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HISTORIAN’S CORNER
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By Fred Gifford
STEPPING UP FROM SLAVERY
On the 15th of November, the Clifton Springs Historical Society welcomed a talk on the Underground Railway in Ontario County delivered by our county historian, Preston Pierce. The conference room at our local library was filled with over 70 people who came out on a cold night to hear his talk. This certainly denoted the strong interest by the general public in the subject.
As a result of this meeting, Dr. Pierce sent us a newspaper report of that era, which gives us a new look as to who and how it affected people of the time in Clifton Springs. The newspaper item was dated in October of 1856 entitled, The Doings At Clifton----
"The celebration by the colored people of the 22nd anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery in the British West Indies, which came off according to announcement at Clifton Springs last Friday, was to the parties concerned, a highly satisfactory and gratifying demonstration. Henry Bradley, of Penn Yan presided. The oration, a very excellent one in most respects, was delivered by a celebrated colored preacher -the Rev. H. H. Garnet. He was followed in a very able address by Mr. Watkins, associate editor of Fred Douglas Paper. There was a very large attendance of men and women of every variety of complexion, and all seemed well pleased with the entertainment." ( I wish we had a record of where it was held in town, but to date that has not come to light)
And whom, we might inquire, was this "famous" preacher who came to Clifton Springs to deliver this talk? Dr. Pierce, knowing of my interest in the subject, also included a biographical sketch of the Rev. Henry Highland Garnet. Here are some of the highlights of this well-known preacher of that era.
He was born in 1815 and lived until 1881. , Henry Highland Garnet ,a nationally prominent Presbyterian minister, was born a slave near New Market, Maryland. His father, George Trusty, was descended from a Mandingo warrior taken prisoner and sold in Africa. While attending a funeral away from home, the Garnet family escaped to Wilmington, Delaware with help of Thomas Garrett, a noted Quaker. Later they moved to New Hope, Pa and then to New York City. However, Henry's immediate family was eventually scattered by Maryland slave hunters while Henry was briefly at sea. Samuel Ringgold Ward was a cousin.
Garnet attended the African Free School in New York City and later he studied at the "colored" high schools established in New York and the ill-fated Noyes Academy in Canaan, NH where he met his wife, Julia Williams, later a teacher. Garnet completed his education (1839) for the ministry at the Oneida Institute in Whitesboro, NY. He was encouraged in his religious studies by Rev. Theodore S. Wright of the First Colored Presbyterian Church of New York. Rev. Wright was the first black graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary. Garnet became a political activist after 1840 and he helped found the new American & Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.
Rev. Garnet began his ministry at the black Liberty Street Presbyterian Church in Troy, NY where he remained until 1848. He edited an abolitionist paper and taught school. He also became an agent for the American Home Missionary Society working for abolition and temperance. In 1843, Garnet was a featured speaker at the National Negro Convention in Buffalo. His "Call to Rebellion" speech shocked people north and south. It appeared to call for violent slave rebellions just five years after the Nat Turner revolt in Virginia. At that same convention, Frederick Douglass spoke against the idea.
From 1848 -1850, Rev. Garnet was pastor of the Union Church in Geneva, NY. There he established the Geneva Tabernacle and day and Sunday schools. He visited Great Britain in 1850 and was sent as a delegate to the Peace Conference at Frankfort, Germany.
Rev. Garnet held several important positions. He was President of Avery College, Pittsburgh for three years and he urged African-Americans to enlist during the Civil War. While pastor of a Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, Garnet became the first black man to preach in the US Capitol.
Garnet frequently spoke at the " First of August" Emancipation Day celebrations throughout the Finger Lakes area. He shared the platform in Canandaigua (1847) and spoke at Clifton Springs in 1856 as mentioned above. Dr. Henry Foster had established himself here five years previous to that date, so it is possible that Foster was in attendance when Garnet visited here. Garnet was an outspoken opponent of discrimination and was once thrown off a train near Niagara Falls because he sat in a car reserved for whites. It would seem that Rev. Henry Garnet was active long before Rosa Park took the same action on a bus further south and received national recognition as a result.
Initially opposed to colonizing freed salves in Africa, Rev. Garnet gradually changed his mind. Like many others, Garnet believed that African-Americans had a stake in America and should remain here. However, many of his friends favored emigration to Liberia. Garnet was appointed US Resident Minister to Liberia in 1881 but died two months after his arrival.
I am sure that if we were to go back to some of the old county newspapers of the era that we would find that many other prominent persons in the fight against slavery stopped at Clifton Springs. This was repeated in the years to follow when women stepped forward to be recognized as full and equal citizens of America. Today, the fight for equality, and all its possibilities, continues with equal vigor as in the past.
By Fred Gifford
A MESSAGE OF CHRISTMAS
Twelve full months have flown by since we last celebrated the Birth of Christ and still this old world of ours continues to lack the fulfillment of the teachings of the season. The message of the season is love and how we should treat one another. The message of the season is peace but we have no peace. The message of the season is caring for one another and giving to one another and sharing with one another. Christmas is celebrated by Christians the world over and we enjoy the company of any and all faiths that hold like feelings as their basis for being.
Christmas is the joy we see in the hearts of our children and the wonder at the gifts around them. Christmas is going to see a shut-in or a person in the hospital to let them know we care. Christmas is family! Christmas is giving of our bounty so that others may have hope. Christmas is feeding the hungry and clothing the bodies of the less fortunate. Christmas is about doing good and spreading the GOOD TIDINGS that Christ came into the world that his teachings might be heard and all have a full and rewarding life. These are the REAL REASONS to always celebrate the special days of CHRISTMAS.
This nation longs for more honesty in government, positive actions towards world peace and the strength to bring about worldwide health, housing and nourishment. We need to support the less fortunate. We need to take some of the wealth, which exceeds our own needs, and see that it is spread around. No one in this day and age should be hungry, or naked, or homeless and yet they are in the hundreds of thousands around the world even as I write.
Who needs houses of twenty rooms when seven or eight are adequate to most anyone's needs? Who needs penthouses when the poor go without shelter? Who needs lavish lifestyles when thousands go without the necessities? Why don't we do more the save our environment when we know it can be done? Why do we build SUVs when smaller cards are more economical and use less fuel? Why do we ship our jobs out of the country when our own people need work? Where is the will we once had as a nation to do better and bring about the new world that lies ready for us to build?
This nation needs a new birth of direction and leadership. This nation needs to return to the Christian principles upon which it was founded. We need to live the "Christmas Spirit" the entire year. We are blessed in this nation with more freedom that any other society in history, but do we truly treasure what we have? Do we look at our young children thankful that they can celebrate Christmas?
We do not have to search for the real meaning of Christmas. It is already alive and well within us. It but needs our vision to bring it to light again. Out of the troubles around us let us warmly greet each other anew with a "Merry Christmas!"
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