John Jeffreys: Slave, Educator, Business Owner

By Ryan Reed 

Part II: Educator and Business Owner
 
John Jeffreys’ military career was over and he was now a free man.  He left Brownsville, Texas en route for Jefferson City, where he had enlisted for the army.  Upon his return he gained employment as a church sexton and was boarding with the Franklin Rose family.  His purpose for returning to Jefferson City was not to toil at the maintenance of a local church, but to nurture an educational institution for African Americans he help create while in the army.

Education became a priority to Jeffreys during his military career through a variety of general orders to the rank and file of his regiment.  Commanding officer of the 62^nd United States Colored Regiment, Lt. Col. David Branson, issued of General Order 31.  The order dated July 3, 1864 stipulated

“All non-Commissioned officers of this command who shall fail to learn to read by or before the 1st day of January 1865 will be reduced to the ranks and their places filled by persons who can read. In the position of Sergeants preference will be given to men who can both read & write and are otherwise good soldiers. All soldiers of this command who have by any means learned to read or write, will aid and assist to the extent of their ability their fellow soldiers to learn these invaluable arts, without which no man is properly fitted to perform the duties of a free citizen.”

At the end of the stipulated time for the comprehension of reading and writing, Branson enacted General Order 4 on January 25, 1865.  The order announced a contest to recognize the best writers in the ranks.  A committee of officers was appointed to judge the entries and pick thirty winners, a sergeant, corporal and private from each of the regiment’ ten companies.  The results were announced on Independence Day 1865.  Winning corporals and sergeants would each receive a gold pen and privates received a bible.

Jeffreys' Family Home-200 North Elm Street

This was an exceptional order considering in most states it was against the law to teach African-Americans to read.  The state legislature of 62^nd Colored Regiment’s home state had outlawed the education of free or enslaved African Americans in 1847.  Anyone caught teaching African Americans in Missouri was fined $500 and served six months in jail.  An overwhelming majority of men in the regiment were illiterate slaves in Missouri prior to their enlistment.  This was their first legal opportunity to be educated.  The regiment’s first lieutenant, Richard Baxter Foster, led the instruction and continued to do so throughout the war.  Foster was a white abolitionist born and raised in New Hampshire.  At the onset of the war, Foster was living with his family in Nebraska and enlisted with 1^st Nebraska Infantry in 1862.  He was discharged during December of 1863 in St. Louis, Missouri and immediately reenlisted. He was appointed lieutenant of the 62^nd.   Among his many letters held at the archives of Lincoln University, Foster relayed to his wife his belief that fighting for the education of African Americans would be his life’s work.

Following the end of hostilities in Texas, the 62^nd began discussing the creation of a school for higher education for recently freed slaves and their descendants.  The solders collected nearly $5,000 to pay for the start of the school.  The 65^th United States Colored Infantry, formerly the 2^nd Missouri Colored Infantry, desired to participate and raised $1,400 for the cause.  An organizational committee of officers and soldiers drafted resolutions on January 14, 1866 to establish a school in Missouri for “the benefit of freed blacks.”  The document continued that “emancipated slaves, who have neither capital to spend nor time to lose, may obtain an education.”  The money raised by the troops was entrusted with Foster who returned to Missouri seeking a university willing to create a program for African Americans.  Unsuccessful in partnering with a integrated school in St. Louis, Foster arrived in Jefferson City and established an independent school.  On September 17, 1866, Lincoln Institute, now Lincoln University was formally opened. Foster was the school’s first instructor.  Henry Brown and Cornelius Chappelle were the school’s first students.  The organization committee who established the school nine months earlier became the first Board of Trustees for school.  Among those four men from the 62^nd and 65^th Colored infantry who became the new board was John Jeffreys.

Jeffreys’ nine years in Jefferson City can be pieced together with scant newspaper articles and federal and state census records.  In 1870, he was working as a sexton and boarding with Franklin Rose, a white man with a wife and two small children.  Three years later, Jeffreys was listed as a student in the Missouri State Census.  At the time of Jeffreys attendance, Lincoln University began to receive aid from the state of Missouri for teacher training. 

Lincoln School-Rolla, MO

During his time in Jefferson City, Jeffreys became involved with a national civil rights organization.  The State Journal of Jefferson City records Jeffreys attending meetings and holding board positions with the local unit of the National Equal Rights League (NERL). The NERL was one of the oldest human rights organizations in the United States.  The group was founded in 1833 in Buffalo, New York at a large celebration of pro-abolitionist, free black men after the emancipation of the West Indies.  The NERL endorsed the abolition of slavery, legal equality regardless of color or race and black suffrage.  After the Civil War, NERL argued that the sacrifices of African-Americans on the battlefield entitled all black males to the ballot and all Africans Americans full citizenship.  The league also recognized the importance of education in guaranteeing equal rights.  At a convention in Cleveland, Ohio in 1865, NERL leaders called for integrated education but were careful to note that integration should not result in discrimination against African American teachers.

On August 27, 1875, the local news  section of The State Journal  recorded a position Jeffreys accepted as a teacher of the African American school in Rolla, Missouri.  The newspaper further commented on Jeffreys character as “honest, industrious and capable” and were pleased that the position would “develop the talents he possessed.”  During the Summer of 1875, the Rolla New Era had been advertising several position with the school board, including a teacher for the African-American school.  The African-American community in Rolla had quickly grown after the Civil War.  By 1870, Rolla’s total population was nearly a quarter African American.  After the conclusion of the Civil War, Missouri adopted a new constitution.  The new document required all school boards to provide African American education.  In 1875, Rolla had a total of 181 children enrolled in the public schools, 28 of which were African American.   Paid $40 a month, $10 more than the white female teachers, Jeffreys began to receive high praise for his work.  The New Era stated “J.O. Jeffreys strikes us to be the most competent teacher of the district.”  The school was located at Wilson’s Retreat, which was described in local newspapers as being notoriously decrepit.  In 1881, the school board voted to construct a new school for the African American students.  Plans were submitted and the school board selected the work of local architect, Henry Hohenschild.  A modest brick building was constructed at northeast corner of First and Pine Street and opened for classes in 1882.

Between teaching students and managing the classroom, Jeffreys met Minerva Marr.  She was born during 1859 in Tennessee.  Marr’s family relocated to Missouri after her birth and she and several of her siblings lived in Rolla.  Jeffreys courted Marr and on Saturday, July 13, 1879, they were married at the former Baptist church at the northwest corner of First and Main Streets.  The ceremony received a write-up in the Rolla New Era and stated “a large concourse of people of all colors went down to the church to witness the ceremony.”  The article continued that the couple “left the night after for Jefferson City for a month’s visit when they will return to Rolla and make their home.”  The Jeffreys’ had three children named Festus, Tellious and Eugenia.

Jefferys also dabbled in extracurricular work in the evenings.  Into the 1880s, the African-American population of Rolla continued to grow.  A large number of adult African-Americans coming to Rolla were uneducated.  Jeffreys set up an evening class for adults, which were well attended according to the local newspapers.  Jeffreys also dabbled in politics.  In 1886, Jeffreys was elected a delegated of the People’s Party of Phelps County to represent Rolla.  He would represent Rolla with the founder of Rolla, Edmund Ward Bishop, the editor of the New Era, Walbridge Powell and fellow African-American, Jackson Simpson.  The People’s Party of Phelps County believed that companies and corporations, especially the railroad, held too much sway over county politics.  The People’s Party sought to elect individuals who would represent the people of Phelps County rather than a company’s interests.  During the first week of August, the Emancipation Day celebrations were held in Rolla.  The annual observation celebrated the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 that ended slavery in the British Empire on August 1, 1834.  Jeffreys was instrumental in the planning of the parade, barbeque and ball.  He was often a keynote speaker and shared the stage with individuals such as former Confederate general Ewing Mitchell and Luman F. Parke

Advertisement for Jefferys Steam Laundry 

In 1890, Jeffreys retired from teaching.  He purchased a laundry facility housed on Eighth Street where Alex’s Pizza is currently located.  Known as the Rolla Steam Laundry, Jeffreys bought the business from C.E. Condon.  The business specialized in dyeing and cleaning and Thursdays were reserved for women to use to steam baths and were attended to my Mrs. Jeffreys.  During this time, Jeffreys purchased a lot of property at the corner of Elm and Third Street from his in-laws.  In 1900, he had a two story frame home construct at 200 North Elm Street.  The Jeffreys took in several boarders at their new home.  One boarder, Sam Vaughn, married their daughter Eugenia. 

On the night of November 5^th, 1922, John Jeffreys passed away at the age of 77 in his home.  He was followed by his wife, Minerva, in 1935. Sam and Eugenia Jeffreys Vaughn continued to live at 200 North Elm with Eugenia’s brother Festus.  The Vaughns owned and operated the Ozark Produce Company and keep chickens in the outbuilding just north of the home.  The house remained in the family until the death of Eugenia Vaughn during the Spring of 1962.  From the education of African-Americans in Rolla, the founding of a school to teach freed slaves in Missouri, and his participation as an enlisted soldier in the Civil War, John Jeffreys left an indelible mark locally, statewide and nationally.  His contributions to our city have been largely forgotten.  However, his home on Elm Street and Lincoln School are standing testaments to his impact on Rolla. 

His obituary published in the Rolla Herald  on November 16, 1922 succinctly testifies to his life in the Rolla Community.  “He was considered a leader among his race and he worked for their uplift and betterment.  There have been few in Rolla any length of time that did not know they name of John Jeffreys.