that time a long history of free ancestry, a respectable, bourgeois style of life, and service in prominent white families or ownership of a modest business such as a barbershop or blacksmith shop accorded one upper-class status along side of the tiny handful of physicians, schoolteachers, and well-educated ministers.Google Scholar
