I had kept so busily after the director during those eighteen months to allow me to enter the shop that he could not well refuse to grant my request when a vacancy occurred. I was admitted to the carpenter shop.
For five years I was an apprentice, doing work of every kind. I also took mechanical drawing along with carpentry. When I graduated in 1900 I received not only a diploma from the academic department, but a certificate from the carpentry division as well. I had improved every opportunity, and had a fair knowledge of architectural as well as of mechanical drawing. This latter instruction I had made a place for along with my other studies.
Maj. J. B. Ramsey, the Commandant, had been so well pleased with my general deportment that for years I was commissioned by him to command, as captain, one of the companies of the Tuskegee Institute battalion of cadets. This had pleased and encouraged me very much indeed.
To my surprise, three months before my graduation I was asked to remain in the employ of the Tuskegee Institute as one of the assistant teachers in the carpentry division. I had contracted, however, to do some work at Montgomery, Ala., and I could not accept the place offered. I spent about four months working at my trade in Montgomery, and was again reminded of the offer made me at Tuskegee. I returned to Tuskegee, but did not remain long, as the Executive Council of the Institute recommended me, when application was made for a competent man to take charge of the carpentry division of the Fort Valley High and Industrial School, Fort Valley, Ga. The terms offered were satisfactory and I accepted the position.
I began work here November 9, 1900, in a shop 30 feet by 60 feet. No tools and no work-benches were provided, only a lot of inexperienced boys to whom I was expected to teach carpentry. I owned a chest of tools, and these I used until the school could secure some. I proceeded at once to make work benches, and my boys had their first lessons in carpentry in providing these. Quite often visitors who come to see us ask if these benches were not made at some factory, they are so well made. We next proceeded to fit out a drawing-room, as I intended that my boys should work—as I had been compelled to do from the very beginning at Tuskegee—from drawings. Everything I had done there had to be carefully worked out in advance, and, knowing the value of that kind of thing, I did not want these boys to have anything less than the kind of instruction I had had. We made tables and desks for the drawing-room; next we ceiled and finished twelve rooms in the main school building that had long been left unfinished. All of the work pleased the authorities of the school, I have reason to know. Near the close of my first term at Fort Valley it was decided to erect a dormitory building for girls. I was asked to submit plans and specifications. My training as a carpenter at Tuskegee had fitted me for just that kind of thing, and I set about designing a building that would meet the requirements of the young women attending Fort Valley.
My plans were finally accepted, and I thought to go on with the erection of the building during the summer, as had been planned; but one or two of the building committee began to object, urging that I was too young, that I had not had enough experience, and that a building of that quality should be erected by a builder of proved reputation. After much delay I was permitted to proceed. I began with ten "green" boys, and they, under my direction as I worked side by side with them, did all of the work except the hanging of the window-sashes, doors, etc. I had outside help in doing this part of the finishing. The building is a real pride to all of us here. It is 36 feet by 78 feet, 2½ stories high, has 22 sleeping-rooms, a splendidly arranged dining-room, 36 feet by 36 feet, and cost $3,200. No one, hereabouts at least, now doubts that I can build anything I say I can. I am glad that so soon after beginning the work here I was able to prove the claims of my Tuskegee instructors as to my fitness for the position for which they had recommended me.
Unfortunately, before I had completed the dormitory for girls, a fire destroyed our main school building with the contents. This fire left us without class-rooms. We took refuge in the Carpenter Shop, and held classes there until money was secured with which to build a training-school for the lower grades. This latter building I also put up entirely with student labor. It contains three large rooms, each 25 feet by 30 feet. The appointments in every way accord with approved hygienic laws. Dr. Wallace Buttrick, Executive Secretary of the General Education Board, spoke complimentarily of the building when he saw it, as one of the few in the State he had seen that met all the requirements of a class-room. We were able to build it for $1,600.
Even during the construction of the training-school I was drawing the plans for a large brick building to replace the one burned. My plans were submitted to friends of the work in the North, and by the time we had finished the training-school we had money enough to begin the brickwork on the new building. By April, 1903, the brickwork was complete, and as we had no additional money we were compelled to allow the building to stand until June, 1904, at which time we were able to resume.
My boys did all of the woodwork, did the hod-carrying, and most of the unskilled labor. The building cost $8,000, and is 86 feet 8 inches by 52 feet 8 inches in its dimensions, is 2½ stories high, and has a deckle roof with dormer windows. The chapel is on the first floor, 6 recitation-rooms on the second floor, and 13 sleeping-rooms for boys on the one-half third-story floor. A basement for storage purposes, 25 feet by 50 feet, is a great convenience.
Of the many contractors and builders who have visited our school-grounds none have failed to speak in praise of the design, the workmanship, the strength, and the relative relation to each other of the school buildings with regard to future additions.