Rev. John Leighton Read, with his wife
Katharine Rutherford Wauchope
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From a letter typed by Rev. J. Leighton Read to his daughter Katharine, and her husband, Rev. Frank Hughes, Jr. concerning a problem they were facing:
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Rev. J. Leighton Read was in the first graduating class of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary:
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Here is what happened to the four who graduated with J. Leighton Read:
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Rev. J. Leighton Read served as best man at the wedding of his seminary classmate, Rev. Charles F. Hancock, as reported in the Austin American-Statesman, 21 SEPT 1906:
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One of the first churches
Rev. J. Leighton Read served before entering missionary work in Indian Territory, was
First Presbyterian, Gurdon, Arkansas:
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Special Cake at the 130th Anniversary Celebration of founding of the church:
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Rev. J. Leighton Read also served Central Presbyterian Church, Little Rock, Arkansas:
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Information about Central Presbyterian Church on the Arkansas Historic Buildings Register:
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Rev. J. Leighton Read was Chairman of the Christian Endeavor Society, Little Rock, Arkansas, as reported in the "Pine Bluff Daily Graphic Newspaper" 17 OCT 1913:
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Newspaper announces Rev. J. Leighton Read leaving Central Presbyterian Church, Little Rock, Arkansas to work among the Indians in Colony, Oklahoma:
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"Sasser your coffee"
I received an email from one of my Read cousins asking me if I had any stories I could relate in connection with the Read family. One is in the following PDF file:
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How the Indians cleaned their rugs before the days of Hoover:
My
mother told me that when it would snow, the Indian women would lay
their rugs out on top the snow, then take a broom and sweep the snow
lightly across the top of the rug, thus also sweeping the dirt with it.
Then, they would turn the rug over and do the same thing with that
side. With her supervising, I tried it once with one of her handmade Indian rugs and it worked.
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Another good story that continued to be told long afterward by Jim and I, involved a scorpion that stung our Grandmother Read....but it's not what you think that made it such a good story.
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On another occasion, I heard Granddaddy Read state the following poem (below). I told him I liked it very much. So he typed out a copy on a small piece of paper on his old typewriter.
I carried it in my wallet for many years:
"Hearts like doors open with ease,
With tiny, tiny, little keys,
And two of these are
'Thank you,' and 'If you please.'"
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Rev. and Mrs. J. Leighton Read wrote "Lights and Shadows on the Colony Field," (which was published), describing their experiences with Native Americans. I obtained a copy from the Oklahoma Historical Society:
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Katharine Read (Hughes) on Right; with Indian girl:
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Pictures of Indians collected by Katharine Read (Hughes) with their names written on back of each:
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While living in Indian Territory/Oklahoma, my Mother told me her father instructed her not to stray far from the Indian Mission, due to the outlaws who traversed the area and established hideouts there. The following videos courtesy of the "Oklahoma Stories" series, and Youtube, is a case in point:
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On September 1,
1893, fourteen deputy U.S. Marshals entered Ingalls, Oklahoma, to apprehend the
gang, in what would be known as the Battle of Ingalls. During the shootout that
followed, three marshals were killed, two bystanders were killed and one
wounded, three of the gang members were wounded, and gang member "Arkansas
Tom Jones" was wounded and captured. Doolin shot and killed Deputy Marshal
Richard Speed during that shootout.
The next film describes what happened:
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Rev. Hughes took this picture (seen below) in the
1950s, of Jim and Joe at the entrance to one of Jesse James' hideouts in
Oklahoma. He backed up the car to the entrance, and you could feel the cold air coming from the mouth of the cave. (Mrs. Hughes' parents and grandparents were missionaries to the
Indians in Oklahoma Territory, and the children were told to be careful and not
stray far from the Indian school or church where they ministered; that the
James Brothers did have a hideout nearby. This has been verified by other
original source material).
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This is a picture of a robbers' cave in OK, used by both outlaws, Jesse James and Belle Starr, at different times, of course! It is located in Robbers Cave State Park, Latimer County, OK.
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From a new article by Michael J. Hightower in the current "Chronicles of Oklahoma," we get this information confirming the outlaw problem in Indian Territory/Oklahoma:
"Due to its geographic isolation and rugged terrain, far southeastern Indian Territory on the eve of Oklahoma statehood in 1907, was still a sparsely settle frontier. It was ideally suited to outlaw gangs that robbed and plundered more settled regions with impunity before confounding their pursuers and vanishing along trails, or "thief runs" that crisscrossed the Choctaw Nation. Belle Starr, Frank and Jesse James, and other outlaws whose names are lost to history knew they could regroup in the Kiamichi Mountains an plan further depredations." For stories of the Starr family's and the James brothers' activities in southeastern Oklahoma, see Michael J. Hightower, "Banking in Oklahoma before Statehood" and David Fritze "Idabel."
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At the time the gangs were still operating in that area, there was a proposal to establish the State of Sequoyah:
The State of Sequoyah was the
proposed name for a state to be established in the eastern part of present-day
Oklahoma. In 1905, faced by proposals to end their tribal governments, Native
Americans of the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory proposed such a
state as a means to retain some control of their land. Their intention was to
have a state under Native American constitution and rule. The proposed state
was named in honor of Sequoyah, the Cherokee who created a writing system in
1825 for the Cherokee language.
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I asked my Mother what was in the "panhandle" section of Oklahoma. She said that when she lived in Oklahoma as a child, she was told that that area was considered a "no man's land" and used mostly as hideouts by outlaws. (She said that the name "Panhandle" comes from the similarity of its shape to the handle of a cooking pan.) It is 166 miles long and 34 miles wide. Beaver county encompassed the panhandle area from 1890 until OK statehood. The panhandle was then divided into 3 counties: Beaver, Texas, and Cimarron. Several Western movies and TV programs feature this area commonly called "Cimarron" or "Cimarron Strip." It definitely was used for hideouts by outlaws, including the notorious "Robbers Roost." In the map below, it is called the "Neutral Strip."
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Sons of the
Pioneers song "Cherokee Strip" from the 1940 Movie, "The Durango
Kid."
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Robber's Roost was a rock
fortress with stone walls 30 inches thick that was built by a band of outlaws
led by 'Captain' William Coe in No Man's Land in the late 1860's. It had one door
and instead of windows had 27 tall, narrow portholes. This region near the
Black Mesa was left unclaimed in 1850 when Congress established the boundaries
for Texas, Kansas and New Mexico. Therefore, Congress declared it
"neutral" or "No Man's Land" and soon forgot about it. The
result was a region without any kind of government or law where outlaws and
thieves began congregating because of the security the area offered them.
Coe had around 50 followers that
were known for stealing livestock from the Army and settlers in the area.
Because of the nature of the structure known as Robber's Roost, the Army
brought in a cannon to fire on the fortress to rid the area of the outlaws.
The painting, below, is of Robbers' Roost, by Wayne Cooper of Depew, OK, and hangs in the OK Statehouse.
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Things were so bad in the Panhandle of Indian Territory, even Hollywood made a B&W movie about it. The "Panhandle" in this film refers to the Oklahoma Panhandle. There was another film Starrett starred in called "Outlaws of the Texas Panhandle."
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There were multiple gangs of outlaws roaming through Indian Territory as indicated by these signs (some now advertising "tourist traps"):
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Up in the Arbuckle Mountains, just a few miles north of the Red River, across the Texas border, in Oklahoma, is the site of the Turner Falls, named after Mazeppa Thomas Turner, a farmer who discovered the falls in 1878. Now a park operated by the city of Davis, OK, it covers 1,500 acres, but at one time was home to outlaws in that region.
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The following article from the Wichita Beacon (Kansas) for August 25, 1898, tells us what it was like in Indian Territory (I.T.):
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A few more stories our Mother told us...........................
Jim and I also heard stories from Mother, about the frugal times she lived in, about the people who suffered in the "Dustbowl"area, and the lack of money for the basic necessities. Oklahoma suffered from a depression in the 1880s, long before the Great Depression of 1929.
She told me one striking story that has always stayed with me: that on one occasion, money was so tight, her mother, Katharine R. Read, had to pawn her wedding ring in order to get money to have the children's teeth fixed. During the Great Depression, she told how she and her grandmother (Lillah Porter Read, who lived with Rev. J. Leighton Read until 1940) had to learn to drink coffee, without sugar or cream; and how to bake without using much sugar. She was a good cook, and said that she had learned it mostly from working in the kitchen with her mother, while growing up. She said that her husband's mother complimented her on her cooking, and she felt that was high praise from her mother-in-law! She would then tell how all she had learned in cooking had come from her own mother, Mrs. Read.
And from what I can remember of those August summer vacations in Norman, OK, I remember the wonderfully prepared meals by my Grandmother Read, with my Mother assisting. I learned to love tomatoes during those visits. It was at her breakfast table that I first discovered what a poached egg was and how it was made. And then after supper, Granddaddy Read would show Jim and I how to work his hand-cranked ice cream maker, out on the back porch. I remember the excitement it created when my cousin David Saunders would discover what we were doing and came out to watch and wait!
Jim and I once asked Mother about playing cards; were they OK to use? She said "No." And then told us that her Mother, Grandmother Read, once discovered someone had brought some into their house, and she wouldn't touch them with her hands. She used tongs from the kitchen and tossed them into the fire!
Mother also told us two other sayings her mother had: "If it's doubtful, it's dirty" (in reference to clean clothes); and "Study to be quiet."
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While out one summer
visiting our grandparents in Norman, our family took a side trip to the Dog Iron Ranch, Oologah, OK, birthplace
of Will Rogers, to see his house. (Mother said that it was spelled "Oolagah" before Oklahoma became a state; and amazed Jim and I because she could pronounce all the Indian place names with no trouble.) So I asked mother if she
had ever seen Will Rogers. She said that she had seen him perform in an
outdoor rodeo arena. The picture, on the left, is how she would have remembered him. (Photo courtesy of the Will Rogers Memorial Museum, Claremore, OK.)
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Mother said that Grandmother Read, before she was married, attended a summer session at Union Seminary in New York City, which is the oldest independent seminary in the United States, founded in 1836, by members of the Presbyterian Church in the USA:
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Mother said that she was told by her mother, that during a summer in New York City while attending Union Seminary, she attended a "student matinee" performance of Verdi's "Aida," because she couldn't afford to go to one at night, at the old Metropolitan Opera House, located at 1411 Broadway, occupying the whole block between West 39th St and West 40th St on the west side of the street in the Garment District of Midtown Manhattan; and believe me those blocks in NYC are not your typical city blocks; they are long! (Yes, I didn't know how to pronounce the name, and Mother had to teach us how it was pronounced:
Aida (Italian: [aˈiːda]).
Here are scenes from the Old Met Opera House, including the stage with it's gold damask curtain (the opera house is now located in Lincoln Center), as it would have looked when Grandmother attended a performance:
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The stage is set for "Aida" Act 2, Scene 1, as Grandmother Read would have seen it:
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It was during the Saturday matinee performances, Milton Cross would describe to radio listeners background commentary to the opera. Here he is in 1941, during a live radio broadcast describing Act I of Aida, as Grandmother would have experienced it in person:
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Now, here is an excerpt from the same opera, as performed in the new Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center, NYC:
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Our Mother also told us that one summer, Grandmother Read, before she was married, took a trip to Pikes Peak, Colorado, and climbed up to the top where she signed a book, indicating she had been there. (Pikes Peak is named for Zebulon Montgomery Pike, an early explorer of the Southwest). Some modern pictures:
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From
the “The Free Lance,” (Fredericksburg, VA.) June 10, 1905:
Miss
Katharine Rutherford Wauchope, future wife of Dr. J. Leighton Read, graduates
from Fredericksburg College, with a degree in Music:
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Upon her graduation from Fredericksburg College, Katherine Rutherford Wauchope taught school at the Presbyterian College, Durant, Oklahoma.
(More pictures of the college):
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Here is Miss Wauchope in the faculty listings, taken from a doctoral dissertation by Anne Semple.
In 1910-1911: she taught Latin and French:
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In 1911-1912: she taught Latin and French:
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In 1912-1913, she taught Latin and German:
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J.J. Read (Rev. John Jeremiah Read) is listed below, as a "pioneer missionary," and as one of the founding trustees of Calvin Institute (which later became Oklahoma Presbyterian College):
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THE BUILDING OPENED IN 1910 AS THE OKLAHOMA
PRESBYTERIAN COLLEGE FOR GIRLS AND OPERATED UNTIL 1966. THE COLLEGE HAD ITS
ROOTS IN THE PRESBYTERIAN HOME MISSION, WHICH ESTABLISHED THE CALVIN INSTITUTE
IN DURANT IN 1894. THE BUILDING REFLECTS THE CLASSICAL REVIVAL STYLE. LISTED IN
NATIONAL REGISTER 12/12/76.
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Calvin
Institute, near Durant. begun by Rev. C.U.
Ralston and named after his son, Calvin, who drowned. On the Board were
Rev. R.K. Moseley, head of the school; Rev. J.J. Read, W.J.B. Loyd, Dr. Robert
A. Lively. It was later supervised by Mrs. Mary Semple HOTCHKIN and her son
Ebenezer in 1896. She secured tribal funds in 1900 for Indian boys and girls
could attend. Later the city of Durant and Dr. Thornton R. SAMPSON led a fund
drive and the name was changed to Durant College. Became a girls' school
in1907 and after it was relocated to a new site opened in 1910, as Oklahoma
Presbyterian College for Girls, where Katherine Rutherford Wauchope would teach.
Rev. J.J. Read served on it's board of trustees.
Durant
is situated at the intersection of U.S. Highways 69/75 and 70, fifty-two miles
east of Ardmore and seventy-six miles southwest of McAlester. Occupation of the
townsite began in November 1872, when a wheelless boxcar was placed on the east
side of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway tracks. In 1873, Dixon Durant
erected the town's first building, a wooden store, on the east side of the
boxcar. Named "Durant Station" for his family, it was shortened to
Durant in 1882. Since the first settlers came to the area, agriculture
has remained the town's economic base. The primary commercial crops were
peanuts, cotton, wheat, and cattle. By 1902, there were eight churches, sixteen
groceries, sixteen physicians, five hotels, fifteen attorneys, an ice plant,
and numerous other businesses. Growth continued rapidly, due to a rapid influx
of mixed-blood Choctaws and whites. Very few full-bloods lived in Bryan County
at the time. In 1894 the Presbyterian Church opened the Calvin Institute, which
evolved into Durant Presbyterian College and closed in 1966, as the Oklahoma
Presbyterian College. On March 6, 1909, the Oklahoma Legislature approved the
establishment of Southeastern State Normal School at Durant. In 1921, the
institution became Southeastern State Teachers College and in 1974, Southeastern
Oklahoma State University. In 1999 the state legislature proclaimed Durant
"the Magnolia Capital of Oklahoma," and the town annually hosts a
Magnolia Festival the weekend following Memorial Day. Oklahoma Gov. Robert L.
Williams resided in Durant. In 1975, Chief David Gardner located the
headquarters of the Choctaw Nation in the former Oklahoma Presbyterian College
buildings. At the beginning of the twenty-first century Durant continued to
grow with wholesale, retail, and light manufacturing businesses supported by
one of the top-ranked public school systems in the state. The 1890 census did
not include Durant in its list of important towns. In 1900 the population was
2,969, and 5,330 in 1910, rising to 12,823 in 1990 and to 13,549 in 2000.
Source: The History of Bryan County,
Oklahoma (Durant, Okla.: Bryan County Heritage Association, 1983).
Other Sources Used: Bryan County Democrat
(Durant, Oklahoma) , 18 December 1924. Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City), 9
November 1992 and 31 January 1999. Ellis Freeny, Peter Freeny and His
Descendants in America (Oklahoma City: Ellis Freeny, 1995). The History of
Bryan County, Oklahoma (Durant, Okla.: Bryan County Heritage Association, Inc.,
1983). Amy Sanders, "Fifth-Generation Rancher Sets New Goals For
Oklahoma's Oldest Family Ranch," Cattleman 83 (August 1996).
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More information discovered about Calvin Institute:
Oklahoma
Presbyterian College
Durant,
Oklahoma
1894-1966
The OPC building is on the
National Register and the application contains a history of the school as well
as a description of the building. Ancestry.com has the 1914 Ithanna,
the school yearbook. Dust Bowl Girls by Lydia Reeder is a history
of the powerful OPC basketball teams of the 1930’s. Ruth Ann Semple’s
thesis, Origin and Development of Oklahoma Presbyterian College is
online.
History
OPC is an outgrowth of
Presbyterian mission work among the Choctaw Indian nation. The first
school, called Calvin Institute, opened in 1894. Its success led to its
being closed and reopened as a larger school called Durant Presbyterian College
in 1901.
Durant Presbyterian College
offered standard college courses. But with a peak enrollment of 315, it
needed more space, and the newly created Southeastern Normal College needed a
home. So DPC sold its campus to the state and used the money to build a larger
building and reorganize the school.
This reorganization brought
Oklahoma Presbyterian College for Girls, which opened in the fall of
1910. Semple notes that the school offered three degrees—Bachelor of
Arts, Bachelor of Literature, and Bachelor of Science. There was also a
preparatory division. Dust Bowl Girls says that the college
girls—mostly whites—were required to sit at lunch with younger students—many of
whom were Indians—to help with table manners.
The 1914 Ithanna
shows a student body of around 100—more than half in the college. (One student,
a Jewish girl, was murdered in November of 1913.) The curriculum was heavily
weighted toward the liberal arts. The fourteen-member faculty included
four piano teachers—including Edward Baxter Perry from Leipzig, who had studied
under Franz Liszt. One faculty member taught voice, one taught art, and
four taught languages and expression. Bible classes were required.
Thirty-nine students were listed as members of the Utopian Literary
Society and 61 were members of the competing Phi Delta Sigma Society.
Most Students were members of the YWCA or the Miriam Society –for younger
girls.
The calendar shows a school
year filled with parties, teas, luncheons, dramatic performances, recitals, and
class competitions in athletics and academics. Students apparently had
some social interactions with those from Southeastern Normal School.
By 1935 the financially
strapped OPC entered into a relationship with Southeastern Normal.
According to Semple, all instruction except for music and Bible was
“surrendered” to Southeastern Normal. In 1955 OPC again became
co-educational. But by 1966, financial problems caused the campus to
close.
Bricks
and Mortar
The new OPC building was
located at 601 North 16th Street. Measuring 160 feet by 50 feet, it was
built of red brick with white stone trim at a cost of $100,000. The
basement and main floor contained classrooms. The upper floor served as a
dormitory. Until 1941, a partial fourth floor—called the “Buzzard’s
Roost”—contained a half-gymnasium. After a fire damaged the building, the
fourth floor was removed. In 1918 a second building was added immediately
south of the main building.
In 1975 the campus became
the home for the Red River Valley Historical Society. It was placed on
the National Register in 1976.
NEXT PHOTO: The main building prior to the 1941
fire. Note the Buzzard's Roost. Image from Burke Library Archives
of Columbia University.
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Sports
Team name: Cardinals
Colors: Garnet and Grey
College
Football Data Warehouse shows
a football game in 1904—a 34-0 loss to Austin College.
Ithanna says that the girls basketball teams
were forbidden to compete against other schools.
OPC’s real sports history
began in 1929 when Sam Babb was hired as basketball coach. The OPC
teams—made up of Oklahoma farm girls—began a run of 88 consecutive wins from
December 1931 to December 1934. Most games were against post-college age
AAU teams. Despite having only the “Buzzard’s Roost” of their own and the use of
the SNS gymnasium 4-6 a.m., the OPC Cardinals won the AAU national
championship in 1932 and 1933, defeating the Dallas Golden Cyclones both
years. In 1933 the Cardinals went on to defeat the Edmondton (BC) Grads
in Edmondton for the championship of North America, playing two games using
men’s rules.
Semple notes that under “independent
sponsorship” the team toured Europe in 1934. The Tulsa World says that
the Presbyterian board withdrew support for the team and that they all enrolled
at Oklahoma City University.
NEXT PHOTO:
Six members of the 1932 national champions.
All-america guard Doll Harris is to the left. Image from Truby
Studio of Durant.
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Oklahoma Presbyterian College update:
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The following Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, 1890, will give you insight into the work of Rev. J.J.Read and his colleagues:
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Miss Katherine Wauchope is listed as Superintendent of Christian Endeavor Society:
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Wauchope Family
Church Membership Records:
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Katharine Rutherford Wauchope Read
Baptism Record:
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Katharine Rutherford Read was baptized
by Rev. Frank Hall Wright, D.D. who was born in Boggy Depot.
The following information is provided which gives insight into the mission work which the Wright and Read families were involved in:
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A Pipe Organ was purchased by the Oklahoma Presbyterian College, Durant, Oklahoma, and dedicated to the memory of Rev. Frank Hall Wright:
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NEW on the “Wauchope Family Story” web page:
Session Minutes covering the ministry
of Rev. William C. Wauchope, Rev. Roe Wauchope, Rev. J.H. Baxter, Rev.
H.A.Vanderwank, and Rev. J. Leighton Read, at the Columbia Memorial Presbyterian
Church,
Colony, Oklahoma. {Includes listing of Wauchope/Read children
baptism(s).}
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A recently discovered picture taken by Rev. Hughes of Rev. J. Leighton Read with his eldest daughter (Mrs. Frank Hughes, Jr.) He had just arrived at the airport for a visit to our home in South Norfolk, Virginia, after his wife had already passed.
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J. Leighton Read and Katharine Rutherford Wauchope marriage license:
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Newspaper announces the marriage of Rev. J. Leighton Read and
Miss Katharine Rutherford Wauchope:
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While at Austin College, Sherman, Texas, John Leighton Read, Age 20, roomed with William Scott. 1900 Census:
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The
college was founded on October 13, 1849, in Huntsville, Texas, by the
Hampden–Sydney and Princeton-educated missionary Dr. Daniel Baker. Signed by
Texas Governor George Wood, the charter of Austin College was modeled after those
of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.
Baker
named the school for the Texas historical figure Stephen F. Austin after the
original land on which it was built was donated by the Austin family. Two other
important figures in Texas history, Sam Houston and Anson Jones, served on the
original board of trustees for the college, and the former site in Huntsville
later became today's Sam Houston State University.
Austin
College's founding president was Irish-born Presbyterian minister Samuel
McKinney, who served as the school's president a second time from 1862 to 1871.
Under the tenure of the fourth president of Austin College, Reverend Samuel
Magoffin Luckett, Austin College suffered several yellow fever
epidemics and complications related to the Civil War. Texas Synod of the
Presbyterian Church decided the college would be relocated to Sherman in 1876.
Construction
of the new campus in north Texas came in the form of "Old Main," a
two-story, red brick structure, which occurred between 1876 and 1878. Struggling
with the Long Depression. Austin College saw little improvement to its building
or grounds during the late 1870s; as such, Samuel Luckett resigned his position
as president. From 1878 to 1885, the college continued to struggle from the
aftershocks of economic depression; with an increasing debt and shrinking
student body, the college turned to its 7th president, Reverend Donald
MacGregor. A shrewd and well connected businessman, President MacGregor
relieved a great deal of the college's debt and returned operations to
normalcy. After MacGregor's death in 1887, the college welcomed President
Luckett back to the campus. Throughout his second term as president, Samuel
Luckett adopted a military program, grew the student body, introduced a YMCA
chapter, established intercollegiate athletics and Greek fraternities, and
added two wings to Old Main.
One
of the school's most iconic presidents came in the form of Reverend Thomas
Stone Clyce, who served as the Austin College president from 1900 to 1931;
Reverend Clyce's presidency would become, and remains, the longest tenure in
Austin College history.
On
January 21 of 1913, Old Main was set ablaze and burnt to the ground in a matter
of hours. A professor of Austin College, Davis Foute Eagleton described the incident:
"Austin
College on fire and every particle of wood reduced to ashes--and walls rendered
totally unfit for use. Oh, dies irae, dies irae! - The dear old building in
which I have laboured for twenty-four years, gone! What traditions, memories,
griefs, joys, were associated with it! The carpenters were approaching the
completion of their work. The new English room was completed, the library room
was soon to be ready. The literary societies lost everything. I lost all books,
or, [those] in my class room. The laboratories were almost a total loss.
Fortunately, the library, records, and office furniture were all in the new
Y.M.C.A. building. Before the fire had begun to die out, the Senior class
called the student body together and they pledged themselves by classes in
writing to stand by the Faculty and the College, and that no one would leave.
The Faculty also met shortly after and unanimously decided to continue college
work the next day as usual, meeting their classes in places designated.
Probably not another institution in the State could have done this. But the old
College building is gone forever!!!"
Following
the fire, the citizens of Sherman raised $50,000 to help the college rebuild.
Now one of the oldest buildings on the Austin College campus, Sherman Hall
housed administrative offices, an auditorium-chapel, and a library. Now the
home of the humanities division, Sherman Hall boasted such guests as Harry
Houdini, Harry Blackstone Sr., Madame Schumann-Heink, William Howard Taft, and
George H.W. Bush.
To
this day, the Austin College administration rarely cancels classes for weather
or minor incidents in honor of the great commitment students and faculty made
to continue on with regular coursework following the fire.
Austin
College became co-educational in 1918, merging in 1930 with the all-female
Texas Presbyterian College.
The
Great Depression severely limited campus growth and educational expansion,
however the college quickly regained momentum in the mid-1930s with the
introduction of many courses, ground breaking on new facilities, and growth of
previously established programs. Throughout 1942, Austin College trained some
300 men and women in engineering, science and management courses as part of the
United States Office of Education's war efforts. The following year, Austin
College undertook a Cadet nurses training program and hosted Naval Reserves,
Texas Home Guard, Army-air trainees and Air Corps Cadets.
On
September 20, 1973, the musician Jim Croce died in a plane crash in
Natchitoches, Louisiana, on his way to perform the next night at Austin
College. Six people died in the crash.
In
1994, Dr. Oscar Page joined the community as its 14th president. Under his
tenure, 1994-2009, Dr. Page increased the school's endowment by nearly 80%, due
in large part to his dedicated fundraising efforts as evidenced by the success
of the "Campaign for the New Era;" a total of $120 million were
raised and the campaign was heralded as the largest fundraiser in Austin
College's history. Dr. Page orchestrated the construction of Jordan Family
Language House, Jerry E. Apple Stadium, the Robert J. and Mary Wright Campus Center,
the Robert M. and Joyce A. Johnson ’Roo Suites, and the Betsy Dennis Forster
Art Studio Complex; as well as the renovation of the David E. and Cassie L.
Temple Center for Teaching and Learning at Thompson House and of Wortham
Center, and creation of the John A. and Katherine G. Jackson Technology Center,
the Margaret Binkley Collins and William W. Collins, Jr., Alumni Center, and
the College Green in Honor of John D. and Sara Bernice Moseley and
Distinguished Faculty.
In
the latter part of Austin College's history, the school would see
de-segregation, welcome its first full-time black faculty member, first female
head of a department, and, employ its first female president.
Dr.
Marjorie Hass joined the campus in 2009 as both its first female and Jewish
faith president. Since the start of her leadership, the college has seen the
construction of the IDEA Center and two new housing complexes, the Flats at
Brockett Court and the Village on Grand. Home to 103,000 square feet of
multi-disciplinary and multi-purpose classrooms, laboratories, lecture halls
and the largest telescope in the region found in Adams Observatory, the IDEA
Center is a LEED Gold certified facility.
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Cadets and their sponsors, 1890s:
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Grandmother Read would go out in her Norman, Oklahoma neighborhood and invite the children into her home and teach Bible stories with flannel graphs, and sing songs while she played the piano.
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"He Owns the Cattle on a Thousand Hills"
(Words and Music by John W. Peterson)
He owns the cattle on a thousand hills,
The wealth in every mine;
He owns the rivers and the rocks and rills,
The sun and stars that shine.
Wonderful riches, more than tongue can tell -
He is my Father so they're mine as well;
He owns the cattle on a thousand hills -
I know that He will care for me.
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Rev. J. Leighton Read (center of picture in suit) seen here in Lawton, OK, with his wife Katharine (seated at the pump organ) ministering to Indians.
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An August 1958 visit to Virginia
with Rev. and Mrs. J. Leighton Read
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During one summer, Rev. and Mrs. J. Leighton Read visited us in South Norfolk, Virginia. Here is a picture Dad took of us down at Nags Head, N.C. on the beach. From L to R: Joe, Mrs. Read, Rev. Read (in white shirt and tie) and Jim, sitting behind him playing in the sand. (Apologies for the small picture size; they were taken with a Kodak "Brownie" Camera.)
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Rev. Read took this picture of us at Colonial Williamsburg. From L to R: Joe (being held by Dad), Rev. and Mrs. Hughes, Jim standing in front of Mrs. Read.
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Jim, Rev. Read, Mrs. Hughes, Joe, Mrs. Read at Williamsburg
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Joe and Jim at Williamsburg
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Joe, Rev. Hughes, and Jim at Williamsburg
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Pictures from a family reunion at Rev. and Mrs. Read's home, Norman, OK:
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Front Row, L-R: Jim, David Saunders (making a face), Joe
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Pictures of Read family with identification page written by
Mrs. Katharine Read Hughes:
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Read, Dillon, Hughes family members visit
Rev. and Mrs. Read (Some photos were duplicated/enlarged)
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Back row, L-R: Mother, Granddaddy Read, Aunt Mary Saunders, Grandmother Read.Front row, L-R: unknown, Jim, unknown, David Saunders, Joe.
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David Saunders on tricycle, Cheryl Saunders, Joe and Jim in wagon:
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Cheryl Saunders standing, David Saunders on tricycle, Joe and Jim in wagon:
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John Leighton Read, Jr. in WW2 uniform:
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John L. Read, Jr. at Oklahoma University, Norman, 1948:
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John was a member of Kappa Alpha:
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John was a member of the IFC:
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Katharine Anne Read at University of Oklahoma in 1934, was a member of Pi Epsilon Alpha, a religious organization:
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Elizabeth Louise Read marriage
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Grandmother Read holds Judy January while
Edward Bruce January holds camera:
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Edward Bruce January holds Judy January:
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Identified: L to R: Joe & Jim Hughes with cousins in Oklahoma:
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The following 3 pictures were on the same roll as the previous ones taken in Norman, OK. If any of my Read cousins knows where they were taken, please contact Joe.
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At the Read's Norman, OK house, June 1954:
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Nancy Dillon celebrates her first birthday, as Rev. Read looks on at the right.
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Nancy and Ellen Dillon sisters:
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Dr. Robert Morris Dillon, who married Elizabeth Read:
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When our family visited the Dillon's in Oklahoma, Jim, who had already started taking trombone lessons at school, talked with his Uncle Robert about his music. He gave Jim a copy of some music he had written and a recording of the Bethany High School Band.
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Rare Diary and Bible Study Notes of Katharine Wauchope Read, found in the effects of her daughter, Katharine Anne Read:
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Picture of my Aunt Teeny while visiting her sister Katharine Read, one summer, in Sulpher Springs, OK:
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Betty, Mary, Cheryl, and Teeny:
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My Aunt Teeny and Uncle Dan
Wedding Photos (Notations of who is in each picture
by Katharine Read.)
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Rice being thrown on the couple, as they leave
Rev. and Mrs. Read's house in Norman, OK:
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Hughes family visited the D'Antoni family in New Orleans, here on "The President" paddlewheeler:
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L to R: unidentified, Katharine, Teenie, Joe, Jim, one of the D'Antoni sons.
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READ Children School Enrollment Card,
January 30, 1930. (Note the name misspelled: "Cathirene ann Read"
which should be: "Katharine Anne Read."
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Read Children School Enrollment Cards: 1927, 1928, 1931, 1932, 1934:
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Read Children School Enrollment forms in PDF format:
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Rev. J. Leighton Read receives
Doctor of Divinity Degree.
Vice-President of the U.S. is the guest speaker:
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Full newspaper story in two (2) parts:
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Rev. J. Leighton Read was involved in the Child Evangelism Fellowship. An article from The Oklahoman, June 6, 1941:
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Recent Research (2019) on the Read
"family tree"
Early immigrant: James Read, Soldier and Blacksmith, 1607, Jamestown Colony (Source: National Park Service, Jamestown, VA.)
One of the first immigrants: Peter Read, from Kent, England, to Charles City, VA. He came to America by 1654 indentured to Walter Brooks; transported to Charles City by Walter Barker and sons William Brookes, age 17, along with Steven Read, age 24, and a Richard Young, age 31. They came from London by certificate from Minister to Gravesend. This can be found in Public Record's Office E157/20.
Peter was born in 1634 in Kent, England. With his wife Ann, they had a daughter, also named Ann, who died in 1685. She married Dorrill Young and they had 4 children.
Peter and Ann also had a son, Henry, born 1660 in Prince George, VA; died Oct 7, 1712 in the same place. Henry married Elizabeth Hancock and had 3 sons and 4 daughters between 1690 and 1705.
On April 3, 1688, Peter's wife also named Ann, was granted the administration of her late husband's estate. This record can be found at Westover 10/02/1688, page 135, "Ann Read, admin., of Peter Read, dec'd, James Wallis and Edmund Irby to inventory estate."
Son: Henry, born, 1698, Virginia.
Son: Harmon, born 1698, Prince George, Virginia.
Son: Moses, born 1744, Isle of Wight, Virginia.
Son: William, born 1771, North Carolina
Son: John, born 1794, North Carolina
Son: John, born 1794, Mississippi.
Son: William Frances, born 1817, Tennessee.
Son: John Jeremiah, born 1842, Mississippi.
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Henry Read, son of Peter Read
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Harmon Read, son of Henry Read
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Moses Read, son of Harmon Read
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William Read, son of Moses Read
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John Read, son of William Read
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William Francis Read, son of John Read
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William Francis Read died on Sunday morning, July 6, 1850, of typhoid fever. He received some treatment from a Dr. A.B. Caldwell. He was buried in a Protestant cemetery northeast of Nevada City, California, close to Downieville, California.
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We find out want happened to William F. Read when he went to the gold field where he died, from Hewitt Clarke, in this excerpt from his book, "He Saw the Elephant":
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My mother once told me that her father indicated a family connection between the Read family and George Read of Delaware, who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. We are currently researching that connection.
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James Read in Jamestown, 1607
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James [Jamestown Settler, May 1607] READ
Birth: 1565 in Kent,
England
Death: 13 MAR 1622
Immigration: 13 MAY 1607
Jamestown Settlement, Colony of Virginia;
First Landing; on the ?Susan Constant?
Occupation: Original Jamestown
Settler (1st Landing); blacksmith and soldier
Alias/AKA: READE
Jamestown Expedition: After setting sail on December 20, 1606, this famous
expedition finally reached Virginia in April 1607 after enduring a lengthy
voyage of over four months in three tiny ships (?Discovery?, ?Susan Constant?,
and ?Godspeed?). The Susan Constant, at 120 tons, was the largest of the three
ships led by Capt. Christopher Newport. She carried 71 passengers and was about
116 feet long. The Godspeed, led by Capt. Bartholomew Gosnold, carried 39
passengers and 13 sailors. She was a 40 ton brigantine about 68 feet long. The
Discovery, under Capt. John Ratcliffe, was was a 20-ton ?fly boat? and carried
21 persons.
After exploring several sites along the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, the
colonists, fearing pirates and Spanish competition, decided to explore further
inland. Jamestown, because of its deeper off-shore waters allowing close
mooring for the ships, was chosen instead. On May 13, 1607 the settlers landed
at Jamestown ready to begin the task of surviving in a new environment.
Of the 105 survivors that established the town of Jamestown, over 50 would die
in the 'sickly season' or 'seasoning period' of July to September.
James Read, blacksmith, was one of the original 104 Jamestown settlers and the
only blacksmith. Below is a letter, translated into modern English, he wrote to
his mother just 4 months after their arrival.
25 Sept. 1607
Dear Mom,
We finally made it to Jamestown. My job as a blacksmith is very important to
our community. I have to make farming tools and pots and pans for people. I
always have a fire going in my shop. It is nice in the winter but hot in the
summer. I have to work many long hours.
We have built a 3-sided fort to protect us from the Indians. All of our homes
and stores and the church tower are inside the fort. We also grow crops. Our
houses all have thatched roofs. Every day is a lot of hard work. Besides
working in the shop. We spend a lot of time caring for animals and fixing
meals.
Our leader is named John Smith. The Indians once captured him but he is now
making us a stronger colony. Because of his strong leadership we all survived.
He made some rules one was "who does not work does not eat"
I miss you but don?t worry
Love, James Read
He survived the first few frightening months of colonial life in good health.
But the blacksmith almost lost his life another way. In September 1607, during
one of Smith?s absences on the river, the 2nd President, John Ratcliffe (aka
Sicklemore), beat James Read, the blacksmith. Captain Edward Wingfield says the
Council were continually beating men for their pleasure. Read struck back. For
this he was condemned to be hanged. His life was spared in a last minute
bargain, mostly because "killing the man who mends your guns, makes your nails,
repairs your chisels, and fixes your locks, not to mention the shoes of your
horses might not be the wisest." (Hume 162 -163).
From the account of Edward Maria Wingfield, first President
of the Colony, in his “Discourse on Virginia,” we learn the truth of the James
Read incident:
"The36 . . . daie of37 . . . the President did beat James Read
> , the Smyth (Blacksmith).
38 The Smythe (Blacksmith, i.e., James Read) stroake him againe. For
this he was condempned to be hanged; but, before he was turned of the lather,
he desired to speak with the President in private, to whome he accused Mr
Kendall of a mutiny, and so escaped himself.39 What indictment Mr Recorder
framed against the Smyth, I knowe not; but I knowe it is familiar for the
President, Counsellors, and other officers, to beate men at their pleasures.
One lyeth sick till death, another walketh lame, the third cryeth out of all
his boanes; wch myseryes they doe take vpon their consciences to come to them
by this their alms of beating. Wear this whipping, lawing, beating, and
hanging, in Virginia, knowne in England, I fear it would driue many well
affected myndes from this honoble action of Virginia.
This Smyth comyng aboord the pynnasse wth some others,
aboute some busines, 2 or 3 dayes before his arraignemt, brought me comendacons
from Mr Pearsye, Mr Waller,40 Mr Kendall, and some others, saieing they would
be glad to see me on shoare. I answered him, they were honest gent., and had
carryed themselues very obediently to their gounors. I prayed God that they did
not think of any ill thing vnworthie themselues. I added further, that vpon
Sundaie, if the weathiar were faire, I would be at the sermon. Lastly, I said
that I was so sickly, starued, lame, and did lye so could and wett in the
pynnasse, as I would be dragged thithere before I would goe thither any more.
Sundaie proued not faire: I went not to the sermon."
"The41 . . . daie of42 . . ., Mr Kendall was executed; being
shott to death for a mutiny. In th' arrest of his judgmt, he alleaged to Mr
President yt his name was Sicklemore, not Ratcliff;43 & so had no authority
to pnounce judgmt. Then Mr Martyn pnounced judgmt.“
Historically, blacksmiths had been very important on the frontier. In addition
to accompanying Captain John Smith on expeditions in June and December 1608,
during which time Read had a point of land named after him. James Read survived
to work as a blacksmith in Jamestown for 15 years.
Records by John Smith indicate that Read was one of several men who built a house for Chief Powhatan in advance of his coming to talk with Smith.
Records of the Virginia Company dated
March 13, 1622, reveal that Joan, the daughter of James Read (Reade), and her
mother Isabelle) stood to inherit her late father?s goods, which were in the
possession of Captain John Martin of Martin?s Brandon (59). Joan was then in
England (VCR 1:618).
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New PBS Drama "Jamestown" features James Read played by a British actor.
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Matt Stokoe plays a leading role as James Read in the new PBS "Jamestown" series. He is cast, appropriately, as the blacksmith in Jamestown.
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Rev. John Jeremiah Read
(Photo dated: May 1872)
(Courtesy of Presbyterian Heritage Center, Montreat, NC)
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J.J. Read's father died when he was 7 years old and he spent most of his boyhood days on his father's plantation, attending a fine academy, where he was grounded in the rudiments of an English education, From there at age 15, he entered business at Raymond, Mississippi, spending 3 years as a clerk in a store.
It was after his time spent in the Confederate Army that he first wanted to become a professional teacher and wanted to seek a college education toward that end.
It was under the influence of his pastor, Rev. I.J. Daniel, that he was convinced of his duty to enter the ministry. This led to his enrollment at Oakland College, the Presbyterian college of Mississippi in that day.
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Here is the 1860 Census for Raymond, Mississippi, which shows him living there, working as a clerk in a store. His name is on line 38, and boarding with the Gibbs family, age 17:
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Before attending seminary, J.J.Read attended Oakland College in Mississippi:
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The Literary Society Building, built in 1850:
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Oakland College Curriculum
contributed by Charles Dawkins from the
original document in the MS Department of Archives & History, Jackson, MS:
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Additional information on
Oakland College:
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After attending Oakland College,
John J. Read attended
Columbia Presbyterian Seminary.
The seminary that he attended was located in Columbia, South Carolina, not Decatur, Georgia, as some information states. According to the Presbyterian Historical Center, Montreat, N.C., the seminary was actually started in 1828 in Lexington, Georgia, then it was moved to Columbia, South Carolina in 1830, which is the campus he would have attended. It was not moved to Decatur, Georgia until 1927.
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In 1830, Columbia, South
Carolina, became the first permanent location of the seminary. The school
became popularly known as Columbia Theological Seminary, and the name was
formally accepted in 1925. The building was designed by architect Robert Mills
as the Robert Mills/Ainsley Hall House. As
seen abandoned, circa 1920's:
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It was in 1823, that Columbia merchant Ainsley Hall and his wife Sarah
hired Robert Mills to plan this stylish Classical Revival townhouse, one of few
private residences he ever designed. Ainsley Hall died before the house was
finished, and Sarah sold the mansion to the Presbyterian Synod of South
Carolina and Georgia, which established a seminary there in 1831 and opened the
educational chapter of the property’s history.
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This
small building was removed from Columbia, SC to Rock Hill, SC in 1936, as the
most important landmark of Winthrop College' history on the campus. The college began
in this converted carriage house in 1886, when Winthrop Founder and First
President, David Bancroft Johnson, then superintendent of Columbia’s public
schools, received permission from the Columbia Theological Seminary to use the
building for a teacher training classroom.
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It had been designed by Robert
Mills and built as a stable/carriage house in 1823 on the grounds of Ainsley
Hall mansion in downtown Columbia. The one story, rectangular one-room masonry
building had a high, arched central doorway for horses and carriages. It has
load bearing brick walls and pilasters, semicircular arched doorways and end
windows, slate shingled gable roof with an end parapet and boxed cornices, and
plain vertical board doors. This arcaded masonry design was a Mills trademark
and reflects the design of the Ainsley Hall mansion.
In 1830, the mansion was
acquired by the Presbyterian Synod of South Carolina and Georgia for a seminary
campus, and the carriage house was converted into a chapel for the Columbia
Theological Seminary. The main arched doorway was removed and replaced with a
smaller rectangular window. Additional sash windows were probably added then to
light the chapel, but this is not documented. These windows probably were not
in place during the building’s time as a stable. The stalls were removed and replaced
with pews and a pulpit on a raised wood floor for the chancel.
The ca. 1830 chapel remains
basically unaltered. In 1886, David Bancroft Johnson requested the use of the
Little Chapel as a classroom for the inaugural academic year of Winthrop
Training School. The Seminary was closed because of an internal religious dispute.
Permission was granted by the Presbyterian Church and the Little Chapel became
the birthplace of Winthrop as an institution. The Little Chapel only served
Winthrop as a classroom during its inaugural year. In the fall of 1887, the
Winthrop Training School moved to a much larger building on Marion Street in
Columbia, SC which contained four large rooms and the chapel returned to its
prior use as a religious center for the Columbia Theological Seminary.
In 1927, the seminary moved
to Decatur, GA. and the Little Chapel was left vacated. With pleas from the
Winthrop Alumnae Association, Winthrop
began a campaign to have the structure moved to Rock Hill. Their efforts
were rewarded when the Seminary Board of Directors presented the Chapel to
Winthrop on May 7, 1936. Plans were then set into motion to transport the
building, brick by brick, to the Winthrop campus in Rock Hill, SC.
On the morning of September
29, 1936, with aid from a Federal Works Progress Administration grant, a long
procession of cars and trucks set out from Columbia with 36,000 numbered
bricks, massive hand-hewn timbers, and other building materials. Chaperoning
these materials along its route to Rock Hill were such Winthrop dignitaries as
Winthrop president, Dr. Shelton Phelps; former Winthrop president, James
Pinckney Kinard and his wife, Lee Wicker Kinard; Mrs. D. B. Johnson, widow of
Winthrop’s first president; and 55 representatives of Winthrop’s numerous
alumnae chapters.
The reassembling of the
chapel on campus under architectural supervision took several months and was
completed in the early spring of 1937. A formal dedication of the Little Chapel
was held on May 29, 1936 with numerous prominent South Carolinians present,
including Archibald Rutledge, S. C. Poet Laureate and 4 of 5 living members of
Winthrop’s first graduating class of 1887. President Johnson’s remains, buried
on the front campus in 1928, were re-interred under the chapel in 1936. His
wife, Mai Rutledge Smith Johnson, who died in 1978, is also buried at his side.
The chapel sits amid a grove
of large oak trees on the plateau above the athletic field, northwest of the
amphitheater. This pastoral area is all that remains of Oakland Park, which
originally covered most of the campus. Laid out in 1890 by W. B. Wilson, the park
attracted patrons from “downtown” Rock Hill who came out on Wilson’s privately
built street car track. The park’s main features were a large pond where the
depressed athletic field is now, a casino, bandstands, and landscaped walks.
The area immediately
surrounding the chapel was landscaped in 1936 with sidewalks and shrubs. The
building and grounds continued to be maintained through the years, however, by
the early 1980s the larger surroundings of the chapel and the amphitheater,
built around 1916, had fallen into disrepair and suffered from inadequate
drainage. Also, the building was kept locked and was only used during special
ceremonies.
In the early 1980s, a
significant revitalization effort was implemented and the Little Chapel
received much needed repairs. Following the completion of these repairs the
Little Chapel was rededicated and reopened at a ceremony on October 13, 1983.
These efforts were largely spurred on by Winthrop’s centennial celebration in
1986.
In 2005, effort was made to
return the Little Chapel to a more prominent and appealing place within the
campus community. The David Bancroft Johnson Bust which had been commissioned
by the Winthrop Alumni Association to celebrate Winthrop’s centennial was
removed from the front campus and relocated to the Little Chapel. Also, a
sculpture garden was added to the lawn in front of the Little Chapel with
Architectonic Benches and a meditative garden to further its appeal to
visitors.
The chapel retains its 1830
integrity, even though moved from the original site. In 1970, as part of the
Ainsley Hall House restoration, the carriage house was reconstructed on its
original site by the Historic Columbia Foundation. This reconstruction is
currently listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The original
chapel is at least of equal significance.
President Woodrow Wilson,
whose father was a professor at the seminary in the 1860s-80s, regularly
attended services and lectures in the chapel. In 1873, he took vows to become a
member of the Presbyterian Church there. Much of Wilson’s intellectual
stimulation came from listening to sermons and philosophical lectures given in
the chapel. Wilson had been a student at the seminary until 1886, when
scientific and philosophical differences with established religion caused him
to seek a career in secular academic life.
For many reasons this small
building seems clearly eligible for National Register listing. It is a Robert
Mills building of distinctive style and elegance; it was the site of President
Wilson’s early education; and it was the original Winthrop Building. The
careful 1936 move to Rock Hill was a pioneer accomplishment in historic
preservation. An official State Historical Marker is already in place.
The Chapel as it appears today:
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After graduating from
Columbia Presbyterian Seminary,
Columbia, South Carolina,
John J. Read was licensed to preach and supplied at the
Presbyterian Church, Port Gibson, MS.
The church was first called Bayou Pierre Presbyterian Church; then later First Presbyterian.
Pictures of the church (below) are how it looks today, little changed).
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This church has one of the most unusual histories. "The Church with the Golden Hand," by Jim Woodrick, is very informative:
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The present brick building
housing the First Presbyterian Church of Port Gibson was completed in 1860. The
Romanesque Revival church was created by James Jones, apparently a local
architect, and bears a distinctive 165-foot high steeple crowned by an upwardly
pointing gilded hand. First carved of wood by Daniel Foley in 1859, the
original hand was replaced by one of sheet metal about 1901.
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The perfect
acoustics that the cove ceiling gives, (seen in the picture below) allows the preacher’s normal speaking
voice, to be heard easily far in the back pew.
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One man who recently visited the church developed this synopsis: "By 1859, they had outgrown their small brick building and
hired a man from the North to build their new larger sanctuary. The contractor
ran off after only completing the walls up to the roofline, which is so typical
of Yankees, isn’t it? According to the church’s website, the congregation
pulled together and completed the building by late 1860 with contributions from
church elder H.N. Spencer.
"As it stands today, the church shows a high degree of
craftsmanship in its design and workmanship on both the exterior and the
interior. A fine Romanesque Revival style church, it relies on strong basic
forms, including most prominently its rounded windows and door openings.
"On the interior, the simplicity of the Presbyterian creed
comes through in the minimal decoration punctuated by the cove of the ceiling
and again by the round arched forms. This simplicity allows the plasterwork
archway behind the pulpit to really draw attention to the pastor and the
preaching of the Word. A nice plaster cornice also surrounds the sanctuary,
subtly showing off the cove in the ceiling."
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Visitors will notice that the front windows are of a
different stained glass than the side windows. The fronts are the original
colored glass, while those in the sanctuary have been replaced with more ornate
memorial windows over time.
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Presbyterian records indicate that John Jeremiah Read was ordained on December 10, 1871, by the Brazos Presbytery.
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John Jeremiah Read
ordination
The Galveston Daily News
DEC 13, 1871:
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Rev. John Jeremiah Read served as pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Houston, Texas, 1871-1876.
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A reporter from the Galveston newspaper attended one of Rev. J.J. Read's worship services and mentioned that he preached an excellent sermon,....without notes:
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John Jeremiah Read married
Lillah Porter on April 25, 1874.
The service was conducted by
Dr. H.W. Dodge, pastor of First Baptist Church, Austin, Texas, 1871-1877.
From the "History of First Baptist Church" of Austin, Texas, 1923, Mr. John F. Smith, wrote this of him at the time of the churches' 50th anniversary celebration: "Brother Dodge has been justly called the old man eloquent. He is liberally endowed with rich mental, moral, and social qualities, highly cultured and deeply learned. He is an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile."
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READ - PORTER Marriage License and Certificate on PDF:
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Selma, Alabama newspaper announces wedding:
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Atoka Independent AUG 30 1878:
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From the Caddo
Free Press (Caddo, Oklahoma),
November
1, 1878, p. 16:
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A Report on Rev. John Jeremiah Read's work at Spencer Academy, from "The Gospel in All Lands," 1881, Vols. 3-4, page 78:
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Spencer
Academy, named for the then Secretary of War John C. Spencer, was built in 1824 for Choctaw boys and led by Reverend Alexander Reid
(Presbyterian). After the Civil War, the school re-opened, and Reid opened
nearby Oak Hill Industrial Academy to educate Choctaw freedmen. The famous and
well-known gospel, "Swing Lo, Sweet Chariot," was first sung and
heard at the Spencer Academy by freed people "Uncle Wallace and Aunt
Minerva." (Source: Oklahoma Historical Society).
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More information about
Spencer Academy:
A
noted school for boys, Spencer Academy was established by the Choctaw Nation in
1841 and named for Secretary of War John C. Spencer, who served in the John Tyler administration. Students who became
Choctaw leaders included Allen Wright, Jackson McCurtain, and Jefferson
Gardner. Two elderly black slaves, Uncle Wallace and his wife, Aunt Minerva,
hired out by their Choctaw owner to work for missionaries at the academy, first
sang "Swing Low Sweet Chariot," "Roll, Jordan, Roll" and
other spirituals composed nearby.
Rev. Alexander
Reid, principal of Spencer Academy, was a native of Scotland, and came to this
country in his boyhood. He graduated from the college at Princeton, N. J., in
1845, and the theological seminary there, three years later. He was ordained by
the Presbytery of New York in 1849 and accepting a commission to serve as a
missionary to the Indians of the Choctaw Nation in Indian Territory, was immediately
appointed superintendent of Spencer Academy, ten miles north of Fort Towson.
He was
accompanied by Rev. Alexander J. Graham, a native of Newark, New Jersey, who
served as a teacher in the academy. The latter was a roommate of Reid’s at
Princeton seminary, and his sister became Reid’s wife. At the end of his first
year of service he returned to Lebanon Springs, New York, for the recovery of
his health, and died there July 23, 1850. Rev. John Edwards immediately became
his successor as a teacher.
Alexander Reid
while pursuing his studies learned the tailor’s trade at West Point and this
proved a favorable introduction to his work among the Choctaws. They were
surprised and greatly pleased on seeing that he had already learned the art of
sitting on the ground “tailor fashion” according to their own custom.
The academy
under Reid enjoyed a prosperous career of twelve years. In 1861, when the
excitement of war absorbed the attention of everybody, the school work was
abandoned. Reid, however, continued to serve as a gospel missionary among the
Indians until 1869, when he took his family to Princeton, New Jersey, to
provide for the education of his children.
While
ministering to the spiritual needs of the Indians his sympathies and interest
were awakened by the destitute and helpless condition of their former slaves.
In 1878 he resumed work as a missionary to the Choctaws making his headquarters
at or near Atoka and in 1882 he was appointed by the Foreign Mission Board,
superintendent of mission work among the Freedmen in Indian Territory. In this
capacity he aided in establishing neighborhood schools wherever teachers could
be found. In order that a number of them might be fitted for teaching, he
obtained permission of their parents to take a number of bright looking and
promising young people to boarding schools, maintained by our Freedmen’s Board
in Texas, Mississippi and North Carolina. He thus became instrumental in
preparing the way, and advised the development of the native Oak Hill School
into an industrial and normal boarding school.
In 1884, owing
to failing health, he went to the home of his son, Rev. John G. Reid (born at
Spencer Academy in 1854), at Greeley, Colorado, and died at 72 at
Cambridgeport, near Boston, July 30, 1890.
“He was a
friend to truth, of soul sincere, of manners unaffected and of mind enlarged,
he wished the good of all mankind.”
Uncle Wallace Willis and
Aunt Minerva
Uncle Wallace
and Aunt Minerva were two of the colored workers that were employed at Spencer
Academy, before the war. They lived together in a little cabin near it. In the
summer evenings they would often sit at the door of the cabin and sing their
favorite plantation songs, learned in Mississippi in their early youth.
"Swing low,
sweet Chariot"
In 1871, when
the Jubilee singers first visited Newark, New Jersey, Rev. Alexander Reid
happened to be there and heard them. The work of the Jubilee singers was new in
the North and attracted considerable and very favorable attention. But when
Prof. White, who had charge of them, announced several concerts to be given in
different Churches of the city he added,
“We will have
to repeat the Jubilee songs as we have no other.”
When Mr. Reid
was asked how he liked them he remarked,
“Very well, but
I have heard better ones.”
When he had committed
to writing a half dozen of the plantation songs he had heard “Wallace and
Minerva” sing with so much delight at old Spencer Academy, he met Mr. White and
his company in Brooklyn, New York, and spent an entire day rehearsing them.
These new songs included,
“Steal away to
Jesus.”
“The Angels are Coming,”
“I’m a Rolling,” and “Swing low, sweet Chariot.”
“Steal Away to
Jesus” became very popular and was sung before Queen Victoria.
The Hutchinson
family later used several of them in their concerts, rendering “I’m a Rolling,”
with a trumpet accompaniment to the words:
“The trumpet
sounds in my soul,
I haint got long to stay here.”
These songs
have now been sung around the world.
When one thinks
of the two old slaves singing happily together at the door of their humble
cabin, amid the dreary solitudes of Indian Territory, and the widely extended
results that followed, he cannot help perceiving in these incidents a practical
illustration of the way in which our Heavenly Father uses “things that are weak,”
for the accomplishment of his gracious purposes. They also serve to show how
little we know of the future use God will make of the lowly service any of us
may now be rendering.
These two
slaves giving expression to their devotional feelings in simple native songs,
unconsciously exerted a happy influence that was felt even in distant lands; an
influence that served to attract attention and financial support to an
important institution, established for the education of the Freedmen.
New Spencer Academy
In the fall of
1881 the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions re-established Spencer Academy
in a new location where the post office was called, Nelson, ten miles southwest
of Antlers and twenty miles west of old Spencer, now called Spencerville.
Rev. Oliver P.
Stark, the first superintendent of this institution, died there at the age of
61, March 2, 1884. He was a native of Goshen, New York, and a graduate of the
college and Theological Seminary at Princeton, N. J. In 1851, he was ordained
by the Presbytery of Indian which, as early as 1840, had been organized to
include the missions of the American Board.
As early as
1849, while he was yet a licentiate, he was commissioned as a missionary to the
Choctaws, and, locating at Goodland, remained in charge of the work in that
section until 1866, a period of seventeen years. During the next thirteen years
he served as principal of the Lamar Female Seminary at Paris, Texas. His next
and last work was the development of the mission school for the Choctaws at
Nelson, which had formed a part of his early and long pastorate.
Rev. Harvey R.
Schermerhorn, became the immediate successor of Mr. Stark as superintendent of
the new Spencer Academy and continued to serve in that capacity until 1890,
when the mission work among the Indians was transferred from the Foreign to the
care of the Home Mission Board. The school was then discontinued and he became
pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Macalester. After a long and very useful
career he is now living in retirement at Hartshorne.
These
incidents, relating to the work of the Presbyterian Church among the Indians,
especially the Choctaws, have been narrated, because the men who had charge of
these two educational institutions at Wheelock and Spencer Academies, were very
helpful in effecting the organization of Presbyterian Churches, the
establishment of Oak Hill Academy and a number of neighborhood schools among
the Freedmen in the south part of the Choctaw Nation.
|
Photos of principals involved at Spencer Academy, noted in above article:
1. Secretary of War, John C. Spencer
2. Rev. Alexander Reid
3. Allen Wright
4. Jackson F. McCurtain
5. Jefferson Gardner
|
Editorial written by Rev. Frank Wright, about the excellent work rendered by Rev. J.J. Read at the Spencer Academy:
|
Spencerville, Oklahoma:
Spencerville today,
is an unincorporated community in northern Choctaw County, Oklahoma. It is 12
miles northeast of Hugo, Oklahoma, adjacent to the Pushmataha County border.
The improved Ft. Smith to Ft. Towson military road of 1839, ran north-south thru
Spencerville after crossing the "Seven Devils" on its way southeast
to Doaksville. This wagon road was heavily used by the U.S. Army from 1839–48,
especially during the War with Mexico.
Spencerville,
named for U.S. Secretary of War John C. Spencer, was home to Spencer Academy, a
Choctaw Nation boarding school for boys. The trace of the military road today
serves as the access road from Spencerville 1/4 mile north to the site of old
Spencer Academy. A large Oklahoma Historical Society marker identifies the site.
Spencer
Academy was founded in 1844. It was here that Negro freedman "Uncle"
Wallace Willis composed “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”. He was inspired by the Red
River which reminded him of the Jordan River and of the Prophet Elijah being
taken to heaven by a chariot. Spencer Academy was operated on behalf of the
Choctaw Indians by the Presbyterian Board of Missions.
Prior
to Oklahoma's statehood Spencerville was in Towson County, Choctaw Nation—but
only barely. A United States post office operated at Spencerville, Indian
Territory from January 22, 1844 to July 22, 1847 and was established again on
May 17, 1902. The community and its post offices took their name from the
academy. The academy later relocated to Nelson, Oklahoma several miles to the
west.
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Deep
bass guest soloist Stan Toal from Robinson Memorial United Church in London,
Ontario, performs Wallis Willis' famous spiritual "Swing Low, Sweet
Chariot" as part of the July 13, 2008 Sunday service at Strathroy United
Church accompanied by Edith Hanselman on the Boston grand piano. (SEE MUSIC AUDIO FILE BELOW THIS ARTICLE).
"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" is an American Negro spiritual. The first
recording was by the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1909. In 2002, the Library of
Congress honored the song as one of 50 recordings chosen that year to be added
to the National Recording Registry. It was also included in the list of Songs
of the Century, by the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment
for the Arts.
While sung primarily in Protestant churches and in concerts throughout the
United States, it also has a large association with English rugby union and is
also regularly sung at England national rugby union team matches. It is
sometimes called "Coming for to carry me home".
"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" was composed by Wallis (Wallace) Willis, a Choctaw
freedman in the old Indian Territory, sometime before 1862. He was inspired by
the Red River which reminded him of the Jordan River and of the Prophet Elijah
being taken to heaven by a chariot. Some scholars (see Songs of the underground
railroad) believe this song and "Steal Away to Jesus"—also composed
by Willis—had some hidden lyrics referring to the Underground Railroad.
Alexander Reid, a minister at a Choctaw boarding school, heard Willis singing
these two songs and transcribed the words and melodies. He sent the music to
the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. The Jubilee
Singers then popularized the songs during a tour of the United States and
Europe.
The song enjoyed a resurgence during the 1960s Civil Rights struggle and the
folk revival; it was performed by a number of artists, perhaps most famously
during this period, by Joan Baez during the legendary 1969 Woodstock festival.
The song was adopted by England rugby union fans during the last match of the
1988 season.
Traditional lyrics
Lyrics are as follows:
Chorus:
Swing low, sweet chariot
Coming for to carry me home
Swing low, sweet chariot
Coming for to carry me home
I looked over Jordan and what did I see
Coming for to carry me home
A band of angels coming after me
Coming for to carry me home
(chorus)
Sometimes I'm up and sometimes I'm down
Coming for to carry me home
But still my soul feels heavenly bound
Coming for to carry me home
(chorus)
The brightest day that I can say
Coming for to carry me home
When Jesus washed my sins away,
Coming for to carry me home.
(chorus)
If I get there before you do
Coming for to carry me home
I'll cut a hole and pull you through
Coming for to carry me home
(chorus)
If you get there before I do
Coming for to carry me home
Tell all my friends I'm coming too
Coming for to carry me home
(chorus)
|
WALLACE
WILLIS
Born: 1820s
Died: 1860s
The story of Wallace Willis begins on a plantation in Holly Springs,
Mississippi. Wallace “Uncle” Willis and his wife, Aunt Minerva, were slaves of
Britt Willis, a wealthy half-Irish, half-Choctaw farmer. When the Choctaws were
relocated by the United States government as a result of the Treaty of Dancing
Rabbit, Britt Willis walked the Trail of Tears with his Choctaw wife to
Oklahoma’s Indian Territory. Among the 300 slaves that made the trip with Britt
were Wallace and Minerva.
The group settled near Doaksville, Oklahoma, which is located near present-day
Hugo and Fort Towson. It was here that Wallace composed “plantation songs”
while working the cotton fields of Britt Willis. Britt’s granddaughter, Jimmie
Kirby, recalled: “Mama said it was on a hot August day in 1840. They were
hoeing the long rows of cotton in the rich bottomland field. No doubt [Wallace]
was very tired. They worked in the fields from sun-up to sundown. And sundown
was a long way off. South of the field, he could see the Red River shimmering
in the sun. Can’t you just imagine that suddenly Uncle Wallace was tired of it
all?”
And so “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” was born. The mournful lyrics are a classic
example of black spirituals of the time period – songs that were sung by slaves
toiling under back-breaking labor in the fields. Taken at face value, the
lyrics of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” express hope that divine help was on its
way. Most historians also attribute a secret meaning to Willis’ lyrics with
many arguing that they were used as a coded message about escaping the shackles
of slavery and heading north. It is written that some slaves would even change
the lyrics to “Swing Low, Sweet Harriet” in reference to Harriet Tubman, who
was the leader of the Underground Railroad that ferried slaves north to
freedom.
Buried in an unmarked grave located within the slave burial section of the old
Doaksville Cemetery.
~ The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture.
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Another old photograph of Spencer Academy:
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The picture above, appears in the pdf file: "Read Family Story, Part 1." It is a picture of Indian Boys playing Stickball. Here is a video that explains the game:
|
Old hotel at Doaksville, Indian Territory:
|
A short history of Doaksville, Indian Territory, and it's founding as a trading site:
|
An archaeological site today, Doaksville was once the
largest town in the Choctaw Nation. The settlement got its start in the early
1820s when a man named Josiah S. Doaks and his brother established a trading
post. Anticipating the arrival of the Choctaw Indians to the area after the
signing of the Treaty of Doak’s Stand in October, 1820, the brothers moved
westward on goods laden boats up the Mississippi and Red Rivers. Not long after
they established their store, other settlers moved into the area for mutual
protection.
Raids from Plains Indians, especially those from
Texas, caused nearby Fort Towson to be established in 1824. Afterwards,
Doaksville began to grow and gave every indication of becoming a permanent
town. Commerce grew with the establishment of several roads built to supply
Fort Towson.
Sitting at the center of these crossroads, Doaksville
prospered from the Central National Road of Texas that ran from Dallas to the
Red River, before connecting with the Fort Towson Road which went on to Fort
Gibson and beyond to Fort Smith, Arkansas. In addition, steamboats on the Red
River connected with New Orleans at a public landing just a few miles south of
Doaksville, carrying supplies to Fort Towson and agriculture products out of
the region.
In 1837, the Choctaw and the Chickasaw signed the
Treaty of Doaksville, which allowed the Chickasaw lease the western most
portion of the Choctaw Nation for settlement.
By 1840, Doaksville had five large merchandise stores,
two owned by Choctaw Indians and the others by licensed white traders. There
was also a harness and saddle shop, wagon yard, blacksmith shop, gristmill,
hotel, council house, and a church. A newspaper called the “Choctaw
Intelligencer” was printed in both English and Choctaw.
A missionary named Alvin Goode, described the
settlement at the time:
"The trading establishment of Josiah Doak and
Vinson Brown Timms, an Irishman, had the contract to supply the Indians their
rations, figured at 13 cents a ration. A motley crowd always assembled at
Doaksville on annuity days to receive them. Some thousands of Indians were
scattered over a tract of nearly a square mile around the pay house. There were
cabins, tents, booths, stores, shanties, wagons, carts, campfires; white, red,
black and mixed in every imaginable shade and proportion and dressed in every
conceivable variety of style, from tasty American clothes to the wild costumes
of the Indians; buying, selling, swapping, betting, shooting, strutting,
talking, laughing, fiddling, eating, drinking, smoking, sleeping, seeing and
being seen, all bundled together."
In 1847 a post
office was established in Doaksville and by 1850, the town boasted more than
thirty buildings, including stores, a jail, a school, a hotel, and two
newspapers. The same year, it was designated as the capitol of the Choctaw
Nation. For the next several years, the settlement continued to thrive until
Fort Towson was abandoned in 1854. Without the business from the soldiers at
the fort, Doaksville began to decline. However, it would continue to be the
tribal capital for the next nine years. (by Kathy Weiser from "Legends of America")
|
Doaksville: An Oklahoma
Ghost Town
The principal antebellum town of the
Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory, Doaksville was located immediately north and
west of the present Choctaw County community of Fort Towson. Named for Josiah
Doak, Doaksville was founded between 1824 and 1831. Doaks co-owned the
Mississippi trading post, or stand, where a Choctaw removal treaty was
negotiated in 1820. He and his brother preceded the Choctaw to Indian Territory
and erected a store above the mouth of the Kiamichi River. They relocated north
along Gates Creek when Fort Towson was established in 1824, or after the army
reoccupied the site in 1831. The area, a part of Miller County, Arkansas, until
1825, was occupied by settlers, many of whom joined the Doaks near the fort.
Immigrating Choctaws inhabited the settlement after 1830.
Served by steamboats plying the Red River, Doaksville prospered. Several
general stores, a gristmill, blacksmith, and hotel operated there before 1840,
and two newspapers, the Choctaw Telegraph and the Choctaw Intelligencer, were
soon published. Doaksville served as the capital of the Choctaw Nation in 1860
63. A convention held there in 1860, resulted in the ratification of the
Doaksville Constitution, the document that guided tribal government until 1906.
Doaksville, where Confederate Gen. Stand Watie surrendered in 1865, declined
after the Civil War. The Choctaw capitol was moved to Chahta Tamaha in 1863,
and a postwar labor shortage hurt local agriculture. Businesses closed, but the
Doaksville post office functioned until 1903. Except for the cemetery, nothing
remains of the townsite, which is listed in the National Register of Historic
Places
Doaksville - Off US 70 in Fort Towson, take the
north road to the cemetery (signs posted). Drive to the back of the cemetery
(which is worth a visit in its own right, with WPA built stone walls and hand
carved tombstones) and you'll find a set of stairs. After traversing them
you'll enter a trail leading to the old Doaksville settlement. An archeological
survey done by the Oklahoma Historical Association uncovered several stone
foundations. Along the trail, signs explain what the remnants once contained.
|
Dudley Nail Doak, described in the following article, was the son of Josiah Dudley Doak:
|
Near
this cistern, the last Confederate General, Stand Waite (Cherokee) surrendered
in 1865:
|
The following article (with some typographical errors/article will appear "as is") appeared in the aforementioned "A Standard History of Oklahoma," concerning Rev. J.J. Read:
|
REV.
J. J. READ. Authorities on the subject of the
advancement
of the American Indian are agreed that no
agency
has been more powerful than the Protestant missionary
in bringing the red man from a state of savagery
to
a moderately high standard of civilization. Certainly
there
are no more interesting chapters in the history of
the
Indian than those that relate to the hardships, priva
tions,
industry and philanthropy of the pioneer mission
ary.
But for his influence and painstaking labor there
would
never have been developed so great a fund of
pretty
romance, so rich an intermingling of the blood of
reds
and whites, out of which has been developed as high
professional
talent as the transfusion of the bloods of
any
other races show, and the work of the missionary
also
helped to bring about the highly organized form of
government
which was maintained in some of the tribes.
In
any record and appreciation of the missionaries who
long
labored in old Indian Territory, a high place must
be
given to the late Rev. J. J. Read.
The
story of his life as a missionary begins while he
was
pastor of a large and fashionable Presbyterian
Church
in Houston, Texas, and with his marriage to Miss
Lillah
Porter, a leader in church, social and club life in
the
City of Austin. The second chapter finds them, fort
years
ago, in the wild solitudes of the Choctaw Nation,
setting
about the task of learning the Indian tongue in
order
that the cause of Christ might be advanced among
the
heathens—for Indian Territory forty years ago was
regarded
as a foreign missionary field just the same as
if
an ocean separated it from the rest of America. Chap
ter
three covers a period of twenty-two years and em
braces
more than a mere volume of experiences that are
as
vital to Oklahoma history as all the Indian treaties
and
all the Indian laws. The devoted labors of Mr. Read
ended
with his death in 1898.
Born
at Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1843, he was the
son
of William and Mary Louise Read. He was educated
in
a plantation school in Mississippi, where he had one of
those
picturesque classical instructors who were often the
peer
of any members found in college faculties. Later
he
attended Oakland College at Oakland, Mississippi, and
finished
his preparation for the ministry in a theological
seminary
of the Presbyterian Church at Columbia, South
Carolina.
Mr. Read served four years as a soldier in the
Confederate
army, entering the ministry soon after the
war
and being assigned to a church in Texas. Until he
took
up missionary work he filled some of the best pastorates
in Texas. In 1876 he was elected superintendent
of
Spencer Academy of the Choctaw Nation, located ten
miles
from the present village of Doaksville. This was
one
of three important schools maintained in the Choctaw
Nation at that time, the others being known as
Wheeler
Academy and Pine Ridge Academy.
After
five years Rev. Mr. Read resigned from the
presidency
of the academy and was transferred by his
church
to the Chickasaw Nation. He and his young wife
settled
four miles from the present site of Wapanucka,
on
a tract of land still owned and occupied by Mrs. Read.
Boggy
Depot, twelve miles distant, was their nearest
post Office,
but Mr. Read shortly started a movement to
have
the post office established nearer his home. It was
necessary
that the distance to Boggy Depot be measured
in
order that the Post Office Department could be assured
of
the distance filling the requirement of the rules of the
department.
Mrs. Read accordingly tied a red cloth to a
buggy
wheel and counted the revolutions of the wheel all
the
way to Boggy Depot, by which simple means the distance
was officially established. Mrs. Read was given
the
honor of selecting the name for the office, and she
took
from Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans" the
euphonious
word "Wahpanncka" (sic), which was the name of a
chieftain
clan of the Delaware Indians. The field of
labor
in this region embraced four or five charges, scattered
from a point north of Stonewall to Red River and
west
to the Santa Fe Railroad. At each place Mr. Read
organized
a church and in due time assisted in the construction
of a church edifice at most of them. Indians
who
had been converted sawed and hauled lumber and
worked
under his direction as carpenters. In the beginning
he held services under trees and bush arbors and in
crude
schoolhouses. Like the pioneer country doctor of
Indian
Territory, no ugly demonstration of the elements
or
other agency which were within the power of man to
endure
deterred him from his work, and thousands of
Indians
revere his name today. Among those who were
his
students in Spencer Academy are Dr. E. N. Wright,
one
of the leading men today of the Choctaw Nation;
Peter
Hudson, a Choctaw leader who frequently has been
suggested
for governor of the nation ; Rev. Silas Bacon,
for
a number of years principal of the Goodland Indian
School
; and Rev. William McKinney, who later graduated
from
Harvard and became a prominent politician among
the
Choctaw.
Throughout
all his years in Oklahoma Mr. Read was a
member
of all organizations that assisted in uplifting the
red
men and the pioneer white men, and individually did
such
a work that its record should always be a permanent
memorial
to his name. He was affiliated with the Masonic
Lodge.
To Mr. and Mrs. Read were born six children :
E.
D. Read, a civil engineer in Oklahoma; Rev. John Leighton
Read,
now pastor of the Central Presbyterian Church at
Little
Rock, Arkansas; Mrs. T. N. Binnion, wife of a
traveling
salesman of Pauls Valley; D. L. Read of Arizona;
Mrs. R. T. Ball of Wapanucka; and Theodore P. Read,
who
lives with his mother and conducts the old farm at
Wapanucka.
|
Rev. J.J. Read in the news:
|
He preached the annual sermon on foreign missions, 1875:
|
Rev. J.J. Read attended the October 28, 1891 Presbyterian Synod of Texas meeting where the Indian Presbytery became a member:
|
Rev. J.J. Read served as Moderator, 1895:
|
At the 1896 Texas Synod meeting, Rev. J.J. Read presented two Memorials for Indians who were ordained ministers:
|
Rev. J.J. Read attends Synod of Texas, 1872:
|
Another individual has placed the following photo of a church on the Ancestry site, stating it is the Presbyterian Church in Wapanucka, OK, "where Rev. John Jeremiah Read preached." However, there is no additional confirmation that this is an accurate photo:
|
Background information about early Oklahoma, the Ball family, and a history of Wapanucka:
|
The
Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church built the Wapanucka Female
Manual Labour School in 1851-2. The school, which opened in 1852, was named for
a nearby creek. Local residents often called it Allen's Academy, for James S.
Allen, who supervised it. Later many dubbed it Rock Academy for its impressive
stone building. The school closed in 1860 after the Presbyterian Board withdrew
its financial support. The Confederate forces used the building during the
Civil War as a hospital and a prison. After the war the academy reopened,
serving male and female students. In 1890 it became a boys' school. In 1911 it
was permanently closed and the property sold. The Wapanucka Academy site was
listed in the National Register of Historic Places (NR 72001065) in 1972.
|
Mrs. J.J. Read was instrumental in the naming of the Post Office, Wapanucka:
|
Rev. J.Leighton Read preaches at his father's church in Wapanucka, Oklahoma:
|
Public School, Wapanucka, 1900s:
|
Lime Kilns in Wapanucka (1909):
|
O'Neals store and pharmacy, Wapanucka:
|
Wapanucka in 1904 photograph:
|
Boggy Depot Bridge and Creek:
|
Overland Stage at Old Boggy Depot, painting by Joe Beeler:
|
The Overland Butterfield Stage, seen in the picture below, in Arizona circa 1860s, followed a route through Oklahoma, westward, and through the small town of Apache, Arizona; the place where John W. Richhart would murder a Deputy Sheriff in 1913, and later murder his second wife, Lillah Read Ball, (daughter of Rev. John Jeremiah Read). (Story follows near bottom of this page).
|
The
Butterfield Overland Mail Co. operated from 1858 to 1861 under contract with
the U.S. Postal Department, providing transportation of U.S. mail between St.
Louis, Missouri, and San Francisco, California. Nearly 200 miles of the route
cut a diagonal through what would become southeastern Oklahoma and along that
route still stands Edwards Store, which served as an unofficial stop on the
stagecoach route. The only such original structure in Oklahoma, Edwards Store
is eight miles northeast of Red Oak in Latimer County. Built in 1858, the
establishment served meals and offered a place to safely rest horses. Although
in poor condition, the structure is easy to access off Norris Road. It was
listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
Edwards Store on the Butterfield Stagecoach Route:
|
Old Boggy Depot Civil War Skirmish
On April 24, 1865, fifteen
days after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, Virginia, a party of twenty
Confederates moving north from Boggy Depot was attacked by Union forces under
the command of Brigadier General Cyrus Bussey. Three Confederates were killed
and their mail captured. A letter from a Confederate paymaster stated that
General Stand Watie’s command was expected soon at Old Boggy Depot to collect
horses due by April 25 from forage camps in Texas. Watie, the paymaster
related, would then take the offensive across the Arkansas River. For this
reason General Bussey recommended that the Federal line on the Arkansas be
strengthened by the addition of more troops. The mail also indicated the
Confederates had no news of the fall of Richmond and Lee’s army.
(From Civil War Sites in
Oklahoma by Muriel H. Wright and LeRoy H. Fischer)
|
The W.H. Ball Company was located in Boggy Depot until 1869, then moved to Wapanucka; it is listed on this diagram:
|
Boggy Depot School, circa 1900. Children identified, L to R: Jimmie, Ollie, Kittie:
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The two articles that follow concerning the work of Rev. and Mrs. J.J. Read, are written by Natalie Morrison Denison. (NOTE: no attempt has been made to correct the numerous typos/misspelling's in the articles, but are reprinted here "as is.")
|
It was here, at Spencer Academy, that
Negro freedman "Uncle" Wallace Willis composed “Swing Low, Sweet
Chariot.” He was inspired by the Red River, which reminded him of the Jordan
River and of the Prophet Elijah being taken to heaven by a chariot. Spencer
Academy was operated on behalf of the Choctaw Indians by the Presbyterian Board
of Missions. I heard my Grandfather Read explain this to my father.
|
Spencer Academy Cemetery information:
|
Because John Jeremiah Read's first child Isabel, died while they were at Spencer Academy, and had to, according to papers about him, leave her buried there, it is almost certain that her burial was in this cemetery:
|
Spencer
Academy, Choctaw Nation, 1842-1900, By an act of the Choctaw Council
in 1842, the Nation authorized a boarding school for boys at a site 10 miles
north of Fort Towson at Doaksville. It was named for the Secretary of War, John
C. SPENCER. Three dorms were named for trustees Peter P. PITCHLYNN, Robert M.
JONES and William M. ARMSTRONG, Indian Agent.
In
1851, Spencer Academy was overwhelmed by measles and out of 100 boys, 70 were
ill; four died. During the Civil War, Spencer Academy did not function as an
educational institution but the dormitories in 1863 were used as a Confederate
hospital. Gen. Douglas COOPER with the Wells Battalion established headquarters
there.
The
academy was rebuilt by Calvin ERVIN and reopened the school on Nov. 2, 1870.
The academy was relocated in Soper as New Spencer in 1882 where new facilities
were erected. On Oct. 3, 1896, main building and storeroom burned. Five
students died and seven were seriously burned. The school reopened in fall
1898. Spencer burned again June 23, 1900.
Graduates
include principal chiefs B. J. SMALLWOOD, Jefferson GARDNER, Allen WRIGHT,
Jackson McCURTAIN, Gilbert DUKES; Judge Charles VENSIN and national treasurer
William WILSON. Educators Peter J. HUDSON and Simon DWIGHT, Dr. Elijah Nott
WRIGHT, the Rev. Frank Hall WRIGHT, Gabe PARKER were teachers during its last
years.
Sponsored
By: The Presbyterian Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions;
Superintendents: Edmund McKinney, 1843-1845; Rev. James B. Ramsey,
1846-49; Alexander Reid, 1849-1855; Rev. J. H. Colton, 1871-1875; John H. Read
1876-1881; Oliver P. Stark; Harvey Schermerhorn, 1888; Rev. R. W. Hill,
temporary; Alfred Docking, 1889-1891; W.A. Caldwell; J.B. Jeter; Wallace B.
Butch. John Jeremiah Read, a Presbyterian, had charge of Spencer
from 1877-1882.
|
From a dissertation by Eloise Spear, Oklahoma University, 1977, a discussion of Rev. J.J. Read at Spencer Academy:
|
Rev. J.J.Read was instrumental in having the Indian Presbytery enrolled as a Member in the Texas Synod. From
the Fort Worth Gazette,
October 29, 1891:
|
From
the The Houston Daily Post,
(Houston, TX.) October 21, 1896:
|
Rev. John Jeremiah Read was included in the booklet, "Work Among the Indians"
|
Presbyterian Mission work among the Indians:
|
The Christian influence of
Rev. John Jeremiah Read is seen in the life of Rev. Silas Bacon, as told in the following article:
|
Rev. J.J. Read died without a will. Mrs. Read had to make application for probate, as seen below:
|
This is a photo from the original document (on right hand side of page) which provides greater resolution:
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Here is a PDF file of the same document, which gives very high photo resolution. With the higher resolution, you can read the names of the Read children, and note that Lillah put Eugene's age at 20 years old when this document was filed. This confirms what David L. Read stated on Eugene's death certificate as his being born in 1878. (See information about Eugene further down this page about his conflicting birth dates).
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Lilliah Pratt Porter Read: background information from a granddaughter:
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Laleah Logan penned this note concerning Eugene Daniel Read (more information about him near bottom of webpage):
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Additional information about Mrs. J.J. Read can be found further down on this page.
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Wauchope and Spengler
Family Information: these two families are directly related to the Read family.
(In order to avoid duplication, the Spengler Family information and their relationship to the Read and Wauchope families, has been moved to the "Wauchope Family Story" web page).
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New Genealogy Research (2015-2017): Wauchope, Spengler, Rutherford
After he retired, my father and mother visited several sites in Virginia and West Virginia. They found a very old lady living in Capon Bridge, WVA, who, as a child, knew the Wauchope family. She told my mother, that "they had a very large family." My mother also visited Woodstock and Strasburg, Virginia. She was able to locate some information that is on this website. She also indicated to me the Read and Wauchope family connection to the Spengler family, also included on the "Wauchope Family Story" web page.
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Church Membership Record, Colony, OK, for Kate A., Katherine Rutherford, Edward H., William C., Mary A. Wauchope:
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Wauchope children in 1886, at Capon
Bridge, WV: (left to right)
Edward Houston, Samuel Kendrick holding
Mary Armstrong, Joseph Alleine, William Crawford ("Bill"),
and Arthur Douglas. Katharine Rutherford was not born yet.
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Wauchope/Walkup
Family: 1880 Census, Capon Bridge, WVA.
Note: Joseph
W. is listed as “Clergyman”
Wife, Kate is
listed as “Housekeeper”
Son, George
Armstrong is listed as “School Teacher.”
There is also
a servant listed, who was born in Maryland, living with them:
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A pdf file of the 1880 Census:
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Joseph Wauchope (sometimes spelled as “Walkup”)
and his family in 1897: Samuel Kendrick Wauchope (1), Joseph Walker Walkup (2),
Katherine Kendrick Wauchope (3), Katherine Rutherford Wauchope, my Grandmother
(4), George Armstrong Wauchope (5), Mary Armstrong Wauchope (6), Joseph Alleine
Wauchope (7), William Crawford Wauchpe (8), Arthur Douglas Wauchope (9), Edward
Houston Wauchope (10). Edward graduated from Hampden-Sydney College in 1897, so
that must be the occasion for this picture. (NOTE: There are some problems with the designations someone gave to this picture as reproduced here: girls have been given boys names and Katherine R. Wauchope was misidentified! See PDF file for correct information).
George Armstrong Wauchope was the only child of
Joseph Walkup and Jane Armstrong. Jane died shortly after George's birth.
Joseph served as a Chaplain with commission as Captain in 18th Va. Regiment of
Infantry during the Civil War. He married Katherine Kendrick, daughter of
Samuel Kendrick and Clarinda Spengler in 1869, and had seven more children.
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Early picture of Presbyterian Church, Capon Bridge, WVA:
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A 1991 photo showing the Capon Bridge Methodist Church on the right; and on the left side is the Old Presbyterian Church, now used as the Capon Bridge Senior Center:
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Here are pictures of the Presbyterian church and manse at Capon Bridge, WVA taken by my father during a "genealogy" trip my parents took:
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Post Office at Capon Bridge, WVA:
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Dad also took pictures of Strasburg and Woodstock Presbyterian Churches in Virginia, which are referenced in information further down on this page. These churches were also served by Wauchope ministers, who were ancestors of Katherine Rutherford Wauchope, my Mother's mother:
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Additional Hughes, Read Pictures/Information
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Katharine Anne Read was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. The attending doctor was Dr. H.H. Kirby:
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Katharine Anne Read in Okemah, OK
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Between 1938-1940, Katharine Anne Read (my mother) was teaching school (Latin and English) in Okemah, Oklahoma High School and Junior High School. Okemah had a population of 3,811. She rented a room with an elderly lady named Mrs. Lura Allen Box, whose husband, James Harrison Box, had already died; and their adopted son (by a previous marriage) John Harrison Box. The Box family owned a local hardware store.
Here are some pictures of Okemah, and newspaper articles that mentioned Miss Read, as teacher (one paper misspelled her first name):
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Okemah is located just off Interstate 40
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My mother told me that Okemah was named after a
Kickapoo Indian chief. In March 1902, Chief Okemah built a bark house in his
tribe's traditional fashion. He had come to await the opening of the townsite,
which took his name on April 22, 1902. In the Kickapoo language, okemah means
"things up high," such as highly placed person or town or high ground.
Here is a picture of the first oil well "gusher" in Okemah:
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Okemah, Oklahoma Early History
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Okemah was named after a
Kickapoo Indian chief. In March 1902, Chief Okemah built a bark house in his
tribe's traditional fashion. He had come to await the opening of the townsite,
which took his name on April 22, 1902. In the Kickapoo language, okemah means
"things up high," such as highly placed person or town or high ground.
In the town's first week, the
following stores were established: four general merchandise, two hardware, one
5 & 10 cent store, three drugstores, four groceries, three wagon yards, four
lumberyards, three cafes, one bakery, two millineries, four livery barns, three
blacksmiths, two dairies, two cotton gins and two weekly newspapers. Eight
doctors settled there, four lawyers, two walnut log buyers, and one Chinese
laundryman. Two hotels were quickly put up, including the three-story Broadway
hotel, which set the city apart as an important town in early Oklahoma.
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Okfuskee County History, courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society:
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James Harrison Box' Hardware Store was located on Broadway St, Okemah, OK:
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House where Woodie Guthrie was born in Okemah, OK.
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Here is a picture of some Indian boys who were playing "Stick Ball" in Okemah, Oklahoma, 1924. The sport (forerunner of Lacrosse) and how it is played, is discussed elsewhere on this page.
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Blue Eagle, Creek Indian:
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Before my mother came to teach school, Okemah was subject to occasional vigilante justice. Law enforcement and justices of the peace were located some distance away...and in 1911, a black woman and her teenage son were lynched by a mob of white men, having been accused of killing a police officer in an altercation at their home. They were kidnapped after being held at the jail and the county courthouse, and hanged from a suspension bridge over the North Canadian River:
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I know this "Parking Meter Tombstone" has nothing to do with the Read/Wauchope/Hughes family, and I apologize to my Read Cousins; but when I found this in the Okemah cemetery, it was so unusual, I couldn't resist putting here:
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A Video tour of Okemah, Oklahoma, courtesy of Youtube:
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High Bridge Presbyterian Church
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New Providence Presbyterian Church
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Strasburg Presbyterian Church
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Woodstock Presbyterian Church
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Central Presbyterian Church, Arkansas, where Rev. J. Leighton Read ministered. Letter, Church history, Session Minutes that reference him:
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Rev. J. Leighton Read (from an original photograph in my mother's collection.)
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J.Leighton Read: 1900 Census, while he was in school at Austin College, Sherman, Texas:
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J. Leighton Read: 1930 Census, Fort Sill:
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J. Leighton Read: 1930 Census, Fort Sill Indian Mission
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Photograph of Fort Sill Indian School:
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J. Leighton Read: 1920 Census, Colony, OK (Note the misspelled family members' names).
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Rev. W.C. Wauchope and Rev. J. Leighton Read both served as Missionaries to the Indians, in Colony, Oklahoma. (See list below:)
The ordained
Indian missionaries who served at Colony were: Frank Hall Wright, 1895-7;
Walter C. Roe, 1897-1913; Arthur Brokaw, 1904-5; L. L. Legters, 1905-6; Richard
H. Harper, 1907-9; W. C. Wauchope,
1909-10; John H. Baxter, 1910-13; Henry A. Vruwink, 1913-17; J. Leighton Read, 1917-23; John H. Baxter, 1923-6 (second term);
Richard H. Harper, 1927-9 (second term); Peter Van Es, Jr., 1930-2.
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Colony was originally founded by John Seger and was known as the Seger Colony.
Colony is one of the oldest towns in Western Oklahoma founded in 1886, by John Seger and
the Cheyenne-Arapaho on the banks of Cobb Creek. Seger Indian Industrial School
operated here from 1892 until 1932. Local tradition holds this was a starting
point for the Land run of 1892. Dutch Reformed Mission opened here in 1895.
Post Office established Jan. 8, 1896.
Long
before the 20th Century, Native Americans occupied the surrounding land c.
904-1400 A.D. George Bent lived in the area and is buried nearby. PowWows held
here since late 1930's by Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribe. (Source: OK Historical Society).
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Information about the Columbian Memorial Church, Colony, Oklahoma, where Rev. W.C. Wauchope and Rev. J. Leighton Read served:
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A later picture of the Columbia Memorial Church, Colony, Oklahoma. The church was founded and operated under the Dutch Reformed Church denomination.
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Note: because of the extensive number of documents (minutes of the Colony Church Session) found concerning both Rev. W.C. Wauchope and Rev. J.Leighton Read, these have been placed on the "Wauchope Family Story" web page.
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Rev. J. Leighton Read served
as Supply Pastor of Minco Presbyterian Church, Minco, Oklahoma, February
1941-1945. (Source for dates: Rev. J. Leighton Read's Bible)
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Additional Read, D'Antoni, Dillon, Hughes pictures and information
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Next 2 Pictures, L to R: Grandmother and Grandaddy Read, Jim, Katharine Hughes, Joe (who is holding a Bible Rev. Read gave him):
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Next 2 pictures: My 3 Aunts and Uncle John; Mother is 2nd from Right:
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Mr. and Mrs. D'Antoni and my Mother:
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L to R: Mrs. Hughes, Jim Hughes, and Betty and Bob Dillon; front row: Joe Hughes, Nancy and Ellen Dillon.
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Mr. and Mrs. D'Antoni family with Joe, Jim and our Mother, Katharine:
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Baptism Record for
Elizabeth Louise Read Dillon
(She was baptized, September 12, 1920, by
Rev. Frank Hall Wright, D.D.)
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John L. Read, Jr. ("Jack")
(son of Rev. J. Leighton Read)
marriage license
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JOHN LEIGHTON READ,
JR., born in Colony, OK on August 21, 1921, died on November 29, 2009, in Palo
Alto, CA. He is survived by his sons and their wives, J. Leighton Read, III and
Carol of Palo Alto, CA, and Timothy Thomas Read and Lee of Roswell, GA; his
five grandchildren, Travis and Haley Read of Palo Alto, CA, Katie Read of
Charlottesville, VA, James and Leighton Read of Roswell, GA, other loving
family and countless dear friends. He was preceded in death by his wife, Mary
Margaret eleven weeks earlier and second son, James Andrew Read (1954-1978) and
his four sisters, Katherine, Mary, Betty and Eleanor. John was a graduate of
Norman High School (OK) and earned his B.S. in Geological Engineering at
Oklahoma University where he was also President of the OU chapter of the KA
fraternity. His studies were interrupted by service in the Army Air Corps,
where he served as a B-17 navigator in the 483rd Bombardment Wing in Italy,
surviving 35 missions over Central and Eastern Europe. After graduation, he
earned a M.S. in Geology at Stanford University in 1950. He was married to Mary
Margaret Tillery of Tulsa, OK for 61 years. John and Mary Margaret lived in
Palo Alto, CA during his graduate studies. He began his career in Tyler, TX as
a Field Geologist for Amerada Petroleum, Manager of Exploration and Production
of W.H. Bryant Interests, and then an independent consultant in oil and gas
exploration and production. He published articles on his work in the AAPG
Bulletin and other leading publications. He served as President of the East
Texas Geological Society and was a Legion of Honor Member of the Society of
Petroleum Engineers.John and family moved to Houston, TX in 1967, where he
continued his work as an independent geologist, exploring in the Mid-Continent,
Rocky Mountains, Gulf Coast, West Texas, New Mexico and California. He and Mary
Margaret were active in a number of tennis organizations, and he was a founding
director and regular player in the World Oilman's Tennis Tournament. He began
another adventure with Mary Margaret when they moved to Santa Fe, NM in 1992
where they greatly enjoyed old and new friends and the historic desert
mountains. Their latest move was a return to Palo Alto, CA in 2005.The son and
grandson of Presbyterian ministers, John was an active member of various
congregations of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), where he was a teacher and
church officer, including First and Highland (Tyler), Memorial Drive (Houston),
First (of Santa Fe) and Menlo Park Presbyterian Churches. In Santa Fe, he was
also a member of The Church of the Holy Faith and was a founding volunteer of
Mentoring, Santa Fe. John will be remembered for his passion for petroleum
exploration, sports, people he admired and his family and the gentle, thoughtful
way he dealt with those around him. His life was celebrated in a service at
Classic Residence by Hyatt in Palo Alto, CA on December 4, 2009. His remains
and those of Mary Margaret will be interred at 11AM on December 28, 2009, in a
service at Memorial Oaks Cemetery in Houston, TX. A reception will follow at
the Houstonian at noon. For those inclined, the family recommends that memorial
contributions be made to the A.I. Levorsen Research Fellowship, School of Earth
Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
Published
in Houston Chronicle on Dec. 22, 2009
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JOHN AND MARY MARGARET HAD 3 SONS: John Leighton, James Andrew, and Timothy Thomas.
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Eldest son, LEIGHTON READ, ON LEFT, AT HIGH SCHOOL GERMAN CLUB:
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LEIGHTON READ, school picture:
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Several scholarly articles have appeared in newspapers about Dr. Read's work:
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James Andrew Read, second son, school pictures:
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Timothy Thomas Read, third son, school pictures:
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Mary Margaret Tillery Read wife of John Leighton Read, Jr.
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Mary Margaret Tillery (Read) at University of Oklahoma:
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Mary Lillah Read (daughter of Rev. J. Leighton Read)
was married
on January 1, 1936, to David Hollis Saunders,
in the Central Presbyterian Church,
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
by the Rev. Frank R. Dudley:
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Central Presbyterian is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Indian Nations Presbytery. In 2016, they have been in Oklahoma City for 108 Years.
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Mary L. Saunders, from an OU photo, 1951:
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My Aunt: Mary Lillah Read Saunders
(her husband, David H. Saunders)
had two children: Cheryl Jeanne and David Leighton. David was born:
December 1, 1945, Wilbarger, Texas; died: September 22, 2002, Tulsa,
Oklahoma.
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Mary and husband David H. Saunders with daughter Cheryl on her first birthday:
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The obituary for my Aunt Mary (below) has the names of several family members misspelled:
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From "The Messenger" newsletter, South Norfolk Baptist Church:
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Information about Mary's husband, David Hollis Saunders:David Saunders was born on May 25, 1915, in Ringling, Oklahoma. He had one son and one daughter with Mary Lillah Read. He then married Elizabeth Marie Williams in April 1951 in Carrizo Springs, Texas. He died on December 7, 2004, in Dalhart, Texas, at the age of 89, and was buried in Dalhart, Texas. DALHART - David Saunders, 89, died Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2004. Services will be at 2 p.m. Friday in First Baptist Church with Rodney Weatherly, pastor, officiating. Burial will be in Memorial Park Cemetery by Horizon Funeral Home. Mr. Saunders was born May 25, 1915, near Norman, Okla. He married Elizabeth Marie Williams on April 21, 1951, in Carrizo Springs. Survivors include his wife; a son, James Patrick "Pat" Saunders of Indonesia; three daughters, Cheryl Smith of Ponca City, Okla., Susie Hale of Stratford and Kelly Wood of Allen; eight grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.
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David Leighton Saunders
(in high school photo)
Son of David H. Saunders and Mary Lillah Read.
Born: Wilbarger, TX, December 1, 1945; Died: Tulsa, OK, September 22, 2002, age 56. Arrangements by Adams-Crest Cremation Center. Private funeral service. (Source: Tulsa World Newspaper, Oct. 5, 2002).
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Cheryl Jeanne Saunders
daughter of
David H. Saunders and
Mary Lillah Read;
granddaughter of
Rev. and Mrs. J. Leighton Read She married Alfred L. Smith on June 25, 1959 at 8 pm in the Baptist Student Center, Oklahoma University, Norman.She attended: University of Oklahoma High School, Norman High School, Sacred Heart Academy, Vinita, OK, and then Benedictine Heights School, Guthrie, OK. (Vinita, OK. is the second oldest town in the state, the oldest incorporated town on Oklahoma Route 66, and the first town in the state with electricity.)
(Alfred Smith received the B.A. and M.A. degrees from Oklahoma University).
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The Norman Transcript (Norman, Oklahoma) · Sun, Jul 5, 1959 · Page 15:
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Enlarged detail of the wedding article above:
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Alfred L. Smith, husband of Cheryl Saunders(Some photos from Ponca City High School where he attended):
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It
is with deep regret that I must tell my Read cousins that our Grandfather’s
home, at 304 S. University Boulevard, Norman, Oklahoma, has been sold, and is now
being used by Moon’s Unification Church.
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Information about the Children of William Read
(Son of John and Dicey Read)
and Mariah Louisa Dotson
From the 1850 Census:
Includes a nephew, Joseph Madison Dotson (sometimes spelled 'Dodson'), born 1835, in Macon, Tennessee.
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Joseph Madison Dotson, born 1835, in Macon, TN, lived with William Read family in 1850, when he was 15 years old. Later joined the CSA: 55th Regiment, TN Infantry (Brown's) 56th Infantry, Company H. He was captured in 1862, at Island No. 10 in the Vicksburg Campaign and sent to Camp Randall, Madison, Wisconsin, then to Camp Douglas; then, he was sent to Vicksburg in a prisoner exchange.
It is interesting that his name on the 1850 Census, his Confederate service records, and his marriage license of 1867, is spelled "Dotson." Yet, on the marriage certificate signed by the minister, it is spelled "Dodson." His name, and names of his children are also listed as "Dodson" as is his tombstone inscription. And the tombstone lists his birth as 1844!
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I was recently asked by a Read cousin if any of William or John Read's children were found to be a member of the KKK. The answer is "No." There is no evidence that any of them were members of that organization formed at the end of the War Between the States.
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A Tribute to the Confederate Navy:
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Charles W. Read ("Savez")
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New photo of Charles Read discovered at the DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University. It is from a "cartes de visite" group portrait, titled: "Distinguished Officers
of the Confederate Navy."
Distinguished Officers of
the Confederate Navy; middle, clockwise from top: Admil. Buchanan, Lieut Maury,
Com. Semmes, Capt. Hartstein [also spelled as Hartstene], Capt Maffit, Lieut
Reed [also correctly spelled as Read], Com. Hollins. Verso: Published by E. & H. T.
Anthony, 501 Broadway, New York. Manufacturers of the best photographic albums.
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The
Photographic History of the Civil War
Volume 7 - Prisons and Hospitals
Confederates
in a Northern Keep — Fort Warren, Where Charles "Savez" Read was imprisoned for awhile:
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Charles W. Read is No. 21 in picture below, while in prison:
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Civil War Navy magazine presents article by R. Thomas Campbell about Charles Read:
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A newly discovered original oil painting of Charles W. Read,
by
Herb Mott
commissioned especially for the Old Depot Museum, Levee Street, Vicksburg.
My thanks to the Museum Curator for allowing me to photograph these paintings, done without flash, to protect the paintings' surface.
There are no known prints of them available.
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Plaque mounted underneath painting:
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Artist details on the painting:
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Additional original, one-of-a-kind, oil paintings in the Old Depot Museum:
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(Lt. Charles W. Read served on the CSS Arkansas, subject of the next painting):
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Dabney Minor Scales, a friend of Savez Read, later served on the CSS Shenandoah, which sailed to Australia at the close of the war. His diary was recently found in an attic in Tennessee, and has been bought by a historical museum in Victoria, Australia, which was a port-of-call for him before the war ended.
An 1861 photograph of Dabney Minor Scales:
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Picture of Charles Read seen in the Old Depot Museum, Vicksburg, MS:
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Sword of Charles Read, housed in the Civil War Museum at Confederate Memorial Hall, New Orleans, LA:
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Charles "Savez" Read, in later life, following the War Between the States.
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Charles "Savez"Read, graduation photo,
U.S. Naval Academy, 1860:
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"Savez" Read at the Navy Academy
(September 20, 1856--June 15, 1860)
When “Savez” Read was
attending Annapolis, all the students were rated as “Acting Midshipmen, on
probation.” On graduating they became
“Midshipmen.” After the War Between the States, they
were called “Naval Cadets” and finally, years later, they became known as just
“Midshipmen.” At the Academy there were also several “old” Midshipmen studying
at the Academy, taking a one-year course prior to standing examination for
promotion. They had returned, were
older, and were housed in separate quarters.
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U.S. Naval Academy waterfront in the
late 1860s with the barracks and school ships USS Constitution and Santee
tied up in the background. Other ships not identified.
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Hospital at the Academy, where "Savez" spent a few days as recorded in hospital records.
(Hospital Records are below:)
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Photograph
of the “Old Quarters” with the Recitation Hall on the extreme left, circa the
1860's.
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"ANCHORMEN" The Legends of Annapolis
by James S. Robbins:
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As a member of the "Second Class" (aka his Junior Year) in 1859, "Savez" was still the "Anchorman":
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(New York Times, OCT. 8, 1895)
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It was fortunate that "Savez" was not dismissed in the following incident that occurred in 1859, while at the Academy:
Tarring and
Feathering at the US Naval Academy
As first reported: April 20,
1859, in the “Augusta Chronicle” (Augusta, Georgia). And then reported on April 21, 1859, in the
“Charleston Mercury” (Charleston, South Carolina):
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The Acting Midshipmen
are reinstated,
As reported on May
25, 1859, by “Louisville Daily Courier” (Louisville, Kentucky):
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