Author: Patrick

In 1916, 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.

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 1916, p. 13; Acts of the Liberian Legislature, Acts 1917-18, p. 37.

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.

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: African Agricultural World, February 1905; African Agricultural World, March 1905; Acts of the Liberian LegislatureActs 1916, p. 12.

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.

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.

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: Acts of the Liberian Legislature, 1893, p. 6; Acts of the Liberian Legislature, Acts 1896, p. 37; 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.

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.

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; 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; TWP, 1969, p. 28; Cassell, 1970, pp. 189, 216, 264, 341, 344.

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.

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].

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:Liberia Bulletin, 4, pp. 13-16; Cassell 1970, pp. 281, 284, 313, 322, 341, 343, 379; Acts of the Liberian Legislature, 1883, p. 19; Acts of the Liberian Legislature, 1887, p. 3.

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.

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.”

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: “Arthington, Liberia,” African Repository, Nov. 1873, p. 337; “Visit to Arthington, African Repository, April 1889, p. 44.

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.”

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.” He 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.”

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.

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.”

Even more successful than Bracewell was Solomon 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. 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: “Arthington, Liberia,” African Repository, Nov. 1873, p. 337; “Visit to Arthington, African Repository, April 1889, p. 44.

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.

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.

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; “Visit to Arthington, African Repository, April 1889, p. 44.

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.

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.”

Many 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; “Visit to Arthington, African Repository, April 1889, p. 44.

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. The town is named in honor of Robert Arthington of Leeds, England, who funded the relocation of its founders from the southern United States.

The site selected for Arthington was previously an “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: “Arthington, Liberia,” African Repository, Nov. 1873, p. 337.][“Arthington, Liberia,” African Repository, Nov. 1873, p. 337: “Visit to Arthington, African Repository, April 1889, p. 44.

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 eddoes, besides many garden vegetables.” He also had eight hogs.

Within three years, York had “nearly three thousand coffee trees growing, many bearing, and a large supply of cassavas, eddoes, 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.