Page 26 - Jefferson County AR 1889 History (Goodspeed)

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1 JEFFERSON COUNTY.
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the schwl one of the first of the kind in the South, three timedl as mnch as in the former year, and by far

and its influence has already been widely felt even the most of it was paid to teachers: this showsthat

during its brief existence. Its final cost was over the grade of teachers is rapidly improving. No

$42,000. institutes have been reported, and improvement in

The schools outside of Pine Bluff are all merely the grading of schools has not been very marked.

district schoole, and have increased from rear to A very large proportion of the teachers are col-

year since 1868. The population is so largely ored, and the faot of the location of the State

colored, that they are principally in the hands and Colored Normal School in the county has given

are compoaed of colored people. The general Je5ereon County a prestige and opportnnity held

ignorance of this race in 1868 has made their by no other colored county in the State.

growth in school management, although rapid aa There are really three religious periods in the

compared with their own condition, very slow and history of the county, corresponding to the early

wasteful as compared with white schools generally. French settlement^, the slave-holding period and

The fact that many school officerscan neither read the post-bellnm period. The first of these was

nor wri1.e has left the reports of the county in a Catholic, and the earliest church in the oounty in

lamentable condition until very recently, when the first years of this century was St. Mary's, on

some improvement has been manifest. the plantation afterward owned by Jndge James

The total ennmeration lor the year ending Senll. St. Mary'sConventwas contemporarywith

June 30, 1885, was 9,154, wbile there were it there, and under the conduct of the Sisters of

11,567 in 1888; the white enumeration in 1885 Charity, became one of the most famous schools of

was 2,127, to 7,027 colored, while in 1888 the the Sonthweet, where some ladies of the present

white were 2,755, to 8,782 colored; the white en- leading families were edncated The chnroh was

rollment (4,346) and the colored (5,609) in 1885 / removed to Pine Bluff several years before the war,

compares enviously with 1,550 white and 5,003 and will be mentioned farther on.

colored in 1888; a total of 9,955 in 1885 to 6,553 The ante-bellum period was characteri~edby
in 1888, which aeeme difficult to acwunt for, , white congregations of the Methodist, the Episco-

except by carelessness in reporting by district pal, the Catholic, the Presbyterian (0. S.), the

officers; that out of thirty-eight districts in 1885 Baptist and the Jewish societies. The Catholic had

four voted the five-mill tax, and twenty-nine out been here first; the Methodists had itinerants here

'of thirty-four voted it in 1888, shows a remarkable as early as 1819, according to best authority, bnt

development in popnlar interest; in 1886 there not very regularly until abont 1830; the Episoopal

were ninety-six teachere reported, of whom sixty- society came in next in 1838; the Baptists came in

'two were males and thirty-four females, while in probably next, and were well organized by 1854;

1888 there were reported ninety-five teachers, of the Presbyterians b e e m e a fixture in 1858, the

whom seventy-three were male and only faor aame year that the Jews began to make efforts to

female, a remarkable change as far as the sex of get a footing, although the latter did not organize

teachers is concerned; in 1885, the monthly wages until 1866.

ranged from 835 to $60, while in 1888 none were The post-bellum period is marked by the organ-

above $47.50; there were thirty-one sehwl houses ization of colored churches, and their mamelons

--one brick and thirty wood-in 1885, to thirty- growth. They are confined to the Missionary

four in 1888, some of logs; but two grounds were Baptist, the African Methodist Episcopal Church

inclosed in 1885, to eleven in 1888; the property, and the Methodist Episcopal Church deuomina-

valned in 1885 at $21,597, was increased in 1888 tions, which sprung u p in that chronological order.

*! to $32,220; the aniount expended in 1885 was but The Catholic Church seems to have fallen into

$9,844.15, while out of receipts which aggregated the background in the county by 1850, when Rev.

147,880.62 in 1888, 832,585.04 was spent, over Patrick A. McGowan came here, for there was no

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