The next item of this report is an appeal for "some brethren of competent talents" to go and labor there.
There surely was ground for regret that so small a portion of benevolent feeling was exercised towards this mission. Some individuals did contribute now and then; "A Georgia Planter" sent a part of $10;[192] a "poor woman" of the Rev. H. Malcom's congregation sent $3 for the African mission;[193] "a friend to Africa avails of jewelry for mission to Liberia, per Mr. E. Lincoln, $6";[194] the Negroes connected with the First Baptist Church, Washington, sent $15[195] and, no doubt, some others contributed.
It is not quite clear, however, why William Crane, still representing the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society in the Convention and the Rev. James B. Taylor, a delegate from Virginia and later the biographer of Lott Cary, did not challenge the statement that so little had been accomplished during the eight years of the existence of the African mission.
The Convention then adopted the following recommendation of the Committee:
Resolved, That this convention cherish a grateful recollection of the self-denying labors of our late lamented missionary to Africa, Rev. Lott Cary, and that we sympathize with his family, the American Colonization Society, and the church at Monrovia, in the loss they have sustained in his death.
Resolved, That it be recommended to the Board to take measures for supplying the vacancy occasioned by the death of Bro. Cary as soon as possible by an able white missionary, and that they endeavor to the utmost of their power to promote the success of this mission, as one in which the convention feel a special interest.
S. Cornelius, Chairman.
It was not until 1832 that the Convention saw the error of its conclusion and declared that it must depend "principally on colored persons, as missionaries and school teachers, in Africa."[196] Despite this color-phobia of the Baptists, nothing can explain away the fact that Lott Cary had lived helpfully and died honorably. Gurley[197] and Hervey[198] would make him a man of genius who, had he possessed educational advantages, would have won a worldwide reputation as preacher, as general or as chief magistrate. This square-faced, keen-eyed, reserved, cautious black held nothing back. From Charles City County to Richmond, from slave to freedman, from profligate to prophet, from sinner to saint, is a record that might have gone unnoticed; but from America to Africa, from governed to governor, from missionary to martyr is Lott Cary.
For over a score of years the little village of Carytown was the only memento of the man. But in 1850, the Rev. Eli Ball, an agent of the Southern Baptist Convention, while visiting all the Liberian Baptist Mission stations, found with difficulty the final resting place of Lott Cary. The next year a marble monument was sent out and placed over his grave.[199]
Miles Mark Fisher
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This spelling seems more correct than either the short form, Lot Cary, used by the Rev. D. Stratton, D.D. of St. Albans, West Virginia, in his "Life and Work of Lot Cary, Missionary in Africa," or the longer form, Lott Carey, used by the Rev. James B. Taylor in "The Biography of Elder Lott Carey" and by many other writers for the following consideration: There is no trace of Cary spelling his name Lot Cary. In the American Baptist Magazine and Gammell's "A History of American Baptist Missions" there are letters from or references to Cary marked Lott Carey, which are no doubt presumptions on the part of the printer or writer that the name is spelled like that of the Rev. William Carey. If, on the other hand, Lott Cary spelled his name either Carey or Cary, that would only argue that his name would be better spelled Lott Cary as a means of distinction from the Rev. William Carey. "The Biography of Elder Lott Carey" written in 1837 is the source of much that is known of the man but seems to draw heavily from the "Life of Jehudi Ashmun, late Colonial Agent in Liberia, with an Appendix Containing Extracts from His Journal and Other Writings, with a Brief Sketch of the Life of the Rev. Lott Cary," written in 1835 by Ralph Randolph Gurley, Secretary of the American Colonization Society. Many incidents of the life of Lott Cary are taken from the life and writings of Mr. Ashmun. It would therefore seem consistent to follow his spelling of the name. In this work, the name, Lott Cary, is used frequently—even signed to a letter to Mr. Gurley—and many references are made to it by Mr. Ashmun who probably knew Cary better than anyone else. Only once in the entire work, on page 126, never in the "Brief Sketch of the Life of the Rev. Lott Cary," is the name spelled Carey. This could be a typographical error. Furthermore, Mr. Randall who went to Africa as Governor of Liberia about a month and a half after Cary's death said, respecting a native settlement, "I propose to have it called after him, Carytown." (The African Repository, Vol. V, p. 1.) Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. I, p. 548, follows this spelling.