Page:Women of distinction.djvu/119

Rh increased with her years, and in 1851 she entered Albany Academy, in Athens county, Ohio, and began a course of study. After passing through the preparatory department she repaired to Oberlin, Ohio, in the year 1852 and on the 3d of May entered a regular course of study, which continued without intermission for four years. In August of 1856 she graduated with an honorable degree of scholarship and entered immediately upon the duties of teaching public schools for colored youths, opened about this time in Ohio, and as there were but few teachers among them then she had a fair opportunity to show her ability as a scholar and teacher. After teaching intensely for three years in different cities of the State with remarkable success she was elected to hold a professorship in Wilberforce University, being the first colored teacher to fill such a position; this was in the year 1859. In the year 1861 the war commenced, and the hostility being so great between the North and the South, and as the students were from the South, and could not pass the lines, the school was stopped. Miss Woodson was appointed principal of the colored public school of Xenia, Ohio. In 1865 Wilberforce University re-opened and she was elected to the position of female principal. She filled this position with much acceptance for two years. She was then called by the Freedman's Aid Society to be principal of the colored school of Hillsboro, North Carolina, for it was impossible then to keep male teachers there. Her labors were very successful, though attended with danger and difficulties. In September,