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CELINA - A Connecticut-born abolitionist in the 19th century founded a manual training school for African Americans in Carthagena before later taking his fight for equality to the State of Kansas and becoming friends with John Brown, the famous insurrectionist who led a failed raid on Harpers Ferry.
Local historians Harry Frech and Kris Howell delivered an engrossing presentation entitled "Augustus Wattles and His Family: Advocates for Human Rights" Sunday afternoon in the Richardson Bretz Building in Celina as part of the Mercer County Historical Society's yearlong series celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States.
Born in 1807 in Lebanon, Connecticut, to a family of Quaker famers, Wattles attended the Oneida Institute of Science and Industry, a Presbyterian school that Frech described as a hotbed of opposition to slavery and one of the earliest schools to admit African Americans.
In 1833, Wattles matriculated at the Lane Seminary, a Presbyterian theological college in Cincinnati. It was there where Wattles was persuaded to reject the colonization movement, which proposed sending freed slaves to Africa, and join the abolitionists who fought to end slavery without delay.
While many of the abolitionists left the seminary for Oberlin College, which was more supportive of their cause, Wattles remained in Cincinnati to help the local African American community.
"By this time, Blacks are not going into most of public schools in Ohio. They're not allowed in," Frech said. "He's going to start to teach them, to provide them with an education. He's working with the Black churches in Cincinnati."
Wattles established a school to teach Black children and adults in a time when Black free schools were being attacked. He became known as "the superintendent of Black education."
"And his enrollment grows," Frech said. "The staff he has are young women, young white women, including his future wife, Susan Lowe."
Wattles also became active in the Anti-Slavery Society, the most influential abolitionist organization of its day.
"They select him as one of their agents for the Midwest, and he travels around the Midwest, giving speeches, raising money and helping to set up local Black schools," Frech said. "While this is all going on, you are already having African Americans begin moving into Mercer County."
Through his research, Frech found that Black people were living in Mercer County by 1830. In fact, an African American founded Carthagena in Marion Township, Frech said.
Wattles by this time had adopted the philosophy of agrarianism.
"The idea is the way to be completely free is to become a landowner, a farmer, a small farmer, to have your own piece of land, and he thinks this is a good idea for everybody, but he especially thinks it would be a great idea for these African Americans," Frech said. "He thinks it's also great because he sees the harm coming to these African Americans living in Cincinnati. If he can move them out … they'll be away from the violence, they'll be away from the racism there."
Wattles looked at numerous places before settling on Mercer County, where in 1835 he purchased 190 acres of land for a farm. He then proceeded to travel back and forth between the farm and the schools he was organizing in Cincinnati.
"As he's traveling around the state for the Anti-Slavery Society, he's also trying to raise money to help finance Blacks buying land here," Frech said. "The Blacks here, they ask him to set up a school, set up a school for them, do what he's done down in Cincinnati."
Augustus and Susan Wattles established a manual training school for the Black residents in Carthagena. There was no charge to students.
In 1841, the trustees of the Samuel Emlen estate purchase the Wattles' farm and school with the purpose of providing "education, maintenance and instruction in school learning and in agriculture and mechanical trades or arts, of free male orphan children of African or Indian descent," according to Frech.
The property was renamed the Emlen Institute and the Wattles were asked to stay on to run the school and operate the farm.
"You've got a Black community here and you've got this Black school, and you're going to have African Americans escaping through this area. This is a welcoming area. This is a refuge. So you're going to have African Americans coming through and receiving aid," Frech said.
Wattles found an ally in James Watson Riley, the founder of Celina and Van Wert and leader of the local Whig Party. According to Frech, there was support among Whig Party members for a Black settlement in Mercer County.
Virginia tobacco planter John Randolph gave his slaves their freedom in his will. After more than a decade of legal battles, the will was deemed legitimate, and a Virginia judge purchased 3,200 acres of land for the freed slaves in Mercer County.
"Wattles tells (the judge) this will be a welcoming area. This will attract them here," Frech said.
The land was purchased in southeastern Mercer County and cabins were built for the freed slaves. In 1846, the freed slaves began making their way from Virginia to western Ohio. They travelled up to the Miami-Erie Canal to New Bremen, where they were met by an armed mob of hundreds and not permitted to land.
"(The mob) stops them and then forces them back down the canal," Frech said. "A few of them go back to Virginia. Most of them end up in Miami and Shelby County. A few of them actually end up in Van Wert County, and Wattles claims that a few of them actually snuck into Mercer County."
In response to the free slaves' attempted migration to Mercer County, a meeting was held and attended by 23 delegates from Franklin, Butler, Granville, Washington, Recovery, Marion, Jefferson and German townships.
"You've got a justice of the peace, you've got sheriffs, former sheriffs, future sheriffs, county commissioners, prosecutors, judges. You've got a U.S. congressman there, William Sawyer, and all these are Democratic politicians, Jacksonian Democratic politicians. They're all there," Frech said.
Wattles depicted attendee Frederick Elkins, a justice of the peace and future county commissioner, as having "done more than all the others to cause the violence against freed Blacks and Mullatoes."
"(Elkins) signed the deeds for these Blacks' properties," Frech said. "And now, he's there organizing this, and he's going around telling all these politicians the same thing: You'll never be elected again if you don't go along with what we're doing here.'"
The resolutions passed at the meeting dictated that no new Black settlements would be allowed and that Black people living in the county wereto leave by March 1847.
"You're going to be out of here or we'll either peaceably or by force remove you, and that none of us will work with you," Frech summed up the resolutions. "We will not do business with you, we will not hire you, we will not let you use our grinding mills."
Wattles, who was also threatened by the delegation, wrote to Ohio Gov. Mordecai Bartley, a Whig, about the Democratic efforts to remove the African Americans in Mercer County. Frech said Wattles successfully persuaded Bartley to threaten Mercer County with martial law.
"This is the reason why I don't think they ever followed through with the second resolution there to use force to throw them out, because they had already used force to stop the Randolph slaves from landing," Frech said. "I wonder if this threat caused them not to follow through on the second part, although I do believe they followed through on the third part, which is the economic boycott."
As a result of the economic boycott, Black migration to Mercer County slowed before taking a precipitous drop between 1860-1870.
"There is a bigger drop in Black population in Mercer County than any of the 88 counties in Ohio," Frech said.
Because of declining enrollment, the Emlen Institute closed its doors in 1857, and the school moved to Solebury, Pennsylvania, and later Warminster, Pennsylvania, before ceasing operations in 1881.
The Emlen Institute building and 190 acres of farmland in Mercer County were sold to John Smith of Greenville. In 1861, the property was purchased by the Society of the Most Precious Blood as the site for the St. Charles Seminary, according to Frech.
In 1855, Augustus and Susan Wattles and their four children, all successfully delivered by Black midwifes in Marion Township amid a time of high infant mortality, moved to Kansas, where they started a farm in Douglas County. Wattles wrote articles for the Herald of Freedom and became friends with abolitionist John Brown, who had become committed to the use of violence to overthrow chattel slavery, according to Frech.
With his brother John and others, Wattles founded the free state town of Moneka, Kansas, in 1857. Wattles sheltered Brown in the village after one of his raids into Missouri when he freed 11 slaves.
Brown would go on to lead a failed raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. He was captured and tried for treason against the State of Virginia, murder and inciting slave insurrection. Brown was convicted and hanged.
Wattles was called before the Senate Select Committee investigating the Harpers Ferry raid.
"They're looking for accomplices, and Wattles is called in to testify," Frech said. "And in front of the jury he says he didn't have any idea about it."
After the Civil War, Wattles continued to advocate for the rights of African Americans and was a supporter of female suffrage. He died at 69 on Dec. 19, 1876.
The Wattles family also saw a need for change on a wide range of social issues, which led them to found the Moneka Women's Rights Association. Two of the Wattles' daughters became medical doctors.
"Of course, Augustus was a really impressive man, and when I look at the entire family, what comes to my mind are a group of individuals who are ahead of their time," Howell said. "These are people who were on the right side of history. They were brave. They advocated for things that were very unpopular at the time but today we know as being the right thing."
To view the presentation, visit The Riley House and Mercer County Historical Society Facebook page.
