About Bonds

Old idols die hard. George Washington Henderson, Class of 1877, has long been revered as the University of Vermonts first African-American graduate. With that distinction comes the props of a pioneer the portrait in Watermans Memorial Lounge, the nod in litanies of UVM pride. To be sure, Henderson is worthy of celebration. Born a slave, he worked his way through school by teaching in Jericho, Vt. and went on to a career as a minister, professor, and higher education leader.

Worthy, but just not first.

As UVM nears its 200th commencement, its time to set the historical record straight, says Jeff Marshall, university archivist. George Washington Henderson was nearly forty years too late for first: Andrew Harris, UVM Class of 1838, your time has finally come.

Revisionist history
Harris first came to Marshalls attention six years ago on a tip from Bob Buckeye, now retired as Middlebury Colleges archivist. While researching Martin Freeman, Middleburys second African-American alumnus, Buckeye came across a footnote reference in The Black Abolitionist Papers, Volume III, which stated that Andrew Harris "was refused admission to Union and Middlebury colleges because of his race and finally enrolled at the University of Vermont, where he graduated in 1838."

Marshall took up the hunt at UVM, where he found confirmation of Harriss matriculation in the yellowed pages of the University of Vermont General Catalog 1791-1900. Among the 24 members of the Class of 1838, Marshall hit archival pay dirt: "Andrew Harris, licensed by preb of Phila 40; d 1841; name not in catalogues of Presidents record, must have entered after October 37." Marshall notes that it wasnt unusual for students of the time to start late in the semester or spend a single year at the university before graduating, as Harris did.

And thats about where the trail of Andrew Harriss time in Burlington ends. Alumni files and contemporaneous sources such as letters and diaries yielded nothing for Marshall. The student yearbook was a thing of the future. The UVM Registrars Office confirmed having Harriss record on file but didnt offer up a look, resolute in the duty of protecting his privacy even 157 years beyond the grave.

Meanwhile back in Middlebury, Marshalls archivist counterpart Bob Buckeye was faced with some questions of his own. Middleburys alleged rejection was a bit perplexing for a school that had earlier accepted the fabled Alexander Twilight, who became the first African-American college graduate in the United States in 1823. Addressing the speculation of some that Twilight actually passed as a white man at Middlebury, Buckeye casts doubt on that notion with the fact that he was regarded as black in his hometown. He also notes further evidence of Middleburys progressive attitude on race in the colleges first honorary degree, which was awarded to Lemuel Haynes, an African-American minister, in 1804. Buckeye found no Middlebury policies restricting admission on the basis of race, and his attempts to track down the source of the footnote met dead-ends.

Resonance beyond Vermont
Harriss post-UVM biography is a good deal clearer. Though he would live just three years past his college graduation, Harris made a name for himself as a Philadelphia minister and abolitionist. On May 7, 1839, he was among the speakers at the annual meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society, an event that drew a crowd of nearly 5,000 to the Broadway Tabernacle in New York City.

A sample of the heat Harris kindled from the pulpit: "Shall I again point to the South, and depict the sufferings of the slave? If the groans and sighs of the victims of slavery could be collected, and thrown out here in one volley, these walls would tremble, these pillars would be removed from their foundations, and we should find ourselves buried in the ruins of the edifice. If the blood of the innocent, which has been shed by slavery, could be poured out here, this audience might swim in it or if they could not swim they would be drowned."

Marshall notes that Harriss ordination as a Presbyterian minister in April 1841, when he assumed the pastorate of Philadelphias St. Marys Street Church (also known as the Second African Church), put him in the powerful position of being a leader in the African American community and a religious leader able to command respect from white clergymen and their congregations. But Harris would be dead in less than a year, cutting short his potential at age 31.

Marshall first brought Andrew Harriss place in UVM history to light in an article for the Special Collections newsletter Liber in 1998, though its been tough to re-write a nugget of institutional memory as firmly lodged as the name of George Washington Henderson.

But how to explain Harriss years of total obscurity?

"I think people simply forgot about him," Marshall says. "I don't know whether anyone thought it was an important question to ask before the 1960s. At any rate, when Professor Goodrich began compiling the alumni information for the General Catalogue in the 1880s, if there was anyone who remembered that a black student had been here briefly in the 1830s they probably didn't think it important."

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