While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
"Be noble! and the nobleness that lies in other men, sleeping but never dead,
will rise in majesty to meet thine own."-Lowell.
Loss Of The Girls Hall
On Sabbath afternoon, March 13, 1910, as we
left the chapel at the close of a very
delightful and profitable Bible Memory
service, a cloud of black smoke was seen
moving rapidly around the buildings across
the view before us and suggesting a fire in
one of the buildings. It was a sad and
sickening surprise. Quickly the word was
passed, "The Girls' Hall is on fire."
Rushing into this building to locate and if
possible to suppress the conflagration, we
found it had originated on the third floor,
and that a tub of water had already been
applied to it by attendants in the building,
without any hope of checking it, as the
flames were spreading rapidly over the dry
roof, fanned by a strong breeze from the
west. The roof was inaccessible both from
the inside and the outside, and in a very
few minutes both sides of it were covered
with a fiery sheet of low, devouring flame
similar to that occasionally seen, when fire
sweeps rapidly over ground covered with dry
underbrush.
In a very little while the entire building
was consumed, and with it the laundry,
smokehouse, old log house, new woodhouse,
stock tank, ten rods of the campus fence,
fifteen cords of wood, the food supplies on
hand and nearly all the furniture and
equipment of the Girls' Hall, the home of
the institution.
A fair estimate of the loss sustained is as
follows: Girls' Hall 36x56, $2550: contents,
$1175; other buildings and contents, $250;
total $3975.
The girls rooming on the second story,
obedient to instruction, hastened to their
rooms and secured all their effects, but six
that were rooming on the third story lost
their trunks and extra clothing.
It is impossible to describe how deeply was
felt the loss of everything at this time,
coming as it did so soon after the loss of
the Boys' Hall in 1908. It had been the
comfortable home of the Oak Hill family
since 1889. To the superintendent it meant
not merely the loss of the property, a kind
of loss that is always more or less deeply
felt, but a check of several years upon
plans outlined for the permanent improvement
of the work of the institution.
This loss was a staggering blow to the
superintendent until he learned the next day
that the matron, Miss Weimer, with the
co-operation of Miss Hall, was willing to
practice the self denial needed to make a
heroic effort to recover from it. When this
information was received, twenty of the
larger girls were constrained to remain,
while the rest were sent home. Some of these
were provided for in the second story of an
addition to the academy building, then
nearly completed, and the school room under
it served for a dining room and kitchen. The
school work was resumed the next day, under
Miss Hall with student assistants. The girls
that remained proved helpful in executing
the extra work then necessary, and the
experience of self denial no doubt proved a
profitable one to them.
The old log farm house 46x16 feet, was the
last of the four Oak Hill buildings to yield
to the flames. It was built by the Choctaw
Indians about the year 1840, soon after they
were transferred from Mississippi. It was
very substantially constructed and by
skilled workmen, who no doubt came from Fort
Towson. The Girls' Hall stood between it and
the well, indicated by the aeromotor east of
it.
This building was the pioneer home of the
academy. The stages of progress in its use
were as follows. The native school was
transferred to it in 1884. Eliza Hartford
began to occupy it in 1886, first as a day
school, and three months later as her home
with a boarding school. In the fall of 1887,
a kitchen was added to the west end of it,
and it was then used as a home for the
teachers and girls, and the school was
transferred to the new school building. Two
years later it became a dormitory for the
boys. After 1895 it was used for storage, a
smith and carpenter shop. The picture
showing it on fire is from a photograph
taken by Miss Weimer, after the roof had
fallen and the Girls' Hall was entirely
consumed.
David Elliott
The erection of the fine building known as
Elliott Hall, was made possible by the
receipt of a gift of $5,000 from Mr. David
Elliott, of LaFayette, Indiana, who
expressed the desire that a school might be
established among the Freedmen that would be
a memorial of Alice Lee Elliott, deceased,
his previously devoted wife. It was
dedicated to her memory on June 13, 1912.
Elliott Hall is now the commodious and
comfortable home of the Oak Hill family. It
provides a convenient office for the
superintendent, library and reception room,
places for the boarding and laundry
departments, rooms and bath rooms for the
girls. It occupies a beautiful and
commanding position on the gentle elevation
known as Oak Hill. It stands on the very
site previously occupied by the old log
house, but parallel with the survey lines.
It forms a center around which all other
needed buildings can be conveniently and
permanently located.
Elliott Hall is the largest and finest of
the buildings hitherto erected at the
academy, and the first of the larger ones to
be built by the local Freedmen. This
noteworthy achievement, occurring so soon
after the reopening in 1905, and the
introduction of industrial training in the
shop as well as on the farm, is suggestive
of the real and substantial progress made by
the young men.
It is also an encouragement to every patron
of this institution, for it practically
illustrates the progress that may be made by
every thoughtful and industrious youth. In
view of the fact that there are few or no
opportunities for the young Freedmen to
learn carpentry and painting elsewhere in
its vicinity, this achievement becomes one
in which every Freedman may justly manifest
a laudable pride and express devout
thanksgiving.
The memorial offering of Mr. Elliott,
that made it possible, is the largest
individual donation yet made to this
institution. It came at a time of our
saddest and greatest need. It is a gift to
be very greatly appreciated. Every Freedman
in the region of country benefited and
blessed by this institution, may well be
profoundly thankful for this manifestation
of personal interest in your intellectual
and material welfare.
Alice Lee Elliott
Mrs. Alice Lee Elliott, in memory of whom
Elliott Hall and the Oak Hill Industrial
Academy were named in 1910, was the faithful
and devoted wife of David Elliott, an elder
of the Spring Grove Presbyterian Church near
LaFayette, Indiana. She was the daughter of
John and Maria Ritchey, who left Ohio soon
after their marriage to found a new home of
their own on the frontier in Indiana. She
was born, January 7, 1846, and was called to
her rest in her sixty-first year, June 27,
1906.
She received a good education in her youth
and her marriage occurred March 2, 1875.
Three years later she became a member of the
Dayton Presbyterian Church, of which her
husband was already a member, and at once
became an earnest and zealous Christian
worker.
When in later years Mr. and Mrs. Elliott
transferred their membership to Spring Grove
Presbyterian Church, because their services
were more greatly needed there, she became a
very successful teacher in the Sabbath
school and an enthusiastic leader in their
missionary work.
She was amiable and winsome. Although she
lived amid the surroundings of wealth, she
was the constant friend and helper of all
classes. Her home was always a delightful
retreat for the ministers of the gospel and
those who represented worthy causes of
benevolence and charity. The Bible, the
favorite family Church paper and the
missionary magazine were always on the
center table and read regularly.
She was animated with the noble desire to be
eminently useful and took advantage of every
opportunity to benefit and bless others.
Others were captivated and enthused by her
happy, hopeful spirit, and have accorded to
her this beautiful tribute, "Many daughters
have done virtuously, but thou excellest
them all."
When her voice became silent and her eyelids
closed in death it seemed to her surviving
husband that she was worthy and the world
would be made better by the erection of a
living or useful, as well as granite
memorial. Accordingly when her last earthly
resting place was duly marked with an
appropriate granite memorial, he made a
donation of $5000 to the Presbyterian Board
of Missions for Freedmen, for the
establishment of an educational institution
for the benefit of the colored people of
this land that should bear her name.
After the loss by fire of two of the main
buildings at Oak Hill Industrial Academy in
1908 and 1910, this fund was used for the
erection of a main building-Elliott Hall-and
the school has since been called the Alice
Lee Elliott Memorial.
The Bible and shorter catechism are to be
regularly and faithfully taught to all
pupils, as fundamental in the development of
a good moral character. The hope is indulged
that the beautiful story of her unselfish
and eminently useful life will prove an
incentive to constant, noble endeavor on the
part of every one that enjoys the privileges
of the institution that now bears her
honored name.
Endowment
Other friends who have it in mind to leave a
legacy to this greatly needed institution,
will do well to consider the propriety, if
possible, of sending the funds to the
Freedmen's Board while living, as Mr.
Elliott did, and receive from the Board, if
desired, an endowment bond bearing interest
payable annually to the donor, during the
continuance of the donor's life. By this
arrangement the gift becomes a profitable
source of annual support to the donor, and
an immediate benefit to the institution,
without costs and discounts.
This site
includes some historical materials that may imply negative stereotypes
reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. These
items are presented as part of the historical record and should not be
interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in any way endorse the stereotypes
implied .
Choctaw Freedmen and Oak Hill Industrial
Academy, 1914, Robert Elliott Flickinger
