“PINE GROVE COLLEGE,” KENTUCKY.
BY REV. B. H. FAIRCHILD, D.D.
In Jackson County, sixteen miles from Berea, there has long been a church called Walnut Chapel, similar in character to the church at Berea, and connected with the same association. A few families, slightly colored, have always lived among them, belonged to the same church and attended the same school. Indeed, their minister, the most prosperous man among them, and long a trustee of the public school, was said to be slightly colored. Another minister, who preached to them a few years, exhibited more signs of color. In this neighborhood lives Robert Jones, who, in 1856, was whipped by a mob, thirty-three lashes on his bare back, for being a colporteur of the American Missionary Association, and for sustaining Mr. Fee in one of his meetings. Four of the old man’s sons live about him; one is a preacher, as is the father himself.
When the colored school law was passed in this State, their harmony was disturbed. It is made unlawful “for any colored child to attend a common school provided for white children or for a white child to attend a common school provided for colored children.” This utterly deprived the colored children of school privileges, for there were not enough of them to organize a school district, and there was no prospect that there ever would be. In this emergency the church asked advice of the Association. After due deliberation they were advised to build a good school-house that should be open to all children of the neighborhood, and let the common school take care of itself. Aid was promised them, if it should be necessary.
The community accepted this advice. A plan of a school-house was furnished them, and a promise made that if they would build according to that plan, they should have a good teacher the first six months without expense to them. The school-house was to be 25×30, 12 ft. from floor to ceiling, with four large windows, two doors, and good seats and desks for 60 scholars.
This was a great undertaking, unheard of in that region. There was no house equal to it in the county, for schools or meetings. But enthusiasm was developed, as the work went on, and culminated at the dedication on the 26th of June. Three times as many were present as could be crowded into the house, and so great was the rush for the school it was necessary to publish that only sixty could be admitted. The children of those who aided in building the house were to be admitted first, but must make application within three days. At the end of the three days nearly a hundred applications had been received.
Before the dedication the people had, in some way, named the school “The Pine Grove College.” They were advised to drop the name college, as their most advanced students would never get within two years of college. But names are not easily dropped, and this seems destined to endure.
Miss Maria Muzzy, an experienced teacher, one of Berea’s corps, had been engaged to take the school. Very frequently she was warned by good friends who knew the mountain people and Kentucky habits that there would be no safety for her in that school, she would surely be mobbed, no lady should be asked so to expose herself, she should not think of staying a night without a pistol. She almost feared that it was a rash undertaking. But calmer counsels, with trust in God, sustained her. No indignity was ever offered her, and no one ever had more friends among such a people.
At the close of the first week she wrote to Berea that she hadn’t the heart to turn away so many, and asked for an assistant, who should exchange with her in teaching in the woods. This arrangement was made; and for two months a part of the school was in the house and a part in the grove. The assistant was Miss Kate Gilbert, another of Berea’s corps of teachers.
