Page:Annual report of the superintendent of Negro Affairs in North Carolina, 1864.djvu/31

Rh fleets and armies, and shot and shell plowed madly through the soil. Efforts to educate the sable colonists were nearly commensurate in time with the material improvments made. A pioneer teacher from the North landed on the Island, Oct. 19th, 1863, and for more than three months labored alone and unattended, living in one log cabin, and teaching in another, with most commendable zeal and self-denial. This was Miss Elizabeth James, a lady sent out by the American Missionary Association. On the 25th of January, 1864, Miss Ella Roper arrived, who was followed, on the 20th of February, by Mr. S.S. Nickerson, and a little later, by Miss Mary Burnap, transferred from a school in New Berne. After the fall of Plymouth, and the flight of our teachers from that locality, Mrs. Sarah P Freeman, and her daughter, Miss Kate Freeman, took up their abode upon the island. Mrs. Freeman and Miss James remained through the summer vacation, and did great good in ministering, as judicious matrons, to the various wants of the islanders. Since the schools were reopened, the corps of teachers has been enlarged by the addition of Miss Esther Williams and Mrs. Nickerson to the number. The wants of the island are not yet fully supplied. Besides the 1,297 children under fourteen years of age, many of the adults are eager to be taught to read and write, and will not be denied. Add to this the distribution of donated clothing, visitation of the sick, writing letters for the women to their husbands or sons in the army, and their own domestic cares, and one may readily decide whether from ten to twenty dollars per month, would tempt teachers to do this work, in banishment and obloquy, if their minds were not glowing with enthusiasm, and their hearts penetrated with benevolent love. The colony would have been more promptly supplied with schools but for the want of suitable school rooms and quarters for teachers. The only abandoned house on the island was fitted up for a teacher's home, and will accomodateaccommodate [sic] five or six. Its former occupant is in the rebel army. Since the mill began to produce lumber, school-houses and teachers' quarters have been, or are being, erected, sufficient for all our purposes. An Industrial School and an Orphan Asylum have been