ome instructor in Latin at the West Virginia
Colored Institute, where he is still employed. He was followed by J.
W. Robinson, a man of liberal and specialized education, who
endeavored to maintain a high standard and to extend the influence of
the Negro schools, adding much to develop an intellectual atmosphere
through the enlargement of the school library and other accessories.
After toiling in this city for a number of years he taught at St.
Albans. He then accepted the principalship of the high school at
Northfork, during his incumbency of which he has served as a member of
the Advisory Council to the State Board of Education of West Virginia.

Weston did not lag far behind the other towns in making some provision
for the education of Negroes. During the early years immediately
following the Civil War, a white man of philanthropic tendency named
Benjamin Owens taught a Negro school in an old church located not far
from the head of Main Street extended in Weston. A local historian
believes also that one Doctor Gordon's daughter taught in the same
school. It does not appear that Owens was a man of exceptional
intellectual attainment, but he had well mastered the fundamentals of
education when working in the printing office of Horace Greeley in New
York, where he learned to manifest interest in the man far down, and
to make sacrifices for his cause. His work was so successful that the
school was later established as a public institution supported by the
State.

The next pioneer to lend a helping hand was George Jones who, after
serving the Negroes in Weston as a teacher for a number of years,
abandoned this field for a much larger work as a minister. Then came
Misses Hattie Hood, Grace Rigsby, and Anna Wells, who taught in this
school one or two years each. There appeared next W. P. Crump, who is
referred to as the first Negro teacher of exceptional ability to toil
in Weston. He did much to develop the school and exerted a beneficent
influence upon the people. After serving them as instructor for a few
years, he abandoned the work for a more lucrative employment
elsewhere. The next teacher of importance was Mr. Frank Jefferson who
also toiled successfully in these parts. Inasmuch as the salary at
that time was unusually low compared with the compensation offered in
other parts, he eventually gave up that work for other service.[12]

About 1898 there came Mr. L. O. Wilson, a man of scholarship, who
later became a lea