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William F. Allen: Classical Scholar Among the Slaves

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Gerald Robbins
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Extract

It was a cool, blustery, but beautiful, clear November 4, 1863, when the Union Steamer Arago lifted anchor and headed south out of New York Harbor. The deck was crowded with Yankee soldiers and some civilians, departing for the South Carolina Sea Islands, where the Union, two years earlier, had established the Department of the South. Listed among the passengers were William Francis Allen and his wife Mary, both teachers, hired to educate the abandoned sea island slaves. After graduating from Harvard in 1851, Allen served as a tutor in New York for three years, then journeyed to Europe where he studied language and the classics at Gottingen, Berlin, Rome, Naples, and Greece. In 1856 William returned to Boston where he accepted the position of associate principal at the English and Classical School at West Newton, Massachusetts. While working in this capacity, Allen met, courted, and married Mary Lambert and remained on at West Newton during the war's early years. Hoping to do something for the war effort, William and his wife hired on as instructors and were part of a new teachers group heading for the islands to do their part.

Type
Research Article
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , December 1965 , pp. 211 - 223
Copyright
Copyright © 1965, University of Pittsburgh Press 

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References

Notes

1. Dictionary of American Biography, I (New York, 1928), 211.Google Scholar

2. William F. Allen Papers (MSS in State Historical Society of Wisconsin), 1. (Hereafter cited as Allen Papers.)Google Scholar

3. Boston Daily Advertiser, February 24, 1862.Google Scholar

4. By Act of Congress, July 1, 1862: Ware Pearson, Elizabeth, (ed.), Letters From Port Royal: Written at the Time of the Civil War (Boston, 1906), 181, 99, 2, 124; Allen Papers, 2-3.Google Scholar

5. Allen Papers, 95; Hyde Botume, Elizabeth, First Days Amongst the Contrabands (Boston, 1893), 22.Google Scholar

6. Boston Daily Advertiser, July 13, 1861: Lillie Pierce, Edward, The Negroes at Port Royal (Boston, 1862), 24-5.Google Scholar

7. Allen Papers, 95; Noble Sherwood, Henry, (ed.), “The Journal of Susan Walker,” Quarterly Publication of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio (Springfield, Ohio, 1907), VII, 38.Google Scholar

8. Congressional Globe, 37 Cong., 2 Sess., Appendix, 245, 55.Google Scholar

9. Bushnell Hart, Albert, Salmon Portland Chase (Boston, 1899), 260: War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (70 vol. in 128, Washington, D. C., 1880-1901), Ser. III, II, 27, 152. (Hereafter cited as Official Records): Reid, Whitelaw, After the War: A Southern Tour, May 1. 1865 to May 1, 1866 (New York, 1866), 80.Google Scholar

10. American Annual Cyclopaedia, II, 756.Google Scholar

11. Pierce, Edward L., “Freedmen at Port Royal,” Atlantic Monthly (1863), XII: 301. Also, Report of the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission June 30, 1863, Made to Secretary of War Stanton in Official Records, Ser. III, 3, 434. Allen Papers, 48.Google Scholar

12. Allen Papers, 3.Google Scholar

13. For a good account of a teacher who remained on for her remaining years, see Robbins, Gerald, “Laura Towne: White Pioneer in Negro Education, 1862-1901,” Journey of Education (Boston University School of Education), April, 1961, CXLIII, 40-52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. Allen Papers, 15-17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15. Holland, Rupert S., ed., Letters and Diary of Laura M. Towne: Written From the Sea Islands of South Carolina, 1862-1884 (Cambridge, Mass., 1912), 7.Google Scholar

16. Allen Papers, 12.Google Scholar

17. Ibid., 13.Google Scholar

18. Ibid., 206.Google Scholar

19. Ibid., 37.Google Scholar

20. Letters and Diary of Laura M. Towne, XIV.Google Scholar

21. Allen Papers, 13.Google Scholar

22. Ibid., 103.Google Scholar

23. Ibid., 180.Google Scholar

24. Letters and Diary of Laura M. Towne, 52.Google Scholar

25. Allen Papers, 94; Ames, Mary, From A New England Woman's Diary in Dixie in 1865 (Springfield, 1906), 59.Google Scholar

26. Allen Papers, 30.Google Scholar

27. Ibid., 85.Google Scholar

28. Ibid., 42.Google Scholar

29. Ibid., 59.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., 53.Google Scholar

31. Ibid. Google Scholar

32. Ibid., 48.Google Scholar

33. Ibid., 18-20, 138.Google Scholar

34. Ibid., 101.Google Scholar

35. Ibid., 129.Google Scholar

36. Dictionary of American Biography, 211.Google Scholar

37. Allen Papers, 213.Google Scholar