Pastorate of Charles E. Herbert (spring 1877–mid-1878) 

Following John Coleman’s transfer to the AME Church’s Ohio Conference in the spring of 1877, Maryland native Charles E. Herbert came to Bellefonte to pastor both the St. Paul AME congregation and its infant counterpart in Lock Haven. [2] The 32-year-old Herbert was a veteran of the Civil War (having served as a private with Company F of the 39th Regiment of Colored Troops), as well as an 1872 graduate of Wilberforce University, where he had studied alongside John Welch’s son Isaiah.[3,4] The elder Welch noted Pastor Herbert’s ongoing service in Bellefonte in a historical sketch of the borough’s “African Methodist” congregation written midway through 1877. Welch further noted that the congregation’s membership had risen over the previous few years to 54, while its Sunday school served “about sixty” pupils. The church property was “valued at twenty-five hundred dollars.” [5] 

John Welch lived only a few months after penning that sketch. Following his death on March 19, 1878, at the estimated age of 68, he was lauded by fellow St. Paul AME church member (and future pastor) Charles Garner Sr. in a letter to the Christian Recorder as follows: “Mr. John Welsh [sic], one of the oldest colored citizens of this town, and much respected by all who knew him, has just breathed his last. He has always been an earnest, active member of the A. M. E. Church, and his death will leave a void in that little flock that will be hard to fill. . . . He has always been an earnest Republican, and was at the time of his death High Constable of Bellefonte. He has lived a long and useful life, has been a great benefactor to his race, and many a colored man has good reason to remember him with gratitude and love.” [6] 

Garner made no reference to the burial of John Welch’s earthly remains, but it seems likely they were interred in the plot in Bellefonte’s Union Cemetery that Welch had owned for over a decade. A deed dated May 11, 1867, records his payment of $25 to the Bellefonte Cemetery Association (owner-operators of Union Cemetery) for Lot 248, a 12-by-19-foot patch of ground in the cemetery’s northern midsection (Section 6), sloping down to Howard Street [7] (a “Fact Sheet from 1996” posted on the Bellefonte Union Cemetery website claims that the Howard Street entrance to the original “Bellefonte Grave-yard” lay between Welch’s Lot 248 and today’s Babyland section). Recent research by the author has turned up no earlier conveyance of Union Cemetery land to an African American. Welch’s motive for acquiring a burial plot in the spring of 1867 is not recorded, but his acquisition appears to have contributed to an informal earmarking of the area in and around Lot 248 as a burial location for African Americans, including deceased members of the St. Paul AME congregation. The few scattered gravestones visible in that area today (none of which are located within John Welch’s Lot 248) all mark the burial spots of African Americans. Cemetery chroniclers have no record of other gravestones planted in that immediate area, nor have they discovered unmarked gravesites thereabouts. But there must be at least a few. Late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century newspaper obituaries report scores of African American interments in the cemetery, and a ledger of Union Cemetery burials compiled from 1902 through 1919 indicates that the great majority of those interments occurred in unmarked graves. [8] As it is unlikely such burials were made in plots owned and used by white families (nearly all of which still feature gravestones memorializing white persons), it stands to reason that that some unmarked burials of Black Centre Countians were made in the area on the south side of Howard Street that included John Welch’s Lot 248. 

 

Pastorate of James Jones (1878–October 1879) 

Forty-six-year-old Pennsylvania native James Jones succeeded Charles E. Herbert as St. Paul AME pastor sometime in 1878. The Rev. Jones would serve the congregation for a year, as reflected in church records as well as a directory of churches published periodically in Bellefonte’s Centre Democrat. Directory entries referencing the borough’s “African Methodist” Church typically read: “Situated south [sic] end of High street. Services, Sunday 10:30 a.m., and 7:00 p.m. Prayer-meeting, Wednesday 7:00 p.m. Sunday school in church at 2:30 p.m. Pastor, Rev. Jones; residence, Thomas street.” [9] 

Pastor Jones was in charge when the St. Paul AME congregation sent forth its debut ensemble of Jubilee Singers to perform concerts in the Nittany Valley and beyond. In an article published in Pennsylvania Heritage, Central Pennsylvania historian and Mills Brothers scholar Daniel Clemson described St. Paul AME’s William H. Mills as the “founder and bass singer of the McMillen and Sourbeck Jubilee Singers in the 1870s. According to historians of black music, the ensemble was one of several professional groups in the United States that emerged and blossomed in imitation of the noted Fisk University Jubilee Singers . . . of Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, [who] are credited for introducing slave songs to the world in 1871 and preserving a unique American musical tradition known today as the Negro spiritual.” [10] 

A report in the May 16, 1878, edition of Centre Hall’s Centre Reporter—apparently penned by editor and proprietor Fred Kurtz—referenced several recent outings by Bellefonte’s Jubilee Singers. 

The Jubilee Singers, of Bellefonte, last week held concerts in the villages of this valley, including Centre Hall. The profits of their concerts are to be applied to the African Methodist church of Bellefonte. We had the pleasure of hearing the troup in the A.M.E. church here, and must say were surprised as well as pleased with their performance. There was nothing objectionable about the pieces sung by them[, which] consisted of those melodies used at their camp meetings and in their other religious assemblies. Their audiences everywhere were delighted, and gave them invitations to return, which they contemplate some time during the summer. The troup have the thanks of the editor favoring us with some choice pieces at our residence, after the close of their entertainment last Thursday evening. We recommend their concerts as strictly proper for all to attend. [11]

An announcement of a performance by Bellefonte’s Jubilee Singers, scheduled for April 29, 1880, in State College, revealed that as few as five vocalists were enough to pull off a concert. The scheduled performers were identified in the announcement as “Mrs. Mary Bond, soprano; Mrs. Maggie Brady, alto; Mr. George G. Skinner, tenor; Mr. John P. Thomas, baritone; and Mr. A.V. Jackson, basso.” [12] Mary Bond was the 24-year-old wife of young Bellefonte barber A.W. Bond, while Maggie Williams Brady—married to hotel waiter Alvin Brady—was a 26-year-old half-niece of Adeline Lawson, head cook in the Bellefonte household of former Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Gregg Curtin. Thirty-four-year-old day laborer John Thomas, a Georgia native, lived with his wife and five children near the A.W. Bond family in Bellefonte’s South Ward. Barber George G. Skinner and bank watchman Abraham Valentine Jackson, new members of the St. Paul congregation (details to follow), rounded out the “universally praised” quintet that had “frequently been heard throughout the county,” and could be expected to “render one of their delightful concert programmes at State College on Thursday, [April 29, 1880].” [13, 14]   

Among the St. Paul AME congregation’s other fundraising activities during Pastor Jones’ one-year tenure were dance-based “cake walks” and food-centered “festivals.” One of the latter, announced in the January 30, 1879, edition of the Centre Democrat, was described as an effort to “pay off some of the struggling denomination’s old debts.” Slated to be held in “the vacant rooms in McClain’s block, just next to the [Democratic] Watchman office” (across W. High Street from the Bush House), the event was sure to “commend itself to everyone,” the announcement continued. “There will no doubt be good things enough on hand to repay all for going, and the small amount that will be required in payment. The best skill of some of the old colored folks will be employed, and those who attend can, for the time being, fancy themselves on an old plantation in the south. . . . Those who wish to aid a good cause and the same time want a good meal, should certainly attend.” [15] The Democrat reported a week later that “over twenty-six dollars were realized from the festival.” [16] Another AME fundraising festival was “gotten up very hastily” in the same venue the following August. Despite the event being held on short notice, “receipts were $18.16, and as the expenses were but about $3, the church was benefited financially to the extent of $15.” [17] 

 

Pastorate of John M. Palmer (October 1879–October 1882) 

The Rev. Jones was succeeded in October 1879 by John Moore Palmer, a 26-year-old Lewistown native embarking on his first pastoral appointment. Palmer was no stranger to Bellefonte, having “received his training at the Bellefonte Academy” before completing his formal education at “the Allegheny College, and, lastly, the Philadelphia Divinity College” (as reported in the 1916 Centennial Encyclopaedia of the African Methodist Episcopal Church [18]; established in 1805 as a private secondary school for classical instruction, the Bellefonte Academy educated teenage sons and daughters of many prominent Centre County families; among its alumni were Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Gregg Curtin and Robert J. Walker, 4th Territorial Governor of Kansas). Despite his lack of experience, John Palmer proved (at least in William Mills’ estimation) to be “a bright and intelligent minister” to the St. Paul AME congregation. [19] The novice preacher’s welcome back to Bellefonte included a close brush with a fire that destroyed several buildings along the borough’s E. Logan Street, including the long-vacant “hewn log” AMEZ church. The October 31 fire “came near [to] burning out [the residence of the] Rev. John M. Palmer, who lately moved his family to [Bellefonte],” it was reported in Berks County’s Reading Times a few days later.[20]

The Palmer family comprised the young pastor, his wife Mary (née Dunmore), and the couple’s infant daughter Mercy. Though the Palmers were spared the grief of seeing their belongings go up in flames along E. Logan Street, 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. Her body was taken to [her native] Lewistown for interment” [21] (the cause of Mary Palmer’s death was not noted in the announcement).   

Pastor Palmer was by then several months into what would turn out to be a highly consequential three-year stint with the St. Paul congregation. According to William Mills, it was under the Rev. Palmer’s care in 1880 that bank watchman Abraham Valentine Jackson, former Bellefonte High Constable Charles Garner Sr., and young barber George G. Skinner “were converted . . . and united with the church.” [22, 23, 24] The following year, Palmer mentored Mills himself through a religious conversion that culminated in the journeyman barber being “received into full connection” with the St. Paul congregation in June 1881. [25]

A vivid picture of the AME Church’s inaugural “central Pennsylvania district Sunday-school convention and literary convention,” held in Bellefonte and hosted by the St. Paul AME congregation over four days in early July 1880, was penned by Pastor Palmer and submitted to the Christian Recorder. The following excerpt from Palmer’s detailed report describes the first two days of the memorable convention, as well as its inspiring conclusion:  

On the 3d of July we held a district Sunday-school and literary convention. The opening exercises were conducted by Rev. W[illiam] H[ubert] Palmer [J.M. Palmer’s elder brother]. Having been selected as chairman pro tem, he made some appropriate remarks before taking the chair; asking in prayer divine guidance throughout our deliberations. Delegates were present from Bloomsburg, Danville, Williamsport, Lockhaven and Lewistown. The afternoon exercises were abbreviated after a spirited debate, that we might meet the several delegations on the train from the east. 

Saturday evening’s exercises were closed amid the loud [pre-Independence Day] reports of rockets and firearms upon the summit of Half-moon hill, which is closely allied in its location to St. Paul’s A.M.E. Chapel. Amid the clanging of the bells and the odors of much dreaded powder, the delegates were escorted to their temporary homes to pass the night in slumber, undisturbed but by the happy dreams of how we as Christians should celebrate our fourth of July. 

Sunday morning, the 4th having arrived, a day of spiritual animation seemed to await us, for many who had joined in family prayer about the altars—of which there are not a few here—said they felt the foreboding of a good time. Before we had arrived at Jerusalem, we could not but say as Cleopas and his friend, “Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked with us by the way?” 

Our people assembled ahead of time, and while the preachers were marching up the hill to meet the Lord, the glad echoes reached our ears and penetrated our hearts. In the afternoon at two o’clock the Chapel was half filled with white friends, of those, too, that we can really call friends, such as Hon. James A. Beaver; delegates to the Republican convention, Chicago; Mr. Steward Lyons; Mr. W.E. Humes and others of the most prominent citizens of this place. The exercises were introduced with prayer by Brother S. Collins, of Bloomsburg. Hymn, “All hail the power,” after which the Sunday-school’s address of welcome was delivered by Bro. Geo. G. Skinner, Superintendent, which was a telling effort, portraying for the young Cicero a handsome future with a heart full of Sunday-schools and literature. The next was a quartette by the [William and Cecilia] Mills family, selection, “Have you any room for Jesus?” This was well rendered, charming many of the visitors, more especially the whites, numbers even rising to their feet to get a look at sweet little Helen and Carrie [Mills; ages 9 and 7, respectively]. They did their work well, acquitting themselves in the estimation of the people. Misses Melissa Graham, Bertha Graham, and Miss Anna Williams represented the Christian graces, Faith, Hope and Charity. Having hearts filled with the grace of God, the young ladies nobly portrayed those essential graces. After the children’s floral tribute, [17-year-old] Miss Katie Miller delivered a declamation on flowers, holding in her fingers a tiny white snowdrop which she pointed to at intervals with the index finger of her right hand, arresting the attention of the audience without a failure. We attribute Miss Miller’s success to the A.M.E. Literary Society of which she is a faithful member and has been since its organization. Miss Miller on Tuesday evening outrivaled her effort of Sunday in a reply to Col. Ingersol [politician and renowned orator Robert G. Ingersoll?] , in language and sentiment that would have moved the Colonel himself. I feel the lady would have painted the parapets of Tophet. I shall not be able to tell of all the speeches and of those who took part in the various exercises. Bros. John Williams, [barber] M.S. Graham, and [barber] Geo. Simms, represented the pioneers of African Methodism and Sunday schools in this place, sitting by the vacant seat of Father John Welch who has gone to his reward. Mr. W.H. Mills furnished a very fine musical program, and Miss Mary Morris, of Danville, presided at the organ, giving great satisfaction. 

At half past seven, the congregation having assembled, the convention choir rendered some fine music. Text in the evening, “Quit you like men.” After the benediction the congregation quietly repaired to their homes, with a seeming expression of joy upon their countenance. 

. . . The convention closed on Tuesday evening, July 6th, with a cold water love feast. We had a time that will ever be remembered in this district, and [as] Bellefonte has entertained the first district Sunday-school convention, we can say the movement started right at the fountain head and we sincerely hope that all the subordinate and tributary streams will lend their assistance in composing the great intellectual flood that shall redeem our people. There is a lasting impression upon the minds of our people here who were sorry when the convention came to a close. “We are rising, we are rising.” [26]

During the winter of 1880-81, the St. Paul AME congregation made “extensive repairs” to its 20-year-old home on Halfmoon Hill. The scope of those repairs—beyond “adorning the interior with fresh paint”—was not reported in local newspapers. The work didn’t preclude the holding of “a series of revival meetings” in the church beginning on Sunday, February 13, 1881, “under the charge of Rev. J.M. Palmer, assisted by Rev. W.H. Brown, of Williamsport.” [27] Three weeks later, on Sunday evening, March 6, the congregation held services “incidental to the opening of [its] renovated and improved edifice to public worship,” the Centre Democrat reported. The services “were fully as interesting as had been anticipated. The interior of the building is now quite pleasant, and the congregation deserve much credit for the expense and labor involved in its improved appearance.” [28] 

On April 20, 1881, the St. Paul AME congregation lost another spiritual pillar through the death of octogenarian John Williams. A eulogy submitted by an unidentified Bellefonte resident to the Christian Recorder lauded Williams as “the most prominent man in the building of two churches in this beautiful town” (i.e., the recently-burned AMEZ hewn log meetinghouse-and-schoolhouse on E. Logan Street, and the frame AME Church on Halfmoon Hill). [29] William Mills later opined in his congregational history that “Uncle John, as he was called by everyone who knew him, was an honest, upright man.” Implying that Williams, his wife Mary, and first child Isaac had fled enslavement in Maryland and settled on Halfmoon Hill around 1830, Mills reported that “Uncle John was employed by [William A.] Thomas as a sawyer on the old sawmill that stood on the site of the present F.W. Crider mill [beside the W. Lamb Street bridge] at the time his freedom was purchased by Mr. Thomas. By his energy, thrift and economy, [Williams] succeeded in saving enough of his earnings to refund the purchase money to Mr. Thomas for his kind and friendly act.” John and Mary Williams raised a “very large family” in their home a short walk from the St. Paul AME Church. Mills identified the adult Williams offspring as “Isaac, Joshua, Jacob, William, Mariah Williams, Tamazine McDonnell, Mary Harding, and Julia Hawkins, all of whom are residents of Bellefonte [in 1909] with the exception of the latter two, who moved west.” [30] The Christian Recorder eulogy further noted that “Uncle John” was “for many long years a very intimate friend of [AME] Bishop [James A.] Shorter, and also of Bishop [A.W.] Wayman. It was [Williams] who organized the Sunday school here [in Bellefonte], and attended the same all through his life. At his death he held the offices of trustee, steward and leader.” [31]

On May 5, 1881, St. Paul pastor J.M. Palmer and Harrisburg resident Mary Jane Weaver were wed in a ceremony held in the home of the bride’s grandmother in Pennsylvania’s Capitol 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.” [32] 

At the 14th annual conference of the Pittsburgh District AME Church, held in October 1881, J.M. Palmer was reappointed to the St. Paul AME congregation, extending his term in Bellefonte to three years. He was gratified to see one of his recent “converts,” 31-year-old George Galbraith  Skinner (a free-born Baltimore native, identified in a June 1880 Bellefonte newspaper article as “assistant barber in the shaving saloon of William Mills”) “received into traveling connection” as an AME minister, in a ceremony conducted by the Bishop Shorter. Skinner’s inaugural appointment as a “traveling preacher” was to the AME congregation in Bloomsburg. [33, 34]  

Possibly because he was busy organizing and presiding over “bush meetings” in Williamsport during the last week of July 1882, J.M. Palmer was not a reported participant in similar meetings conducted by the St. Paul AME congregation the following August and September in wooded groves outside Bellefonte. [35, 36, 37] Also known as “camp meetings,” day-long bush meetings typically involved preaching, praying, singing, and sumptuous picnicking. “Money offerings” collected at the close of such meetings could inject much-needed funds into AME congregation coffers. As reported by the Centre Democrat, the clergyman in charge of bush meetings conducted by Bellefonte’s “Colored Wesley Church” in August and September 1882—the Rev. Moses Pinkney “from Bellefonte”—was assisted by visiting AME clergymen. [38, 39]   

No other records of Moses Pinkney’s service to the St. Paul AME congregation have been discovered. Pinkney would die a few years later (1885) while visiting a friend in Lock Haven. A death notice in that town’s Daily Democrat noted only that he was “a colored man, aged about 60 years [who] belonged in Bellefonte.” [40] 

At the 15th annual conference of the Pittsburgh District AME Church, held in Uniontown, Pennsylvania in October 1882, three-year Bellefonte pastor J.M. Palmer was appointed to the dual pastorate of Pennsylvania’s Meadville and Erie AME congregations. For good measure, he and his brother W.H. Palmer were ordained Presiding Elders for their respective AME Districts. [41] Pastor Palmer preached his farewell sermon in the St. Paul AME Church on Sunday, October 1. The exhortation was “very touching,” a Centre Democrat reporter opined. “An intimacy, cemented by [the pastor’s three-year] ministerial association, had taken firm hold upon the members of Mr. Palmer’s church, and had spread into the community. We know of no one who does not wish the gentleman lifelong prosperity.” [42] 

Pastorate of George J. Clift (October 1882–c. September 1884)  

The Rev. George J. Clift succeeded J.M. Palmer as St. Paul AME pastor in October 1882. [43] The 45-year-old Clift was much more experienced than his predecessor, having ministered to AME congregations in his native New York City in the late 1860s, then holding appointments in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and, most recently, central Pennsylvania’s “Lewistown, Huntingdon, and Bedford Circuit.” [44, 45, 46] He must have earned a sterling reputation, as his colleagues elected him president of the African Methodist Episcopal Sunday School convention held in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, in June 1883. [47] 

A year into the Rev. Clift’s two-year pastorate in Bellefonte, the St. Paul AME congregation hosted the 16th annual meeting of the AME Church’s Pittsburgh District over a six-day period in early October 1883. Upwards of 50 AME clergymen and officials traveled to Bellefonte to attend the series of meetings held primarily in the “St. Paul Chapel” on Halfmoon Hill. Their arrival inspired a writer for the Centre Democrat to observe that “Bellefonte is fast becoming a favorite locality for conventions. Our bracing mountain air, our lovely mountain scenery, and the size and reputation of our hotels all recommend us to the stranger, and we rejoice that this is so.” Noting that “Bishop James A. Shorter of Ohio is here with some eloquent clergyman,” the writer recommended midway through the conference that “our colored friends [convene] their session in some other building on [Sunday, October] the 7th. Their own [building] is not large enough to hold those of us who wish to listen to the learned bishop. We as a people are much interested in the work as it progresses in this branch of our population, and would like to have this opportunity, to learn what has been done (for much has been done) and what they propose to do in the future. We can’t but see that the colored man is fitting himself every year more fully for citizenship, both spiritually and mentally. It is a great work, and they are helping themselves.” [48]

The conference’s Sunday session was indeed convened in a roomier venue: the Centre County Courthouse. The edifice “never saw a larger crowd than on Sunday afternoon,” declared a Centre Democrat reporter several days later. Bishop Shorter, “a charming old man and an educated gentleman,” had charge of the proceedings, which included the Rev. J.J. Jones delivering “a soul-stirring appeal to the young clergy council to strengthen themselves in the Holy Spirit.” Later in the proceedings, George G. Skinner, the former Bellefonte barber, Jubilee Singer, and Sunday school superintendent now serving as a traveling pastor to AME congregations in Salem and Warren, Ohio, was ordained into full ministry. “How pleasant for him to take this step in the presence of his home friends,” mused the Centre Democrat reporter. 

The Rev. Clift performed at least one wedding ceremony in the St. Paul AME church during his two-year pastorate in the Centre County seat. A Bellefonte News report of the June 19, 1884, nuptials offered a detailed view into the lives and associations of St. Paul members and their supportive white neighbors. The following transcription has been annotated with biographical details (in brackets) gleaned from census records and other sources: 

On Thursday evening the A.M.E. Church of this place was filled with a very fine audience, about equally divided between the white and dark elements of Bellefonte’s population. Among the Caucasians present were Messrs. E[dward] C. Humes [president of the First National Bank of Bellefonte], Col. [Daniel K.] Tate [contractor], William Humes [lumber merchant], James H. Rankin [attorney], George Harris [physician], and [Associate] Judge [and physician James R.] Smith, most of whom were accompanied by the lady members of their households. Several of Bellefonte’s lady school teachers were present, eager to take lessons in the art of getting married. 

The occasion which called these people together was the marriage of Mr. Jackson McDonald to Mrs. Thomasine Green [born Tamazine Williams, daughter of “Uncle John” and Mary Williams; Tamazine was also the widow of Civil War veteran Alexander Green, who had died “quite suddenly” on April 7, 1879]. When the hour of 8 o’clock arrived, the wedding party entered the church. The bridesmaid, Miss Graham [daughter of barber Meshic Graham and his wife Sarah Williams—the latter being an elder sister of the bride], and the groomsman, Mr. Nelson, moved first up the aisle, Miss Graham turning to the left and Mr. Nelson to the right. Then came the bride and groom. The entire party turned when near the pulpit and faced the audience. Rev. J.G. Clift occupied a position in front of the contracting couple and solemnly repeated the long marriage service. The bride and groom joined hands with intense earnestness during the ceremony. The service of that church seems to be a very secure one, and it is difficult to imagine how any persons united in such apparently indissoluble bonds can ever be severed. 

The bride was dressed in what we thought to be a cream-tinted costume, but which a lady told us is pure white. Anyway, it was very lovely, and the lady who wore it with [a] delicate orange blossom in her hair was indeed a charming bride. Jackson, the groom, was lost in an ecstasy of happiness, and so engrossed in each other were they that the happy ceremony was like a pleasant dream to them. The bridesmaid is quite a queenly lady and looked surpassingly beautiful in blue, while Mr. [Jackson] was manly and good humoured in black. After the ceremony many friends followed the party to the home of Mr. [Meshic] Graham, where the congratulations took place. We suppose, too, that supper was served, which was fit for a monarch’s feast, and that the presents were duly inspected and admired. With a profound courtesy we wish Mr. and Mrs. Jackson McDonald superabundant happiness and prosperity. 

Presents Received. 

The happy couple received quite a large collection of presents as the following published list will attest: Mr. and Mrs. Dr. [George and Mary Curtin] Harris, china set and one castor [the bride had worked as a domestic servant in the Harris residence]; Mr. R.H. Nelson, castor; Mesdames Hazel and Shields [white maids in the Harris residence], washing set, each; Miss Katie Harris and Adeline Harris [young daughters of George and Mary (Curtin) Harris], one chromo, each; Miss McManus [daughter of lawyer James McManus], one fruit dish; Mrs. E. Hoover, one vase; Mrs. J[ohn] D. Emory [a.k.a. Alice Simms], fruit dish; Mr. and Mrs. [James and Mary Letitia] Carter, one set of china; Mr. and Mrs. A.V. [and Nanie Lee] Jackson, set of glassware; Mr. and Mrs. J[ohn and Mary] Williams [parents of the bride], glass set; Mr. and Mrs. George [and Katie Graham] Freeman [Katie being a first cousin of the bride], glass set; Mr. and Mrs. [William and Cecilia Sims] Mills one fruit dish; Rev. Clift, card stand; Miss J. Reynolds, one sugar spoon; Melissa Graham [first cousin of the bride], of Lock Haven, one fruit dish; Mr. and Mrs. C[harles and Mary Gilmore] Garner, two toilet covers; Mr. and Mrs. Butler, of Lock Haven, one half dozen salts and one soup turine; Mr. and Mrs. William [and Mary Miller] Green, one half dozen salts and one fruit dish; Mr. and Mrs. [A.W. and Mary] Bond, one castor; Mr. and Mrs. [Thomas and Rachel Harding] Taylor, one castor; Mr. George Simms, one mantle ornament; Miss T[ennie] Graham [first cousin of the bride], one mantle ornament; Mr. J. Lewis, one set vases; Mr. and Mrs. A[lvin and Maggie] Brady, one set glassware; Mary [Ann] Gilmore, one teapot, two cups, two saucers, and two plates; Miss A[deline] Lawson, napkins; K[atie]  Miller, one glass tray; Miss Ida Molson [of Lock Haven], two linen pieces; Mr. and Mrs. E[dward and Lizzie] Molson [of Lock Haven], one linen piece; Mrs. M. Johnson, one half dozen dessert dishes and two pieces of linen; Mr. and Mrs. [Meshic and Sarah Williams] Graham, one bedspread and one set of lunch napkins; Mr. and Mrs. B. Williams, two towels; Katie and Adeline Harris, two lunch clothes; Mr. and Mrs. L[evi and Tamazine Williams] Pennington [a.k.a., Pendleton; Tamazine had the same maiden name as the bride], fancy match stand; Mr. E.C. Humes and son, one bedroom set.” [50]  

 Pastorate of Joshua James Norris (November 1884–October 1887)  

George J. Clift’s two-year pastorate in Bellefonte appears to have ended in turmoil sometime prior to October 1884. The turbulence would be cited a year later, during the October 1885 annual conference of the Pittsburgh District AME Church, when Clift’s successor at St. Paul AME Church, the Rev. Joshua James Norris, charged Clift with “trying to collect $180 back pay from the Bellefonte Church, making threats of instituting legal action, and with illegally expelling members of the church.” Presiding Bishop A.W. Wayman ultimately ruled that, “while Methodist law does not provide for collecting back salary, there is nothing to prevent a minister from taking the money if he can get it.” The bishop further noted that “the expelled members [of the St. Paul AME congregation had since] been reinstated by the quarterly conference,” which effectively “settled the matter.” [51]   

J.J. Norris (as he was widely known) succeeded G.J. Clift as St. Paul AME pastor in November 1884. The 41-year-old son of parents formerly enslaved in Maryland, Norris had grown up north of Scranton, where he worked as a young man for farmer, surveyor, politician, and Civil War officer Major Albert I. Ackerly. [52, 53]  Norris was a veteran himself, having served as a private in Company G of the 3rd U.S. Colored Infantry from his enlistment in July 1863 until his discharge in October 1865. [54] In the fall of 1880, while working as farm laborer, Norris had been “assigned to pastor a church in the Pittsburgh area,” as reported in a Scranton newspaper. [55] Norris moved with his wife Melvina and three children to the Monongahela Valley, where he was recorded in 1881 pastoring the Allen Chapel in Elizabeth, 17 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. [56] He then served AME congregations in Monongahela City and Pleasant Green for two years before receiving the appointment to Bellefonte in October 1884. 

Pastor Norris would fill the pulpit at the St. Paul AME Church through the following three years (concluding in October 1887). On the afternoon of Wednesday, July 22, 1885, he welcomed AME Bishop Jabez Pitt Campbell to Bellefonte, as the elderly clergyman was conducting “his first grand raid through the Seventh and Eighth Presiding Elder Districts of the Pittsburgh Conference.” A brief description of Campbell’s 18-hour sojourn in Bellefonte was penned by the Bishop’s chaperone on that occasion: former St. Paul AME pastor John M. Palmer, now stationed in Williamsport and serving as Presiding Elder of the Williamsport District. Wrote Palmer in a report to the Christian Recorder, titled “Campbell’s Raid”: “We were met and entertained [in Bellefonte] very pleasantly by Elder J.J. Norris and his excellent [wife Melvina], who cannot fail to impress one of the fact of her being the true type of a minister’s wife. The Bishop preached for Elder Norris’ congregation in St. Paul’s Chapel and expressed himself as pleased with the very handsome edifice which we have at that place; said church is also in a good spiritual condition.” [57]

A few months later, Pastor Norris, his assistant minister Charles Garner Sr., barber William Mills, and newlywed Jackson McDonald met privately with the Bellefonte School Board to voice their concern that the borough’s school-age Black children were not receiving a public education on par with their white peers, as required by law [58] (an Act of the Pennsylvania Assembly passed in 1881 had overturned an 1854 law that effectively segregated the Commonwealth’s public schools for a quarter-century; the 1881 legislation made it “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”). [59] 

Since the mid-1870s, Bellefonte’s Black children had been educated in an eight-grade “colored school” built by the School Board for that purpose on Bellefonte’s “Jail Hill” (across E. High Street from the county lock-up). [60] Classes for all students were taught there by a single teacher, who couldn’t possibly provide “the proper attention that each student should have,” nor offer “all of the studies that are taught in the [whites-only] public schools of this borough,” Pastor Norris and his committee later argued in an open letter published in the town’s newspapers. [61] Though the committee was chiefly interested in upgrading conditions and educational opportunities for the 43 students in the colored school—including affording high school educations to qualified Black students—the rancorous public debate sparked by their plea to Bellefonte’s School Board ultimately led the school directors to acknowledge that operating racially segregated schools was no longer lawful. The borough’s school system would have to be integrated. And so it was, beginning at the start of the 1886-87 school year, and proceeding gradually over the course of that year until the colored school was vacant. [62] 

Assistant St. Paul AME minister Charles Garner Sr. had more than a pastoral interest in improving educational opportunities for Bellefonte’s Black students. He and his wife had six children rising through the borough’s school system in 1886-87, and a seventh child was approaching school age. If Bellefonte’s high school had remained closed to Black students, the secondary education of the Garners’ eldest son—Charles Jr., turned 16 in the spring of 1887—would have ceased in a matter of weeks. Now, as a result of changes instigated by his father and other leaders of the St. Paul AME congregation, the junior Charles was permitted to join the high school’s next freshmen class. Four years later, he would earn the distinction of being the school’s first Black graduate (Class of 1891). [63] 

__________________

1 Linn 1883:552

2 ibid

3 U.S. Veterans Affairs Office 2000:n.p.

4  Butler-Mokoro 2010:244

5  Welch 1877:309

6  Garner 1878:n.p.

7 Centre County Deed Book 28:407

8 Publications Committee of the Centre County Genealogical Society 2010:188

9 Centre Democrat 1879a:5

10 Clemson 2012:n.p.

11 Centre Reporter 1878:5

12 Centre Democrat 1880:8

13 ibid

14 United States Bureau of the Census 1880

15 Centre Democrat 1879b:8

16 Centre Democrat 1879c:8

17 Centre Democrat 1879d:8

18 Wright 1916:174

19 Mills 1909:16

20 Reading Times 1879:2

21 Centre Democrat 1880a:8

22 Mills 1909:16

23 Centre Democrat 1880b:1

24 United States Bureau of the Census 1860

25 Mills 1909:16

26 Palmer 1880:n.p.

27 Centre Democrat 1881a:8

28 Centre Democrat 1881b:8

29 Christian Recorder 1882:3

30 Mills 1909:4-5

31 Christian Recorder 1882:3

32 Harrisburg Telegraph 1881:4

33 Centre Democrat 1880c:1

34 Times Leader 1881:1

35 Williamsport Sun-Gazette 1882:1

36 Centre Democrat 1882a:8

37 Centre Democrat 1882b:8

38 Centre Democrat 1882a:8

39 Centre Democrat 1882b:8

40 Daily Democrat 1885:n.p.

41 Centre Democrat 1882c:6

42 Centre Democrat 1882b:8

43 Daily Republican 1882:1

44 United States Bureau of the Census 1870

45 Everett Press 1881:4

46 Times Leader 1881:1

47 Harrisburg Telegraph 1883:1

48 Centre Democrat 1883a:2

49 Centre Democrat 1883b:8

50 Bellefonte News 1884

51 Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette 1885:2

52 Scranton Republican 1880:3

53 Pennsylvania House of Representatives 2024:n.p.

54 Ancestry.com 2007:n.p.

55 Scranton Republican 1880:3

56 Times Leader 1881:1

57 Palmer 1885:n.p.

58 Centre Democrat 1885:4

59 Pennsylvania School Boards Association 2020:6-8

60 Centre County Deed Book 35:562

61 Clemson and Hannegan 2008-09:n.p.

62 ibid

63 Ruth 2023:n.p.

 

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