Berea College - Chimes Yearbook (Berea, KY)

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Still another aspect of Fee ' s personality can be seen in his break with Cassius M. Clay at a public meeting near Slate Lick on July 4, 1856. There is a little doubt that Fee had been countenanced, so to speak, by many men in the area due to Clay ' s power and prestige. Even so, realizing the protection which Clay gave him, Fee dared to maintain there was a higher law condemning slavery and that a man should break with the constitution and the courts when they declared slavery legal. Fee ' s public statement of his position caused the two men to go their separate ways. Notwithstanding these things, Fee became the patriarch of Berea and remained so until his death in 1901. The next consequential figure upon the Ridge was J. A. R. Rogers. He came in 1858 to a defenseless com- munity. It must be remembered that besides Fee ' s home and a few other houses, there was still nothing here. Thus Rogers and his wife toiled on with fifteen pupils. This was a strange and new experience for the young girl-wife, reared in the comforts of a Philadelphia home ... Let us not leave the impression that it was an unhappy year. Far from it! This was an adaptable couple who accepted the challenges of a man and wife, thoroughly steeped in a classical education, starting to teach fifteen pupils, many of whom could not yet read or write. Rogers ' liberal at- titude is shown, for example, in speaking of the hymns taught these children. Perhaps some of the hymns would not bear criticism, but the simple truths they taught reach- ed the simple hearts ... By 1858 the idea of founding a college on the Ridge had grown until the moment was ripe for formal organi- zation. Consequently in the same year, a constitution was drawn up and signed by John G. Fee, J. A. R. Rogers, J. S. Davis, George Candee, William Strapp, John G. Hanson, John Smith, T. J. Renfro, and John Brunam, al- though it was not until 1866 that the new organization was incorporated. Between the writing of the constitution and the incorporation, the exile of the Bereans and the Civil War intervened. John Brown ' s raid at Harper ' s Ferry stirred the South and fear of slave insurrection was everywhere. Berea stood for liberty in a slave state, and soon the handful of citizens on the Ridge, who went entirely unarmed, became the center of rumors and suspicion in the minds of Kentucky people. Fee, in the East at the time, was thought to be raising John Browns for Kentucky. Another story afoot was that a shipment of smuggled guns had been intercepted on the way to Berea. The whole state of affairs culminated in an ensemble of sixty men serving notice on eleven Berea families to leave their homes in ten days or suffer the consequences. An appeal to the Governor failed, and The farewells were uttered and the exiles mounted their various vehicles to begin the march. They formed a motley but not dangerous pro- cession, these ' people who were a menace to Kentucky. ' Patriach, and babes in arms, a bride and groom, men and women in the prime of life, young people and children of all ages, moved slowly from the hill. Before the exile, the leaders of the school bargained for 109 acres of land on the Ridge and during the War, Fee raised the money with which to pay for the Wooline Purchase. The exiles did return, Rogers as early as 1862, and the real start, the real period of development for Berea College, was yet to begin. At this stage, in 1866, The college possessed 109 acres of uncleared woodlands, worth only a few dollars per acre, it had no endowment, no credit, no buildings of any kind. The years which followed were an attempt to remedy the situation, a remedy which be- -7—

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A Hundred Years of Progress . . . Berea College aims to carry the opportunity for higher education to one of the finest stocks of original Americans that are found in this country. We all know that they are of the finest and most patriotic elements of the nation, and the splendid work that Berea College is doing among them is thoroughly deserving of all appreciation. — Warren G. Harding. This is a brief and, we hope not too inadequate history of a college and its presidents. THE FIRST BEREA SCHOOL HOUSE In 1853 Cassius M. Clay, with a view toward estab- lishing in this area a center of free speech, non-slave-hold- ing interests, began to dispose of his large tract of land in the region, which included present-day Berea. There was nothing here at the time except a dense thicket of brush which later went by the name of The Bresh. Even in succeeding years Principal Rogers ' son remarked that a man who stepped six feet off the bridle paths could not be seen. Meanwhile, a preacher by the name of John G. Fee had been teaching the doctrine of impartial love anywhere he could find a pulpit in the region along the Ohio River. It was this man who attracted the attention of Clay. So that Fee and his wife might be induced to make their home here, and perhaps to be the core of Clay ' s settlement, he offered Fee ten acres as a gift. Incidentally, these ten acres were not the first college property. Fee settled here sometime in 1854 and for a short while preached in the Old Glade Church. The following year, 1855, the first rude school house was built, but it must be remembered that Mr. Fee ' s early work was chiefly of an evangelical nature, The planting of new churches and the conversion of new souls ... Let us for a moment gather an impression of Fee the man. He was not a Hell-fire-and-damnation preacher. Rogers ' recollection of Fee ' s preaching was, His manner is calm but earnest, and grows in intensity as he proceeds, with shoulders thrown up and head bent forward. He makes his points clearly and quotes scripture for everyone of his propositions. And then there is the account of the famous Big Bend incident of 1858 where Fee went to conduct a service despite the warning of friends. In the middle of the meeting three men entered, and seizing Fee by the collar of his coat, dragged him to the door. Outside, dangling a rope before him, they swore he would be hanged unless he promised to leave the county and never return. Refusing to give such a promise, he and one of his companions were marched to the Kentucky River. At the bank of the river they took Fee ' s friend, ordered him to strip and flogged him with sycamore switches so that red welts showed on his back. Fee was threatened with five hundred times as much. When he remained adamant and refused, the mob mounted their horses and marched the two captives a short distance. Un- able to overcome Fee ' s firm stand, the mob left them.

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came even more pressing as students began to flood the school. In these following years, the college began to clear its land, erected two small plaster buildings, a box chapel, a temporary Boarding Hall, two cottages for young men, and a combined store and dwelling for more teachers. Rogers and Fee, besides doing their regular work in Berea, were raising $18,000 for the erection of Howard Hall. Even more important was the calling of E. H. Fairchild to become Berea ' s first president in 1869. Between 1869 and 1889 one can fairly say the college felt a period of sky-rocketing growth. In 1871 Ladies Hall was completed; in 1879 a frame Gothic Chapel; in 1882 the railroad came; in 1886 Lincoln Hall was finished; 430 students were enrolled; and the endowment was $100,000. Generally not much is said for the intervening years between 1889 (Fairchild ' s death) and 1892, the beginning of William G. Frost ' s administration. A man by the name of Stewart was president, and he was by temperament suited to the work of a teacher rather than an administea- tive official. So there came a time of increasing debts and a corresponding loss of friends and influence for Berea. In 1892 William Goodell Frost accepted the office of Berea ' s third president. He might be termed the great molder, the great adaptor. It would be foolish to speak of this man in terms of buildings, the evolution of a cur- riculum, the growth of the endowment, and as a factor in bringing Berea into some of the country ' s most influ- ential circles, from T. R. Roosevelt to Woodrow Wilson. He did all these things, but more so let it be remembered that Frost brought to the college a sense of adaptability which is seldom seen in most institutions. We can show this by several pertinent illustrations. Over and over again, Frost repeated that even if a student comes to Berea for only five months, then these must be the most meaningful months of his life. The college must adapt, to his needs and when the needs change then the college must readapt. At the time when the Day Law was passed in 1904 the Berea endowment stood at about $400,000, money vitally needed by the school and collected only through the strenuous fund-raising campaigns of Rogers, Fairchild, and Frost. However, this money had been gathered at the time when Berea served both white and Negro stu- dents. Now the law required that Berea become either an all-white or all-Negro school. From every side it was an awful situation to face. The principle prevailed that trust funds must be used in accordance with the repre- sentation made when they were secured. Clearly the color- ed should have half the $200,000 gathered by Rogers and Fairchild in reconstruction times when the colored consti- tuted half the school ... The trustees worked out a formula by which half the property owned by the college up to 1892 and two-elevenths of the additional property secured when the Negroes were about one-seventh of the student body, making a sum in all of about $200,000, should go to the founding of a separate Negro school. Lincoln Institute in Kentucky. To this an additional $200,000 was placed in order that the new school might be a good school. In the period following the Day Law, electricity and student industries ( as we know them in the modern sense) came to Berea. The last of the college lands were cleared. The Industrial Buildings, Pearsons Hall, Phelps Stokes, a stone part of the library, Talcott and Kentucky Halls, the main building of the Hospital, Fireside, and James Hall were built. The West End village grew. So, in 1920 Frost left to William J. Hutchins an institution with many students and many buildings plus an increasing endowment. William J. Hutchins