I had to share with you the article and a little bit about our weekend reunion in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. It was powerful. There were 90 descendants of 8 families that came to Fergus Falls around 1897. In 1897 there were 85 Blacks that came to Fergus Falls. The 90 represented several generations – from babies to Dorothy Parsons who is 91 years old and was born and raised in Fergus. The presentation at the Historical Society that Friday was informational, interesting and enlightening. Many people were able to recognize for the Historical Society people in the pictures as well as correct some of the information they had. We searched articles and the archives and found a lot of information we did not know. For the reception that evening we invited white residents who may have known some of the Black families and any current Black residents living in Fergus.
When we returned from the Historical Society, the lobby was full of mostly old white folks – most were there to see my Dad (who at the last minute did not go) and others to see the Tate family who were the last to leave Fergus. Three Blacks came, one who had been living there for 3-4 months who worked for African American Family Services in Minneapolis and was relocated to Fergus. Another Black female who was married to a white farmer and lived there for 5 years and another female who had been living there for 2 years. The news media was there, and it was highlighted on the 10 o-clock news. The visit to the cemetery was just as powerful.
Generally speaking, most of us were interconnected by one side of the family or the other.
We had a follow-up at the Minneapolis Urban League in October where the Fergus Falls Historical Society representative, Missy Hammes did the PowerPoint presentation again for many who were unable to attend the trip to Fergus. Also, the oldest Black born in Fergus that attended the gathering in Fergus Falls passed on November 24. Her name was Dorothy Parson, she was 91 years old. Her parents were John Wills Smith and Ida Mae Tate, both originally from Campbellsville, Kentucky which was where 98% of the Blacks that came to Fergus in the late 1890’s, early 1900 came from.
Following is an article that appeared in the Fergus Falls Journal in 1933
How Colored Colony Came to Fergus FallsLiterature Distributed at GAR Encampment brought Colony from Kentucky
Article Written by Elmer E. Adams Years Ago Gives Interesting Bit of History.
(Editors Note – 1933) Fergus Falls had quite a large colony of colored people in years gone by and there are still a few of them here, but not many. On April 7, 1898, the Journal files show that a colony of 85 Negroes, 60 men and boys and 25 women and girls arrived in this city and proposed to engage in farming. Later most of them went elsewhere.
Years later, the following article from the pen of Elmer E. Adams, sketched the history of the “colony” and told how it arrived together with other interesting data. The article was as follows:
There has been a great deal of controversy as to how, when and why the colored people came to Fergus Falls and the holding of the Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic in St. Paul has revived quite a good many facts in connection with the colonization of the colored people here.
Prince Honeycutt was camp boy for Captain James Compton when he was in the Civil War and when Captain Compton returned to his home after the war was over Prince insisted on coming home with him. He was a slight youth with badly crossed eyes and was not a very prepossessing looking darky but he had a fine disposition and everybody always liked Prince during his long residence in Fergus Falls. He learned to be a barber and operated a shop here for a great many years. If any stray colored persons came to town he was always parked with Prince who lived across the slough in the second ward. He married a white woman and after she died he married a colored woman and his children taught school here in Otter Tail County.
The second colored man to reside here was Colonel Joe Robinson, a large, portly colored man with a mustache and a distinguished looking goatee. He was a porter and runner for the different hotels in the days when hotels used to have solicitors at the station calling out “free bus to Bell’s hotel” or “free bus to Grand Hotel”. Why he was called colonel was never known except that in those days everybody who had anything to do with a hotel was called “Colonel” and he was known as Colonel Joe to the traveling public of those days. He was married to a white woman and for a great many years lived in a house on the river bank near the present creamery building but what became of him is not known. He is undoubtedly dead as he would have been more than a hundred years old if still living.
The great influx of colored people occurred thirty-six years ago on the sixth of April when a carload arrived from Kentucky. The Grand Army of the Republic held its Encampment at St. Paul the previous year and it was attended by Civil War Veterans from every state in the Union. It was looked upon as a great time to advertise the interests of the state and the Fergus Falls Commercial Club had a supply of literature scattered though the various hotels for the people to look at in case they were interested. In Kentucky there were a lot of colored people in the Union Army and a delegation from Kentucky came to attend the Grand Army Encampment at St. Paul. At that time the whole northwest was looking for settlers and Chris Johnson and C. J. Wright, who were engaged in the real estate business and in locating settlers and prospectors, went to St. Paul to distribute the literature and meet the people. The colored visitors from Kentucky carried away some of this literature and the addresses of Messrs. Wright and Johnson. This literature made such a favorable impression on the minds of the visitors that the colored people in a certain vicinity of Kentucky raised some money and sent four delegates to Minnesota to look up the situation and make a report. According to Thomas Anderson, who came with the colony in 1897 two of the delegates who were sent never went any farther than St. Paul while two came on to Fergus Falls but I think they did not do anything more than to stay with Prince Honeycutt while here.
CAME IN 1897
They reported favorably on the country and in April 1897 a carload consisting of about eighteen families left Kentucky on their trip to the Northwest. They were met in St. Paul by Messrs. Wright and Johnson who accompanied them to Fergus Falls. They came up on the day train and as there was no habitat ready for them they remained in the car over night and the next day houses were found for them in various parts of the city. It was the largest influx of colored people the Northwest had ever seen and in the crowd were a lot of little pickaninies who are now among the grown up colored people of Fergus Falls. They were shown land in and around the city but did not find as many homesteads as they expected and part of the delegation went on to Akeley and Nevis, north of the Northern Pacific road, but it was an unfortunate move for them as they did not find as good soil there.
The heads of the families were all Civil War pensioners and in the party at that time were Oscar Vaughn, Frank Marshall, John Lewis, Allen Webster, Reuben Fitch, Joe Himsly, Gane Strader and Alexander Pennick. While a good many in the colony were rather old men. They were all fairly good workers and for honesty and sobriety always stood well in the community. They were mostly members of the Baptist Church but thirty years ago Uncle Tom Anderson attended a Seventh Day Adventist revival in a tent pitched near the Lincoln School and since that time has observed the Sabbath. Most of the colored people, however, are members of the Baptist Church and they have a church on Washington Avenue which is out of debt. (This church edifice is now used by the Jehovah Witnesses).
During the past few years there has been quite an emigration from here to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and there are probably less colored people in Fergus Falls now than there were some time ago.
‘DISTINGUISHED VISITOR”
A later effort was made to colonize this territory with colored people through the arrival in Minnesota of a distinguished looking colored gentleman who announced that he was the advance agent to locate a number of wealthy colored land seekers and as evidence he showed what he claimed were drafts for $50,000 each. In those days there was not the same high standard of ethics on the part of real estate men that there is now and if one agent brought a prospect to town he had to hound him constantly in order that he would not be picked off by some competitor. When this colored gentleman arrived and it was learned that he had these drafts for such large amounts he was much sought after and he was driven about the country by the C. D. Baker Agency, Clarence Reed and others. As he sat on the back seat with the realtor and looked at the various farms he would say “I will take this one” or that one, with a perfect sang-froid of a millionaire and after he had seen some of the country south of town another agency would show him something in a different direction and try to gain his favor for that section.
In the meantime Prince Honeycutt had died or was no longer acting as host for visiting colored gentlemen and so this gentleman was parked with Uncle Tom Anderson over in the fourth ward. In those days people were not looking around for non-alcoholic malt liquor to slake their thirst. Sport Curry was operating a saloon in the building in which Mirandy Burbank formerly had her millinery store and which was located just this side of the old city hall on Mill Street.
Frank Curry, his brother operated a little more elegant looking place in the Bailey Block now occupied by the Home Bakery and many of the ablest drinkers of those days divided their patronage between these two well known places not only on account of the excellence of the liquor, but because, being on a side street, they were not quite as conspicuous in going into a saloon, for even in those days it was not quite au fait to be seen going in the front door and less so to be going out the back door. The Realtors discovered that this colored prospect, from the south enjoyed a nip and so to gain his good will and patronage they were generous in their hospitality and by night when they returned im to his lodging at Uncle Tom’s he was often a little bit groggy. William Edward Anderson, Uncle tom’s son, who had served with the army in the Philippines and could tell when the bones were loaded or there was fingernail marks on the backs of the cards, became suspicious of this prospect and told his father, who was keeping these large drafts, that he wanted to see them and as soon as he examined them he said he would not take them even in payment of a poker debt. When it became known that these drafts were fakes, the police took the visitor up to the Northwest part of the city and headed him on foot for Fargo. It was reported that latter on when he got into Montana that he worked the same racket but there were no arrivals from Kentucky or anywhere else as a result of his visit, which was just about as profitable to those who drove him about as it has been for others who drove white prospectors all over the country only to find out that they could not come here unless freight and car fare was furnished.
This year the Grand Army will have its reunion in St. Paul. The state has appropriated $10,000 to entertain those who wore the blue, white or black, but the coming gathering will not be like the one in the olden days when there were long columns of marching veterans, with bands playing patriotic music, with speeches from the leaders in the great battles. There are only a few left and there will only be a few more reunions on this earth.
There have been so many reports and rumors as to how the colored people came to Fergus Falls that it is only proper that this record should be made.
