Part 15

The annual commencement in the early summer was a great occasion. An elaborate notice of the same, which embraced Aug. 21st, 1829, was published in the papers of the young state--"_the first detailed account_ of such an event in Mississippi." The essay of Miss Anna W. Boyd, who graduated with the honors of her class, appears in full. It will be interesting to many yet living for me to give the names of the graduates, and those distinguished in the several classes:

Miss Anna W. Boyd Ireland. Miss Susan Smith Adams County Miss Mary C. Hewett Washington, Miss. Miss Mary J. Patterson Port Gibson, Miss. Miss Sarah R. Chew Adams County Miss Eliza A. Fox Natchez, Miss.

Honorary distinctions were conferred on the following pupils for proficiency in study and correct moral deportment:

_First Class._

Miss Ellen V. Keavy Pinckneyville, La. Miss Martha D. Richardson Washita, La. Miss Mary A. Fretwell Natchez, Miss. Miss Maria L. Newman Washington, Miss.

_Second Class._

Miss Martha Cosby Wilkinson County Miss Sarah M. Forman Washington, Miss. Miss Catharine O. Newman Washington, Miss. Miss Susan C. Robertson Port Gibson, Miss.

_Third Class._

Miss Mary Scott Alexandria, La. Miss Charlotte C. Scott Alexandria, La. Miss Mary E. Gordon Alexandria, La. Miss Emily Vick Vicksburg, Miss. Miss Emily Smith Adams County

_Fourth Class._

Miss Charlotte Walcott Vicksburg, Miss. Miss Mary A. B. Chandler Pinckneyville, La.

_Fifth Class._

Miss Mary E. Roberts Washington, Miss. Miss Matilda J. Nevett Adams County

_Sixth Class._

Miss Laura J. A. King Adams County Miss Martha B. Brabston Washington, Miss.

In that list of young ladies will be recognized a few honored matrons in the Southwest yet living, and many others will recall their grandmothers who have long been among the redeemed in heaven.

A Board of Visitors, consisting of such distinguished men as Robert L. Walker, J. F. H. Caliborne and Dr. J. W. Monette, attended that commencement, and made report as follow:

"____The most unqualified praise would be no more than justice for the splendid evidence of their close attention and assiduity, as exhibited on this occasion; and we take pleasure in giving it as our opinion, that such honorable proof of female literary and scientific acquirements has seldom been exhibited in this or any other country. And while it proves the order and discipline with which science and literature are pursued by the pupils, it proves no less the flourishing condition and the merited patronage the institution enjoys. Nothing reflects more honor upon the present age than the liberality displayed in the education of females; nor can anything evince more clearly the justness with which female education is appreciated in the South than this exhibition, and the interest manifested by the large and respectable audience during the whole of the exercises. The literary and scientific character of the Governess, Mrs. Thayer, is too well known to admit of commendation from us ____."

On account of the removal of the Capitol to Jackson, the shifting of the center of population, several epidemics of yellow fever and other causes, after varying fortunes, the Academy suspended. Ex-Chancellor Edward Mayes says of this institution: "In the decade from 1819 to 1829 its boarders amounted in number annually from 28 to 63." Mrs. John Lane, Mrs. C. K. Marshall, Mrs. H. H. Kavanaugh, Mrs. B. M. Drake, the mother of the late Col. W. L. Nugent, the mother of the Rev. T. L. Mellen, and many other elect ladies were educated at that mother of female colleges.

The noble school continued its splendid work for more than twenty-five years, and laid broad and deep the foundations on which others have wisely builded.

EARLY HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COLLEGE.

BY MR. J. K. MORRISON

Jefferson College was incorporated by the Legislature of the Mississippi Territory on the thirteenth of May, 1802. The act of incorporation was entitled: "An act to establish a College in Mississippi Territory." The following named gentlemen attended a meeting of the Trustees of this institution, held January 3, 1803, viz: Wm. C. C. Claiborne, John Ellis, Wm. Dunbar, Anthony Hutchins, David Lattimore, Sulton Banks, Alexander Montgomery, Daniel Burnet, David Kerr, D. W. Breazeale, Abner Green, Cato West, Thos. Calvit and Felix Hughes.

John Ellis was appointed President _pro tempore_ and Felix Hughes, secretary.

The Board then proceeded to elect their officers by ballot. His Excellency, Wm. C. C. Caliborne, was elected President, Sir Wm. Dunbar, Vice-President, Felix Hughes, Secretary, and Cato West, Treasurer. For some reason the last named officer declined to serve.

It was next moved that the following address be submitted to the National Government:

"To the Honourable Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled:

"We, the Trustees of Jefferson College assembled, agreeable to a law of this Territory, at our first meeting, beg leave to address the Honourable Legislature of the United States. The duty we owe to our Infant Institution, to the community of the Mississippi Territory, and to the United States calls on us to lay before you our wants and our prospects.

"Education in every state of the union has required, and we believe, met in some degree the fostering hand of public support. Every enlightened society, has been willing to contribute in some way to the cultivation of the minds of their rising generation, from whence so many public as well as private benefits have been found to flow.

"This society has laboured under peculiar Impediments to the pursuit of this object; lately emerged from the lethargic influence of an arbitrary government, averse from principle to general information our citizens have hardly as individuals yet become sensible of the necessity, and usefulness of Education; unaccustomed to act in concert their individual efforts have never aimed at more than private schools.

"The first attempt to institute a place of general education for the youth of this territory, has by a law of our Legislature, devolved on us. We are sensible of the usefulness of the design to ourselves and to our children. We are aware of the peculiar necessity of Public Education and general information, to enable us to maintain that Character we are called on to support, the Character of citizens of a Republic. Our insulated situation demands the means of education at home, and the infancy of our community and the circumstances already mentioned demand Patronage from our parent government.

"At a time when the true principles of Republicanism are more generally than ever diffused over the United States, when philosophy and Patriotism are so happily united in promoting the public good, we hope we shall not ask in vain. Our citizens may be tardy in learning the necessity of affording effectual support by voluntary contributions; our local government has no lands to bestow on us. But we trust the Legislature of the United States, in whom the right of our soil is vested, will give aid to an institution which will establish republicanism in the minds of the youth of this territory, and be the firmest bond of an attachment to the Union.

"In the Northwestern Territory, the general government acting on the ordinance of Congress has been attentive to the support of public instruction.

"Having a similar claim from a similitude of constitution, and such pressing inducements peculiar to ourselves, we rely with confident hope on your Honourable Body for such aid as you may judge proper."

The following resolution was also adopted:

"That a committee of the following members, viz: Messrs. Wm. Dunbar, Cato West, David Kerr, John Ellis, and Daniel Burnet be appointed to make inquiry as to the most convenient site for Jefferson College; to receive proposals from individuals of any donations of lands for that purpose and to report to the Board at their next meeting."

On motion the following address to the citizens of the Territory was adopted:

"To the People of the Mississippi Territory:

"The Trustees of Jefferson College assembled at their first meeting embrace the opportunity of addressing you, our fellow-citizens of the Mississippi Territory, we are sensible of the difficulty of the Task to which we have been called by your representatives. A place of public education is to be created at a considerable expense without any public funds. The economy of our Legislature has not as yet suffered them to lay a tax on the community, to aid an Institution, which we hope will ultimately conduce to our public as well as private happiness. We are called on, therefore to supply the want of public funds by the liberality of private patriotism.

"Indeed when we look forward to the consequence of a successful attempt to raise a respectable school for the education of the youth of this Territory, we trust the enlightened citizens will not be wanting in furnishing the means essentially necessary.

"Our situation far remote from foreign schools, where a liberal education may be procured prevents our young fellow citizens generally from acquiring the advantages which a good school affords. If in a few instances parents send their children far from the inspection of their parental eye, great sacrifice must be made of parental solicitude and great hazard of the morals of the youth, and when these difficulties shall be overcome, young men having finished their education return among their fellow citizens perhaps with the power and inclination to serve them, but too much strangers for some time to gain their confidence. Having procured a distant education, they will enjoy little advantages over strangers who may emigrate to this territory from foreign countries or from some parts of the United States. Our citizens will not enjoy the advantage of a long personal acquaintance, to enable them to choose with judgement those whom they ought to encourage, as teachers of youth and preachers of religion and morality, as physicians, as lawyers, or as law-givers.

"But should the liberality of the public enable the patrons of Jefferson College to establish it as a public school for the Territory these evils would be succeeded by important Benefits. We should see our youth growing up under our own observation in habits of virtue and improvement. Those who should acquire public approbation by early talents and good behavior would be rewarded with the merited confidence of their fellow citizens on the entrance to public life, while strangers of merit would obtain a just share of public favors, our citizens would not be forced to employ persons unknown to them, to conduct their most important interests. Our young men living together while the social affections are yet untarnished by selfish views or party spirit would contract such firm attachments as would conduce gradually to obliterate that party rage which is the bane of our community too small to make divisions tolerable.

"From Jefferson College as a central school would emanate the taste and the knowledge necessary to make even a common education more reputable and more useful. In fine, our children being educated in the knowledge and Love of Republican Liberty would grow up to be the firm supporters of our Republican government.

"We do not pretend to undertake an enumeration of all the advantage, either public or private which the success of the present undertaking promises; but being deeply interested as well as yourselves in the event, we beg leave to offer you one more observation.

"Bountiful Providence has given to the citizens of this territory the means of procuring a Superabundance of wealth. It is an awful Truth, that it will depend on the education of the growing generation, whether a sudden increase of wealth will be the cause of a rapid increase in knowledge and rational refinement, or of luxury and unmeaning expense. As your growing riches then will furnish you with the happy means of forming the growing minds of your children to a rational love of good learning and virtue.

"So the danger of leaving your property to those who might not know how to use it usefully and innocently, shows the necessity of devoting a part of it to their Education.

"Such are our views, Fellow Citizens, of the importance of our present undertaking. We call on you then to lend your aid to an Institution, which will be devoted to increase the common happiness. All are interested, let all contribute something to the public stock, let the rich give liberally and all others show their public spirit according to their abilities, Parents will meet their reward in possessing the means of promoting the real happiness of their children. Those who are not parents will enjoy the Benefit of living, in a society increasing in civilization and those arts and pursuits which are the ornaments of human nature."

A committee consisting of the following members, Messrs. Sulton Banks, David Lattimore and Wm. Dunbar was appointed to prepare the plan of a lottery for raising a sum not exceeding ten thousand dollars and to make a report to the next meeting of the Board of Trustees. This meeting was held at Selsertown. The committee appointed for the purpose of preparing a lottery scheme reported as follows:

That 2,000 tickets at $5.00 a piece be sold, $10,000.

No. of prizes:

1 of $2,000 is $2,000

2 of 500 each $1,000

10 of 100 each $1,000

20 of 50 each $1,000

200 of 25 each $5,000

The above prizes to be paid deducting 15% for the College.

A committee appointed to select a suitable location recommended one on the lands of Mordecai Throckmorton near old Greenville, in Jefferson county. The Board at its meeting agreed on this site recommended, and ordered their next meeting to be held at old Greenville, on the 11th of April following.

At this meeting the resolution proposing a site for the location of the college was repealed. The next meeting was held at Selsertown. At this meeting the Board on the 25th of July, 1803, accepted a donation of lands offered by John and James Foster, and Randall Gibson, adjoining the town of Washington, and embracing Ellicott's Springs.

The appeal to the public for aid was unproductive; that to Congress was responded to by a grant of a township of land and some lots of ground in and adjoining the city of Natchez.

The next meeting of the Board of Trustees was held in Natchez, on the 28th of January, 1804. Colonel Cato West, at that time the acting governor of the Territory, reported "that the lots in the city of Natchez, and an out-lot adjoining the same, granted to the college by Congress, had been only located, and that upon these lots were several valuable buildings." But a private individual and the city of Natchez laid claim to these buildings and an act was passed in Congress regranting them to Natchez.

Appeals were made to the public but were not responded to. A loan from the Legislature was prayed for but all the efforts on the part of the trustees amounted to nothing.

The Trustees were reassembled in April, 1810, having had no meeting since December 21, 1805.

In the meantime the Washington Academy had been established and conducted by Rev. Jas. Smylie. Subscriptions were raised and frame buildings erected on the college grounds.

A meeting of the two Boards was held and the building of the Academy and the subscriptions which had been raised for its support were transferred to the Board of Trustees of the prospective College.

The Board of the Washington Academy also had lottery tickets on sale, but found great difficulty in disposing of them.

Few of the tickets were sold, and fortunately for the institution the tickets calling for the largest prizes remained unsold. There was nothing gained from this and the next year the Board directed suits against some of the purchasers of tickets who had failed to pay for them.

The Academy buildings were placed in order and it was published that "an academy under the superintendence of Dr. Edwin Reese, assisted by Mr. Sam'l Graham would open on the first of January."

Nine years after the chartering of Jefferson College, it started as an academy, and as an academy it continued several years.

Soon afterwards the Trustees resumed their efforts to secure an endowment for the proposed College. The titles to the lots in Natchez were examined. In order to adjust the claims between the corporation of Natchez and Jefferson College, the matter was carried to law. In 1812 commissioners were appointed for the recovery of such escheated property as belonged to the College, the Legislature having granted to it all escheated property for ten years. The authority of the Legislature was questioned in this matter, and it was carried before Congress. The Legislature was upheld in this and the College realized five or six thousand dollars, but lost heavily prosecuting their claims.

The Secretary of the Treasury, under the authority of an act of Congress passed the 20th of February, 1812, located on the 5th of June the township of land granted in 1803. The land selected was situated on both sides of the Tombigbee River. But nothing was realized from this until 1818.

In 1816, six thousand dollars to be paid in annual installments was granted by the Legislature. This money was for the purpose of hiring an instructor.

Mr. M'Allister, who was teaching at the time in Kentucky, was employed, and took charge of the Institution in 1817. In the August following the contract for the last building was let out.

In 1818, the rapid immigration to Alabama caused an increase in the value of the Tombigbee lands. An agent was sent to Alabama, who leased the lands owned by the College for ninety-nine years. About eight thousand dollars was received as the first payment, and the remaining installments amounting to more than twenty-five thousand dollars were to be paid in two, four and six years. With such an improved state of affairs the Board deemed it wise to borrow money to hasten the completion of the buildings then in progress. Nine thousand dollars was obtained from the bank and four thousand from the state.

The trustees were disappointed, however, in the expected revenues from the Tombigbee lands. The government in 1820 found it necessary to adopt measures for the reduction of the enormous debts of those who had contracted for lands in more prosperous times.

Liberal discounts were offered to its debtors, also the privilege of giving up the lands they had purchased. There was a great depreciation in the value of the lands at this time, and the purchasers were glad to surrender them to the government.

The trustees offered an abatement of one-half. But all, with one exception, gave the land to the government, as the greater portion of it was found to be of no value. This source of revenue to which the trustees had looked forward with such sanguine expectations had been destroyed, heavy debts had been contracted, and there were no means of discharging them. So the trustees and friends of the Institution assumed the debts individually.

The college had a difficulty from another source. In 1818 there was an assembly of the clergy of all denominations in Washington. Some of the clergy, believing Mr. M'Allister's opinion to be unorthodox, publicly denounced the Institution.

This did the College an injury that the trustees could not repair. Rev. R. F. N. Smith, an associate of Mr. M'Allister, was placed at the head of the Institution, but this helped matters very little.

The source of revenue having been exhausted, Mr. Smith resigned. From 1821, an academy was kept up under various instructors on a small scale.

In 1825, a measure was introduced into the Legislature to institute suit for the recovery of the money loaned, but the majority voted against it.

To afford the Legislature an opportunity of placing the institution more immediately under its control and management and to give to it that patronage and support to which it would be entitled as a State Institution, the Trustees voted to give the power of filling vacancies in their body to the Legislature. The act was passed in January, 1826. This right was exercised for many years.

In May, 1826, the Trustees were notified that the selectmen of the city of Natchez were going to make an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States in the suit commenced in 1813, for the property given by Congress and claimed by the city of Natchez. The Trustees not being able to bear the expenses of a suit appointed a committee to compromise with the city, which they succeeded in doing.

About this time the Legislature was considering the idea of establishing a State Institution, and its executive committee at its session in Feb. 1829, was ordered to appoint three agents to inquire into all the means and resources in the state applicable to the purposes of general education; to confer with the Trustees of Jefferson College and ascertain the condition and prospects of the Institution and whether it was practicable for the Trustees to surrender the charter to the State, and on what terms it would be done.

A meeting of the two committees was held on the 27th of October, 1829. Questions were asked the committee from Jefferson College concerning the college buildings; the endowment; the number and character of its Professors; its future prospects; the expediency of surrendering the charter; and concerning the money loaned to the Institution by the Legislature.

It was found that the charter could not be surrendered to another Institution erected in its stead.

This agreement was not made with the Legislature, so it was decided to put forth greater energies than ever to build up the Institution.

It was decided to adopt a system of Education similar to that of West Point and a contract was made with E. B. Williston and Major Halbrook.

They assumed all responsibilities, and hired a number of competent instructors, and depended upon their success to pay the salaries of each.

The College under this management opened on the first Monday of December, 1829. This plan was eminently successful and for the first time since the establishment of the Institution it was a success. A large number of students was attracted to it and it was viewed with pride and gratification.

THE RISE AND FALL OF NEGRO RULE IN MISSISSIPPI.

BY DUNBAR ROWLAND, ESQ.

Twenty-three years have passed into history since Adelbert Ames, the last of the "Carpet Baggers," was driven from his high position as governor of Mississippi by the representatives of an outraged and indignant people. A new generation has grown to manhood and womanhood since those stirring times that led up to and culminated in the exposure and condemnation of the most reckless and profligate political combination and blighting curse that has ever burdened a free people. As we have just passed the twenty-third anniversary of that great event it is fitting that its memories be revived in the minds of those who took part in it, that its lessons may be impressed upon those who are to complete and affirm its results. The uprising of the people of Mississippi against Negro rule was a most magnificent example of that spirit of Southern patriotism that animated the hearts; first of such men as Walthall, Lamar, George, Featherston, Stone, Lowry and Harris, and then spread to the hearts of every true man in Mississippi. The young men of the State, the rising generation, have the greatest reverence and love for the brave men who fought such a gallant fight for the preservation of white supremacy in Mississippi.