most of the ground they had lost and exhibiting
evidences of more systematic work. These schools ceased to be
elementary classes, offering merely courses in reading and writing,
but developed into institutions of higher grade supplied with
competent teachers. Among other useful schools then flourishing in
this vicinity were those of Alfred H. Parry, Nancy Grant, Benjamin
McCoy, John Thomas Johnson, James Enoch Ambush, and Dr. John H.
Fleet.[1] John F. Cook returned from Pennsylvania and reopened his
seminary.[2] About this time there flourished a school established by
Fannie Hampton. After her death the work was carried on by Margaret
Thompson until 1846. She then married Charles Middleton and became
his assistant teacher. He was a free Negro who had been educated in
Savannah, Georgia, while attending school with white and colored
children. He founded a successful school about the time that Fleet and
Johnson[3] retired. Middleton's school,
however, owes its importance to the fact that it was connected with
the movement for free colored public schools started by Jesse E. Dow,
an official of the city, and supported by Rev. Doctor Wayman, then
pastor of the Bethel Church.[4] Other colaborers with these teachers
were Alexander Cornish, Richard Stokes, and Margaret Hill.[5]

[Footnote 1: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, pp. 212,
213, and 283.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 200.]

[Footnote 3: Compelled to leave Washington in 1838 because of the
persecution of free persons of color, Johnson stopped in Pittsburg
where he entered a competitive teacher examination with two white
aspirants and won the coveted position. He taught in Pittsburg
several years, worked on the Mississippi a while, returned later to
Washington, and in 1843 constructed a building in which he opened
another school. It was attended by from 150 to 200 students, most of
whom belonged to the most prominent colored families of the District
of Columbia. See _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p.
214.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, p. 215.]

[Footnote 5: _Ibid._, pp. 214-215.]

Then came another effort on a large scale. This was the school of
Alexander Hays, an emancipated slave of the Fowler family of Maryland.
Hays succeeded his wife as a teacher. He soon had the support of such
prominent men as Rev. Doctor Sampson, William Winston Seaton and R.S.
Coxe. Joseph T. and Thomas H. Mason and Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher were
Hays's contemporaries.