BLOG ARCHIVE

Notes on the Remarkable Rev. Charles Garner Sr.: Part Two 

Philip Ruth, Research Coordinator 

March 19, 2023 

Midway through 1879, Charles Garner Sr. completed construction of a frame house on Bellefonte’s E. Logan Street, next-door to the vacated Wesleyan AME log church. The building site was located in the southern end of the western half of the former Lot 78, on land owned by Charles’ mother-in-law, Mary Ann Gilmore. She and her sister Sarah Williams had jointly inherited Lot 78—minus the southeastern corner occupied by the AME church—from their father Isaac Lawson by the will he composed shortly before his death in 1870. The sisters had since divided the lot into 30-foot-wide eastern and western halves, with Sarah taking possession of the eastern portion and its newer house fronting on E. Bishop Street (no longer standing in 2023), and Mary Ann becoming sole owner of the western portion and the house the sisters’ father had built as early as 1829 (which has since been replaced). To mark the partition, the sisters oversaw construction of a “division fence” extending down the center of Lot 78. The house constructed by Charles Garner on his mother-in-law’s land in 1879 was thus situated on the western side of that fence, with its front façade facing E. Logan Street. The building site had been depicted on Beach Nichols’ 1874 map of Bellefonte as occupied by an outbuilding, probably a small barn or animal shelter, abutting the western end of the AME church. 

Mary Ann Gilmore was not on hand to witness the house’s completion and the Garner family’s occupation of it. Suffering from a stomach tumor, she had been rendered “not able-bodied” as of July 1879 when she was admitted to the Centre County Home for the Poor. She would receive care there for nearly a year (as recorded in a June 1880 accounting of Pauper and Indigent Inhabitants [of Centre County] in Institutions, Poor-Houses or Asylums, or Boarded at Public Expense in Private Houses). Judging from denotations on the 1874 map of Bellefonte, the Centre County “Home” stood on the southwest corner of Pike Alley and N. Penn Street (its site is presently a parking lot). 

The Garner family’s residence in the new house on E. Logan Street could not have lasted more than a few weeks. On the afternoon of Thursday, October 31, 1879, the Garner home and several other structures in the vicinity—including the former AME log church—were destroyed by fire, as reported the next day in the Democratic Watchman as follows: 

“Yesterday, Thursday afternoon, fire broke out in a frame building on East Logan street, owned by Thomas R. Reynolds and occupied by the Garrett and Bennett families. A high wind sent sparks everywhere and the rotten old hose the fireman had to work with bursted almost as fast as they could get it connected up. The result was that the flames spread to the newly completed house of Charles Garner, then to the old colored church building, a log structure, and a frame house owned by Win Montgomery and occupied by a Mrs. Holly. All were totally destroyed.”

A note in the Reading Times issue of November 8, 1879, added that the fire ultimately “rendered five families homeless.” Three weeks after the fire, the Centre Democrat reported that “Charley Garner, who was the most unfortunate victim in the recent Logan street fire, has succeeded in securing subscriptions toward the rebuilding of his house to the amount of about $300. The masons are now at work on the foundation. Forty or fifty dollars more, Charley says, after deducting the inconvenience occasioned, will make him as well off as ever.” 

Census schedules completed eight months later (in June 1880) reflect an abrupt change in the Garners’ plans. They were enumerated not in a rebuilt house along E. Logan Street in Bellefonte’s South Ward but in a residence on Halfmoon Hill, in the borough’s West Ward. Located on the west side of an alley that would later be widened and named “St. Paul Street,” the Garner residence was likely a rental property owned by the estate of Quaker ironmaster William A. Thomas, who had conveyed multiple building lots on Halfmoon Hill to Black Bellefusians prior to his death in 1866, and whose estate retained ownership of other properties for years thereafter, as reflected on the 1874 map of Bellefonte. All of the households enumerated in June 1880 on the west (uphill) side of the alley south of the AME Church comprised persons recorded as either black or mulatto. The heads of those households—beginning with the house immediately south of the church, then proceeding southward—were identified as Charles Green (domestic servant), Margaret Powell (washerwoman), Harriet Williams (washerwoman), George Sims (laborer), Charles Garner (laborer), Isaac Williams (laborer), John Williams (lumberman), and William Mills (barber). Other records indicate that most members of those households were also active in the neighboring church, labeled “African Ch[urch]” on the 1874 map (see detail below). 

The enumerator visiting the Garners on June 21, 1880, found the family comprising 36-year-old Charles, his wife Mary (33 ), and children Julia Melissa (11), Charles Gilmore (9), Mary Jane (6), Joseph (2), and two-month-old John. The two eldest Garner children had attended school during the previous months, presumably the “colored school” established several years earlier by the Bellefonte School District in a building on Jail Hill, across E. High Street from the county lock-up. Father Charles was noted by the enumerator to be suffering from an “injured hand” that had left him “temporarily disabled.” The cause and severity of that injury have yet to be discovered. If Charles was injured prior to Thursday, January 29, 1880, it didn’t keep him from participating in an entertaining debate held on that date, which the Centre Democrat described as follows: 

“At their literary society last Thursday evening, the colored folks debated upon the question as to whether or not a whale is a fish. Mr. Charley Garner and Mr. [George G.] Skinner participated in the debate, and all derived much enjoyment from it. Mr. Skinner, we believe, supported the negative of the proposition, and won the debate.”

The Garners’ move to Bellefonte’s West Ward preceded by several months Charles’ life-changing religious “conversion,” as recalled by his friend William H. Mills in a 1909 history of the St. Paul AME Church. According to Mills (son of Charles’ 6th Regiment comrade Lewis Mills), “near the close of [1880], Rev. John M. Palmer, a bright and intelligent minister, became the pastor of our church,” and under his care “[Abram V.] Jackson, George G. Skinner and Charles Garner, Sr., were converted . . . and united with the church.” Lewistown native John Moore Palmer was only 26 years old in November 1879 (rather than “the close of 1880”) when he arrived in Bellefonte for what turned out to be a highly consequential three-year stint as pastor of the St. Paul congregation. His welcome to the Borough included a close brush with the same fire that destroyed Charles Garner’s new house on E. Logan Street. The aforementioned Reading Times news item reported that the fire “came near [to] burning out Rev. John M. Palmer, who lately moved his family to [Bellefonte].” The Palmer family comprised the young pastor, his wife (not yet identified), and their infant daughter Mercy. Though the Palmers were spared the grief of seeing their earthly belongings go up in flames, they felt the full weight of tragedy several months later. As reported in the Centre Democrat in mid-February 1880, “Mrs. J.M. Palmer, wife of the esteemed pastor of the African A.M.E. Church of this place, died on Friday afternoon [February 13, 1880] at 3:30 o’clock. Her death is a great grief to her husband, Rev. J.M. Palmer. Her body was taken to Lewistown for interment.” 

The young pastor who guided Charles Garner, barber George Skinner, and bank watchman Abram Jackson into membership in the St. Paul AME congregation late in 1880 was thus a grieving widower and single father. He would remain so six months longer, during which time he also “converted” barber William Mills (who would recall being “received into full connection” with the congregation in June 1881). Then, on May 5, 1881, Rev. Palmer married Harrisburg resident Mary Jane Weaver in a wedding ceremony held in the home of the bride’s grandmother in that city. According to a report in the Harrisburg Telegraph—under the heading “Wedding in Colored Fashionable Society; A Very Large And Brilliant Company Present, In Which There Were Many White Ladies And Gentlemen”—more than “300 guests [were] present, among whom were many white ladies of the best families of this city.” Following a “sumptuous [post-ceremony] repast,” the newlyweds “left at 10:30 p.m. for Bellefonte, Centre county, where Rev. Palmer is now engaged as an itinerant preacher of the African Methodist Church.” 

Charles Garner and George Skinner, meanwhile, “began studying for the ministry, and were soon licensed as local preachers, to do local work in the church here,” wrote William Mills in 1909. “They continued with their studies, still working in a local capacity, until 1888, at which time the Pittsburg [sic] Annual Conference of the A.M.E. church met in Bellefonte. At this time my friend Skinner was admitted to the conference and from that time began his itineracy. I am not so certain that my friend Garner was regularly ordained, but at all events he was given work by the conference, and they both entered upon their duties of the Christian ministry.” 

Shortly after he “began studying for the ministry,” Charles Garner became a first-time landowner. On February 8, 1881, he paid $100 to representatives of William Thomas’ estate for a “lot of ground” at the southern end of the alley extending southward from the AME church. The rectangular lot fronted 29 feet on the west side of the alley and extended westward 100 feet up Halfmoon Hill. The next day Charles borrowed $600 from three men—Centre County Sheriff John S. Spangler, of Centre Hall; Bellefonte merchant and Centre County Prothonotary Jared Harper; and Bellefonte attorney Calvin M. Bower—presumably to finance construction of a house on the lot. The house appears to have been completed, or nearly so, by October 14 of that year, as on that date Charles and Mary conveyed the improved property (described in the associated deed as included a dwelling) to attorney Bower in consideration of $425. The motive for this sale is unknown. Other records suggest that the Garners continued to occupy the house on Halfmoon Hill through the remaining decade of their Bellefonte residency. A fire insurance map published in the early twentieth century depicted the dwelling as a small, frame, two-story structure—much snugger that its eventual replacement, which now stands at 143 St. Paul Street.  

 

On December 9, 1881, Mary Garner delivered another child—a daughter, whom the Garners named “Adeline L.” It seems likely the baby was named in honor of her great-aunt Adeline Lawson, who had just returned to Bellefonte after working as a domestic servant in Chester County for a dozen years. The inspiration behind the naming of the Garners’ next child—Lydia Conference, born on October 1, 1883—is unknown. No close relative of the Garners was named Lydia, and every Lydia enumerated in Centre County in the 1880 census was white. Did Lydia’s unusual middle name derive from her father’s recent affiliation with the Pittsburgh Annual Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church? That remains to be seen. In any case, Lydia was soon known as “Lida,” and she would answer to that name for the rest of her life. 

Charles Garner Sr. and three other leaders of the St. Paul AME congregation met with the Bellefonte School Board on September 8, 1885 to press for “equal schools for equal education.” As reported by Sue Hannegan and Daniel Clemson in the following excerpts from their 2008-09 information sheet titled “Bellefonte Public Schools: Among Earliest To Turn from ‘Separate, But Equal’ To Desegregated Facilities,” the meeting touched off a rancorous public debate. 

The Bellefonte School Board, at its September 8, 1885 meeting, took action which opened the door to the contentious school desegregation issue. The step, which would begin in school year 1886-87, placed Bellefonte among the earliest public schools in the nation to embrace integration—69 years before the U.S. Supreme Court made it law. . . . At the September 1885 board meeting, a committee of four black men appeared to plea the case of the 43 black students attending the [“colored school” on Jail Hill. The men] were Rev. J.J. Norris of St. Paul A.M.E. Church, William Mills, Charles Garner, and Jackson McDonald. The historic event captured the attention of the town’s newspapers—the Bellefonte Republican, Centre Democrat, and Democratic Watchman. The School Board initially did not release the minutes of the proceedings—thus a mixture of first-hand account and hearsay appeared in print.

The Watchman (9/11/1885) chastised the board for not releasing the September 8, 1885 minutes, and proceeded to berate alleged actions taken from “common report” it received. The paper suggested the board “granted even more than the colored committee asked,” namely, “that the three or four advanced scholars of their school should be . . . placed in higher schools, whereupon the Board abolished the school on the hill . . . for the colored children and decreed that (all) colored children should attend at the public school building, along with the white children.” The Watchman stated the board’s action “is highly censurable and deserves the condemnation of the community.” Citing overcrowded conditions, the paper warns, “This is all wrong, even leaving out of consideration the natural antipathy of the black and white children for each other, which will be likely to produce ill-feeling and discord, and perhaps injury and injustice among them.” 

A letter from the black committee appeared in the Republican (9/17/1885) “to set the citizens of this borough right in regard to our appeal. . . , we did not ask . . . that our children be placed in the public schools. . . . But on account of the number of pupils in our school we claim that one teacher cannot do justice to all the pupils having the studies required. . . . Another reason . . . is that many of the studies that are being taught in the other schools of this borough have not been taught in the school on the hill. . . . Now we desire that our children who are competent of being advanced to the higher branches of public school studies be advanced.” The letter concludes, “In reply to a question or two asked by the Watchman, we believe that the colored citizens are entitled to all rights that the white citizens have under the laws of Pennsylvania, and once in a while one of them pays a little school tax.”  

The 9/17/1885 edition also contains a letter from the six School Board members who attended the September 1885 session to “correct the errors the Watchman . . . has made in reference to the admission of the colored children into the Public Schools.” Countering allegations, the board members stated, “The truth is, there was no action taken. . . . They had none to take. All the minutes show, and they show exactly what was done, is ‘that a committee of colored citizens . . . came before the board and complained that the colored children did not enjoy equal facilities for receiving instruction with the white children.’” 

The board pointed out that the Act of the [Pennsylvania] Assembly, approved June 8, 1881*, provides “it shall be unlawful for any school director, superintendent or teacher to make any distinction whatever, on account of, or by reason of the race or color of any pupil or scholar who may be in attendance upon, or seek admission to, any public or common school, maintained wholly or in part under the school laws of this Commonwealth.” 

The board’s letter concludes, “Since the passage of the act of 1881 in some boroughs in this State where a separate school for colored children was maintained, the directors refused to admit the colored children into the other public schools. The colored people appealed to the courts and under this law the board was compelled by a mandamus to admit the colored children to the schools.”  

The Republican, in the same edition, summarized “The School Question” with an  account of the happenings surrounding the controversial series of events, reporting, “The vexed question of the admission of the colored children to the public school building has been amicably settled, by a conference between the committee appointed by the colored people and the committee from the school board. The agreement reached by the two committees was substantially this: The colored people are to have their own separate school with a colored teacher and when any of the pupils became so far advanced as to gain admission to the high school they were to be admitted. Thus peace reigns in Warsaw unless agitators and demagogues stir it up again.” 

The Watchman of 5/26/1886 reported “The Closing Exercises at the Colored School.” It reported, “The house was uncomfortably full, about half the audience being white people, including the Board of Directors,” adding the school’s teacher—Milton Furey—“seems to have brought the pupils forward rapidly. . . . In short the colored people of the town have good reason to be proud of this entertainment and of the perfection to which the pupils have attained.” While stressing [his opinion that] the school on the hill should remain in operation, the editor agreed the teacher should not send pupils to the higher schools, “except upon his certificate that they were ready to go there.”  

. . . The Watchman protestations were to no avail. The “separate, but equal” rationality would soon be history, and Bellefonte would take another step forward in racial equality and understanding. The substantive point is evident: The community of Bellefonte integrated its public schools amicably, despite the malicious exchanges in the local newsprint media. In a gradual manner, the colored students transferred to the public schools, and at the end of the 1886-87 year the school on the hill was closed. There were no court appeals by the school district, no violent protests by citizens, no major student incidents. 

In 1891, School District records showed that Charles Garner became the first African American to graduate from Bellefonte High School.  

Other records confirm that the high school’s first Black graduate was 20-year-old Charles Gilmore Garner, eldest son of Rev. Charles and Mary Garner, and one of six graduates of the Class of 1891. However, by the time young Charley graduated—in exercises held in the Garman Opera House on Thursday afternoon, May 21, 1891, “in the presence of a large crowd of admiring friends and relatives”—his parents and siblings had moved 30 miles southwestward to the Blair County borough of Tyrone. That move, and later postings that took the Garners to Bedford, to Lock Haven, to Waverly (Lackawanna County), and finally to Danville, will be covered in Part 3 of these “Notes on the Remarkable Rev. Garner.” 

*For a discussion of the bill passed on June 8, 1881—titled “A Further Supplement to the School Law of this Commonwealth and to Abolish All Distinction of Race or Color in the Public Schools Thereof”—see this article by historian Anne W. Stewart of the Crawford County Historical Society, Meadville, Pa.