Peter H. Clark to Frederick Douglass, March 22, 1880

PETER H. CLARK TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Cincinnati[, Ohio.] 22 March 1880[.]

HON FREDERICK DOUGLASS

MY DEAR SIR:

In a talk with John G. Fee^{1John Gregg Fee (1816–1901), a Kentucky-born reformer and minister, trained at Lane Theological Seminary in Ohio, where he embraced racial equality and abolitionism. In 1848, when the New School Presbyterian Synod of Kentucky forced Fee from the organization because of his antislavery views, he sought support for his ministry through the abolitionist-led American Missionary Association. Considered radical by the standards of most white Kentucky residents, Fee proposed immediate emancipation and advocated educational opportunities and integration for all blacks. In 1854, Fee moved to central Kentucky and founded the town of Berea in Madison County. Fee was forced to flee to the North following John Brown’s attack on Harpers Ferry in the fall of 1859. He returned to Kentucky as a chaplain to black Union army soldiers at Camp Nelson. After the Civil War, Fee resumed his connection to Berea College. Victor B. Howard, The Evangelical War against Slavery and Caste: The Life and Times of John G. Fee (Selinsgrove, Pa., 1996); Elizabeth S. Peck, Berea’s First Century, 1855–1955 (Lexington, Ky., 1955), 2–6; Johnson, “American Missionary Association,” 125–31, 455–61; DAB, 6: 310–11; NCAB, 24: 301–02; ANB (online).}, a few days ago, he asked me to write to you something about Berea^{2In 1853, John G. Fee founded an antislavery congregation at Berea in Madison County, Kentucky. Two years later, he founded Berea College on land donated by the antislavery politician Cassius M. Clay as an anticaste, coeducational institution that required only that students be of “good moral character.” Although Clay withdrew his support after Fee decided to admit black students, Fee guided the institution until the panic following the Harpers Ferry raid. Classes resumed after the war, and the college remained an integrated institution until state laws forced its segregation in 1904. Peck, Berea’s First Century; Richard Allen Heckman and Betty Jean Hall, “Berea College and the Day Law,” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, 66: 35–52 (1968).} to the end that you may be induced to visit that place at its next commencement day.

Berea is in some aspects one of the most remarkable places in the country. You approach it by a road call the Big Hills’ Pike, upon this road

was fought a bloody and to the Union troops disastrous battle.^{3On 29–30 August 1862, Union and Confederate forces fought on the road between Big Hill and Richmond, Kentucky. This engagement is now referred to as the Battle of Richmond. Major General William Nelson’s Union forces were routed by Confederates under Major General E. Kirby Smith. Of the approximately 5,600 soldiers lost, 4,900 were Union forces. American Battlefield Protection Program, “Battle of Richmond,” CWSAC Battle Summaries, nps.gov.} As you ride over this road many points of interest will be shown—Twelve miles away is the town of Richmond,^{4Richmond became the county seat of Madison County, Kentucky, in 1798 after the state legislature approved a change from the original seat at Milford. Seltzer, Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer, 1578; Richmond County Visitors Center, “History of Richmond KY,” richmondkytourism.com.} the county town—The desperate character of the people of the town and vicinity—is shown in this, that the meetings of the court are almost always accompanied by scenes of bloody violence. In the court house yard at least a dozen men have been shot dead in the course of the relentless vendettas, which have given this part of Kentucky a reputation as lurid with murder as that of Sicily itself.^{5In 1860, Italian revolutionary forces invaded the island of Sicily, forcing its incorporation into the new centralized kingdom. By 1876, resulting problems with violence and criminality in the subdued island led to two investigators being dispatched to find out what accounted for this particularly dangerous region. Their report constituted the first published confirmation of a new form of criminal enterprise throughout the area, the “mafiosi.” By 1880, the story of this notorious region had reached America, appearing on the pages of even relatively small-town newspapers. “The Mafiusi of Sicily,” Logansport (Ind.) Journal, 14 February 1877; Alexander Stille, Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic (New York, 1995), 14–18.}

Yet in the midst of this literally Dark and Bloody ground stands Berea a wonder of wonders—on Commencement day, upon its campus there assembles thousands of men and women white and black—who listen to speeches made from the most radical anti-slavery stand-point by colored men and white men; who behold colored students and white students, male and female, mingling freely upon the platform, in the boarding halls and in the chapels of the school. They see and hear all this and yet no disturbance has ever marred the perfect propriety of annual exercises.

Now to see such a sight in Kentucky will pay you I am sure for the fatigue of the visit—Mr. Fee says the Trustees will pay the cost of the trip if you will come.^{6No surviving record indicates that Douglass delivered a commencement address at Berea College. Douglass did help with a fund-raising drive for the college in 1885. Richard Sears, A Utopian Experiment in Kentucky: Integration and Social Equality at Berea (Westport, Conn., 1996), 138.} To this I will add that I will arrange for you with re-liable men for lectures, 3 or 5, or more if you desire them, so that you will be compensated for your trip pecuniarily as well as morally—the exercises to which your presence is desired are in the latter part of June. If you can come and will notify me I will foreward the precise date and proceed to arrange for the lectures of which I have spoken.

In the course of the past winter I have lectured five times to lyceums in the city and vicinity—my theme being Frederick Douglass as a Man and as an Orator—^{7Clark regularly spoke in the Cincinnati area on a number of subjects. No available source, however, confirms that Clark gave a series of speeches on Douglass during this period. The historian and biographer Nikki Marie Taylor notes the problem of trying to confirm the content of his orations; see America’s First Black Socialist: The Radical Life of Peter H. Clark, 15.}

In the preparation of my lectures I was much embarrassed by the fact that there is no published volume of your speeches.

Do you not think that a volume of your speeches and selections from your writings would sell?

You have of course heard of the election of George Williams to the Ohio legislature.^{8George Washington Williams, a Union army veteran, self-styled as a colonel, was the first African American elected to the Ohio legislature. He served one term (1880–81). After the Civil War, Williams attended Howard University and then the Newton Theological Institution in Massachusetts. He served as pastor in Baptist churches in Boston and Cincinnati. He attended the Cincinnati Law School and won admission to the Ohio bar. President Chester A. Arthur nominated Williams to serve as minister to Haiti, but political wrangling prevented him taking the post. Williams spent a large portion of his life writing, and speaking, on the atrocities of slavery and inequality. He was one of the people responsible for bringing to light the horrors of the Belgian Congo. John Hope Franklin, George Washington Williams: A Biography (Chicago, 1985); Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (New York, 1998), 102–05; Ohio History Connection [formerly Ohio Historical Society], “George W. Williams,” Ohio History Central, ohiohistorycentral.org; DAB, 20: 263–64; ACAB, 6: 522.} You knew him before I did and probably better than I do, so it will not surprise you when I tell you that he could not be again elected and that he has closed the way for any other colored man until his shortcomings are forgotten—

My wife,^{9Peter Clark’s wife was Frances Ann Williams (1830–1902). They had three children, Ernestine (1855–1928) a vocalist and teacher married to John Nesbitt, Cincinnati’s first African American postal carrier; Herbert (1859–1927), a teacher and government worker; and Consuelo (1861–1910), the first African American woman licensed to practice medicine in Ohio. Taylor, America’s First Black Socialist, 73–74.} who sits beside me as I write, bids me send much love to you and Mrs. Douglass—^{10Anna Murray Douglas.}

My daughters^{11Consuelo A. Clark Stewart (1861–1910), the youngest of Peter and Frances Clark’s children, was born in Cincinnati. She graduated from the McMicken School of Art with a high school certificate and a drawing certificate. Consuelo was one of the first African American women to study at the Boston University School of Medicine (1880–84). Consuelo returned to Cincinnati and began a rather successful medical practice. Sometime between 1884 and 1890 she married William Richard Stewart, a prosperous lawyer. The couple moved to Youngstown in 1890. 1880 Census, Ohio, Hamilton County, 216B; J. Richey Honer, ed. American Institute of Homoeopathy: Transactions of the SixtyFifth Session (n.p., 1910), 409; Frank Lincoln Mather, ed., Who’s Who of the Colored Race (Chicago, 1915), 255; Ruth Neely, ed., Women of Ohio: A Record of Their Achievements in the History of the State, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1900), 1:413; Simmons, Men of Mark, 382.} are well—Ernestine^{12Ernestine L. Clark Nesbit (1855–1928) was the Clarks’ eldest child. She graduated from her father’s Gaines High School in Cincinnati and later the Cincinnati Normal School. Ernestine was reportedly the first woman of color to be admitted to the latter school “without denying her race.” She returned to Gaines High School as a teacher after receiving her teaching certificate. In 1879, Ernestine married John S. Nesbit, a mail carrier, and the couple had numerous children, the only grandchildren Peter and Frances Clark would have. She and John moved to St. Louis, as did Peter, and they took care of him in his old age. While in St. Louis, she taught piano. St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 14 April 1928; 1880 U.S. Census, Ohio, Hamilton County, 50; 1900 U.S. Census, Ohio, Hamilton County, 167A; Gould’s St. Louis Directory for 1910 (St. Louis, 1910), 2595; William Melanchthon Glasgow, The Geneva Book (Philadelphia, 1908), 257; Simmons, Men of Mark, 382.} is living happily with her husband and my son^{13Herbert A. Clark (1858–?) was born in Cincinnati. He attended Gaines High School, became an educator himself, and was also a successful newspaper man. In 1883–84 he served as a deputy sheriff in Cincinnati. Around that time, Herbert married Lenna Young, a woman from Mississippi who appears to have been living with the family in 1880. After that, the couple seems to have moved from place to place. In the early 1890s, Herbert was working for the Afro-American in Columbus. In 1900 they were in Boone County, Missouri, but by 1902 he was teaching at Alcorn University in Mississippi. In 1914 he was running the Wagoner American paper near Muskogee, Oklahoma, where his wife, Lenna, was the musical director of the school. It is unclear when he died, though it was sometime before 1925. Indianapolis Leader, 12 February 1881; Omaha (Neb.) Daily Bee, 7 July 1904; Salt Lake City (Utah) Broad-Ax, 7 March 1914; Minneapolis Twin City Star, 26 June 1915; 1880 Census, Ohio, Hamilton County, 216B; 1900 Census, Missouri, Boone County, 164B; Americus V. Williams, Williams’ Cincinnati Directory, 1884 (Cincinnati, 1884), 280; Simmons, Men of Mark, 382.} has been for three years pushing his fortune in the South as a teacher.

Respectfully yrs

PETE H. CLARK

ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 32, frames 61–62, FD Papers, DLC; and Frederick Douglass Manuscripts, Berea College.

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