Where are the women in the Tales?: The stories of Mary Jane Conner and Sylvia

I have caught grief for giving presentations of the Constitutional Tales with a cast of all male actors.  Getting beyond personal insinuations (to which I think are unwise to respond), the more serious concern is the lack of presence of women in the Tales.  In part, this is unavoidable:  women were not elected as delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1868 and did not play a direct role in the writing of the North Carolina Constitution.  I do include references to women in the presentations and writing the Tales will give me an opportunity to share a little more about the lives of women.  These stories help explain the “spirit of the times” that is essential to our understanding of our constitutional history.  I will use this blog to share the lives of Mary Jane Conner and Sylvia.

I first saw pictures of them on a visit to the New Bern Academy, a museum operated by Tryon Palace (currently closed during restoration).  Their pictures are captivating.  In this blog, Mary Jane is to the right, Sylvia, to the left.  From the captions on the photos we know that Mary Jane was a cook and boardinghouse keeper and Sylvia, a seamstress. The photographs were taken June 5, 1863, placing them during the Civil War and after the Union had taken control of New Bern.  I requested electronic copies of these photos from Tryon Palace and have since used them in the Constitutional Tales presentations as they demonstrate how blacks took advantage of opportunities in federally-controlled areas to create businesses. 

But there was more to learn.  I happened to be browsing in one of my favorite bookstores, the Literary Bookpost in Salisbury.  It was after recently being chastised for not including enough about women in the Tales so when I saw North Carolina Women: Making History, I grabbed it off the shelf and it fell open to a page that had these same pictures of Mary Jane Conner and Sylvia.  It may be not a particularly sophisticated version of fate, but it was enough for me to decide to buy the book on the spot. (I highly recommend it:  you can purchase it t from the Literary Bookpost or Amazon).  

From this book I learned that Mary Jane and Sylvia were related – they were sisters-in-law.  Sylvia’s last name probably is Conner as well, although that is not documented.  Further, Mary Jane was famous as a cook and boarding keeper and praised as a “remarkable woman” by a Union soldier.  Following the citation for this quote led me to other books and finally I came to the original source of the quote from the Union soldier, a collection of letters by Private Henry A. Clapp.  And through his words, their stories unfold a little more.

But first, to tell you about the storyteller (for that is always important).  Private Clapp is from Dorchester, Massachusetts, and is 21 years old when he arrives in New Bern in the Fall of 1862.  He is Harvard educated –a graduate and halfway through his law studies at Harvard when he enlists, joining the Forty-Fourth Regiment from Massachusetts.  As Henry’s mother notes, this particular regiment includes “large numbers of the educated, the refined and the pious.”  They are sent to New Bern after it already is under federal control.  Clapp participates in a variety of military missions leading him into different parts of eastern North Carolina.  He also is the chief census taker among African Americans in New Bern.   Clapp writes home to his family to describe this unusual land of the South and approaches its occupants with the curiosity of a scientist. So below, I offer you excerpts of his letters that describe in greater detail who these women are in the eyes of this young Union soldier.

Letter 30

March 31, 1863

To Mother

Mary Ann (as she is called, though her name is Mary Jane Conner) is about the most remarkable colored woman I ever saw…She had been a slave for years (all her life) before our troops took Newbern and been hired out as cook at the great Hotel here the Washington House – and which was burnt by the rebs when we came into Newbern.  She supports an aged and infirm mother.  She told me once or twice in answer to my questions, that if it were not that she felt as if she ought to stay and take care of her mother she would go to New York at once.  She could earn a handsome living any where, for she is thoroughly capable.

Letter 33

April 10, 1863

To Willie (brother)

I want you to tell mother about the seamstress whom we employ to mend our clothes.  She is a sister in law of our famous boarding-house keeper, Mary Jane, and glories in the classical name of “Sylvia.”  She was formerly the slave of one of the richest men in New Berne who owned the house Gen Foster now lives in, and was the family seamstress I should judge.  She is about forty, and though very dark of very pleasant appearance.  Her address and manners are remarkably agreeable and really of unusual refinement.  I’ve seen the wives of millionaires who were much her inferiors in urbanity and polish of manner.  She is a superb seamstress, as my dress-coat just rescued from many rents will bear happy witness.  She seems also to be a woman of very good sense & well worth listening to.  We often wait in the house whilst they are putting the finishing touches on the dinner and spend the time in talking with her and Mary Jane. 

Letter 41

May 18^th, 1863

To Father

The pieces of clothing and the presents for Mary, Sylvia, and Eunice were sent with admirable judgment, as Mother’s always is. .. The bundle was opened in the presence of Mary and the elegant Sylvia who had just returned to her home with Mary after quite a severe illness, and it was very interesting to watch the faces of the spectators as I passed them their separate packages with a few appropriate remarks in each case, and information, as to who the giver was.  … Sylvia remarked that mother “seemed to have guessed her taste exactly” and Mary reechoed the sentiments. 

So now we know a little more.  The beautiful dresses Mary Jane and Sylvia wear in the photographs likely were sent by Private Clapp’s mother, as they received the gifts less than three weeks before their pictures were taken.  More importantly, we know the sisters-in-law were perceived as highly capable, intelligent businesswomen.   Having successful businesses sets the stage for blacks to be able to establish their own schools and churches – which occurs sooner in New Bern than in other parts of North Carolina.  It also means that New Bern will be important politically.  African American leaders will emerge from New Bern who will influence state politics and even become a part of the Constitutional Convention of 1868, including James Walker Hood.  But I won’t say anything more about men in this blog.  This is all about the women who, in extraordinary times, created prosperous businesses while taking care of their families.

Primary Sources:

Barden, John R., ed., Letters to the Home Circle: The North Carolina Service of Pvt. Henry A. Clapp (Raleigh, N.C.: North Carolina Division of Archives and History 1998) (pages xxii, 164-64, 175-77, 210-212 with photos on pages 212-212)

“Mary Jane Connor, Cook and boardinghouse keeper, Photographed in New Berne, N.C., June 5^th, 1863,” photograph from the Henry A. Clapp collection (TP.84.5.4), Tryon Palace Historic Sites & Gardens [her name is spelled Connor on the caption but in Clapp’s letters, it is spelled as Conner].

“Sylvia, Seamstress of New Berne, Photographed in New Berne, N.C., June 5^th, 1863,” photograph from Henry A. Clapp Collection (TP.84.5.3), Tryon Palace Historic Sites & Gardens

Secondary Sources:

Smith, Margaret S. & Wilson, Emily H., North Carolina Women: Making History (Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press 1999) (pages 131-132)

Other Useful Resources:

Crow, Jeffrey J., Escott, Paul D., & Hatley, Flora J., A History of African Americans in North Carolina (Raleigh, N.C.: N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, Division of Archives and History 1992)

Escott, Paul D., Many Excellent People: Power and Privilege in North Carolina, 1850-1900 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press 1985)

Mobley, Joe A., James City: A Black Community in North Carolina, 1863-1900 (Raleigh, N.C. Division of Archives and History, N.C. Department of Cultural Resources 1981, 2000)

Reverend S.S. Ashley's Path to North Carolina

Note:  this is in a series of essays that I will be using to form the written version of the Tales.  Some are ideas and themes I am exploring -- others may be rough drafts of portions of the Tales.  --Ann McColl

It is as if Samuel Stanford Ashley’s life was pointing him towards North Carolina all along. 

There were the several years in which he taught and served as principal of the Meeting Street School.  And no doubt, his fifteen years as a Congregational minister shaped his passions and brought clarity to his words.  But Ashley’s path to North Carolina began even earlier when George Whipple, mathematics professor at Oberlin College, took a “homesick lad” under his care.

In this Jacksonian era, the college is known not only for its academics, but also as a driving force in the anti-slavery movement.  Whipple is in the thick of it.  He also is Ashley’s professor and mentor.  Ashley graduates in 1840 and returns in 1846 to begin his theological studies.  The same year, the American Missionary Association is formed with Whipple’s help. The AMA is a Christian organization dedicated to abolishing slavery and promoting rights of blacks. Whipple continues to have a pivotal role with the organization, serving as corresponding secretary beginning in the 1850s.

The AMA’s beliefs are consistent with those of Congregationalists and Ashley is committed to abolition.  In 1860, he collects and sends $6.00 to the AMA to help in releasing Reverend Daniel Worth from prison in North Carolina for circulating antislavery materials. Once the war begins, Ashley promptly offers his services to the AMA to go to the South as a missionary.  But they do not call upon him – not yet.  More than a year later, in December of 1862, Reverend Ashley writes to his friend at the AMA, George Whipple, “inasmuch as I have heard nothing from you I suppose you do not think it worth while for me to engage in any such work among the freed men.  Perhaps I am not needed.  I am the Lord’s servant; he may send or not as he pleases.  I am glad to labor wherever he places me.”

Two years later, Ashley still has not heard from the AMA.  Forty-five years old, married and with two children, he steps down from his position as minister of the Congregational Church of Northborough, Massachusetts, to distribute religious tracks to soldiers in Virginia for the United States Christian Commission.  Finally, in March of 1865, the AMA summons him.

A serious problem has arisen in North Carolina. Captain Horace James of the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts Infantry Regiment is a mutual friend of Whipple’s and Ashley’s.  A Congregational minister, James is serving as a chaplain in New Bern when the military gives him broad supervisory authority over services for freedmen across the state. The AMA is aligned with the Union in efforts to provide education for freedmen, believing it essential as a part of efforts to provide moral, spiritual, and economic support.  Early in 1865, James gives his approval for the AMA to send Brother J.G. Longely to Wilmington to coordinate the efforts to provide schools.

It does not go well.  Longely quickly accumulates a long list of complaints against him:  he is accused of being arrogant and dismissive toward blacks, sexually harassing at least one female teacher, cheating freedmen from pay for their labor, meddling in church affairs, and having a volatile temper. Teachers write in protest, demanding his removal. It is a crisis requiring immediate action.  They need someone from the AMA who can repair relationships with the military, ameliorate the friction with the community, and assure the teachers of their well-being.

James and Whipple both believe Ashley is the right person.  With great haste, Ashley is brought by steamer from Fortress Monroe, Virginia, to Wilmington, stopping in New Bern to pick up James. They arrive in Wilmington on April 2, 1865.  About a week later, James writes to Whipple of the transition, praising Ashley:  “he is calm and judicious and has already won the confidence of teachers and freedmen.”  The military also is impressed:  to give “unity and systems to the operations” James reports that the Generals have named Ashley their superintendent of education for the district. James notes that there “is great work to be done here.  Mr. Ashley will have his hands full.”

And indeed, given the timing, there will be much to be done.  This, however, relates to the circumstances in Wilmington and that will be the subject of other blogs.  It is enough for now to consider the forces that have brought this man to North Carolina – a man who several years later will propose a constitutional right to education that still matters today.  In words unchanged from the 1868 North Carolina Constitution, our current constitution declares that “The people have a right to the privilege of education and it is the duty of the State to guard and maintain that right.”  It is striking to think that we might not enjoy this right if back in the 1840s Samuel Ashley had not befriended George Whipple at Oberlin College.

Primary Sources:

N.C. Constitution, Art. I, Sec. 15 (1971). 

N.C. Constitution, Art. I, Sec. 27 (1868.

Samuel S Ashley to ____, Northboro [now Northborough], Mass., August 29, 1860, No. 54775, American Missionary Association, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University.

S.S. Ashley to George Whipple, Northboro, Mass., December 15, 1862, American Missionary Association, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University.

William L. Coan to A.M.A., Wilmington, N.C., April 5, 1865, American Missionary Association, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University.

Captain Horace James to George Whipple, April 10, 1865, No. 99993, American Missionary Association, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University.

Secondary Sources:

Bell, John L., Samuel Stanford Ashley, Carpetbagger and Educator, 72 N.C. Hist. Rev. 456-483 (1995).

The following sources provide additional information:

Anderson, James D., The Education of Blacks in the South, 1869-1935 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press 1988)

O’Quinn, Marion Nolan, Carpetbagger Samuel S. Ashley and his role in North Carolina education 1865-1871 (Unpublished Thesis, available at Raleigh, N.C.: North Carolina State University 1975).

Williams, Heather Andrea, Self-taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press 2005).

A good man in Wilmington

Note:  this is in a series of essays that I will be using to form the written version of the Tales.  Some are ideas and themes I am exploring -- others may be rough drafts of portions of the Tales.  --Ann McColl

Joseph R. Hawley spends the first 11 years of his life in North Carolina, in Stewartsville – near Laurinburg- where his father is pastor of a Baptist church.  He returns to North Carolina 28 years later as a brigadier general of the Union Army.

On February 28, 1865, Hawley writes to his wife, Hattie, “If I don’t write you a line or two, I shan’t be able to write you at all.  We have been every moment active since Saturday the 19^th when we started toward Wilmington.”  While they are in route, Wilmington surrenders on George Washington’s birthday, February 22, to the commander of the troops that captured Fort Fisher.  The surrender is seen as inevitable:  in anticipation, confederate forces destroy the naval stores and the cotton and tobacco stored in Wilmington.

Hawley enters a city impoverished by war.  And it gets worse. Official civil war documents recount:

“About 8,600 Union prisoners were released on parole at Northeast Bridge, ten miles above Wilmington, and cared for at Wilmington, and thence transported North; several thousand of them were put into hospital.  This delivery was wholly unexpected, and the district was almost without proper material to care for them properly.  They were in a frightful condition in all respects, and a camp or jail fever broke out among them.”

Hawley also describes the conditions to his wife.

“Gen. Schofield, under instructions from Gen. Grant agreed to receive 10,000 prisoners.  They have been coming at the rate of nearly 2000 per day.  Awful – awful-awful!  I do assure you that nothing whatever has been exaggerated in the report concerning the treatment of our men – nothing whatever.  I stood dumb before the great misery.  Actually I literally, every few minutes for hours my throat would choke and my eyes fill as I looked on.”

As desperate as these conditions are, Hawley wants to be a part moving the city forward.  He concludes his four-page letter to Hattie,

I want you to get permission to come down here immediately.  I take great interest in North Carolina, as my native state.  I would greatly desire to do much in reconciling it to the new state of affairs.  There are many good Union people here:  and there are others who will be such with good management.  I think this is the place where my mixed legal political and military training will do most service to the country.  Socially and in the hospitals and in various ways you can aid me greatly.”

And Hawley is given the opportunity.  The next day, March 1, the following special order is issued:

Special Orders No. 18

Head Quarters, Dept of North Carolina

Army of the Ohio

Wilmington, N.C. March 1^st 1865

Brig. Genl. Jos. R. Hawley is hereby assigned to the command of the District of Wilmington which will embrace all the territory under Military control in rear of the Army operating from Cape Fear River as a base.

Genl. Hawley will be responsible for the protection of the depot at Wilmington, Cape Fear Harbor and the line of railroad in rear of the Army.  He will also perform the duties of Provost Marshall Genl. for the District under his Command.

                 

By command of Major General Schofield

We can read this now with a sense of optimism that a native would be placed in charge of Wilmington.  But that brings a sensibility that we are focusing on how we will move forward.  History books exclude this kind of information, emphasizing instead the role of the surrender of Wilmington in the demise of the Confederate’s cause. An authoritative book on the Civil War in North Carolina closes this chapter on Wilmington with the following:

“The Federal soldiers took the fall of Wilmington as a good omen since it occurred on George Washington’s birthday.  ‘I think we celebrated the day well, don’t you’ one of them wrote.  But for the residents of Wilmington it was a time of sadness, not celebration.  The omen was bad, not good.  The Confederacy, without supplies from abroad, surely could not stand much longer.”

           

For the Constitutional Tales, we’ll pick up from here on what happens next in Wilmington.  (There’s definitely more to come.)

And for Hawley?  After Hawley leaves Wilmington at the end of the War, he returns to Connecticut where he is elected Governor.  Over his distinguished career, he also serves as chairman of the Republican Party (“Lincoln’s Party”) in 1868, briefly as a U.S. representative and 24 years as a U.S. senator from Connecticut.

And for all of us?  Perhaps we can all be inspired by the idea of finding service that is the best combination of our skills and passions.

           

Primary Sources:

Joseph R. Hawley, to wife, Hattie, Wilmington, N.C., February 28, 1865, Reel 6, Joseph R. Hawley Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Special Order No. 18, Wilmington, N.C., March 1, 1865, Reel 6, Joseph R. Hawley Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

United States War Department, The war of the rebellion:  a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies Series 1 – Volume 47 (part I), Chap. LIX, 164-65 (Washington Government Printing Office 1895), online(Ithica, New York:  Cornell University Library), available at: http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moawar;idno=waro0098

Secondary Sources:

Barrett, John G., The Civil War in North Carolina (Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press 1963), p. 284.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Roswell_Hawley

Importance of the Address of the Equal Rights League,1866

Note:  this is in a series of essays that I will be using to form the written version of the Tales.  Some are ideas and themes I am exploring -- others may be rough drafts of portions of the Tales.  --Ann McColl

Peaceably organizing to assert equal rights – including for education – is a revered tradition in this country.   And yet, any particular effort at organizing may be viewed at the time with suspicion and fear so that it is also a tradition to fear bait – to make those seeking change seem different from the mainstream, to cast doubt on their motives and methods, and to incite fear in others of the change. 

This was certainly true when blacks began to organize after the Civil War in North Carolina.  At the 1865 Freedmen’s Convention, blacks across the state agreed to form an Equal Rights League.  Blacks then created local associations to hold meetings, marches, and parades and to pass resolutions seeking equal rights and protection under the law.  Wilmington – the largest city in the state at the time – had such a local organization.  In January of 1866, James Harris, a leader from the Freedmen’s convention, came from Raleigh to speak to blacks in Wilmington.  It appears that about the same time, the League issued an address to the citizens of Wilmington.  You can read a copy of this address by clicking here.  (Please do so – the rest of this blog can wait!)

This address captures the nature of the League as well as its opposition.   We can use it as a window into the growing tension over changes in the social order.  The address begins by noting its opposition: 

“As the objects of this League have been misrepresented as well as misunderstood, and as the League as been the occasion of much unjust suspicion and anxious fear, we desire to make know its real object and purpose.  We do this with pleasure.  Our object is a public one.  We invite, therefore, public scrutiny.”

They are clear on their purpose to remove inequality in the law and that they would denounce a man who urged insurrection.  They go on to state:

“If we wish property, we mean to save it by honest labor.  If we aspire to positions of trust and honor, we mean to merit them by our intelligence and virtue.  If we ask for citizenship, we mean to show, through our respect of persons and property, and by our reverence for law and order, that we are worthy to be taken into the great company of American citizens.”

And what is the rest of the story?  These local associations continue to meet. They elect delegates to the state convention of the Equal Rights League to be held in October, 1866, at the Saint Paul AME Church in downtown Raleigh.  James Harris presides as president of the Equal Rights League.  At this meeting, the organization continues to press for political rights and opportunities for education.  They also form the Educational Association of the Colored People of North Carolina.  A year later, Harris, now a legislator, persuades the General Assembly to pass legislation incorporating the Equal Rights League so that it is a legally recognized institution. 

It is no coincidence that in this time of organizing for political rights, the Ku Klux Klan becomes active in North Carolina, committing the most violence between 1867 and 1870.  And once again, it is James Harris, who delivers a speech to the North Carolina House of Representatives on January 7, 1870, denouncing the crimes committed by the KKK against blacks and their supporters. He cites specific incidents that occurred in Chatham, Forsyth, Iredell, and Johnston counties with the most detailed and numerous crimes in Orange County.

But let’s return to the address to the citizens of Wilmington.  What do we gain from examining this address in its historical context?  It is for each of us to decide.  I would argue that this one-page address is clear, eloquent, and powerful:  it is a model for how to state a position well.  It is also a story in which one figure – James Harris – continuously appears as a leader who is willing to speak his convictions. And it is a story of the role of local organizations and the courage of people to form associations even in the midst of fear and violence. To make this relevant to our times, these assertions lead to more questions. Who are the James Harris’s of our times?  What can grassroots organizations learn from the courage and strength of these local associations?  How can we best respond to intentional efforts to incite fear?  These questions I will leave unanswered but would be interested in your thoughts.

Primary Sources:

Address: The Members of the Equal Rights League of Wilmington, N.C. to the Citizens of Wilmington and Vicinity, American Missionary Association Archives, Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, North Carolina # 100288.  (Note:  undated; however   documents are numbered chronologically and documents before and after it are dated January, 1866.)  

Wilmington Herald, January 18, 1866 p. 1.

            Hon. James H. Harris on the Militia Bill, delivered in the NC House of Representatives Monday, January 7, 1870, Library of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina Collection (Cp970.82, H318).

Secondary Sources:

Alexander, Roberta Sue, North Carolina Faces the Freedmen (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press 1985).

Crow, Jeffrey J., Escott, Paul D., & Hatley, Flora J., A History of African Americans in North Carolina (Raleigh, N.C.: N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, Division of Archives and History 1992).