out this
plan. They then proceeded to establish a subscription school requiring
a tuition fee of one dollar a month of those who were able to pay; but
poorer children were admitted free of charge. At this time there was a
certain stigma attached to the idea of educating one's children at the
expense of others or at the expense of the commonwealth. Persons able
to pay for the instruction of their children were, therefore, willing
to do so that they might not have a reputation for dependency or
delinquency.[6]

The teachers first employed in Parkersburg were Sarah Trotter and
Pocahontas Simmons, persons of color and Rev. S. E. Colburn, a white
man. The number of pupils enrolled in the first year approached forty.
To encourage Negroes in that city to avail themselves of their
opportunity for their enlightenment, these teachers moved among the
people from time to time, pointing out the necessity for more
extensive preparation to discharge the functions of citizenship then
devolving upon Negroes in their new State of freedom after the Civil
War.[7]

Parkersburg enjoys also the distinction of having established the
first free school for Negroes in the South. The work of the school
organization of 1862 had been so well done that it was easily possible
to interest school officials in the extension of school privileges to
Negroes. The Parkersburg _Weekly Times_ of June 7, 1866, carried a
notice to the effect that the first public free school for the Negro
children of the city of Parkersburg, West Virginia, had been opened in
the school ward lately removed. "All colored children over six years
of age and under twenty-one, as the law directs," continued the
editor, "are at liberty to attend and are requested to do so." Rev. S.
E. Colburn was the teacher. The private school then came to an end.[8]

It does not appear that the Reverend Mr. Colburn remained for a long
time in this school, for at the close of the session in 1866 we have a
record of an exhibition in Bank Hall under the charge of T. J.
Ferguson. Ferguson was a versatile character among the Negroes at that
time, participating extensively in politics during the reconstruction
period, and contending for the enlargement of freedom and opportunity
for their race. The next man of consequence after Ferguson was J. L.
Camp, who served the system for eleven years. He passed among his
people as a man of high character, and is remembered today as one of
the most successful and