CHAPTER 25 – Conclusion: Jasper Thompson’s Destiny Day September 6, 1906 by Jim Surkamp.

11018 words

CHAPTER OR STORY 25 – JASPER THOMPSON’s DESTINY DAY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LJpJeIwFMw#t=2h1m29s Click Here and the link will take you to the beginning of this story at 2:01:29 within the longer video called “Jasper Thompson’s Destiny Day September 6, 1906”

https://web.archive.org/web/20190612204649/https://civilwarscholars.com/2017/03/jasper-thompsons-destiny-day-september-6-1906-by-jim-surkamp-conclusion-draft/

FLICKR 121 photos
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimsurkamp/albums/72157678711522843

With support from American Public University System (apus.edu). The sentiments expressed do not in any way reflect modern-day policies of APUS, and are intended to encourage fact-based exchange for a better understanding of our nation’s foundational values.

SPRING, 1865 – WAR ENDS – LIFE AND FREEDOM – BEGIN FOR JASPER AND DOLLY THOMPSON

courtesy Monique Crippen-Hopkins
[Dead Confederate soldier in the trenches of
Fort Mahone, Petersburg, Virginia]
Roche, T. C., photographer
Created / Published [1865 Apr.]
loc.gov
Antietam, Maryland. A lone grave
Creator(s): Gardner, Alexander,
Date Created/Published: 1862 Sept.
loc.gov – loc.gov

The dirt and blood went on ’till next spring. Vast dead on the open fields no longer caused tears or sighs,

but to think of one person – Dolly – lit Jasper’s sustaining dream of that day he would walk through the door in Jefferson County a free man, hoping to become a husband, a father, and a pillar in his church.


Jasper Thompson – courtesy Monique Crippen-Hopkins


Returning Home by Gilbert Gaul Birmingham Museum of Art gift of John Meyer


Claymont – WVU Library West Virginia & Regional History Center
Claymont was quiet. The fences gone ever since


Gen. Sheridan took them and the Washington

cattle sent south with the Union army – their walking food supply: Washington beef cooked over the fire made of Washington fence rails.

The Leader of the Herd – by Edwin Forbes

The Washingtons were allowed just one “milch cow.” That was punishment by Sheridan for taking in two of their visiting close kin —

A Cow in the Pastures – Constant Troyon – 1856.

fold3.com
fold3.com

soldiers James C. Washington and Herbert Lee Alexander.

Sheridan forbid their release because he firmly believed with little evidence they

fought for Mosby’s partisans. They both died before 1867 because prison hardships quickened their frailties. (Tombstone Inscriptions, p. 353, p. 378).



Herbert Lee Alexander Stone Zion
James C. Washington Stone Zion

That summer of 1865, John Trowbridge wrote that Charles Town seethed in resentment. ‘The war feeling here is like a burning bush with a wet blanket wrapped around it. Looked at from the outside, the fire seems quenched. But just peep under the blanket and there it is, all alive and eating, eating in. The wet blanket is the present government policy; and every act of conciliation shown the Rebels is just letting in so much air to feed the fire.’ . . .


the townspeople passed on the sidewalk, ‘daughters and sons of beauty,’ for they were mostly a fine-looking, spirited class; one of whom, at a question which I put to him, stopped quite willingly and talked with us.

by David Hunter Strother


I have seldom seen a handsome young face, a steadier eye, or more decided pose and aplomb, neither have I ever seen the outward garment of courtesy so plumply filled out with the spirit of arrogance. His brief replies spoken with a pleasant countenance, yet with short, sharp downward inflections, were like pistol shots. . . And no wonder. His coat had an empty sleeve. The arm which should have been there had been lost fighting against his country. His almost savage answers did not move me; but all the while I looked with compassion at his fine


young face, and that pendant idle sleeve. . .

His beautiful South was devastated, and her soil drenched with the best blood of her young men.

Walking through town we came to other barren and open fields on the further side.

drawn by
David Hunter Strother

Here we engaged a bright young colored girl to guide us to the spot where John Brown’s gallows stood. She led us into the wilderness of weeds waist-high to her as she tramped on, parting them before her with her hands. . . A few scattering groves skirted them; and here and there a fenceless road drew its winding, dusty line away over the arid hills. ‘This is about where it was, ’ said the girl, after searching some time among the tall weeds.

https://archive.org/stream/laurelbrigade00mcdorich#page/n220/mode/1up

Bushrod Corbin Washington returned from years of fighting adjusting to the departure of his widowed mother to become a missionary in Asia. He re-married, faced almost insurmountable financial odds that would eventually force him to sell Claymont out of the


family and start over in Washington State.



Richard Blackburn Washington’s family felt the loss of what Gen. Sheridan’s men took the previous November when they also captured and took away the two young Washingtons.

Both Richard and Bushrod had wartime losses but their alliances with the Confederacy during the war, either fighting or providing supplies, disqualified both from any claim for compensation for their material losses, and those that November were substantial:


500 bushels of potatoes,

four horseloads of straw,

3000 pounds of bacon,


200 cords of firewood,

30,000 rails for fire wood, four horse wagonloads of stacked wheat, 200 bushels of housed corn,

40 tons of timothy hay,

150 head of sheep,

100 head of hogs,

30 head of fat beef cattle, four mules and three horses.
This setback left them little monies with which to hire from the much-in-demand pool of young, strong, and skilled freed African-American laborers working across the County, for those who could pay them.

Though they lived next door, neither Solomon nor Jasper’s names appear among those hired in Bushrod Corbin’s farm and payment records after the war.


Bushrod Corbin Washington’s Farm Diary 1867-1871 – Perry Room, Charles Town, Library


Resentment at their lot could easily have translated into not seeking the services from a former veteran of the U.S. Colored Troops to till and grow their corn and wheat, or tend their hogs.


Solomon and his family appeared to have found living arrangements at Bushrod Washington Herbert’s Prospect Hill that had been expanded over time to include the house, other buildings, a barn and even a graveyard. They would have fit in, joining Solomon’s sister, Matilda, and brother Richard.

Solomon and son Jasper would likely be hired at Henry B. Davenport’s farm, Altona, immediately north and adjacent to the Washington farms,


Portrait of Henry B. Davenport of Altona, Jefferson County, W. Va. who in some twenty years would transfer his deed to the land for the homestead of Solomon and then Jasper’s family.

As one who had seen hell and survived, Jasper plunged into his new life.

Of those years, Doug Taylor of Charles Town relates from his family’s history that African American communities were starting all across Jefferson County, vivified by the new freedom, owning one’s own land, with a church and a school .

Jasper and Dolly joyously married October 28, 1869 with Beverly Kirk, presiding.

On Thursday, October 21st, less than a month later,
Jasper took a lead in organizing an impressive big event in Charlestown for the new organization: the Order of Industry, a celebration that included a procession to Bushrod Washtingotn Herbert’s “woods” with a band playing followed by speechifying. The editor of the Spirit of Jefferson in Charlestown, Benjamin F. Beall, lavished praise on the event:

Last Thursday was a gala day with our (African) American citizens, and they enjoyed it hugely; but in a manner creditable to them, and in a style which would have reflected no discredit upon any community.

It seems that there exists in our midst a society of the colored people known as the “Order of Industry,” and it was the members of this society, arrayed in appropriate regalia, and the two Sabbath Schools of the town, that made up the procession. — To the first, there was a banner presented by the “colored ladies” of the town, in front of the old Court-House. Upon this banner was the significant motto, “By industry we thrive.”

The presentation was by Miss Houk, and the reception by Jasper Thompson, both of whom acquitted themselves very well. After these exercises, the procession moved to Herbert’s Woods, headed by Moxley’s Brass Band from Hagerstown. – Spirit of Jefferson, October 26, 1869 – p. 3 col. 1

Dolly and Jasper began their own in-house community when Solomon H. Thompson was born August, 1870. (Monique Crippen Hopkins) – the first of fifteen children.


The first, Solomon; the fifth, named Jasper R.; and the thirteenth child, Frances – would keep the family memory fires aburnin’.

Jasper and Dolly’s first born Solomon H. – would carry the family’s ways forward and far away, preserving its legacy with a powerful mind and dedication.


Protecting the Groceries by Edward Lamson Henry.
He was certainly among the young scholars who attended


Littleton Page’s school for African-American children, located conveniently right next door to the second Baptist Church. Littleton Page would very likely have taught all the subsequent Thompson children, because they lived a short walk from the school.

First school building used by freed African-Americans in Charles Town
(left) Kept In by Edward Lamson Henry; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henry-Kept_In.jpg David Hunter Strother – wikipedia.org


David Hunter Strother, who was a famous writer/illustrator for Harper’s New Monthly Magazine and who grew up in the eastern Panhandle, dropped in one such a school nearby and had very much the same spirit of the Page’s Charlestown classrooms in 1874. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31210014814410&view=1up&seq=472&skin=2021&q1=Negro Schools

At the Mill, Winter by George Henry Durrie

In winter (it) is always full to overflowing. In summer the attendance is reduced one-half owing to the necessity of the older pupils going out to service,

(detail) Harper’s Ferry, [W.] Va., 1894 by Edward Lamson Henry – Morse Museum, Winter Park, Florida
morsemuseum.org http://www.morsemuseum.org/collection-highlights/paintings/harpers-ferry-va


Harpers Ferry, [W.] Va., 1894 by Edward Lamson Henry

or engaging in remunerative labor of some sort. The children were of both sexes, ranging

p. 458 – boy reading book.


p. 460 – older student


p. 461 – woman at blackboard

from three to twenty years of age, neatly and comfortably clad, well fed, healthy, and cheerful, with an uncommon array of agreeable and intelligent countenances peering over the tops of the desks. They were also remarkably docile, orderly, and well mannered, without a trace of the rudeness among those who don’t go to school.


p. 459 – Don’t Go to School.

Every thing moves by the silvery tinkling of a small table-bell. The boys and girls are seated in separate columns, and make their entrances and their exits by opposite doors.

William Henry Snyder (1829–1910) Tutoring the Children at a Quiet Time b-womeninamericanhistory19.blogspot.com https://b-womeninamericanhistory19.blogspot.com/2013/07/1824-james-fenimore-cooper-writes-of.html


William Henry Snyder (1829–1910) Tutoring the Children at a Quiet Time

Rosenthal, Max (Lithographer); L. Franklin Smith, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1865 – loc.gov https://www.loc.gov/item/scsm000922/

Proclamation emancipation, [Smith/Rosenthal].

The Chimney Corner by Eastman Johnson 1863 – Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, New York – eastmanjohnson.org
http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/detail.php?ID=19980


The Chimney Corner by Eastman Johnson

While the majority of the pupils have come into existence since the Emancipation Proclamation, there is still a number older than that event, and some whose recollections antedate the great war. Yet in their career of schooling they have all started even, and it is rather curious and amusing to remark the utter absence of any thing like gradation in size or equality in years. . . . .It may also be observed that the great scholars are usually outstripped by the little ones, which only goes to confirm the generally received opinion that young plants are more easily transplanted and trained than older ones.

Solomon H. Thompson – was one such young plant that grew and grew, majestically fed by his inner drive.

Wrote one newspaper editor:

Image of early Storer College campus Harpers Ferry NHP Museum Collection, Catalog #11427http://wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/wvulibraries:28200


Campus of Storer College

He attended his home school until he finished and entered Storer College at the age of 13 years and in 1886 he graduated, but claimed that his education was not completed. Not having satisfied his craving for knowledge and ambition to fully prepare himself for life’s battle, he immediately

St. John’s College – Fordham, New York (postcard_ – ouroldneighborhood.com


St. Johns College. Fordham, New York

entered Fordham University and at the expiration of a three years course, the last year of which was spent in the office of a physician, he began the study of medicine earnestly until the year of 1889. He determined to leave for Washington, D.C. where

Howard University Medical School in 1892, the year Solomon Thompson graduated – collections.nlm.nih.gov https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/aframsurgeons/images/meded1.jpg


Howard University Medical School

he matriculated at Howard University. Two months after his admission to said university he was successful and given the appointment of resident student to the hospital a place that is highly prized by all medical students. He retained this position until he graduated in April, 1892.

Map of Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. (c. 1900)
britannica.com

His brother, Jasper or “Jack” Thompson was moving towards medicine also. Both brothers would wind up in Kansas City, Kansas for the balance of their lives and remarkable contributions.

Solomon H.’s notebook – courtesy Monique Crippen-Hopkins

All this time the conscientious Solomon H. was collecting information from his graying forebears while it was still to be had all about his family, down the back road of time.

Changing Horses – americangallery.wordpress.com https://americangallery.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/edward-lamson-henry-1841-1913-3/

The Thompsons, Nelsons and Saunders – families that worked for the Blakeley/Claymont Washingtons for many years, still lived near one another and the old farms.

From the “Down Memory Lane” section of the Spirit of Jefferson Farmer’s Advocate, courtesy of Edward W. (Pat) Dockney, Jr.)

They gravitated to the services of the white-led First Baptist Church in Charlestown as they were beginning to raise families.

Crayon, Porte (Strother, D. H.). “On Negro Schools.” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. Volume 47 Issue: 282 (September, 1874) https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31210014814410&view=1up&seq=472&skin=2021&q1=Negro Schools


his church congregation supported them and paid for Jesse Saunders to study at the Richmond Theological School. Charlestown businessman William Hill, a white Baptist, provided much of the funds for the new Rev. Saunders for him to have his own Church congregation, which was built at its present location, (but an earlier structure than today’s), on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue at the intersection of Summit Point Road and Middleway (Rte. 51) Pike. It was called – the “Second Baptist Church.”

Taylor, Evelyn M.E. (1999). “Historical Digest – Jefferson County: West Virginia’s African-American Congregations 1859-1994” Washington, D.C.: Mid-Atlantic Regional Press.

On August 6, 1881 their church was completed to receive the Holy Spirit. Its first board of trustees, were William Braxton, Ben Nelson – and Jasper Thompson.

wvencyclopedia.org – Drivin’ Steel https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/exhibits/12?section=5


On June 12, 1903, The Martinsburg Statesman of Martinsburg reported that two hundred African Americans left Kabletown and Rippon to coal tons in Pennsylvania and southwest, West Virginia

by David Hunter Strother – Harper’s New Monthly Magazine November, 1873

Late summer in Jefferson County stands out on the calendar for the heaviest rain storms in decades – a month of rains. Thousands of bullets and materiel on the Antietam Battlefield came to the earth’s surface.

nps.gov
From North George Street in the distance Courthouse, Charles Town, West Virginia, WV, Jefferson County, 1890-1910.

First, the guests make a pilgrimage to Charles Town five miles away and pose before the courthouse where John Brown’s raiders were convicted of treason against the state of Virginia.

Niagara Movement members outside the Jefferson County Courthouse in Charles Town, West Virginia, August 1906. Courtesy of the Special Collections and University Archives, University Libraries, University of Massachusetts Amherst.

W.E.B. DuBois stood before both men and women for the first time in public and on American soil. He stated the principles of a soon to-be formed organization, to become known as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People:

W.E.B. Du Bois in Cyberspace FEBRUARY 12, 2015 | BY JOSHUA STERNFELD
neh.gov

The battle we wage is not for ourselves alone but for all true Americans. It is a fight for ideals, lest this, our common fatherland, false to its founding, become in truth, the land of the thief and the home of the slave, a byword and a hissing among the nations for its sounding pretensions and pitiful accomplishments. In detail, our demands are clear and unequivocal. First, we would vote; with the right to vote goes everything: freedom, manhood, the honor of your wives, the chastity of your daughters, the right to work, and the chance to rise, and let no man listen to those who deny this.We want full manhood suffrage, and we want it now, henceforth and forever!

Program showing Richard Thompson providing music for the Niagara Movement meeting at Harpers Ferry in 1906 – in the Niagara Movement exhibit on Washington Street at the Harpers Ferry National Historic Park

A local church group sang from Charles Town with one Richard Thompson, likely the relation to Jasper, listed among the chorale.

Crayon, Porte (Strother, D. H.). “On Negro Schools.” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. Volume 47 Issue: 282 (September, 1874). p. 463.https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31210014814410&view=1up&seq=472&skin=2021&q1=Negro Schools
Painting showing a line of meeting delegates, with suits and umbrellas, crossing a field to gather in front of a small building. “Marching to a Monument For Freedom” portrays the delegates of a meeting of the Niagara Movement, held at Harpers Ferry in August of 1906. By Richard Fitzhugh, 1994. Courtesy of Richard Fitzhugh.

On the last day – a Sunday – the attendees in their Sunday finest – picked their way over soggy lands – their fine shoes in hand – to see the building that was the lightning rod of conflict for the struggle. Standing in a characterless open field stood the real “John Brown Fort,” in 1859 once the Armory engine house. Today, the brick crucible for freedom

Life went on.

Shepherdstown Community Club

The skies cleared August 31st – a Friday – in time for the eagerly anticipated Morgans Grove County Fair and accompanying horse show featuring a hundred entrants. Dry ground meant visitors could set up their family sized tents and stay all through the Fair. That began Tuesday September 4th.

In two days, something terrible happened.

Jasper Thompson courtesy Monique Crippen-Hopkins
Snyder, Harry Lambright III. (1999). “John Snyder 1823-1864: A Soldier and His Family.” self-published. Print.

Snyder clearly did not know Jasper Thompson’s character.

A Tragedy on Charles Town District

A fatal tragedy, attended by some peculiar circumstances, occurred last Thursday afternoon at Gibsontown, a negro settlement about two miles south of Charles Town. A man named Samarion, who says that his father was a Hindoo and his mother an Egyptian woman, came to this country from Sidney, Australia, some eighteen months ago and located near Charles Town. He was a music teacher, and earned his living by following his profession. He incurred the enmity of his negro neighbors by advising them to accept white supremacy as a settled fact, and his views upon this subject are said to have aroused strenuous animosity of Jasper Thompson, a colored man, who, it is said, advocated negro equality and was particularly officious at elections in opposing the white majority. Under the leadership of Thompson, the negroes of the neighborhood are said to have been persecuting Samarion and his wife in various ways, Thursday Samarion notified Thompson to keep his hogs out his (Samarion’s) lot of he would kill them. This started the trouble afresh. Sometime during the afternoon Thompson went to Samarion’s house. Samarion says that his enemy threatened to kill him and made a motion to draw a pistol. Samarion quickly pulled his own revolver and shot Thompson twice, and the wounded man walked a few steps and fell dead.

Sarmarion’s word was all they had.

1st Sgt Jasper Thompson Co. F 23 U.S.C.T. Fairview Cemetery, Gibsontown, WV


The next March, Circuit Judge Faulkner gave Samarion two years in Moundsville penitentiary.

wvtourism.com

So it goes.

Monique Crippen Hopkins:

So, one day, I was just doing my research on the Thompson family like I ordinarily do – and


Shelley Murphy said to me: “There’s somebody I think you need to meet.” I said: “OK.” So she put me in touch with Joyceann Gray. Me and Joyceann realized that we were related through marriage.


Her Cross family had married my Thompson family – three different times. So I told Joyceann that I had a lot of information and we started sharing information. I said: “I have a quote from the Thompson family and our family has some history out at the University of Kansas because two of the Thompson sons moved out there.” She wanted to see it. She said: ”Can you send me that quote?”

(I said “yeh.” I didn’t think about it. (delete) (After Monique sent the quote) – She wrote back to me and said: “I sent (the quote) off. Is that OK?” and I was excited . . . actually ordered it.”

Well that quote came back less than a week later and my entire family history was on this page.

Slave names and everything. Unbelievable, So surreal. I get chills just thinking about them. My entire family history. So that led me back two more generations to the original Jasper Thompson who was enslaved by John and Elizabeth Ariss, and his kids – Fortune – was of the Blakeley plantation; and then Fortune’s kids ended up somehow on the Claymont plantation. I’m not exactly sure where that transfer came from. I don’t know how they went back and forth from Claymont to Blakeley.

That’s where most of my research comes in. There’s plenty of documentation. Even after finding this family history page, Sarah Brown led me to a website that was put up by Scott Casper. He had tables of slaves listed and who owned them from the Washington family. I found my family. Just as they are listed on my family Bible page, they were listed on these tables that Scott had posted up, which led me to even more research. The whole research on the Thompson family has been one of the most amazing journies in my research. So that’s pretty much my story about the Thompson family history.

References:

Beeline Chapter NSDAR. (1981). “Tombstone Inscriptions Jefferson County, West Virginia 1687-1980.” Charles Town, WV. NSDAR. p. 353; p. 378.

Trowbridge, John T. (1866). “The South: a tour of its battlefields and ruined cities, a journey through the desolated states, and talks with the people: being a description of the present state of the country – its agriculture – railroads – business and finances.” Hartford, Conn., L. Stebbins. Internet Archives: Digital Library of Free Books, Movies, Music, and Wayback Machine. archive.org 27 Oct. 2009. Web. 12 Feb. 2012.
pp. 69-74.- Trip to Charlestown.

John Trowbridge’s visit to Mount Vernon September, 1865:
On a day of exceeding sultriness (it was the fourth of September) I left the dusty, stifled streets of Washington, and went on board the excursion steamer Wawaset, bound for Mount Vernon, Ten o’clock, the hour of starting, had nearly arrived. No breath of air was stirring. The sun beat down with torrid fervor upon the boat’s awnings, which seemed scarce a protection against it, and upon the glassy water, which reflected it with equal intensity from below. Then suddenly the bell rang, the boat swung out in the river, the strong paddles rushed, and almost instantly a magical change took place.

A delightful breeze appeared to have sprung up, increasing as the steamer’s speed increased. I sat upon a stool by the wheelhouse, drinking in all the
deliciousness of that cooling motion through the air, and watching compassionately the schooners with heavy and languid sails lying becalmed in the channel, — indolent fellows, drifting with the tide, and dependent on influences from without to push them, — while our steamer, with flashing wake, flag gaily flying, and decks swept by wholesome, animating winds, resembled one of your energetic, original men, cutting the sluggish current, and overcoming the sultriness and stagnation of life by a refreshing activity. On we sped, leaving far behind the Virginia long-boats, with their pointed sails on great poles swung aslant across the masts, — sails dingy in color and irregular in shape, looking, a little way off, like huge sweet potatoes. Our course was southward, leaving far on our right the Arlington estate embowered in foliage on the Virginia shore; and on our the Navy Yard and Arsenal, and the Insane Asylum standing like a stem castle, half hidden by trees, on the high banks back from the river. As we departed from the wharves, a view of the city opened behind us, with its two prominent objects, — the unfinished Washington Monument, resembling in the distance a tall, square, pallid sail; and the many-pillared, beautiful Capitol, rising amid masses of foliage, with that marvelous bubble, its white and airy dome, soaring superbly in the sun. Before us, straight in our course, was Alexandria, quaint old city, with its scanty fringe of straight and slender spars, and its few anchored ships suspended in a glass atmosphere, as it seemed, where the river reflected the sky. We ran in to the wharves, and took on board’ a number of passengers ; then steamed on again, down the wide Potomac, until, around^ a bend, high on a wooded shore, a dim red roof and a portico of slender white pillars appeared visible through the trees. It was Mount Vernon, the home of Washington. The shores here, on both the Maryland and Virginia sides, are picturesquely hilly and green with groves. The river between flows considerably more than a mile wide : a handsome sheet, reflecting the woods and the shining summer clouds sailing in the azure over them, although broad belts of river-grass, growing between the channel and the banks like strips of inundated prairie, detract from its beauty. As we drew near, the helmsman tolled the boat’s bell slowly. “Before the war,’ said he, “no boat ever passed Mount Vernon without tolling its bell, if it had one. The war kind of broke into that custom, as it did into most everything else ; but it is coming up again now.” We did not make directly for the landing, but kept due on down the channel until we had left Mount Vernon half a mile away on our right. Then suddenly the steamer changed her course, steering into the tract of river-grass, which waved and tossed heavily as the ripple from the bows shook it from its drowsy languor. The tide rises here some four feet. It was low tide then, and the circuit we had made was necessary to avoid grounding on the bar. We were entering shallow water. We touched and drew hard for a few minutes over the yielding sand. The dense grass seemed almost as serious an impediment as the bar itself. Down among its dark heaving masses we had occasional glimpses of the bottom, and saw hundreds of fishes darting away, and sometimes leaping sheer from the surface, in terror of the great, gliding, paddling monster, invading, in that strange fashion, their peaceful domain.

Drawing a well-defined line half a mile long through that submerged prairie, we reached the old wooden pier, built out into it from the Mount Vernon shore. I did not land immediately, but remained on deck, watching the long line of pilgrims going up from the boat along the climbing path and disappearing in the woods. There were, perhaps, a hundred and fifty in the procession, men and women and children, some carrying baskets, with intent to enjoy a nice little picnic under the old Washington trees. It was a pleasing sight, rendered interesting by the historical associations of the place, but slightly dashed with the ludicrous, it must be owned, by a solemn tipsy wight bringing tip the rear, singing, or rather bawling, the good old tune of Greenville, with maudlin nasal twang, and beating time with profound gravity and a big stick. As the singer, as well as his tune, was tediously slow, I passed him on the way, ascended the long slope through the grove, and found my procession halted under the trees on the edge of it. Facing them, with an old decayed orchard behind it, was a broad, low brick structure, with an arched entrance and an iron-grated gate. Two marble shafts flanked the approach to it on the right and left. Passing these, I paused, and read on a marble slab over the Gothic gateway the words, — “Within this enclosure rest the remains of General George Washington.” The throng of pilgrims, awed into silence, were beginning to draw back a little from the tomb. I approached, and leaning against the iron bars, looked through into the still chamber. Within, a little to the right of the center of the vault, stands a massive and richly sculptured marble sarcophagus, bearing the name of “Washington.” By its side, of equal dimensions, but of simpler style, is another, bearing the inscription, “Martha, the consort Washington.”

It is a sequestered spot, half enclosed by the trees of the grove on the south side, — cedars, sycamores, and black-walnuts, heavily hung with vines, sheltering the entrance from the mid-day sun. Woodpeckers flitted and screamed from trunk to trunk of the ancient orchard beyond. Eager chickens were catching grasshoppers under the honey-locusts, along by the old wooden fence. And, humming harmlessly in and out over the heads of the pilgrims, I noticed a colony of wasps, whose mud-built nests stuccoed profusely the yellowish ceiling of the vault. There rest the ashes of the great chieftain, and of Martha his wife. I did not like the word “consort.” It is too fine a term for a tombstone. There is something lofty and romantic about it; but “wife” is simple, tender, near to the heart, steeped in the divine atmosphere of home, — “A something not too bright and good For human nature’s daily food.” She was the wife of Washington: a true, deep-hearted woman, the blessing and comfort, not of the Commander-in-Chief not of the first President, but of the man. And Washington, the MAN, was not the cold, majestic, sculptured figure which has been placed on the pedestal of history. There was nothing marble about him but the artistic and spotless finish of his public career. Majestic he truly was, as simple greatness must be; and cold he seemed to many; — nor was it fitting that the sacred chambers of that august personality should be thrown open to the vulgar feet and gaze of the multitude. It is familiar. “Yet shine forever virgin minds, Beloved by stars and purest winds, Which, o’er passion throned sedate, Have not hazarded their state; Disconcert the searching spy, Rendering, to the curious eye. The durance of a granite ledge to those who gaze from the sea’s edge.” Of these virgin minds was Washington. The world saw him through a veil of reserve, as habitual to him as the scepter of self-control. Yet beneath that veil throbbed a fiery nature, which on a few rare occasions is known to have flamed forth into terrible wrath. Anecdotes, recording those instances of volcanic eruption from the core of this serene and lofty character, are refreshing and precious to us, as showing that the ice and snow were only on the summit, while beneath burned those fountains of glowing life which are reservoirs of power to the virtue and will that know how to control them. A man of pure, strong, constant affections, his love of tranquil domestic enjoyments was as remarkable as his self-sacrificing patriotism. I know not Washington’s “consort”; but to me a very sweet, beautiful, and touching name is that of “Martha, Washington’s wife.” Quitting the tomb, I walked along by the old board fence which bounds the corner of the orchard, and turned up the locust-shaded avenue leading to the mansion. On one side was a wooden shed, on the other an old-fashioned brick barn.

Passing these, you seem to be entering a little village. The out-houses are numerous; I noticed the wash-house, the meat-house, and the kitchen, the butler’s house, and the gardener’s house, — neat white buildings, ranged around the end of the lawn, among which the mansion stands the principal figure. Looking in at the wash-house,
I saw a pretty-looking colored girl industriously scrubbing over a tub. She told me that she was twenty years old, that her husband worked on the place, and that a bright little fellow, four years old, running around the door, handsome as polished bronze, was her son. She formerly belonged to John A. Washington, who made haste to carry her off to Richmond, with the money the Ladies’ Mount Vernon Association had paid him, on the breaking out of the war. She was born on the place, but had never worked for John A. Washington. “He kept me hired out; for I suppose he could make more by me that way.” She laughed pleasantly as she spoke, and rubbed away at the wet clothes in the tub. I looked at her, so intelligent and cheerful, a woman and a mother, though so young; and wondered at the man who could pretend to own such a creature, hire her out to other masters, and live upon her wages. I I have heard people scoff at John A. Washington for selling the inherited bones of the great, — for surely the two hundred thousand dollars, paid by the Ladies’ Association for the Mount Vernon estate, was not the price merely of that old mansion, these out-houses, since repaired, and two hundred acres of land, — but I do not scoff at him for that. Why should not one, who dealt in living human flesh and blood, also traffic a little in the ashes of the dead? “After the war was over, the Ladies’ Association sent for me from Richmond, and I work for them now,” said the girl, merrily scrubbing. “What wages do you get? ” “I get seven dollars a month, and that’s better than no wages at all!” laughing again with pleasure. “The sweat I drop into this tub is my own ; but before, it belonged to John A. Washington.” As I did not understand her at first, she added, “You know, the Bible says every one must live by the sweat of his own eyebrow. But John A. Washington, he lived by the sweat of my eyebrow. I always had a willing mind to work, and I have now; but I don’t work as I used to; for then it was work to-day and work to-morrow, and no stop.”

Beside the kitchen was a well-house, where I stopped and drank a delicious draught out of an “old oaken bucket,” or rather a new one, which came up brimming from its cold depths. This well was dug in General Washington’s time, the cook told me; and as I drank, and looked down, down into dark shaft at the faintly glimmering water, — for the well was deep, — I thought how often the old General had probably come up thither from the field, taken off his hat in the shade, and solaced his thirst with a drink from the dripping bucket. Passing between the kitchen and the butler’s house, you come upon a small plateau, a level green lawn, nearly surrounded by a circle of large shade-trees. The shape of this pleasant esplanade is oblong at the farther end, away on the left, is the ancient entrance to the grounds; close by on the right, at the end nearest the river, is the mansion. Among the shade-trees, of which there are a great variety, I noticed a fine sugar-maple, said to be the only individual of the species in all that region. It was planted by General Washington, who wished to see what trees would grow in that climate, the gardener told me. It has for neighbors, among many others, a tulip-tree, a Kentucky coffee-tree, and a magnolia set out by Washington’s own hand. I looked at the last with peculiar interest, thinking it a type of our country, the perennial roots of which were about the same time laid carefully in the bosom of the eternal mother, covered and nursed and watered by the same illustrious hand, — a little tree then, feeble, and by no means sure to live ; but now I looked up, thrilling with pride at the glory of its spreading branches, its storm-defying tops, and its mighty trunk which not even the axe of treason could sever. I approached the mansion. It was needless to lift the great brass knocker, for the door was open. The house was full of guests thronging the rooms and examining the relics; among which were conspicuous these: hanging in a little brass-framed glass case in the hall, the key of the Bastille, presented to Washington by Lafayette; in the dining- hall, a very old-fashioned harpsichord that had entirely lost its voice, but which is still cherished as a wedding-gift from Washington to his adopted daughter; in the same room, holsters and a part of the Commander-in-Chief’s camp-equipage, very dilapidated; and, in a square bedroom up-stairs, the bedstead on which Washington slept, and on which he died. There is no sight more touching than this bedstead, surrounded by its holy associations, to be seen at Mount Vernon.

From the house I went out on the side opposite that on which I had entered, and found myself standing under the portico we had seen when coming down the river. A noble portico, lofty as the eaves of the house, and extending the whole length of the mansion, — fifteen feet in width and ninety- six in length, says the Guide-Book. The square pillars supporting it are not so slender, either ; but it was their height which made them appear so when we first saw them miles off up the Potomac. What a portico for a statesman to walk under, — so lofty, so spacious, and affording such views of the river and its shores, and the sky over all! Once more I saw the venerable figure of him, the first in war and the first in peace, pacing to and so on those pavements of flat stone, solitary, rapt in thought, glancing ever and anon up’ the Potomac towards the’ site of the now great capital bearing his name, contemplating the revolution accomplished, and dreaming of his country’s future. There was one great danger he feared: the separation of the States. But well for him, O, well for the great-hearted and wise chieftain, that the appalling blackness of the storm, destined so soon to deluge the land with blood for rain-drops, was hidden from his eyes, or appeared far in the dim horizon no bigger than a man’s hand! Saved from the sordid hands of a degenerate posterity, saved from the desolation of unsparing civil war. Mount Vernon still remains to us with its antique mansion and its delightful shades. I took all the more pleasure in the place, remembering how dear it was to its illustrious owner. There is no trait in Washington’s character with which I sympathize so strongly as with his love for his home. True that home was surrounded with all the comforts and elegances which fortune and taste could command. But had Mount Vernon been as humble as it was beautiful, Washington would have loved it scarcely less. It was dear to him, not as a fine estate but as the home of his heart A simply great and truly man, free from foolish vanity and, he served his country with a willing spirit; yet he knew well that happiness does not subsist upon worldly honors nor dwell in high places, but that the favorite haunt is by the pure waters of domestic tranquility. There came up a sudden thunder-shower while we were at the house. The dreadful peals rolled and rattled from wing to wing of the black cloud that overshadowed the river, and the rain fell in torrents. Umbrellas were scarce, and I am sorry to say the portico leaked badly. But the storm passed as suddenly as it came; the rifted clouds floated away with sun-lit edges glittering like silver fire, and all the wet leafage of the trees twinkled and laughed in the fresh golden light. I did not return to the boat with the crowd by the way we came, but descended the steep banks through the drenched woods in front of the mansion, to the low sandy shore of the Potomac, then walked along the water’s edge, under the dripping boughs, to the steamer, and so took my leave of Mount Vernon.
pp. 91-99.

Marriage of Jasper Thompson and Dolly Irwin Oct. 28, 1869, line 88
wvculture.org 2 March 2000 Web. 10 February 2017.

Spirit of Jefferson/The Colored Celebration
10/26/1869 Page(s):p3c1
wvgeohistory.org 5 October 2010 Web. 20 January 2017.

The text:
THE CELEBRATION

Last Thursday was a gala day with our Negro American citizens, and they enjoyed it hugely; but in a manner creditable to them, and in a style which would have reflected no discredit upon any community. What it was they sought to celebrate, we do not know, as we are by no means familiar with their anniversaries or associations. We do know this, however, that they had a procession which was imposing, and that they had banners and devices in procession, some of which were appropriate and some otherwise. It seems that there exists in our midst a society of the colored people known as the “Order of Industry,” and it was the members of this society, arrayed in appropriate regalia, and the two Sabbath Schools of the town, that made up the procession. — To the first, there was a banner presented by the “colored ladies” of the town, in front of the old Court-House. Upon this banner was the significant motto, “By industry we thrive.” The presentation was by Miss Houk, and the reception by Jasper Thompson, both of whom acquitted themselves very well. After these exercises, the procession moved to Herbert’s Woods, headed by Moxley’s Brass Band from Hagerstown. The inclemency of the day prevented us from being present at the Grove, but we learn that, after a collation, very sensible speeches were made by W. W. Grimes and Rev. Dungey. On their return, the procession moved through the principal streets of the town, and finally brought up in front of the Court-House, where other addresses were made by orators selected for the occasion. — The first speech we did not hear, but understand it was a strong mixture of nothing, showing more the ignorance of the author than anything else. The second speech was delivered by a young man named Beverly, formerly the property of Col. John J. Grantham. He has some shrewdness, and no little ambition — appears anxious to improve and elevate himself above the ordinary level, and will no doubt succeed. An address from Rev. Dungey closed the speaking exercises, and we were sorry when his speech terminated. In matter and in manner, it was an admirable effort, and the man of heart as well as of brain. He commenced by saying that he was a Virginian, of which he felt proud; that he loved Virginia, her soil, her climate, her hills and her vales, but more than all these he loved her people — and closed his brief address with an exhortation to his hearers to demean themselves as men, so as to give offense to none, and to retire quietly and unobtrusively after the procession was dismissed to their homes, carrying with them the recollections of the day, and the circumstances surrounding.

At the close of his speech, the band struck up a quick march, and the procession moved off briskly, to the Methodist Church, where ranks were broken and the day’s proceedings ended. To their credit be it said, that not a single disturbance occurred, and the whole affair was conducted with the most commendable decorum.

Since writing the above, we have been furnished with the following, as a copy of W. W. Grimes’ remarks at the grove:

Ladies and Gentlemen: — We are here to-day to celebrate the glorious event of the emancipation of the colored man; but what does that word emancipation signify? Freedom! you will all reply. But freedom from what? Not from honorable, dignifying labor, which sets a man above want and enables him to take his place among his fellow-men as an honest, industrious citizen! Not freedom from obeying the salutary laws of the land, which forbid drunkenness, rioting, and behavior unbecoming a respectable, law abiding citizen! No, my friends, not freedom from these, for in that case we would be in a bondage far more galling and disagreeable than when we served in the cotton or tobacco fields or on the sugar plantations. We are free from slavery, free to call ourselves and no one else, master — but that fact ought to make us ambitious to be worthy of this blessed boon. We should strive, by patient industry and good conduct, to win the respect of every one. My friends, I need not tell you that we are here to-day, surrounded by circumstances quite different from what we were in slavery, when we were oppressed by its galling chains. Now we are free and happy, and what we earn is our own, and we are now equal before the law. Oh! may we never forget that we owe all these to a kind and merciful Benefactor, and in the genius of a free government, and to our free schools, that are now over the land. My friends, we are much respected by the white population, and under these circumstances we must respect ourselves.

The white population do no expect us to carry out this procession as they would, knowing that they have had more opportunities than we have; but we hope to do better hereafter than we have done heretofore. You know our capital is small, and unless we be industrious we cannot progress. We should be very cautious and obedient to the white race of people, from whose hands we have received support, and always attend to our own business, and not meddle with others. We know there has been a tremendous change. Persons who once deeply studied our interests have not now the interest in us, so we have now to rely on ourselves for support. — God has given us strength and means to support ourselves, and let us use them perfectly.

As this is my first attempt to address a congregation, I will not say any more, for fear I might speak something I could not comprehend — probably I would not take notice of it myself but some one standing around would. I tender you my sincere thanks, for waiting on me on this occasion.

Crayon, Porte. (September, 1874). “Our Negro Schools.” Harpers Magazine. Cornell Digital Library – The Making of America. 19 July 2011. Web. 29 January 2014.

Howlett, J. Homer, “S.H. Thompson, M.D.” Date: Saturday, July 20, 1895 Paper: Topics (Kansas City, Kansas) Page: 4. genealogybank.com 27 October 2006 Web. 10 February 2017.

Taylor, Evelyn M.E. (1999). “Historical Digest – Jefferson County: West Virginia’s African-American Congregations 1859-1994” Washington, D.C.: Mid-Atlantic Regional Press. pp. 109-114.

Circuit Court – June 5, 1883, Spirit of Jefferson, Charlestown, WV.
wvgeohistory.org 5 October 2010 Web. 20 January 2017.

June 12, 1903, The Martinsburg Statesman of Martinsburg reported that two hundred African Americans left Kabletown and Rippon to coal tons in Pennsylvania and southwest, West Virginia

Niagara Movement Speech by W.E.B. DuBois
“Address to the Country”
Delivered at the second conference of the Niagara Movement
Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, 1906

The men of the Niagara Movement coming from the toil of the year’s hard work and pausing a moment from the earning of their daily bread turn toward the nation and again ask in the name of ten million the privilege of a hearing. In the past year the work of the Negro hater has flourished in the land. Step by step the defenders of the rights of American citizens have retreated. The work of stealing the black man’s ballot has progressed and the fifty and more representatives of stolen votes still sit in the nation’s capital. Discrimination in travel and public accommodation has so spread that some of our weaker brethren are actually afraid to thunder against color discrimination as such and are simply whispering for ordinary decencies.

Against this the Niagara Movement eternally protests. We will not be satisfied to take one jot or little less than our full manhood rights. We claim for ourselves every single right that belongs to a freeborn American, political, civil and social; and until we get these rights we will never cease to protest and assail the ears of America. The battle we wage is not for ourselves alone but for all true Americans. It is a fight for ideals, lest this, our common fatherland, false to its founding, become in truth the land of the thief and the home of the Slave – a by-word and a hissing among the nations for its sounding pretentions and pitiful accomplishment.

Never before in the modern age has a great and civilized folk threatened to adopt so cowardly a creed in the treatment of its fellow-citizens born and bred on its soil. Stripped of verbiage and subterfuge and in its naked nastiness the new American creed says: Fear to let black men even try to rise lest they become the equals of the white. And this is the land that pro- fesses to follow Jesus Christ. The blasphemy of such a course is only matched by its cowardice.

In detail our demands are clear and unequivocal. First, we would vote; with the right to vote goes everything: Freedom, manhood, the honor of your wives, the chastity of your daughters, the right to work, and the chance to rise, and let no man listen to those who deny this.

We want full manhood suffrage, and we want it now, henceforth and forever.

Second. We want discrimination in public accommodation to cease. Separation in railway and street cars, based simply on race and color, is un-American, un-democratic, and silly. We protest against all such discrimination.

Third. We claim the right of freemen to walk, talk, and be with them that to be with us. No man has a right to choose another man’s friends, and to attempt to do so is an impudent interference with the most fundamental human privilege.

Fourth. We want the laws enforced against rich as well as poor; against Capitalist as well as Laborer; against white as well as black. We are not more lawless than the white race, we are more often arrested, convicted, and mobbed. We want justice even for criminals and outlaws. We want the Constitution of the country enforced. We want Congress to take charge of Congressional elections. We want the Fourteenth amendment carried out to the letter and every State disfranchised in Congress which attempts to disfranchise its rightful voters. We want the Fifteenth amendment enforced and no State allowed to base its franchise simply on color.

The failure of the Republican Party in Congress at the session just closed to redeem its pledge of 1904 with reference to suffrage conditions at the South seems a plain, deliberate, and premeditated breach of promise, and stamps that party as guilty of obtaining votes under false pretense.

Fifth. We want our children educated. The school system in the country districts of the South is a disgrace and in few towns and cities are the Negro schools what they ought to be. We want the national government to step in and wipe out illiteracy in the South. Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.

And when we call for education we mean real education. We believe in work. We ourselves are workers, but work is not necessarily education. Education is the development of power and ideal. We want our children trained as intelligent human beings should be, and we will fight for all time against any proposal to educate black boys and girls simply as servants and under- lings, or simpIy for the use of other people. They have a right to know, to think, to aspire.

These are some of the chief things which we want. How shall we get them? By voting where we may vote, by persistent, unceasing agitation; by hammering at the truth, by sacrifice and work.

We do not believe in violence, neither in the despised violence of the raid nor the lauded violence of the soldier, nor the barbarous violence of the mob, but we do believe in John Brown, in that incarnate spirit of justice, that hatred of a lie, that willingness to sacrifice money, reputation, and life itself on the altar of right. And here on the scene of John Brown’s martyrdom we re-consecrate ourselves, our honor, our property to the final emancipation of the race which John Brown died to make free.

Our enemies; triumphant for the present, are fighting the stars in their courses. Justice and humanity must prevail. We live to tell these dark brothers of ours – scattered in counsel, wavering and weak – that no bribe of money or notoriety, no promise of wealth or fame, is worth the surrender of a people’s manhood or the loss of a man’s self-respect. We refuse to surrender the leadership of this race to cowards and bucklers. We are men; we will be treated as men. On this rock we have planted our banners. We will never give up, though the trump of doom find us still fighting.

And we shall win. The past promised it, the present foretells it. Thank God for John Brown! Thank God for Garrison and Douglass! Sumner and Phillips, Nat Turner and Robert Gould Shaw, and all the hallowed dead who died for freedom! Thank God for all those to-day, few though their voices be, who have not forgotten the divine brotherhood of all men white and black, rich and poor, fortunate and unfortunate.

We appeal to the young men and women of this nation, to those whose nostrils are not yet befouled by greed and snobbery and racial narrowness: Stand up for the right, prove your- selves worthy of your heritage and whether born north or south dare to treat men as men. Cannot the nation that has absorbed ten million foreigners into its political life without catastrophe absorb ten million Negro Americans into that same political life at less cost than their unjust and illegal exclusion will involve? Courage brothers! The battle for humanity is not lost or losing. All across the skies sit signs of promise. The Slave is raising in his might, the yellow millions are tasting liberty, the black Africans are writhing toward the light, and everywhere the laborer, with ballot in his hand, is voting open the gates of Opportunity and Peace. The morning breaks over blood-stained hills. We must not falter, we may not shrink. Above are the everlasting stars.

“Address to the Country” – Delivered at the second conference of the Niagara Movement
Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, 1906. american-historama.org 4 August 2014 Web. 10 January 2017.

“Lift Every Voice and Sing” was written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson in 1899 and set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson in 1905. In 1919, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) dubbed it “The Negro National Anthem.” wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 1 October 2016.

Shepherdstown Register September 13, 1906
A Tragedy on Charles Town District
A fatal tragedy, attended by some peculiar circumstances, occurred last Thursday afternoon at Gibsontown, a negro settlement about two miles south of Charles Town. A man named Samarion, who says that his father was a Hindoo and his mother an Egyptian woman, came to this country from Sidney, Australia, some eighteen months ago and located near Charles Town. He was a music teacher, and earned his living by following his profession. He incurred the enmity of his negro neighbors by advising them to accept white supremacy as a settled fact, and his views upon this subject are said to have aroused strenuous animosity of Jasper Thompson, a colored man, who, it is said, advocated negro equality and was particularly officious at elections in opposing the white majority. Under the leadership of Thompson, the negroes of the neighborhood are said to have been persecuting Samarion and his wife in various ways, Thursday Samarion notified Thompson to keep his hogs out his (Samarion’s) lot of he would kill them. This started the trouble afresh. Sometime during the afternoon Thompson went to Samarion’s house. Samarion says that his enemy threatened to kill him and made a motion to draw a pistol. Samarion quickly pulled his own revolver and shot Thompson twice, and the wounded man walked a few steps and fell dead.

Killing at Gibsontown – Clarke courier., September 19, 1906, page 2, column 2.
chroniclingamerica.loc.gov 3 June 2008 Web. 2 February 2017.

Jasper Thompson, colored, was shot and killed by S. A. Mario, also colored near Charlestown, W. Va in a dispute growing out of the trespassing of Thompsons – Date: Friday, September 7, 1906 Paper: Sun (Baltimore, Maryland) Volume: CXXXIX Issue: 114 Page: 1. genealogybank.com 27 October 2006 Web. 10 February 2017.

Jasper Thompson’s Death
Name: Jasper/Thompson
Sex: Male
Death Date: 06 Sep 1906
Death Place: West Virginia
Occupation: Pensioner
wvculture.org 2 March 2000 Web. 10 February 2017.

Thompson Family Collection, Kansas Collection, RH MS 510, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries
etext.ku.edu 12 January 2010 Web. 20 December 2016.

Image Credits – (Images in sequence in corresponding video):

Title: Antietam, Maryland. A lone grave
Creator(s): Gardner, Alexander, 1821-1882, photographer
Date Created/Published: 1862 Sept.
loc.gov 16 June 1997 Web. 10 December 2016.

Title: [Dead Confederate soldier in the trenches of Fort Mahone, Petersburg, Virginia]
Contributor Names
Roche, T. C., photographer
Created / Published
[1865 Apr.]
loc.gov 16 June 1997 Web. 10 December 2016.

Title: Dead Confederate soldier in trenches of Fort Mahone in front of Petersburg, Va., April 3, 1865
Date Created/Published: photographed 1865, [printed between 1880 and 1889]
loc.gov 16 June 1997 Web. 10 December 2016.

Title: This view was taken in the trenches of the rebel Fort Mahone, called by the soldiers “Fort Damnation,” the morning after the storming of Petersburgh (i.e. Petersburg), Va., April 2d, 1865 […]
Summary: Stereograph showing a partially dressed Confederate boy lying dead outside a bomb proof in the trenches of Fort Mahone, Petersburg, Virginia.
Contributor Names: E. & H.T. Anthony (Firm), copyright claimant
Created / Published: New York : E. & H.T. Anthony & Co., American and Foreign Stereoscopic Emporium, 501 Broadway, 1865 April 3.
loc.gov 16 June 1997 Web. 10 December 2016.

Jasper Thompson – courtesy Monique Crippen-Hopkins

Returning Home by Gilbert Gaul Birmingham Museum of Art gift of John Meyer

IDNO: 013061
Title: Claymont Court, Jefferson County, W. Va.
Description: View of Claymont Court near Charles Town. The ante-bellum mansion was built in 1840 by Bushrod Corbin Washington, after the first dwelling burnt down in 1838. Washington was George Washington’s grand-nephew. The mansion has a formal ballroom and two-story, columned porches.
wvhistoryonview.org 9 October 2009 Web. 15 December 2017.

Sheridan’s Ride, chromolithograph by Thure de Thulstrup
CREATED/PUBLISHED: c1886.
CREATOR: L. Prang & Co.
wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 10 December 2016.

Title: The Leader of the Herd
Description: Etching created by Edwin Forbes as a part of his ‘Life Studies of the Great Army’ series, documenting military life in the Army of the Potomac. Creator:Forbes, Edwin, 1839-1895. Date Original: 1876
psu.edu 6 February 1997 Web. 10 January 2017.

A Cow in the Pastures – Constant Troyon – 1856
the-athenaeum.org 23 May 2002 Web. 10 February 2017

Herbert Lee Alexander Service Record
fold3.com 16 September 2011 Web. 5 December 2017.
p. 2 – Capture.

James C. Washington – Service Record, p. 2
fold3.com 16 September 2011 Web. 5 December 2017.

Philip Sheridan
wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 10 December 2016.

John S. Mosby
wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 10 December 2016.

Herbert Lee Alexander Stone – Zion Episcopal Church, Charles Town, WV.
James C. Washington Stone – Zion Episcopal Church, Charles Town, WV.
Tombstones for James C. Washington and Herbert Lee Alexander at Zion Episcopal Church – Jim Surkamp

John_Townsend_Trowbridge
wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 10 December 2016.

Creator: David Hunter Strother
Date n.d.
Title Bath Keeper
Collection West Virginia Historical Art Collection
Type Painting
Identifier W2002.050
images.lib.wvu.edu 22 September 2004 Web. 10 February 2017.

Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. “Godey’S Fashions For September 1862.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1862.
digitalcollections.nypl.org 11 June 2013 Web. 20 January 2017.

Creator: David Hunter Strother
Date March 11
Title Untitled
Description Women with long ringlets
Collection West Virginia Historical Art Collection
Type Drawing
Identifier W1995.030.263
images.lib.wvu.edu 22 September 2004 Web. 10 February 2017.

Creator: David Hunter Strother
Title September 13, 1858
Donor John Strother donation to West Virginia Collection
Collection West Virginia Historical Art Collection
Type Drawing
Identifier W1995.030.012
images.lib.wvu.edu 22 September 2004 Web. 10 February 2017.

Artist: William Louis Sonntag (United States, Pennsylvania, East Liberty, 1822-1900)
Title: Autumn Morning on the Potomac wikidata:Q20881268
Description: United States, circa 1860s
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Yolande B. Markson (M.58.33)
wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 10 December 2016.

Creator: David Hunter Strother
Date: June 2, 1858
Title: Betsey Swest April 11th 1856
Collection: West Virginia Historical Art Collection
Type: Drawing
Identifier W1995.030.240
images.lib.wvu.edu 22 September 2004 Web. 10 February 2017.

Title: Map of Jefferson County, Virginia
Summary: Shows Jefferson County before the formation of West Virginia in 1863.
Contributor Name: Brown, S. Howell.
Created / Published: [S.l., s.n.,] 1852.
loc.gov 16 June 1997 Web. 10 December 2016.

IDNO: 006571
Title: Hanging of John Brown at Charles Town, W. Va.
Description: Drawing of the hanging of John Brown at Charles Town, Jefferson County, West Virginia, approximately 12 miles from the site of his raid at Harpers Ferry.
wvhistoryonview.org 9 October 2009 Web. 15 December 2017.

McDonald, William N. and Bushrod C. Washington. (1907). “A History of the Laurel Brigade: Originally the Ashby Cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia.” Internet Archives: Digital Library of Free Books, Movies, Music, and Wayback Machine. 31 July 2008 Web. 3 March 2011.
p. 176 – B.C. Washington

IDNO: 041224
Title: ‘Claymont Court’, Jefferson County, W. Va.
Date: 1936
Description: A Georgian style mansion built in 1840 by Bushrod C. Washington, grand nephew of George Washington.
wvhistoryonview.org 9 October 2009 Web. 15 December 2017.

Christian Maria Washington (Richard Blackburn Washington’s spouse) – The Washington Family.

Richard Blackburn Washington – The Washington Family

Bushrod Corbin Washington (older)
Added by: George Seitz
findagrave.com 5 December 1998 Web. 4 January 2017.

One bushel of potatoes
savvydad.com 21 February 2001 Web. 6 February 2017.

Strother, David H., “Virginia Illustrated.” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, New York, NY: Harper and Bros. Volume 13, Issue: 75, (Aug., 1856). pp. 158-179. Print.
Cornell Digital Library – The Making of America. library.cornell.edu 11 December 1997 Web. 2 February 2017. pp. 14-16.
19 July 2011. Web. 29 January 2014.
p. 173 – straw wagon.

Sheep
wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 10 December 2016.

Angus beef drawn by Frank C. Murphy
angus.org 28 October 1996 Web. 4 February 2017.

Farmers Nooning
William Sidney Mount – 1836
Long Island Museum (United States – Stony Brook, Long Island, New York)
the-athenaeum.org 23 May 2002 Web. 10 February 2017

Harvesters at Rest by Harry Roseland.
piercegalleries.com 6 March 2001 Web. 10 February 2017.

Images of pages from Bushrod C. Washington’s Farm Records 1866-1871
Ward, Gerald, editor. “Farm Diaries of Bushrod Corbin Washington 1867-1871.” Perry Room, Charles Town Library, Charles Town, WV.

Alfred R. Waud. Mustered Out. Little Rock, Arkansas, April 20, 1865. Drawing. Chinese white on green paper. Published in Harper’s Weekly, May 19, 1866. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-175 (5–1)
loc.gov 16 June 1997 Web. 10 December 2016.

Prospect Hill
Schley, Anna W. and Linnie Schley. (1941). “Old Homes of the Leetown Neighborhood.” Magazine of the Jefferson County Historical Society. Charles town, WV: JCHS.
pp. 4-16.
wvgeohistory.org 5 October 2010 Web. 20 January 2017.

Altona_(West_Virginia)
wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 10 December 2016.

Title: Portrait of Henry B. Davenport of Altona, Jefferson County, W. Va.
Topical Subjects:
Portraits–D.
Personal Names:
Davenport, Henry B. (Henry Bedinger), 1865-1958.
wvhistoryonview.org 9 October 2009 Web. 15 December 2017.

Doug Taylor, the King James Bible & the Constitution
civilwarscholars.com 20 June 2011 Web. 2 February 2017.

Title: [Arlington, Va. Band of 107th U.S. Colored Infantry at Fort Corcoran]
Creator(s): Smith, William Morris, photographer
Date Created/Published: 1865 November.
loc.gov 16 June 1997 Web. 10 December 2016.

Title: Storer College Musical Group Members, Harper’s Ferry, W. Va.
Date: 1873. Description: From left to right in the upper row standing is Robert Trent, Portia Lovett, Mary Ella Dixon, and Charlie Hale. Sitting from left to right is Walter Johnson, Alberta Redmond, Hamilton Keys, and Mertia Lovett. First concert was given in Buffalo, N.Y., May 2, 1873. They gave 40 concerts in the principal cities between Buffalo and Utica, going home, July 5, 1873.
storercollege.lib.wvu.edu 5 September 2015 Web. 10 January 2017.

Minerva printing press
mysite.dlsu.edu.ph 4 March 2012 Web. 20 February 2017.

Thomas Waterman Wood
Reading the Gazette, 1885
mutualart.com 15 April 2003 Web. 15 January 2017.

Charlestown, Wv Courthouse – 1865 – Lloyd Osterdorf estate

Fashionable African-American Women
Edouard Marquis – 1867
crt.state.la.us 12April 1997 Web. 10 January 2017.
Gift of Mr. J. Lawrence

Title: Five generations on Smith’s Plantation, Beaufort, South Carolina
Creator(s): O’Sullivan, Timothy H., 1840-1882, photographer
Date Created/Published: [1862, printed later]
loc.gov 16 June 1997 Web. 10 December 2016.

Protecting the Groceries by Edward Lamson Henry
iamachild.wordpress.com 16 August 2009 Web. 5 January 2017.

Littleton L. Page – Collection James L. Taylor

Charles Town, Old Virginia, From Pike 3/4 of a Mile South of Town, August 1, 1884, Friday 5:20 pm. clear sun; Bonfire burning on right. Court house with clock tower in center by Thomas and Walter Biscoe.
lib.wvu.edu 17 December 2014 Web. 5 December 2017.

Description: Kept In
Date: 1888
Author: Edward Lamson Henry (1841–1919)
commons.wikimedia.org 5 June 2004 Web. 10 February 2017.

Hannah
Eastman Johnson – circa 1859
the-athenaeum.org 23 May 2002 Web. 10 February 2017

At the Mill, Winter
George Henry Durrie – 1858
the-athenaeum.org 23 May 2002 Web. 10 February 2017

Harpers Ferry, [W.] Va., 1894
Oil on canvas
Edward Lamson Henry, American, 1841–1919
Signed, lower right: E L Henry 94 / Harpers Ferry Va. [sic]
morsemuseum.org 15 January 2000 Web. 10 January 2017.

Porte Crayon (David Hunter Strother) On Negro Schools” Harpers New Monthly Magazine September, 1874
pp. 457-468
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31210014814410&view=1up&seq=472&skin=2021&q1=Negro Schools

Artist: Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Title: Sunday Morning in Virginia
Description: depicts a family in a slave cabin with children being taught how to read from the Bible. Date: 1877. Medium: oil on canvas. Current location: Cincinnati Art Museum Link back to Institution infobox template wikidata:Q2970522
Accession number: 1924.247
Credit line: John J. Emery Fund
commons.wikimedia.org 5 June 2004 Web. 10 February 2017.

Title: Proclamation emancipation, [Smith/Rosenthal].
Contributor Names: Lincoln, Abraham (Author)
Rosenthal, Max (Lithographer)
Created / Published: L. Franklin Smith, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1865
loc.gov 16 June 1997 Web. 10 December 2016.

William Henry Snyder (1829–1910) Tutoring the Children at a Quiet Time
b-womeninamericanhistory19.blogspot.com curated by Barbara Wells Sarudy 20 December 2011 Web. 18 February 2017.

The Chimney Corner
Eastman Johnson – 1863
Owner/Location: Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute – Utica (New York) (United States – Utica, New York)
Dates: 1863
the-athenaeum.org 23 May 2002 Web. 10 February 2017

Description: English: Black man reading newspaper by candlelight
Man reading a newspaper with headline, “Presidential Proclamation, Slavery,” which refers to the Jan. 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. Date: circa 1863. Source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-2442 (color film copy transparency), uncompressed archival TIFF version (4 MiB), level color (pick white & black points), cropped, and converted to JPEG (quality level 88) with the GIMP 2.2.13
Author: Henry Louis Stephens (1824–1882)
wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 10 December 2016.

Title: Buildings on the Campus of Storer College, Harpers Ferry, W. Va.
Description: From left to right: Lincoln Hall, Anthony Hall, and Myrtle Hall.
wvhistoryonview.org 9 October 2009 Web. 15 Decmber 2017.

St. Johns College. Fordham, New York postcards
ouroldneighborhood.com 24 February 2007 Web. 10 December 2017.

Title: Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., 1900 – library interior
Date Created/Published: [1900?]
loc.gov 16 June 1997 Web. 10 December 2016.

Tower at Howard University
howard.edu 12 December 1997 Web. 20 January 2017.

Howard University Medical School the year Solomon Thompsons graduated (1892)
nlm.nih.gov 7 June 1997 Web. 20 January 2017.

Map of Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. (c. 1900)
britannica.com 23 May 1998 Web. 4 January 2017.

Drawing of Dr. Solomon H. Thompsons, Sr.
Howlett, J. Homer, “S.H. Thompson, M.D.” Date: Saturday, July 20, 1895 Paper: Topics (Kansas City, Kansas) Page: 4. genealogybank.com 27 October 2006 Web. 10 February 2017.

Changing Horses
Edward Lamson Henry – 1880
the-athenaeum.org 23 May 2002 Web. 10 February 2017

From the “Down Memory Lane” section of the Spirit of Jefferson Farmer’s Advocate, courtesy of Edward W. (Pat) Dockney, Jr.) Notes: Charles Town Baptist Church, Charles Town, WV, ca. 1865. Shows its appearance at the end of the Civil War. Construction had started in 1859, three years after the congregation had decided to move from its original location at Zoar on Flowing Springs Road. Workmen installing the roof of this building reportedly witnessed the execution of John Brown which took place nearby. The structure was taken over by Yankee troops and the lower portion was used as a stable. Subsequently it was replaced by the current Charles Town Baptist Church at this site on East Congress Street.
wvgeohistory.org 5 October 2010 Web. 20 January 2017.

The Story Teller of the Camp
Eastman Johnson – circa 1861-1866
the-athenaeum.org 23 May 2002 Web. 10 February 2017

Image of the original Zion Baptist Church
Taylor, Evelyn M.E. (1999). “Historical Digest – Jefferson County: West Virginia’s African-American Congregations 1859-1994” Washington, D.C.: Mid-Atlantic Regional Press. p. 112.

Benjamin Nelson, William Braxton and Jasper Thompson were appointed Trustees of the Second Baptist Church, (Colored,) of Charlestown.
wvgeohistory.org 5 October 2010 Web. 20 January 2017.

African American coal miners
wvencyclopedia.org 17 September 2010 Web. 20 January 2017.

coal train with cars and steam
zenithcity.com 5 October 2009 Web. 20 January 2017.

Opening image
NAACP Begins – 1 by Jim Surkamp
youtube.com 28 April 2005 Web. 20 January 2017.

Photo: From North George Street in the distance Courthouse, Charles Town, West Virginia, WV, Jefferson County, 1890-1910.

Niagara Movement members outside the Jefferson County Courthouse in Charles Town, West Virginia, August 1906. Courtesy of the Special Collections and University Archives, University Libraries, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
W.E.B. Du Bois in Cyberspace FEBRUARY 12, 2015 | BY JOSHUA STERNFELD
neh.gov 31 January 1998 Web. 15 January 2017.

W._E._B._Du_Bois
wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 10 December 2016.

Photocopy of photograph of John Brown’s Fort on the Murphy Farm
Photo from Survey HABS WV-21-5; Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress)
nps.gov 13 Aoril 1997 Web. 10 January 2017.

Program showing Richard Thompson providing music for the Niagara Movement meeting at Harpers Ferry in 1906 – in the Niagara Movement exhibit on Washington Street at the Harpers Ferry National Historic Park

Painting showing a line of meeting delegates, with suits and umbrellas, crossing a field to gather in front of a small building. “Marching to a Monument For Freedom” portrays the delegates of a meeting of the Niagara Movement, held at Harpers Ferry in August of 1906. By Richard Fitzhugh, 1994. Courtesy of Richard Fitzhugh.
nps.gov 13 Aoril 1997 Web. 10 January 2017.

Morgans Grove Park – Shepherdstown Community Club.

Harry Lambright Snyder, editor
Snyder, Harry Lambright III. (1999). “John Snyder 1823-1864: A Soldier and His Family.” self-published. Print.

Jasper Thompson’s Death
Name: Jasper/Thompson
Sex: Male
Death Date: 06 Sep 1906
Death Place: West Virginia
Occupation: Pensioner
wvculture.org 2 March 2000 Web. 10 February 2017.

Charles_James_Faulkner
wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 10 December 2016.

West_Virginia_State_Penitentiary
wikipedia.org 27 July 2001 Web. 10 December 2016.

Jasper Thompson Image – Monique Crippen-Hopkins

Shelley Murphy – Jim Surkamp

Joyceann Gray – Jim Surkamp

Scott Casper
umbc.edu 21 October 1997 Web. 5 January 2017.

Solomon H. Thompson, Sr. – Monique Crippen-Hopkins

Dolly Irvin Thompson – Monique Crippen-Hopkins

1st Sgt Jasper Thompson Co. F 23 U.S.C.T. Fairview Cemetery, Gibsontown, WV