Mary Fletcher Wells

Last updated
Mary Fletcher Wells
MARY FLETCHER WELLS A woman of the century (page 769 crop).jpg
Born
Occupationeducator
Known forTrinity School

Mary Fletcher Wells (died September 14, 1893) was a philanthropist, educator, and founder of the Trinity School. [1] Wells was unable to formally matriculate at Michigan University and instead studied there under private tutelage. [1] She taught in high schools and seminaries in Indiana. [1]

Wells was born in Villenova, New York to Roderick Wells and Mary Greenleaf, the sixth of ten children. [1]

After the Civil War, she was determined to educate formerly enslaved people and their children, and relocated to Athens, Alabama initially to care for wounded Union soldiers as a Baptist missionary. [2] She founded the Trinity School. [3] The school was sponsored by the Western Freedmen’s Aid Commission and the American Missionary Association, located in a Baptist church in 1865. [4]

Wells initially taught under the protection of armed guards. [5] It was the only high school for black students in the county and the first school in the northern half of the state offering kindergarten for black children. [6] [4] The school had an integrated faculty by 1892. [7] Wells would teach, can fruits and vegetables for the winter, and return north to raise funds for the school in the summers. [4] She remained at the school for twenty-seven years. [1] Trinity was closed after court-ordered desegregation in 1970. [4]

While teaching at Trinity, Wells made the acquaintance of Patti Malone and Alice Vassar LaCour who performed with the Fisk Jubilee Singers. [4] She traveled with the singers for the first four months of their US tour. [1] She retired back to her summer home in Chautauqua, New York where she was an early member of the Chatauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. [1]

Related Research Articles

Athens, Alabama City in and county seat of Limestone County, Alabama

Athens is a city in and the county seat of Limestone County, in the U.S. state of Alabama; it is included in the Huntsville-Decatur-Albertville, AL Combined Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the population of the city is 21,897.

Tuscaloosa, Alabama City in Alabama, United States

Tuscaloosa is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west-central Alabama, United States, on the Black Warrior River where the Gulf Coastal and Piedmont plains meet. Alabama's fifth-largest city, it had an estimated population of 101,129 in 2019. It was known as Tuskaloosa until the early 20th century. It is also known as the Druid City because of the numerous water oaks planted in its downtown streets since the 1840s.

Samford University Private Christian university in Homewood, Alabama

Samford University is a private Christian university in Homewood, Alabama. In 1841, the university was founded as Howard College. Samford University describes itself as the 87th oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. It will become the 86th when its sister school, Judson College, completes its planned closing. The university enrolls 5,758 students from 48 states and 22 countries.

Clark Atlanta University Historically Black university in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.

Clark Atlanta University is a private Methodist historically black research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Clark Atlanta is the first Historically Black College or University (HBCU) in the Southern United States. Founded on September 19, 1865, as Atlanta University, it consolidated with Clark College to form Clark Atlanta University in 1988. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".

Jo Ann Robinson

Jo Ann Gibson Robinson was an activist during the Civil Rights Movement and educator in Montgomery, Alabama.

William Hooper Councill

William Hooper Councill was a former slave and the first president of Huntsville Normal School, which is today Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University in Normal, Alabama.

Charlotte Forten Grimké

Charlotte Louise Bridges Forten Grimké was an African American anti-slavery activist, poet, and educator. She grew up in a prominent abolitionist family in Philadelphia. She taught school for years, including during the Civil War, to freedmen in South Carolina. Later in life she married Francis James Grimké, a Presbyterian minister who led a major church in Washington, DC, for decades. He was a nephew of the abolitionist Grimké sisters and was active in civil rights.

Mary Dorothy Lyndon was the first female graduate from the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens, Georgia.

Woodlawn Baptist Church and Cemetery United States historic place

Woodlawn Baptist Church and Cemetery, also known as Woodlawn Missionary Baptist Church, is a historic building in Nutbush, Haywood County, Tennessee, in the United States. It is on Woodlawn Road, south of Tennessee State Route 19.

Samuel Sloan (architect) American architect

Samuel Sloan was a Philadelphia-based architect and best-selling author of architecture books in the mid-19th century. He specialized in Italianate villas and country houses, churches, and institutional buildings. His most famous building—the octagonal mansion "Longwood" in Natchez, Mississippi—is unfinished; construction was abandoned during the American Civil War.

Douglass is a community on the north side of Memphis, Tennessee. Douglass was named after Frederick Douglass, who was admired by William Rush-Plummer, the one-time owner of the land where the Douglass neighborhood currently stands.

Otis Moss III is the pastor of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. He espouses black theology and speaks about reaching inner-city black youth.

Patti J. Malone Musical artist

Patti J. Malone, was best known as a mezzo-soprano vocalist.

Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity (S.T.) is a religious congregation of men in the Roman Catholic Church, whose headquarters is located in Silver Spring, Maryland. Its members are Brothers, and ordained priests. Members engage in missionary work with the poor and abandoned in both the United States and Latin America. One of their principal aims is to promote the missionary vocation of the laity. They are also known for supporting parish ministry and for promoting social justice. Presently, the Superior General is the Very Rev. Michael K. Barth, S.T. The Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity is an affiliated women's congregation.

National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.

The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., more commonly known as the National Baptist Convention, is a primarily African American Baptist Christian denomination in the United States. It is headquartered at the Baptist World Center in Nashville, Tennessee and affiliated with the Baptist World Alliance; it is the largest predominantly Black Christian denomination in the United States.

Alice Vassar LaCour American educator and singer

Alice Vassar LaCour was an American educator and singer.

Mary Ellen Henderson

Mary Ellen Henderson was an African-American educator and civil rights activist in the mid-1900s. She is most famous for her work desegregating living spaces in Falls Church, working to build better facilities for black students in Falls Church, Virginia and starting the CCPL, the first rural branch of the NAACP.

Mary Evelyn Fredenburg American nurse missionary

Mary Evelyn "Mev" Fredenburg was an American nurse and a missionary in Eku, Nigeria for over forty years.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Willard, Frances Elizabeth (2016-10-23). "A woman of the century; fourteen hundred-seventy biographical sketches accompanied by portraits of leading American women in all walks of life". Internet Archive. Retrieved 2020-01-06.
  2. "Preserving history: Fulton talks Trinity history". The News Courier. March 29, 2015. Retrieved 6 January 2020.
  3. "Trinity Cistern". Markers. Retrieved 2020-01-06.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "Trinity School, Athens, Alabama: Dare To Make a Difference". Library and Instruction Services. 2011-08-26. Retrieved 2020-01-06.
  5. "Trinity-Fort Henderson". Athens Alabama business and news directory. Retrieved 2020-01-06.
  6. "Athens Alabama February news". Visit Athens Alabama. Retrieved 2020-01-06.
  7. "UAH spotlight event with author Charlotte S. Fulton". The University of Alabama in Huntsville. 2017-01-31. Retrieved 2020-01-06.