. Colored mechanics were then getting
as much skilled labor as they could do. It was not uncommon for white
artisans to solicit employment of colored men because they had the
reputation of being better paymasters than master workmen of the more
favored race.[32] White mechanics not only worked with colored men but
often associated with them, patronized the same barber shop, and went to
the same places of amusement.[33]

In this prosperous condition the Negroes could help themselves. Prior to
this period they had been unable to make any sacrifices for charity and
education. Only $150 of the $1,000 raised for Negro education in 1835
was contributed by persons of color. In 1839, however, the colored
people raised $889.30 for this purpose, and thanks to their economic
progress, this task was not so difficult as that of raising the $150 in
1835. They were then spending considerable amounts for evening and
writing schools, attended by seventy-five persons, chiefly adults. In
1840 Reverend Mr. Denham and Mr. Goodwin had in their schools sixty-five
pupils each paying $3 per quarter, and Miss Merrill a school of
forty-seven pupils paying the same tuition. In all, the colored people
were paying these teachers about $1,300 a year. The only help the
Negroes were then receiving was that from the Ladies' Anti-Slavery
Society, which employed one Miss Seymour at a salary of $300 a year to
instruct fifty-four pupils. Moreover, the colored people were giving
liberally to objects of charity. Some Negroes burned out in 1839 were
promptly relieved by members of their own race. A white family in
distress was befriended by a colored woman. The Negroes contributed also
to the support of missionaries in Jamaica and during the years from 1836
to 1840 assisted twenty-five emancipated slaves on their way from
Cincinnati to Mercer County, Ohio.[34]

During this period they had made progress in other than material things.
Their improvement in religion and morals was remarkable. They then had
four flourishing Sabbath Schools with 310 regular attendants, one
Baptist and two Methodist churches with a membership of 800, a "Total
Abstinence Temperance Society" for adults numbering 450, and a "Sabbath
School or Youth's Society" of 180 members. A few of these violated their
pledges, but when we consider the fact that one fourth of the entire
colored population belonged to temperance organizations while less than
one tenth of the whites were thus connected