The Journal of Negro History Volume V Part 27

The largest cities in the State were St. Joseph, Kansas City and St.

Louis. These cities provided public schools for the freedmen soon after the war. St. Joseph opened a school[54] with seventy seats for Negro children in 1866. In 1871 the city had for Negro children, two schools,[55] each of which was provided with one teacher. One of these schools had an enrollment of 96 pupils and the other 94. In 1874 this city enumerated[56] 651 Negro children of school age, 386 of whom were enrolled in the two public schools. The number of teachers had increased from two to four.

The first Negro public school[57] in Kansas City was reported in 1867.

The enumeration[58] for 1873 was 408 Negro children of school age. The average attendance was 165. The length of the school term was forty weeks. The amount spent on each pupil was 7.5 cents a day in the Negro school and 8.6 in the white school. The average salary paid to male teachers was $68.33 in the Negro school and $112.50 in the white schools. The average salary paid to female teachers was $45 in the Negro school and $65 in the white schools. In 1874 the number of Negro children enumerated was 885.[59] There was one Negro school in the city for their use which had 356 pupils and five teachers.

In St. Louis, the largest city in the State, there was a steady growth of the Negro school system. The State Legislature granted this city the power to establish separate schools[60] for Negro children in 1865. The next year Ira Divoll, the City Superintendent, established three schools for Negro children.[61] One was in the northern, one in the central and another in the southern part of the city. In 1868 there were five Negro schools[62] in the city with a total enrollment of 924 pupils. Three of these schools held night sessions which ran from the first Monday in October of the year 1867 to the fifth of February, 1868. Twelve teachers were employed in these schools. In 1871 a sixth Negro school[63] was added and school No. 3 was improved to accommodate five hundred pupils. There were sixteen teachers and seventeen school rooms. The expenses for the year amounted to $11,787.80.[64]

The next year it was reported[65] that good buildings had been built for the Negro schools. A gain of eight pupils over the number enrolled the previous year was reported. This small gain was not charged to indifference, but to a decrease in the Negro population. In 1875 there were twelve Negro schools in the city. The legislature of that year pa.s.sed a bill[66] which permitted the city to establish a Negro high school with a normal department in the old Was.h.i.+ngton School building and was known from this time on as the Sumner High School.

The first teachers of these schools were white, but they were gradually replaced by Negro teachers. The first teacher[67] of color was appointed largely through the influence of Samuel Crupples, who was a member of the Board of Education of St. Louis and also a regent of Lincoln Inst.i.tute. He was so impressed with the work done by Lincoln Inst.i.tute in preparing Negro children that he favored the giving of its graduates a trial in the public schools of that city.

The chance to try teachers of color came when the friends of a white teacher, who had been a.s.signed to a Negro school, protested against the a.s.signment. From this time on the white teachers in the Negro schools were gradually replaced by those of color.

Very early in the history of the Negro schools the question of training teachers came up. The white teachers did not care to teach in the Negro schools and it was hard to find trained teachers of color at this date. Ten county superintendents in their annual[68] letters for 1872 mentioned the difficulties which they experienced in obtaining good teachers for their Negro schools. There was a prejudice on the part[69] of both the white and the black people of the State against white teachers for Negro schools; and it is reported[70] that in many cases the white teachers in these schools did not take the interest in the advancement of the people which was taken by the Negro teachers.

The positions in the Negro school, moreover, were less desirable than those in the white schools because the financial returns were less in teaching in the Negro schools. In 1873 the cities, towns and villages which reported[71] Negro schools also reported an average salary of $46.70 per month for male teachers and $40.00 per month for female teachers. The white schools in the same towns paid an average monthly salary of $87.72 to male teachers and $46.64 to female teachers.

The first school[72] in the State which was devoted to the work of training Negro teachers was Lincoln Inst.i.tute. This school[73] had its origin in a fund of $6,379 which was contributed by the soldiers of the sixty-second and sixty-fifth United States Negro infantry. These men upon being mustered out of service at the close of the war gave part of their pay to found in Missouri a school where their children might enjoy the blessings of a good education. The school was opened at Jefferson City,[74] the State Capital, September 17, 1866. Richard Baxter Foster, a New England white man who was educated at Dartmouth College and who had served as first lieutenant in the sixty-second United States Negro Infantry, became the first princ.i.p.al of this school.

In his report[75] to the adjourned session of the Twenty-fifth General a.s.sembly, T.A. Parker, the State Superintendent of Schools, offered as his most important suggestion for the improvement of Negro schools in the State, the establishment of a Normal School for the training of Negro teachers. He gave five reasons why such a school should be supported by the State: first, the number of teachers were insufficient to supply the rapidly increasing demand; second, the character of the teaching in a large proportion of the Negro schools needed elevating as white teachers of high qualifications could usually do better in white schools and Negro teachers of high qualifications could not be found in any great number; third, as Negroes had not, in many vocations, an equal opportunity with white people, and as teaching is one of the most respectful and useful vocations open to them, they should be encouraged to engage in it; fourth, justice demanded it, for as a large part of the wealth of Missouri had been produced by the unrequited labor of slaves, it was but a small return that the State should give to their children, now free, the largest privileges of education; and fifth, the State gave no funds to inst.i.tutions of learning above the grade of common schools, which were practically, if not by force of law, limited to white pupils. Equality of treatment demanded that something be appropriated for a school of higher learning to which the people of color could have access. If such a school could not be established at the time, he advised that a sum of $5,000 per year should be given to the normal department of Lincoln Inst.i.tute to aid in the training of Negro teachers.

Acting on this advice, the legislature pa.s.sed in 1870 a bill[76]

granting the normal department of Lincoln Inst.i.tute an annual sum of $5,000 for the training of teachers. In his reports for 1872 and 1873 the State Superintendent commented on the excellent work which this school was doing. But as this school was hampered by debt and could not train the number of teachers needed, he advocated that the State should take a greater interest in the school or better still, the State should take the school over entirely and make it into a normal school for Negro teachers. The annual reports of the State Superintendents from this time up to 1879, when the school was finally given over to the State, contained accounts of the excellent work which this school was doing in the training of teachers and he recommended from year to year that the State should give it more financial aid.

By the year 1875 the Negro public school system of Missouri was well established. Elementary schools had been started in all parts of the State. A high school for Negroes had been established in St. Louis and the first steps had been taken towards the establishment of a Negro State normal school. Popular opinion had crystallized in favor of separate schools for Negro children taught by teachers of color. The progress of the Negro schools had been somewhat r.e.t.a.r.ded by a prejudice against public schools in general and to a greater extent by a prejudice against the education of Negroes. Towards the end of the period there was evidence to show that this prejudice was dying out.

Much good legislation had been pa.s.sed with the idea of giving the Negro children the same educational advantages as were held by the white children of the State. The Negro school system of this period was in advance of the corresponding systems in the other States which had recently held slaves.[77] The report of the Commissioner of Education for 1872, shows that there were no public schools for the education of the Negro in Georgia, Alabama, Delaware, Kentucky, and Maryland. Ninety per cent of the Negro school population of Tennessee was without the benefit of public schools. Although the Negro public schools of Louisiana and West Virginia were established before those of Missouri, the greater illiteracy of their population in 1870 and 1880 show that these schools were not as efficient as those in Missouri.

THE CRITICAL PERIOD, 1875 TO 1885

The year 1875 marked an epoch in Negro education in Missouri. That year a new State const.i.tution was adopted. This meant the beginning of a critical period in the school history of the State. In order to understand the educational trend of this period it is necessary to consider the political history of this and the preceding period.

During the Civil War the State had been almost equally divided between the Union and the Confederate sympathizers; but the Union forces held control of the government. At the close of the war and while the feeling between the two factions was still very bitter, there were enacted very harsh laws[78] by which those who had sided with the South were not only disfranchised, but were also deprived of the right to practice law, to preach, or to teach. As the intense bitterness of the war died out there was strong agitation to restore the right of suffrage to the disfranchised citizens. In 1870[79] the Liberal Republicans gained control of the State with the result that there was pa.s.sed the next year a law removing the restriction placed upon the southern element. In 1872 the Liberal Republicans and the Democrats united to defeat the Radical Republicans, and at the next election which took place in 1874 the Democratic Party came into full power.

One of the first acts of the new administration was to call a const.i.tutional convention which drew up a new State const.i.tution which was ratified by the people in 1875. With the return to power of a party[80] which strongly favored local self-government, and which was supported to a great extent by those who but a few years before had been reported to have been opposed to the extension of their public school rights, it is not surprising that the progress of the public school system was for a time checked. In many districts the people had accepted the public schools but they had not become thoroughly reconciled to the system.

In 1870 the local district school boards[81] were subordinate to the towns.h.i.+p boards of education. The clerk of the towns.h.i.+p board was both treasurer and recording secretary of all the school districts within his towns.h.i.+p. He was responsible to the county school superintendent and he made statistical reports to him as well as to the county clerks. The county school superintendents and the county clerks were in turn responsible to the State Superintendent of Schools. In 1874 the legislature[82] so changed the old statutes as to do away with county and towns.h.i.+p supervision. The office of county superintendent was abolished and each district became independent. Even the district board was deprived of some of its power and the right which it had to extend the school term and to levy money for new buildings was vested in the voters of the district. The new State const.i.tution sanctioned tendency toward decentralization by providing[83] that the right of the people to local self-government should not be impaired.

Although the old const.i.tution was very objectionable to a large number of the citizens of the State, nevertheless, it contained some good school legislation and fortunately much of this was embodied in the new const.i.tution. The Const.i.tution of 1865 had provided[84] that "separate schools may be established for children of African descent."

The new const.i.tution provided that "separate free public schools shall be established for the education of children of African descent." The legal school age provided by the old const.i.tution was from five to twenty-one but the legal school age provided by the new const.i.tution was from six to twenty.

The decentralization of the public school system caused many abuses to spring up. Statistics became harder and harder to collect, and school practice less and less uniform in the different parts of the State.

The school law was disregarded to such an extent as to cause a decrease in the school enumeration and enrollment in spite of the fact that the population was steadily increasing. In 1875 the enumeration[85] showed 720,186 children of school age, 394,780 of whom were enrolled in the public schools. In 1877 the enumeration had shrunk to 553,278 and the enrollment to 364,189. From this time on there was a steady growth until 1880 when the enumeration surpa.s.sed that of 1875.

The Negro public schools of the State also suffered a decline[86] in this period. In 1875 there was a Negro school population of 41,916 and an enrollment of 14,832. In 1877 the reported enumeration was 32,411 and the enrollment was 14,505. The enumeration did not equal that of 1875 until 1885, but the enrollment of 1878 surpa.s.sed that of 1875 by 6,376. The enrollment of 1877 was only 328 smaller than the enrollment of 1875. Thus, it would appear that while there was a failure in some districts to enumerate their children of color, that in those districts in which they were enumerated an increasing percentage of the children of color attended the public schools.

As has been pointed out before, the emanc.i.p.ators[87] of the Negro, in attempting to provide equal school rights for the Negro child, made more stringent laws for the enforcement of his school rights than were made for the enforcement of the school rights of the white child. The State Superintendent was empowered to enter districts which did not provide schools for Negro children according to the law, and to establish schools for these children, and to levy taxes for the maintenance of the schools. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that the State Superintendent was called upon a number of times in this period to exercise his power.

This official reported[88] in 1878 that the law in relation to the public schools for Negro children had been repeatedly evaded and violated during the two preceding years, and that a wicked and malicious advantage was being taken of the ignorance and the weakness of the Negro to s.h.i.+eld the law-breaker who was using the money appropriated by the law for the education of the Negro youth. The method of evasion was fully described. In the first place, there was a failure to enumerate a sufficient number of Negroes of school age before the convening of the annual school meeting. After the meeting, when the directors were appealed to, they required the production of evidence that there was a sufficient number and then required time to look into the evidence which took a month or more. They would then inform the Negroes that it was too late to do anything that year, that they should have attended to the matter before the annual school meeting and that they must attend to it in time the following year. In many cases while the money due the Negroes was being used for other purposes, they were promised schools for the next year which the directors did not intend to give them. Sometimes the directors promised well and were then unable to find teachers or they disagreed with the Negroes concerning the site of the school. The year would thus elapse and a new board knowing nothing of the promises of the old board would be elected. The same course would then be followed sometimes with a little variation to suit the emergency. Finally the case would be brought to the State Superintendent and after an annoying and repeated correspondence to collect the facts in the case and to explain the law, the officers were induced to comply with the law by threats of its execution. In counties at a distance from the capital this threat was frequently of no avail because the Negroes were either induced to drop the matter by promises of future fulfillment, were unwilling to proceed to law, or lacked intelligent leaders.h.i.+p.

The next year the State Superintendent complained that the demand upon this functionary to establish Negro schools in districts which neglected to fulfill the law required an undue amount of his time. The legislature which met that year, therefore, removed from the State Superintendent the responsibility of enforcing this law. But it provided[89] that any school district which neglected to establish a Negro school or schools according to the law should be deprived of any portion of the State school funds for that year. This was a severe punishment in a State having as large a school fund as Missouri has.[90]

By the year 1885 the public school system of Missouri was on a firm basis. The right of every child in the State to the benefits of a free public school education had been established. The Negro public schools were prosperous. The Negro school population[91] had increased to 44,215 and the percentage of the enumerated actually enrolled in the public schools had increased from forty-two per cent in 1877 to sixty-three per cent in 1885.

THE PERIOD OF GROWTH, 1885 TO 1915

A few minor changes have been made in the State statutory law since 1885. Prior to 1889 not only the district but the whole towns.h.i.+p in which a Negro school was located, was taxed for the support of this school. In 1889 the law[92] was so revised as to throw the entire burden of support upon the district in which the school is located. In the same year, the statute which gave Negro adults the right to attend the public schools was abrogated.

The last revision of the law relating to Negro public schools was made in 1909. By the present law[93] the boards of directors in districts having fifteen or more Negro children of school age are required to establish and maintain schools for these children which shall have the same length of term and shall enjoy the same privileges as are enjoyed by the white schools of the same grade in the district. The indebtedness incurred by the board of directors in providing suitable buildings, hiring teachers, and maintaining the school shall be paid out of the appropriate funds of the district. If the average daily attendance for any month falls below eight, the school can be closed for a period not to exceed six months. If there are adjoining districts in either or both of which there are less than twenty-five Negro children of school age, a joint Negro school may be established in either of the districts. The expense of maintaining the school is borne by the districts which established it in proportion to the number of Negro children enumerated in each. The control of the school is vested in the board of directors of the district in which the school is located.

When the number of Negro children residing in a district is less than fifteen as shown by the last enumeration, these children have the right of attending any school for Negro children in the county for the same length of time as school is maintained in their own district.

Their tuition is paid by the district in which they reside. When the directors of a district neglect to establish a Negro school according to the law, the district is deprived of any part of the State school funds for that year.

From 1885 to 1890 the Negro schools of Missouri steadily grew. In 1890, 70.8 per cent of the school population[94] was enrolled in the schools. This marked the high water mark in the per cent of enrollment. From this date to 1900 the per cent of the school population enrolled in the public school decreased. In 1899 only 55.05 per cent of the school population was enrolled in the public schools.

The school population, however, increased from 44,214 in 1885 to 54,600 in 1899. In 1900 there were 472 Negro schools with 769 school rooms with 804 Negro teachers employed. The Negroes[95] of the State received about $475,000 as their share of the State school fund, between a third and a half of the money appropriated for the support of their schools coming from the white tax payers. As the result of this good school system, Missouri stood last among the sixteen ex-slave States in illiteracy in 1890.

Since 1900 the rural Negro population has been decreasing and city population has been steadily increasing. Lured by the prospect of better wages, shorter hours, and better educational advantages for his family, the rural Negro has migrated just as his white brother[96] has to the large cities. The Negro population of the small towns is also decreasing. The populations of Kansas City and of St. Louis are being swelled by the Negro from the farm and from the small town. The problem of Negro education, therefore, is largely a city problem. In 1910 the Negro school population was 42,764. Of this population 33,465[97] dwelt in cities and only 9,299 dwelt in the rural districts. The enrollment showed that of the 29,562 pupils who were attending school, 21,694 were enrolled in the city schools and only 7,868 in the rural schools.

In 1915 St. Louis had a Negro school population of 7,233 and an enrollment of 5,811. Nine grade schools and a high school were maintained by the city to accommodate these children.[98] In 1916 a Negro industrial[99] school was opened for delinquent youth, and $40,000 was appropriated to build two cottages on the city farms at Bellefountaine for delinquent Negro children. The Negro schools are modern and well equipped. Kindergarten cla.s.ses are provided, manual training courses are open to the boys and domestic science cla.s.ses are provided for the girls. In the year of 1915-16 three elementary night schools were in session with an enrollment of 759.

The Negro school population of Kansas City is also well provided for.

In 1880 this city had a Negro school population of 2,035[100] and there was an enrollment of 623 or of 30.5 per cent of the school population. In 1911 the Negro school population was 6,500 and the number of pupils enrolled reached 3,251. 54.1 per cent of the Negro school population and 47 per cent of the white school population were enrolled in the public schools. The school property[101] devoted to the use of the Negroes was valued at $465,565 and the value of the property devoted to the white people was $5,792,468. The Negro population which comprised 9.7 per cent of the total population had public school property valued at 7.4 of the total. The average cost for each white pupil enrolled was $42.20 a year and the average cost for each Negro child was $35.02. In 1910-11, there were 86 Negro teachers in the system. There was one teacher for every 37 children enrolled in the white schools and one teacher for every 41 Negro pupils. In the same year the Negro night schools had an enrollment of 472. In 1915 there were ten elementary and one high school[102]

devoted to the use of the Negroes. The Negro school population had increased to 7,637 and the enrollment was 3,654.

In 1915 there were fifteen colored schools in the State doing work of a high school grade. Two of these, Sumner High School of St. Louis and Lincoln High School of Kansas City are first cla.s.s high schools.[103]

The Negro high schools of Hannibal and of Springfield are ranked second cla.s.s and the high schools of Chillicothe and St. Joseph are rated third cla.s.s. The other nine high schools are uncla.s.sified.

Until the opening of the new Dunbar High School in Was.h.i.+ngton, District of Columbia, in 1916 the Sumner High School was considered the finest Negro high school in the country. This school was established in 1875 and had only twenty pupils[104] in 1885. By the year 1900 the enrollment had increased to 250. In 1907 the city appropriated $297,827[105] for the building of the new Sumner High School, a magnificent building. It is three stories high and is well equipped. It contains a large auditorium, and gymnasiums on the top floor. On the second floor are laboratories, for the teaching of chemistry, physics, physiology, and biology. Courses for girls are given in domestic science and in domestic art. The school also maintains a commercial department. In the bas.e.m.e.nt there are shops in which the boys are taught carpentry, cabinet making, machinery, and blacksmithing. A swimming pool for the boys is also located in the bas.e.m.e.nt. There is provided a cafeteria at which the children can purchase at a small cost their noonday meal. It is possible for the pupil to take any one of the several courses. He may prepare himself to enter a first-cla.s.s college, to enter the business world, or to become an artisan.

Sumner High School also maintains[106] a normal training course for its girl graduates. The Cottage Avenue graded school is under the supervision of the High School princ.i.p.al and it serves as an observation school for those taking normal work. This high school also maintains an evening school. In 1915-16 the enrollment was 457. The Negroes of St. Louis are very proud of their high school, and it is well patronized. In 1915-16 the enrollment[107] was 811 and in 1916-17 it pa.s.sed the 1,000 mark. There were employed in this high school in 1915 thirty-five teachers who received an average salary of $127 a month. The school has a library containing about 2,000 volumes and equipment[108] valued at $30,000.

The Lincoln High School of Kansas City, although it is not as large or as well equipped as Sumner High School, is nevertheless a good high school. The first Negro high school[109] was opened in the Lincoln Grade School Building. A high school building was erected on Eleventh Street in 1890. This building was used as such until the erection of the present high school, the site of which was purchased in 1899 and the new building was opened September 6, 1906. In 1915 this school had an enrollment[110] of 462 pupils. Seventeen instructors were employed at the average salary of $115 a month. Besides the regular high school courses, this school has departments of domestic science and domestic arts for the girls. Vocational courses are open to the boys and a course in military training has recently been opened for the boys. In 1915 the equipment[111] of the school was valued at $10,000. The library contained a number of valuable works.

In the development of Negro education in keeping with the policy of establis.h.i.+ng high schools the State in 1879 a.s.sumed complete control[112] of Lincoln Inst.i.tute. Prior to this date, the legislature had merely given the normal department of this inst.i.tution $5,000 annually for the purpose of training teachers. The Thirty-fourth General a.s.sembly established an academic and a college department in the school, and the Thirty-sixth General a.s.sembly established an industrial department. The State has since then dealt very liberally with its Negro normal school. In 1915 the legislature appropriated[113] $116,600 for the bi-annual period of 1915-1916. This school then had a campus of twenty acres, upon which was situated six modern buildings and a model training school for the use of students preparing to teach. The school also had a farm of sixty acres. The property[114] of the school was valued at $222,202. There were thirty-one teachers employed and the school enrollment was 343. The academic work is divided between a high school course and a two year normal course. Graduates from the normal department obtain life certificates to teach in Missouri. The following trades are taught: domestic science and domestic art, carpentry, wood-turning, machinery and blacksmithing. The work which this school has done in preparing teachers for the Negro rural schools of the State cannot be over estimated.

Because of these many efforts in behalf of Negro education, therefore, Missouri stood in 1915 in the lead of the ex-slave States in the provisions which it had made for the education of Negro children. Only the District of Columbia stood ahead of it in the amount of money[115]

which was invested in public school property for Negroes. The District of Columbia had $135.30 invested for every Negro child of school age and Missouri had $50 for each Negro child. Oklahoma and West Virginia ranked next to Missouri, each having $26.00 invested for every Negro child of school age. Missouri ranked first among the States in the proportion of the total school investment devoted to the education of the Negro child. Missouri had 96 per cent as much invested for each Negro child as was invested for each white child while the District of Columbia had only 74 per cent as much invested in Negro school property[116] as it had invested in white school property for every child of school age. If we leave out the District of Columbia, which is not comparable with a State, Missouri stood at the head of the States, in which separate schools were maintained for Negro children, in the annual expenditure for every child of school age. Missouri spent $12.13 for every Negro child[117] of school age enumerated. This was more than was spent by 12 of the southern States for every white child enrolled. Missouri's nearest rivals, Oklahoma and West Virginia, spent $11.16 and $10.38 for every Negro child respectively. As the result of her excellent school system, Missouri had, according to the census of 1910, a smaller proportion of her population illiterate[118]

than did any of the other ex-slave States.

HENRY SULLIVAN WILLIAMS

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This dissertation was in 1917 submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Literature of the University of Chicago, in candidacy for the degree of Master of Arts by Henry S. Williams.

The following original sources were used in the preparation of this ma.n.u.script: _Reports of Superintendent of the Public Schools of the State of Missouri_, 1866-1917; Session Laws of the State of Missouri, 1866-1913; _Reports_ of the U.S. Commissioner of Education, 1870-1916; U.S. _Census Reports_, 1860-1910; _The Missouri Republican_, 1866-1870; _Journal of Education_, Vols. I and II (St. Louis, Missouri, 1879); _Revised Statutes of Missouri_, 1879-1909; _Proceedings and Occasional Papers of the Slater Fund_ (Baltimore, Maryland); _Missouri Historical Society Collections_, Vols. II and III; Asa E. Martin, _Our Negro Population_ (Kansas City, Missouri, 1913); N.H. Parker, _Missouri as it is in 1867_ (Philadelphia, 1867); _Am. Annual Cyclopedia_, 1870-1877; _Annual Reports of the Board of Education of St. Louis_, 1867-1916; _Annual Reports of the Board of Education_, of Kansas City, 1870-1915.

The secondary sources consulted follow: Lucian Carr, _American Commonwealths, Missouri a Bone of Contention_ (Boston, 1894); C.R.

Barnes, _Switzler's Ill.u.s.trated History of Missouri_ (St. Louis, 1889); W.B. Davis, and D.S. Durrie, _An Ill.u.s.trated History of Missouri_ (Cincinnati, Ohio); S.B. Harding, _Life of George R. Smith_ (Sedalia, Missouri, 1904); W.E.B. DuBois, _The Negro Common School_ (Atlanta, Georgia); C.L. b.u.t.t, _History of Buchanan County_ (Chicago, 1915); H.A. Trexler, _Slavery in Missouri_, 1804-1865 (Baltimore, Maryland, 1914); C.G. Woodson, _The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861_, (New York, 1915); _History of Calloway County_ (St. Louis, 1884); _History of Cole, Moniteau, Morgan, Benton, Miller, Maries, and Orange Counties_, _Missouri_ (Chicago, 1889); J.T. Shaff, _History of St. Louis City and County_ (Philadelphia, 1885); R.A. Campbell, _Campbell's Gazetteer of Missouri_ (St. Louis, 1875); _Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis_ (New York, 1889); _Missouri Historical Review_, Vols. I, II, IV, VI, VII, and IX (Columbia, Missouri); _The Negro Year Book_ (Tuskegee, Alabama, 1917).