[16] A more significant
settlement in the State was made by Samuel Gist, an Englishman possessing
extensive plantations in Hanover, Amherst, and Henrico Counties, Virginia.
He provided in his will that his slaves should be freed and sent to the
North. He further provided that the revenue from his plantation the last
year of his life be applied in building schoolhouses and churches for
their accommodation, and "that all money coming to him in Virginia be set
aside for the employment of ministers and teachers to instruct them." In
1818, Wickham, the executor of his estate, purchased land and established
these Negroes in what was called the Upper and Lower Camps of Brown
County.[17]
Augustus Wattles, a Quaker from Connecticut, made a settlement in Mercer
County, Ohio, early in the nineteenth century. In the winter of 1833-4, he
providentially became acquainted with the colored people of Cincinnati,
finding there about "4,000 totally ignorant of every thing calculated to
make good citizens." As most of them had been slaves, excluded from every
avenue of moral and mental improvement, he established for them a school
which he maintained for two years. He then proposed to these Negroes to go
into the country and purchase land to remove them "from those
contaminating influences which had so long crushed them in our cities and
villages.
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