 | Travelers School
ST. Peter Claver SCHOOL: 1938-1965
I n September 1938, the St. Peter Claver School was opened under the direction of Sr. Pulcheria (Mary Ann) Ginschel. Your offer was aimed at blacks in a city that reigned in the racial divide. 1939 was joined by Sr. Celine Keck added as a second teacher to Sr. Pulcheria. It was a school with two classrooms and eight stages, and many of the students were not Catholic. Many children were poor and were financially supported by the community.
The two classrooms were on the second floor of the church. The building had originally Traveler William Smith heard (note his name is sometimes listed with Walter T. Smith). His mother was a former slave who had heard Mr. Twymen, who in his will, to release after his death, all his slaves. They settled in Burlington, Lawrence Co., Ohio down. The records of all censuses show that his name William T. Smith and his mother, Nancy (b. 1823 in Virginia) was. He was born in 1849 in Virginia and was living in 1880 in Burlington, Ohio, 1910, he and his family already moved to Huntington. He is registered as a farmer, carpenter and teacher.
Although racial segregation in schools was abolished by law in 1954, it took years before it was actually implemented. Recently, in 1965, the small school in Huntington was no longer needed. The students switched to other parochial schools in the city: the St. Joseph School, the Sacred Heart School and Our Lady of Fatima School. |
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| Burlington 37 Cemetery
Cemetery notes and/or description:
James Twyman, a wealthy Virginia plantation owner. Upon his death Twyman freed all his slaves except the servants who he deemed too elderly to make the journey, and it was willed that they would be taken care of until their death. The book called The Promise Land by Earl Pratt, an Ohio lawyer from Ironton, Ohio, documented James Twyman's plantation, the 37 freed slaves, and their journey to Ohio. A monument stands at the gates of the Burlington (Ohio) 37 Cemetery, where these former slaves are buried. |
1849 - 1931 (82 years)
