Charles Backus Storrs: Abolitionist

Charles Backus Storrs stood before his audience and gave his inauguration address on February 9th, 1831 in Hudson, Ohio. At age thirty-six, he was elected the first permanent president of Western Reserve College (now Case Western Reserve). Aware of the controversy over antislavery sentiment, Storrs took a moral position during his address and described slavery “as a central concern of mankind." Most of us have not heard of this strong-willed abolitionist from Longmeadow, in part because his life was cut short by a disease that ruled his life from childhood. His life’s work as a minister and college president would take him from Western Massachusetts to South Carolina to Ohio. Along the way, he developed a clear idea of how he felt about the institution of slavery and used his platform to speak out against it.

The story of Charles Backus Storrs begins in Longmeadow, Massachusetts after slavery was effectively ended in the commonwealth in the 1780’s. He was born in 1794, the fifth child of the Reverend Richard Salter Storrs and his wife Sarah (Williston). His mother, weak with consumption (tuberculosis), died at age 32, a month and a half after delivering her seventh child. Not unexpectedly, widowed and with young children, his father remarried within the year. His father and stepmother (Sarah Williams) had three more children. While ownership of enslaved persons has not been found in the records of Richard Salter Storrs or his parents, his second wife was the granddaughter of Longmeadow's first minister, Stephen Williams, who is known to have owned at least twelve enslaved persons over his long tenure in Longmeadow.

As a child, Charles Backus Storrs was periodically sent to live with other families. It would appear that at least one reason for sending him away from home was concerns about his health. The consumption that took his mother's life, took the lives of more New Englanders than any other disease. It was not believed to be contagious at that time. Recommended prevention and treatment included fresh air, a wholesome diet, and healthy manual labor. Perhaps his parents hoped that sending him away would be good for his health. He lived with a farming family in nearby Somers, Connecticut, and also in Conway, Massachusetts -- probably at the home of his older sister Sally and her husband Charles Billings.

In 1810, Conway, like Longmeadow and Springfield, saw less than 1% of its population made up of people of color. However, the Billings house where Charles Backus Storrs was probably sent to live for a period during his youth did record one “free non-white” person on the 1810 census. It is intriguing to wonder if perhaps this was an early encounter Storrs may have had with someone who had previously been enslaved or descended from an enslaved person, in New England.

When Storrs was fourteen years old he went to Monson Academy for two years and then, at sixteen he entered the College of New Jersey (what became Princeton University). He did not graduate because he had almost certainly developed symptomatic tuberculosis. He would spend the next ten years fighting bouts of ill health and preparing for a life of ministry before heading to Charleston, South Carolina in 1821 to be ordained as an Evangelist in the Circular Church of Charleston. Here, Charles Backus Storrs would encounter the institution of slavery in a completely different way than ever before in his life.

A full 71% of Charleston’s population of 21,780 people were people of color. Nearly 14,000 of them were enslaved. In Georgia, where Storrs also worked as a missionary, 45% of the population was non-white. Of note, the Circular Church of Charleston, where Storrs was ordained, had a large congregation that included both black and white members including enslaved persons. The young Charles Backus Storrs must have been struck by the dramatic contrasts in the communities that he lived in South Carolina and Georgia in 1821 compared to his native Longmeadow. Perhaps this is where he first began to form his antislavery convictions.

Ultimately, he would remain in the south for only two years before packing up and moving on another mission of faith to the western state of Ohio. The Connecticut Courant reported that Storrs was spending about half of his time in Ravenna, Ohio as the community's minister and the remainder of his time doing missionary work “promoting the spiritual welfare of our new settlements in the west.” This meant visiting families, common schools, attending meetings for religious purposes and establishing Sabbath Schools. Storrs was stationed for six years in Ravenna, Ohio.

When a new college, Western Reserve College, opened nearby, Charles Backus Storrs was made professor of Theology. Within three years, he was appointed the first permanent college president.

Slavery was abolished in Ohio in 1802 by the state's original constitution, and by the time Storrs assumed his position at Western Reserve in the 1820’s, a large number of fugitives from slavery passed through Ohio. The region of Ohio around Western Reserve College was strong in anti-slavery sentiment in the early 1830s. Faculty, students, and trustees at the young Western Reserve College were colonizationists and abolitionists. Colonizationists advocated the gradual emancipation of enslaved people and sending them to Africa. Abolitionists advocated the immediate emancipation of enslaved people. According to past Case Western Reserve University Historian Frederick C. Waite, Storrs had originally been a colonizationist but was deeply impacted by William Lloyd Garrison's anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator. Garrison was a staunch abolitionist.

By 1831, Storrs supported abolition and Waite contends that he was the first college president to publicly advocate for abolition. President Storrs made frequent multi-hour presentations on the evils of slavery. Storrs' presentations were memorable. A story printed in the Ohio newspaper, The Plain Dealer, in 1866 describes the recollections of an observer: "Mr. Storrs was a man of unprepossessing appearance, but of real talent...He commenced his sermons with a low tone of voice, and in an ambling style, but gradually warmed up with the glow of striking thought and the fire of true eloquence. He had a habit of frequent coughing, as he began his discourse;...But as he progressed , the coughs became less frequent, until they entirely ceased..." It would seem that Storrs would always have a hard time shaking the echoes of all of those years battling symptoms of consumption.

Along with President Storrs, two faculty members, and many students became abolitionists. The students formed the Western Reserve College Anti-Slavery Society in December 1832. Students were encouraged by abolitionist faculty to speak in the surrounding communities for the abolition cause. Some were harassed by abolition opponents.

On May 8, 1833, President Storrs gave a three-hour sermon on abolition, after which he became extremely ill. He took a leave of absence and traveled to his brother's home in Braintree, Massachusetts, where he died at age 39 from tuberculosis on September 15, 1833.

After his death, The Liberator printed a memoriam. In part this read, "For a considerable time previous to his death, his sympathies were warmly enlisted in behalf of his oppressed colored brethren; and it is to be feared that his death was hastened by his assiduous devotion to the Anti-Slavery cause. He had been addressing public audiences, for two hours at a time, with overflowing feeling,..." Charles Backus Storrs left behind a wife and six children, at least one of whom would continue the work his father had started when his own congregation fundraised so much of the money to support the building of a school for freed black children that the school bore his name. But he also left an inspiring legacy on a college community that would continue to do the work that had become so important to its first president.

-Contributed by Al McKee, Longmeadow Historical Society

Sources and Works Cited:

Boston Commercial Gazette Jan. 22, 1821

Census for 1820, 1821, United States Census Bureau

Connecticut Courant March 9, 1824

Connecticut Mirror February 3, 1823

French, David. Charles Backus Storrs, "Inaugural Address, Western Reserve College," February 9, 1831, Charles Backus Storrs Papers, CWRU cited in Elizur Wright, Jr., and the Emergence of Anti-Colonization Sentiments on the Connecticut Western Reserve, pg 55. Ohio History Journal, https://resources.ohiohistory.org/ohj/search/display.php?page=4&ipp=20&searchterm=Array&vol=85&pages=49-66

Hallowed Ground: Circular Congregational Church, Charleston in Discover South Carolina, 2023. https://discoversouthcarolina.com/articles/hallowed-ground-circular-congregational-church-charleston

Historic American Buildings Survey, Creator, William A Bohnard, F J Coghlan, H T Jeffrey, and Louis P Fisher, Waite, Carl, and Jack E Boucher, photographer. Western Reserve Academy, President's House, Hudson & College Streets, Hudson, Summit County, OH. Summit County Ohio Hudson, 1933. Documentation Compiled After. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/oh0308/.

The Liberator, September 21, 1833.

Massachusetts Constitution and the Abolition of Slavery, Mass.gov website

Ohio History Connection. Fugitives From Slavery. https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Fugitives_from_Slavery

The Plain Dealer October 13, 1866

Return of the Whole Number of Persons within the Several Districts of the United States according to "An act providing for the second Census or Enumeration of the Inhabitants of the United States." 1801, United States Census Bureau

Sprague, William. Annals of the American Pulpit or Commemorative Notices of Distinguished Clergymen of Various Denominations 1860 pg 487-488 which cites as sources Rev. R.S. Storrs D.D., Rev. H.M. Storrs, and Rev. George Howe, D.D.

Student Activism At CWRU Abolitionism https://case.edu/socialjustice/about/history

Swedlund, Alan C. Dutiful Daughters, Pallid Young Women in Shadows in the Valley: A Cultural History of Illness, Death, and Loss in New England, 1840-1916 pgs 84-103. 2010.

Woodward, Walter W., From the State Historian: Connecticut’s Slow Steps Toward Emancipation https://connecticuthistory.org/from-the-state-historian-connecticuts-slow-steps-toward-emancipation/

Emma's Essay: A Soldier Boy in the Army

In honor of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, we thought we would look at an item in our collection from the era of his presidency: a child’s essay about her brother’s letter home from war.

In November 1860, Longmeadow’s eligible voters chose Abraham Lincoln over Stephen Douglas by a vote of 190-81. Within months, southern states had seceded from the Union and the Civil War began. Between 1861 and 1865 approximately 166 young men from Longmeadow enlisted or were drafted into the Union Army, leaving behind friends, parents, and siblings.

At Center School, students were compiling a literary magazine called The Carrier Pigeon. It contained their compositions on a variety of topics like winter sports, apples, fish, and trips they had taken. It was the winter of 1864. Eleven-year-old Emma C. Coomes wrote about her older brother, Harvey, who had enlisted in 1861. Completely absent of any of the patriotism and glory so typical of soldier stories at the time, and with the complete candor only a child can get away with, Emma’s composition is a matter-of-fact telling of how miserable her brother was. By 1864 Harvey Coomes’ battalion, the 5th Connecticut, Company B, had been involved in several significant battles, including Gettysburg. Per Emma’s account, though, the only thing that mattered to Harvey was doughnuts. He had had enough of the coffee and pork provided to the troops morning, noon, and night, and he missed doughnuts.

In school-girl cursive Emma writes of the dispute her brother had with his boss at the docks in Hartford that led him to enlist, and how his three-year commitment now “stuck in his throat.” (spelling and punctuation edited for clarity):

“A soldier boy in the army.

Seeing that [a] great many of you got Brothers to war I will write a little something about my brother. My brother was in Hartford working on the boat. Well Harvey was tending the boat and someone else took care of the boat. The boat got stuck and they couldn’t get it out, and the boss told Harvey to get it out and Harvey wouldn’t, and the boss told him to leave the boat and the boss said that he wouldn’t pay him, and Harvey put his hand into his pocket and pulled out his money and told the boss that there was enough to pay his fair And the boss told him to leave so Harvey started and the boss called him back and paid him and told him to go to work and Harvey said he had left for good. So Harvey came home and talked about enlistment and father and mother didn’t want to have him go, but he did, and for three years, and he told father that the war would be ended in half a year and father told him if he got there he would have to stay there and he has and I guess he wishes himself home again and we had a letter the other day, and he said that all of his company had enlisted but 13 of them and he said that the three years stuck in his throat and it wouldn’t come. We had a letter from him yesterday and he said that he wished that we would send him a box if it wasn’t nothing but a doughnut, for he said that it was coffee and pork in the morning and coffee and pork at noon warmed over and coffee and pork at night for a change so I guess that we will send a box to him. I can’t think of any more to write about him. I only hope the soldiers will get home.

ECC

Emma’s pigeon”

Hopefully, Harvey Coomes got those doughnuts he craved so much when he was discharged from service in the summer of 1864 and returned home to Longmeadow. He married and settled in New Haven, CT until his death in 1894, the result of an injury received after a night of drinking in a New Haven saloon. His sister, Emma, married a Civil War veteran herself and moved to Springfield where she lived until her death in 1937.

Carrier Pigeon, Literary Journal, 1864

Longmeadow Historical Society

"A soldier boy in the army" by Emma C. Coomes

Longmeadow Historical Society

"A soldier boy in the army" by Emma C. Coomes

Longmeadow Historical Society

-Contributed by Melissa M. Cybulski, Longmeadow Historical Society

Hey Phil!

In honor of Groundhog Day, this author thought our readers might like to don their beaver silk top hats like this c. 1890-1905 one in our collection and learn about the lowly creature. We've all seen them, usually by the side of the road, quietly eating, while we worry that they will suddenly get the urge to run across the road in front of us. Although run might be the wrong word--it often looks more like a fast waddle.

The groundhog, Marmota Monax, has many nicknames, some familiar, like woodchuck, and others less so. Here are just a few: wood-shock, whistle-pig, whistler, thickwood badger, marmot, monax, moonack, weenusk, red monk, and land beaver. A couple of the names might derive from Native American words--Moonack is an Algonquian word for digger, and Wuchak is another Algonquian or Narragansett name. You can imagine that "Wuchak" might sound like woodchuck, which of course brings to mind the old tongue-twister--how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" I always wondered what "wood chucking" actually involved!

Groundhogs are mostly herbivores and eat berries and many agricultural crops. This, along with their propensity for digging tunnels that can topple foundations, can make them unpopular. As such, one New England community even had a “Woodchuck Committee.” The Report of the Woodchuck Committee found in the Journals of the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the State of New Hampshire, June 1883, lists some of the critter’s egregious crimes:

• "First of all, the woodchuck has so many aliases that mankind may easily be misled by the confusion of names. That the woodchuck is a notorious character is apparent by the load of names under which it waddles."

• "It is a thief by nature and a freeloader by profession, and there has been no instance brought to the knowledge of your committee where nature was ever suppressed or profession lowered on the part of these devastating quadrupeds. The same might occasionally be said of the human race, but there is no exception on the part of the woodchuck."

• "The predatory habits of the animal make it the common foe of mankind, for it is a sneak-thief, first, last, and all the time. As the woodchuck cannot be sued for trespass or imprisoned for larceny, the only thing left is to fight it to the bitter death."

• "The animal, so they say, takes its bed about October 1, and forthwith rolling itself into a ball becomes torpid and to all appearances dead. Unfortunately for the farmers, this interesting habit only goes into effect at that season of the year when nobody cares a snap about the woodchuck or the clover crop....Your committee also believes that this torpidity has nothing to do with a smitten conscience. The woodchuck is not only a nuisance, but also a bore. It burrows beneath the soil, and then chuckles to see a moving machine, man and all, slump into one of these holes and disappear."

In their defense, they do have some redeeming qualities. The groundhog is obviously well-adapted to digging, with its long, broad claws and short, powerful legs. Their digging can mix up the soil, and their burrows can provide homes for critters such as skunks and red fox that eat mice and grasshoppers that destroy crops. Perhaps Longmeadow farmers didn’t find them all bad?

Looking for a period Longmeadow reference to groundhogs, we were excited to find one in the index to volume 7 of the transcribed Stephen Williams diaries (1716-1782). The passage from February 26, 1771, reads, "this day it raind considerably- & ye Ground hog being coverd with ice-ye water rain freely-Brooks were greatly raisd & considerable Damage done to Bridges and Damm/..." Wait.. a groundhog covered with ice?

Alas, as faithful readers will know, transcribed documents often contain errors, and this was no exception. When compared to the original handwritten script, it was apparent that the transcriber added a word that was never there. The original wording actually made more sense than the transcription: "this day it rain'd considerably & ye ground being covered with ice-ye water rain freely- Brooks were greatly rais'd & considerable damage done to bridges and damms..." No “hog” in sight…just ground. Drats! The notorious evader was taunting us from all the way back in 1771 and had eluded us yet again. Just when we thought we had a groundhog reference he disappeared! Does this mean six more weeks of winter?!?

Nevertheless, the tradition of using woodland creatures to predict seasonal changes began in Germany where the forecasting animal was the badger. The belief is that if a groundhog emerges from its den during its hibernation and sees its shadow, that winter will continue for 6 more weeks. He will then retreat back into his den to finish out the long sleep. Although there is little agreement about what constitutes an early spring, by most measures the famous Phil's accuracy is poor. And can anyone tell me why the people who pull Phil from his "burrow" wear formal gear? By the way, we do recommend the Movie "Groundhog Day" released in 1993 starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. The movie is a story of redemption as Bill Murray's character, named Phil, relives Groundhog Day over and over until he is a man changed for the better. Who doesn't love a happy ending?

-Contributed by Betsy McKee, Longmeadow Historical Society board member