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CHAPTER I.

In the old family Bible I see it recorded that I was born April 17, 1823, in Philadelphia, Pa., the son of Jonathan C. Gibbs and Maria, his wife. My father was a minister in the Wesleyan Methodist Church, my mother a "hard-shell" Baptist. But no difference of religious views interrupted the even tenor of their domestic life. At seven years of age I was sent to what was known as the Free School, those schools at that time invaluable for colored youth, had not graded studies, systematized, and with such accessories for a fruitful development of the youthful mind as now exist. The teacher of the school, Mr. Kennedy, was an Irishman by birth, and herculean in proportions; erudite and severely positive in enunciation. The motto "Spare the rod and spoil the child" had no place in his curriculum. Alike with the tutors of the deaf and the blind, he was earnest in the belief that learning could be impressively imparted through the sense of feeling. That his manner and means were impressive you may well believe, when I say that I yet have a vivid recollection of a bucket with an inch or two of water in it near his desk. In it stood an assortment of rattan rods, their size when selected for use ranging in the ratio of the enormity, of the offence or the age of the offender.

Among the many sterling traits of character possessed by Mr. Kennedy was economy; the frequent use of the rods as he raised himself on tiptoe to make his protest the more emphatic—split and frizzled them—the immersion of the tips in water would prevent this, and add to the severity of the castigation, while diminishing the expense. A policy wiser and less drastic has taken the place of corporal punishment in schools. But Mr. Kennedy was competent, faithful and impartial. I was not destined to remain long at school. At eight years of age two events occurred which gave direction to my after life. On a Sunday in April, 1831, my father desired that the family attend his church; we did so and heard him preach, taking as his text the 16th verse of Chapter 37 in Genesis: "I seek my brethren; tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks."

On the following Sunday he lay before the pulpit from whence he had preached, cold in death, leaving my mother, who had poor health, with four small children, and little laid by "for a rainy day." Unable to remain long at school, I was "put out" to hold and drive a doctor's horse at three dollars a month, and was engaged in similar employment until I reached sixteen years of age. Of the loving devotion and self-sacrifice of an invalid mother I have not words to express, but certain it is, that should it ever appear that I have done anything to revere, or aught to emulate, it should be laid on the altar of her Christian character, her ardent love of liberty and intense aspiration for the upbuilding of the race. For her voice and example was an educator along all the lines of racial progress.

Needing our assistance in her enfeebled condition, she nevertheless insisted that my brother and myself should learn the carpenter trade. At this period in the career of youth, the financial condition of whose parents or sponsors is unequal to their further pursuit of scholastic studies, it is not without an anxious solicitude they depart from the parental roof. For the correct example and prudent advice may not be invulnerable to the temptation for illicit pleasures or ruinous conduct. Happy will he be who listens to the admonitions of age. Unfortunately by the action of response, sad in its humor, too often is: I like the advice but prefer the experience.

The foundation of the mechanical knowledge possessed by the Negro was laid in the Southern States. During slavery the master selecting those with natural ability, the most apt, with white foremen, had them taught carpentering, blacksmithing, painting, boot and shoe making, coopering, and other trades to utilize on the plantations, or add to their value as property. Many of these would hire themselves by the year from their owners, contract on their own account, and by thrift purchase their freedom, emigrate and teach colored youths of Northern States, where prejudice continues to exclude them from the workshops, while at the South the substantial warehouse and palatial dwelling from base to dome, is often the creation of his brain and the product of his handiwork.

James Gibbons, of the class above referred to, and to whom we were apprenticed, was fat, and that is to say, he was jolly. He had ever a word of kind encouragement, wise counsel or assistance to give his employees. Harshness, want of sympathy or interest is often the precursor and stimulator to the many troubles with organized labor that continue to paralyze so many of our great industrial concerns at the present time, resulting in distress to the one and great material loss to the other. Mr. Gibbons had but a limited education, but he possessed that aptitude, energy, and efficiency which accomplishes great objects, that men call genius, and which is oftimes nothing more than untiring mental activity harnessed to intensity of purpose. These constituted his grasp of much of the intricacies of mechanical knowledge. His example was ever in evidence, by word and action, that only by assidious effort could young men hope to succeed in the battle of life.

Mr. Gibbons was competent and had large patronage. We remained with him until we reached our majority. During a religious revival we both became converted and joined the Presbyterian Church. My brother entered Dartmouth College, under the auspices of the Presbyterian Assembly, graduated and ministered in the church at Philadelphia. After a brief period as a journeyman, I became a contractor and builder on my own account. It is ever a source of strength for a young person to have faith in his or her possibilities, and as soon as may be, assume mastership.

While remaining subject to orders, the stimulus is lacking for that aggressive energy, indispensable to bring to the front. Temporary failure you may have, for failure lies in wait for all human effort, but sneaks from a wise and unconquerable determination. We read of the military prisoner, alone, dejected, and despairing, looking to the walls of his cell; he watches a score of attempts and failure of a spider to scale the wall, only to renew an attempt crowned with success. The lesson was fruitful for the prisoner.

Mr. Gibbons built several of the colored churches in Philadelphia, and in the early forties, during my apprenticeship, he was a bidder for the contract to build the first African Methodist Episcopal brick church of the connection on the present site at Sixth and Lombard streets in Philadelphia. A wooden structure which had been transformed from a blacksmith shop to a meeting house was torn down to give place to the new structure. When a boy I had often been in the old shop, and have heard the founder, Bishop Allen, preach in the wooden building. He was much reverenced. I remember his appearance, and his feeble, shambling gait as he approached the close of an illustrious life.

The A. M. E. Church was distinctively the pioneer in the career of colored churches; its founders the first to typify and unflinchingly assert the brotherhood of man and the Fatherhood of God. Dragged from their knees in the white churches of their faith, they met exclusion by cohesion; ignorance by effort for culture, and poverty by unflinching self-denial; justice and right harnessed to such a movement, who shall declare its ultimatum.

Out from that blacksmith shop went an inspiration lifting its votaries to a