With these impediments he knew their progress would be retarded, and to this end he began unassisted a weekly sheet under the title of the Mystery, devoted to the interest and elevation of his race. Success followed the movement; the first issue in all taken was one thousand in the city; its circulation rapidly increased. For more than one year he conducted it as editor. After sustaining it solely for nine months, he transferred the proprietorship to a committee of six gentlemen, he, meanwhile, continuing as editor for nearly four years.
It was well conducted, and held no mean position in the community, especially where it originated.
The learned and lamented Dr. James McCune Smith, of New York, said “it was one of the best papers ever published among the colored people of the United States.”
The editorials of his journal elicited praises even from its enemies, and were frequently transferred to their columns. His description of the great fire of 1844, in Pittsburg, which laid a great portion of that manufacturing city in ruins, was extensively quoted by papers throughout the country. The original matter, so frequently copied, was sufficient to determine the status of his paper.
During the Mexican war he bore his part in the field against the knights of the quill, for his stand against the Polk administration was so decided that on more than one occasion the subject was strongly combated.
Much good was done through the influence of that little sheet, and it is indisputable that to its influence originated the Avery Fund. Once, on the subject of female education, through the columns of his paper, he argued that “men were never raised in social position above the level of women; therefore men could not be elevated without woman’s elevation; further, that among the nations of the world where women were kept in ignorance, great philosophers or statesmen failed to be produced, as a general rule. And under the then existing state of female education among the Americans of African descent, the hope of seeing them equal with the more favored class of citizens would be without proper basis.”
After reading his editorial on the social requirements of the colored people, it is said that the Rev. Charles Avery determined to do something tangible for them. The reverend gentleman, after consulting some of the most prominent colored men, among whom was the Rev. John Peck, established a school for males and females. This was the first step towards that which is now known as Avery’s College, at the head of which was placed, as senior professor, Martin A. Freeman, M. A. (now professor of mathematics in the University of Liberia). He was succeeded by George B. Vashon, M. A., a most accomplished scholar. The Rev. Mr. Avery did not stop in the work so well begun. He died in 1858, bequeathing in his will “one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the education and elevation of the free colored people of the United States and Canada, one hundred and fifty thousand for the enlightenment and civilization of the African race on the continent of Africa,” all in trust to the American Missionary Association of New York city; making in all a grand bequest of three hundred thousand dollars, exclusive of the college. We do not claim more than is evident—that the Mystery deserves the credit of having brought these wants before the public, and one humanitarian responded to the call most liberally.
While he was editor, on the Centennial Anniversary of Benjamin Franklin’s birthday, he received from the committee an invitation, among the editorial corps, to attend an entertainment given by the Pittsburg Typographical Society at the Exchange Hotel. At the head of this, as president of the occasion, was an honorable ex-commissioner to Europe under President Tyler, and the position of vice-president was filled by a judge of the County Court. This mark of courtesy to him, in the days when Slavery held her carnival over the land, will serve to indicate the standing of his paper and the triumph of genius over brutal prejudice.
While editor of the Mystery, he was involved in a suit, the occasion of which will serve the double purpose of showing the estimate placed upon the merit of his paper, and the respect in which the ability and character of the man were held in Pittsburg.
It happened, in the warmth of his zeal for the freedom of the enslaved, that he, through the columns of his paper, charged a certain colored man with treachery to his race by assisting the slave-catchers, who, at that time, frequented Pennsylvania and other free states.