Arthington is located on terrain that is hilly and uneven. It lies about two miles in from the St. Paul’s River and four miles northwest of Millsburg. [footnote]”Arthington, Liberia,” African Repository, Nov. 1873, p. 337.[/footnote]
The town is named in honor of Robert Arthington of Leeds, England, who funded the relocation of its founders from the southern United States. [footnote]”Arthington, Liberia,” African Repository, Nov. 1873, p. 337.[/footnote]
The site selected for Arthington was previously “impenetrable forest, six miles from any settlement.” According to Edward W. Blyden, the “only sounds to be heard were those made by birds on the tops of the lofty trees. There was no opening through the thick forest and dense undergrowth but the narrow path traveled for generations.” [footnote]”Visit to Arthington, African Repository, April 1889, p. 44.[/footnote]
The first group of 79 repatriates, led by Alonzo Hoggard, came from Windsor, North Carolina. In December 1869, they landed in Liberia. While the women and children stayed in Monrovia, the men began clearing the land in March 1870. [footnote]”Arthington, Liberia,” African Repository, Nov. 1873, p. 337; “Visit to Arthington, African Repository, April 1889, p. 44.[/footnote]
They had to contend “with the unbroken wilderness, make clearings and build their huts, eating the fare which, after dividing with their families, was left to them from the [American Colonization] Society’s rations.” [footnote]”Visit to Arthington, African Repository, April 1889, p. 44.[/footnote]
Like many repatriates from the U. S. after the Civil War, those who settled Arthington were dirt poor when they arrived. But, as noted by the New Era newspaper, they were “intelligent, active, industrious, and enterprising.” [footnote]”Arthington, Liberia,” African Repository, Nov. 1873, p. 337.[/footnote]
Three of their leaders were Alonzo Hoggard, Solomon York and Richard Rayner. Their progress was described by a visitor who arrived skeptical but left impressed.
Hoggard, for example, had “no assistance from native boys, no aid but four small sons, and with them alone he has planted out five thousand coffee trees and is cultivating one-and-a-half acres in potatoes, two acres in cassava, four acres in rice, one-half acre in eddies, besides many garden vegetables.” He also had eight hogs. [footnote]”Arthington, Liberia,” African Repository, Nov. 1873, p. 337.[/footnote]
Within three years, York had “nearly three thousand coffee trees growing, many bearing, and a large supply of cassavas, eddies, and other bread stuff.” Rayner, too, had planted a large lot of coffee. He also had “some acres of sugar-cane, some ginger, and his wife offers to sell a few barrels of Indian corn, the result of her own industry.” [footnote]”Arthington, Liberia,” African Repository, Nov. 1873, p. 337.[/footnote]
The first group was joined in 1871 by repatriates from Clayhill, South Carolina led by Jefferson Bracewell. The second group included Solomon Hill and June Moore, who together formed one of the country’s most prosperous trading companies. [footnote]”Arthington, Liberia,” African Repository, Nov. 1873, p. 337.[/footnote]
According to Edward W. Blyden, a frequent visitor to Arthington, some members of this second group knew the African ethnic groups to which they were connected. Hill was one. His mother was Gola, he said, and his father was from an ethnic group along the Niger. [footnote]”Visit to Arthington, African Repository, April 1889, p. 44.[/footnote]
With the aid of his seven sons, Bracewell cleared and planted thirty acres in one year. A visitor in 1873 noted, he had “1,100 coffee trees, made his large crops of rice, potatoes, and eddoes, so as to supply his own family; imported a sugar-mill, and made his own sugar and syrup last season. He has made a large coffee nursery, and is now tanning some of the best leather used in this country.” [footnote]”Arthington, Liberia,” African Repository, Nov. 1873, p. 337.[/footnote]
Bracewell had been so perpetually busy, a reporter for the New Era newspaper joked, he had no time to get sick. “His wife and daughter spin and weave all the cloth that he and those boys wear, and he has built with his own hands his own dwelling house, outside store-house, weaving and loom house for his wife, and a house for tanning.” [footnote]”Arthington, Liberia,” African Repository, Nov. 1873, p. 337.[/footnote]
Even more successful was Hill, a carpenter, cabinet maker, blacksmith, engineer and farmer who could neither read nor write. He arrived in 1871 with $30, all of which was spent to build his first temporary residence. By 1889, a visitor called him “probably the most independent man” in West Africa. [footnote]”Visit to Arthington, African Repository, April 1889, p. 44.[/footnote]Hill planted 180 acres of coffee alone, along side foodstuff.
In 1889, he had “more than fifty bags of coffee from last season, which he has been under no necessity to sell. It is now thoroughly cured and will command a high price. He will produce ten thousand pounds of coffee this season, besides other agricultural articles.” [footnote]”Visit to Arthington, African Repository, April 1889, p. 44.[/footnote]
Hill also built his own house, “a large two story frame building with verandah and attic, and outhouses …some covered (roof and sides) with corrugated iron.” [footnote]”Visit to Arthington, African Repository, April 1889, p. 44.[/footnote]
A visitor called the furniture Hill built “specimens of first-rate workmanship, and being made of native wood procured on his land, is far superior to anything of its kind he could import. His skill would command patronage in any city in the world.” [footnote]”Visit to Arthington, African Repository, April 1889, p. 44.[/footnote]
As a blacksmith, Hill made his own tools. “His lathe for turning wood and iron was constructed by himself in a very simple but effective style.” [footnote]”Visit to Arthington, African Repository, April 1889, p. 44.[/footnote]
One of his greatest contributions was as a mentor to area youth. According Edward W. Blyden, who visited in 1889, two Kpelle youth trained by Hill had “their own coffee farms and live in neat frame houses, cultivating from thirty to fifty acres of land. One of them has recently married a highly esteemed colonist, widow of one of the late prominent settlers.” [footnote]”Visit to Arthington, African Repository, April 1889, p. 44.[/footnote]
A New Era reporter noted that Rev. Moore seemed to be competing with Hill, his neighbor and business partner, in planting coffee and foodstuff. In 1873, Moore had 700 coffee trees and a large coffee nursery. He was also self-sufficient in potatoes, cassava and eddoes. [footnote]”Arthington, Liberia,” African Repository, Nov. 1873, p. 337.[/footnote]
Moore reportedly received most of his religious training in Liberia. He told a visitor he knew “nothing of religion in America. He belonged to a Presbyterian family, but he had no religious impressions till he came to Africa. Here he became converted, joined the Baptist church, entered the ministry, and has recently been elected pastor of the church.” [footnote]”Visit to Arthington, African Repository, April 1889, p. 44.[/footnote]
In 1889, the church was planning to build a larger sanctuary. The original building was now too small for the congregation, many of whom were Indigenous Africans.[footnote]”Visit to Arthington, African Repository, April 1889, p. 44.[/footnote]
By the early 1880s Arthington was the site of the AME Mount Carmel Church, the Lutheran Muhlenberg Mission school and a Baptist church that included 66 “native” congregants, with native students in the schools. [footnote]Liberia Bulletin, 4, pp. 13-16; Cassell 1970, pp. 281, 284, 313, 322, 341, 343, 379.[/footnote]
In 1883, the local Union League Society was incorporated, naming George Askie, S.R. Hoggard, Solomon York, James H. Rawlhac, McGilbert Lawrence, W. L. Askie, S.W. Askie, Robert Mitchell and W. L. Carter]. [footnote] Acts of the Liberian Legislature, 1883, p. 19.[/footnote]
Four years later, the national legislature gave seventy five acres of land for the Anna Morris School of Arthington, with Edward S. Morris as sole trustee. [footnote] Acts of the Liberian Legislature, 1887, p. 3.[/footnote]
In 1888 it was estimated that Arthington alone was producing large quantities of ginger and other produce for local markets, along with 100,000 pounds of coffee for export, 10 percent of which was by Hill and Moore. [footnote]C. A. Cassell. (1970). Liberia. New York: Fountainhead, p. 242, 244, 263, 343; T. W. Shick. (1980). Behold the Promised Land. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 75, Table 17, p. 108; M. B. Akpan (1973). “Black Imperialism.” The Canadian Journal of African Studies, pp. 217-236; African Repository, 34 (1858), pp. 68-70; A. B. Williams. (1878). The Liberian Exodus. Charleston, South Carolina: The News and Courier Book Presses, p. 47.[/footnote]
Also that year, Arthington and neighboring Clay Ashland were in the grips of an enthusiastic temperance movement that resulted in a law banning the sale of liquor in the two towns, both major producers of sugar cane.[footnote] TWP, 1969, p. 28; Cassell, 1970, pp. 189, 216, 264, 341, 344.[/footnote]
Arthington and other St. Paul’s River towns benefited from the technical innovations of the local Muhlenburg Mission, a vocational school led by Rev. John Day. When Edward W. Blyden visited in 1889, the school’s large workshop was being conducted by Clement Irons, who emigrated in 1878 from Charleston, South Carolina. [footnote]”Visit to Arthington, African Repository, April 1889, p. 44.[/footnote]
Blyden noted, “they build arts and wheelbarrows, run steam engines, make farming implements, &c. Mr. Irons has constructed a steamboat for the river of native timber. It was launched from the mission a few weeks ago by the pupils only — 75 of them took hold of it and pushed it from the mission hill down into the water.” He called the school “a model for missions in this country.” [footnote]”Visit to Arthington, African Repository, April 1889, p. 44.[/footnote]
In 1893, a fifth regiment was added to the national militia, with troops to be drawn from Arthington, along with Clay-Ashland, Louisianna, Millsburg, Harrisburg, Muhlenburg, White Plains, Robertsville, Crozerville, Bensonville and Careysburg. [footnote] Acts of the Liberian Legislature, 1893, p. 6.[/footnote]
When the Saint Paul’s Baptist Church was incorporated in 1896, Rev. June Moore was pastor with deacons J.C. Taylor, Solomon Hill, E. Ponder, V.L. Miller, Henry Taylor and George Askie. [footnote]Acts of the Liberian Legislature, Acts 1896, p. 37.[/footnote]
At the time of his death on Dec. 25, 1898, Rev. June Moore was president of the Liberia Baptist Convention, which he and other successful farmers and traders had contributed significantly to making self-sufficient. [footnote]C. A. Cassell. (1970). Liberia. New York: Fountainhead, p. 242, 244, 263, 343; T. W. Shick. (1980). Behold the Promised Land. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 75, Table 17, p. 108; M. B. Akpan (1973). “Black Imperialism.” The Canadian Journal of African Studies, pp. 217-236; African Repository, 34 (1858), pp. 68-70; A. B. Williams. (1878). The Liberian Exodus. Charleston, South Carolina: The News and Courier Book Presses, p. 47.[/footnote]
In the 1905 elections, the TWP nominees for Montserrado were R. H. Jackson for the senate and C. R. Branch of Arthington, Henry Moses Ricks of Clay-Ashland, C. C. Porte of Crozierville and A. B. Mars of Paynesville for the House. The Dissatisfied Whigs, aligned with Coleman, endorsed R. H. Jackson, but put forward the names of J. B. Dennis of Monrovia, W. B. Gant of Brewerville, Z. N. Brown of New Georgia and George Dixon of Sasstown. [footnote]African Agricultural World, February 1905; African Agricultural World, March 1905.[/footnote]
In the early 1900s, as brass bands and fraternal lodges were proliferating in many coastal communities, Arthington was not to be left out. In 1916, the local Number One Brass Band was formed, with John Moore, band director; Johnny Bracewell, band master; W. H. Tyler, band instructor; Scott Carter, band leader; James Hoggard, financial secretary; Emma Tyler, band treasurer; Solomon Miller, boatswain; Thomas H. Tyler, band patron; and members: Joseph Bracewell and Jerry Jones. [footnote]Acts of the Liberian LegislatureActs 1916, p. 12.[/footnote]
That same year, the Coleman’s Memorial Lodge No. 134, United Brothers of Friendship of Arthington was incorporated, naming Thomas H. Tyler, p.m.; June Moore, p.m.; W. H. Tyler, w. m.; H. W. Davies, d. m.; Willie A. Moore, w. s.; Francis Hill, assistance secretary; James Clarke, chaplain; David Moore, marshall; trustees: John Moore and Henry Hill; W. H. Tyes, treasurer; Charles R. Askie, pilot; and Lot Hill. [footnote] Acts of the Liberian Legislature, Acts 1916, p. 13.[/footnote]
The Saint Paul’s Baptist Church was reorganized in 1917-18, with Rev. R. B. Wicker, pastor; J. C. Taylor, sen.; Solomon Hill, sen.; George Askie, church clerk; Thomas H. Tyler, building treasurer; and deacons: George Askie, Eli Poner, Henry Tylor, E. Samuel Moore and Menford F. Smallwood. [footnote]Acts of the Liberian Legislature, Acts 1917-18, p. 37.[/footnote]
In 1935, the Queen Esther Household of Ruth No. 5743 of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows was formed. Listed as officers were L. N. B. Tyler, past most noble governor; Rebecca Bracewell, most noble governor; Mary Lawrence, right noble governor; L. A. Hill, recorder; G. B. Groove, noble governor and chamberlain; L. B. Turbett, shepherd and usher; W. H. Tyler, treasurer; H. M. Moore, worthy counsel; Hattie Brisbane, right senior steward; and trustees A. E. Diggs, A. E. Gall and P. J. Bracewell. [footnote] Acts of the Liberian Legislature, Acts 1935, pp. 38-39.[/footnote]
Two years later, the legislature approved the “Pride of Arthington Temple” No. 137, Sisters of the Mysterious Ten, naming Beatrice A. Tyler, worthy princess; Salomi Moore, worthy vice princess; Lillian Hill, secretary; L. B. Tucker, assitant secretary; W. H. Tyler, worthy treasurer; Lilly Mason, chaplain; Penelope Moore, zilla; Viola Tyes, marshal; Hannah Moore, senior marshal; trustees: June Moore, Willie Moore, Reginald L. Brown, Daniel B. Warner, Major M. Branch; sick committee: Julia A. Warner, Margaret Grove, Cordelia Moore, Lecretia Raynes and Nora Cooper; and members: Louise Mars, Elfreda Witherspoon, Mattie Branch, Harriet Trinity, Beatrice Moore, Eugenia Turkle and Dianah Obey. [footnote] Acts of the Liberian Legislature, Acts 1937, pp. 92-93.[/footnote]
In 1938, Attorney General Louis A. Grimes in an arbitration ordered that the sum of $181.60 be paid to resident Charles Vanah Wright as compensation for use by the government of his house and entire premises as a “pest house” in 1929 for housing small pox cases. [footnote] Acts of the Liberian Legislature, Acts 1938, p. 64.[/footnote]
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