E-Text of Mary S. Peake
American Memory Catalogue record for Mary S. Peake: Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe For the full text go to: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/svy:@field(DOCID+@lit(maryT000))
From MOA, Michigan
Use Appendices of Peake book to lay out set of concerns? Compare/contrast with Pierce report,circulars?, and a Chase letter?
For example, here is an excerpt of a book that mentions Peake's work, Hampton and its Students. By Two of its Teachers, Mrs. M. F. Armstrong and Helen W. Ludlow. With Fifty Cabin and Plantation Songs, Arranged by Thomas P. Fenner: Electronic Edition. Armstrong, M. F. (Mary Frances), d.1903, Helen W. Ludlow (Helen Wilhelmina), d. 1924 and Thomas P. Fenner (Documenting the American South):
"This work was initiated by the officers of the American Missionary Association, who, in August, 1861, sent down as missionary to the freedmen, the Rev. C. L. Lockwood, his way having been opened for him by an official correspondence and interviews with the Assistant Secretary of War and Generals Butler and Wool, all of whom heartily approved of the enterprise and offered him cordial coöperation. He found the "contrabands" quartered in deserted houses, in cabins and tents, destitute and desolate, but in the main willing to help themselves as far as possible, and of at least average intelligence and honesty. There was, of course, little regular employment to offer them, and they subsisted upon government rations, increased by the little they could earn in one way and another. Mr. Lockwood's first work was the establishment of Sunday-schools and church societies, and his own words show the spirit in which the assistance he was able to give was offered and received. He says, in one of his first letters to the American Missionary Association, "I shall mingle largely with my religious instruction the inculcation of industrious habits, order, and good conduct in every respect. I tell them that they are a spectacle before God and man, and that if they would further the cause of liberty, it behooves them to be impressed with their own responsibility. I am happy to find that they realize this to a great extent already."
This was certainly encouraging, and he goes on to report that he finds little intemperance, and a hunger for books among those who can read, which is most gratifying. He appeals at once for primers, and for two or three female teachers to open week-day schools; and recommends that, in view of the imperativeness of the need, the subject should be brought before the public through the daily press and by means of public
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meetings. At the same time, he describes the opening of the first Sunday-school in the deserted mansion of ex-President Tyler, in Hampton, and, from his personal observation, declares that many of the colored people are kept away from the schools by want of clothing, a want which he looks to the North to supply. A little later in the year, he writes that, on November 17th, the first day-school was opened with twenty scholars and a colored teacher, Mrs. Peake, who, before the war, being free herself, had privately instructed many of her people who were still enslaved, although such work was not without its dangers.
From this time, schools were established as rapidly as suitable teachers could be found and proper books provided; but it must be noted that these teachers were working almost without compensation, their sole motive being a desire for the elevation of the race. As a proof of the quick awakening of the ex-slaves to a sense of the duties of freedom, Mr. Lockwood mentions that marriages were becoming very frequent, and that although the fugitives lived in constant fear of being remanded to slavery, they did not remit their efforts to obtain education and to raise themselves from the degradation of their past."
From MOA, Michigan
Use Appendices of Peake book to lay out set of concerns? Compare/contrast with Pierce report,circulars?, and a Chase letter?
For example, here is an excerpt of a book that mentions Peake's work, Hampton and its Students. By Two of its Teachers, Mrs. M. F. Armstrong and Helen W. Ludlow. With Fifty Cabin and Plantation Songs, Arranged by Thomas P. Fenner: Electronic Edition. Armstrong, M. F. (Mary Frances), d.1903, Helen W. Ludlow (Helen Wilhelmina), d. 1924 and Thomas P. Fenner (Documenting the American South):
"This work was initiated by the officers of the American Missionary Association, who, in August, 1861, sent down as missionary to the freedmen, the Rev. C. L. Lockwood, his way having been opened for him by an official correspondence and interviews with the Assistant Secretary of War and Generals Butler and Wool, all of whom heartily approved of the enterprise and offered him cordial coöperation. He found the "contrabands" quartered in deserted houses, in cabins and tents, destitute and desolate, but in the main willing to help themselves as far as possible, and of at least average intelligence and honesty. There was, of course, little regular employment to offer them, and they subsisted upon government rations, increased by the little they could earn in one way and another. Mr. Lockwood's first work was the establishment of Sunday-schools and church societies, and his own words show the spirit in which the assistance he was able to give was offered and received. He says, in one of his first letters to the American Missionary Association, "I shall mingle largely with my religious instruction the inculcation of industrious habits, order, and good conduct in every respect. I tell them that they are a spectacle before God and man, and that if they would further the cause of liberty, it behooves them to be impressed with their own responsibility. I am happy to find that they realize this to a great extent already."
This was certainly encouraging, and he goes on to report that he finds little intemperance, and a hunger for books among those who can read, which is most gratifying. He appeals at once for primers, and for two or three female teachers to open week-day schools; and recommends that, in view of the imperativeness of the need, the subject should be brought before the public through the daily press and by means of public
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Page 16
meetings. At the same time, he describes the opening of the first Sunday-school in the deserted mansion of ex-President Tyler, in Hampton, and, from his personal observation, declares that many of the colored people are kept away from the schools by want of clothing, a want which he looks to the North to supply. A little later in the year, he writes that, on November 17th, the first day-school was opened with twenty scholars and a colored teacher, Mrs. Peake, who, before the war, being free herself, had privately instructed many of her people who were still enslaved, although such work was not without its dangers.
From this time, schools were established as rapidly as suitable teachers could be found and proper books provided; but it must be noted that these teachers were working almost without compensation, their sole motive being a desire for the elevation of the race. As a proof of the quick awakening of the ex-slaves to a sense of the duties of freedom, Mr. Lockwood mentions that marriages were becoming very frequent, and that although the fugitives lived in constant fear of being remanded to slavery, they did not remit their efforts to obtain education and to raise themselves from the degradation of their past."
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