Mary Fletcher Wells

Mary Fletcher Wells (d. 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]

Mary Fletcher Wells
Born
Villenova, New York
Occupationeducator
Known forTrinity School

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 due to 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]

Personal life

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

gollark: That doesn't, in itself, make it bad. It's bad because you're, well, killing someone.
gollark: It's better than using guesswork to decide.
gollark: We obviously can't be *sure*, but I am sure they have better models than "draw straight line on graph, see where it ends up a bit later".
gollark: Those VPN adverts really annoy me because most of the time they massively oversell the actual use of a VPN.
gollark: I wonder if there actually is one.

References
  1. 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. "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.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.