| Lt. Col. Allen Allensworth | |
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ca. 1906 |
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| Born | 7 April 1842 Louisville, Kentucky |
| Died | 14 September 1914 (aged 72) Monrovia, California |
| Place of burial | Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery Los Angeles, California |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Service/branch | United States Army |
| Rank | Lieutenant Colonel |
| Other work | Founder, Allensworth, California |
Allen Allensworth (7 April 1842 – 14 September 1914) was an American soldier and chaplain in the United States Army, a Baptist minister and educator, who had been born into slavery. He escaped by joining the 44th Illinois Volunteers during the American Civil War, and later served two years in the Navy. After being ordained as a minister, he worked as a teacher, studied theology and led several churches. In 1880 and 1884 he served as the only black delegate from Kentucky in the Republican National conventions. In 1886 he gained an appointment as a military chaplain to a unit of Buffalo Soldiers and served in the Army for 20 years. By his retirement in 1906, he had been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, and was the first African American to reach this rank.
In addition to his work in developing churches, he was notable for founding the township of Allensworth, California in 1908; it was intended as an all-black community free of the racial discrimination faced by so many at the turn of the century. It was the only California town to be founded, financed and governed by African Americans. Although environmental conditions inhibited its success as a farming community and the residents finally left, much of the former town has been preserved as the Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park, to mark their dream and the thriving community his followers created for some time.
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Born into slavery in Louisville, Kentucky in 1842, Allensworth was the youngest of thirteen children of Phyllis (c. 1782 - 1878[1]) and Levi Allensworth. Over the years, their family was scattered: their daughter Lila escaped with her intended husband to Canada by the Underground Railroad; the older boys William, George, Frank, Levi and Major were sold down river to plantations in the Deep South, which continued to buy workers from the Upper South. Mary Jane was one child who grew up in Kentucky and married there.[1]
His mother was held by A.P. and Bett Starbird. The mistress assigned the young boy Allen to her son Thomas. When the Starbird boy started to school, Allen began to learn from him, although it was illegal. After his father died when he was young, and his mother chose to be sold as a cook to a neighbor, the attorney Nat Wolfe. When the Starbirds found Allen was learning to read, they separated the boys and place Allen with the Talbots. Mrs. Talbot, a Quaker, was kind to him and continued to teach him to read and write; she also took him to a Sunday school for slave children. When Bett Starbird discovered this, she took Allen back and in 1854 made arrangements with her husband's partner John Smith to send the boy to his brother's plantation down the Mississippi River in Henderson, to put an end to his learning. On the steamboat the boy was placed in the care of a slave steward rather than being chained with other slaves below deck, who were being taken for sale to downriver markets.[1]
Pat Smith's wife Hebe took Allen for a houseboy; she prohibited him from continuing his studies and whipped him for trying to do so. Also working in the household was a white orphan boy Eddie; the two became friends and helped each other. Suffering on the farm from a cruel overseer, in 1855 at age 13, Allen planned to escape to Canada. He spent two weeks hiding out at a neighboring farm before returning to the Smiths for punishment. Later he ran away again and in retaliation, the Starbirds agreed to have him sold on the auction block in Henderson.[1]
Allensworth was sold again in Memphis, Tennessee and then at the big slave market in New Orleans. Finally he was bought by Fred Scruggs, who taught him to work as an exercise boy and jockey in Jefferson, Louisiana. His new master was pleased to learn that the boy could read and had him race his best horse.[1]
In early 1861 the Civil War loomed, but horse racing continued and Scruggs took Allen and his horses upriver for the fall meet in Louisville, where Allen hoped to see his mother again. He learned that her last master, a Rev. Bayliss, had freed her after she cared for his dying wife. She had recently gone to New Orleans with a Union man to look for her sons. (She found Major there, in prison.) Waiting for her return, Allensworth was reunited with his sister Mary Jane, who had married and had a son. She had purchased her freedom in 1849. Phyllis Starbird returned to Louisville, where she and Allen were reunited.[1]
While working nearby on a farm where Scruggs' deputy had placed him, Allensworth met soldiers from the 44th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment, a Union unit encamped near Louisville. When he told them of his desire for freedom, they invited him to join the Hospital Corps. In disguise, he marched with them past his old master through Louisville and off to war. After serving as a civilian nursing aide for some time, he was invited to accompany Dr. A. J. Gordon, one of the surgeons, to his home in Georgetown, Ohio, where Allensworth dined with his family, was given a room of his own, and felt he first walked as a free man. With the war continuing, in 1863 Allensworth enlisted in the US Navy, where he earned his first pay as a free man. He was soon promoted to Captain's steward and clerk, and served on the gunboats Queen City and Tawah for two years.[1]
Allensworth first returned to Kentucky to work and study. In 1868 he joined his brother William in [[St. Louis[[, where they operated two restaurants. Within a short time, they received a favorable offer and sold them out; Allensworth returned to Louisville. He worked to put himself through the Ely Normal School established by the American Missionary Association. During Reconstruction, he taught at schools operated by the Freedman's Bureau.[1]
After the war, Allensworth became involved with the Baptist Church in Louisville. He was ordained by the Baptists as a preacher in 1871. In the 1870s, he went on to study theology in Tennessee, as he felt he needed more education. During this time he also served as preacher in Franklin, Tennessee, north of Nashville.[1]
In 1875, he started working as a teacher in Georgetown, Kentucky, where he also acted as the financial agent of the General Association of the Colored Baptists in Kentucky. They had joined together to support the founding of a religious school for teachers and preachers. He was among the founders of The State University, helped guarantee the salary of the president in the early years, and served on the Board of Trustees.[1]
He returned to Louisville when called to be pastor of the Harney Street Baptist Church, which he reorganized and attracted many new members. They renamed it Centennial Baptist Church, and it was selected as a model by the American Baptist Home Mission Society of America. Within a few years, Allensworth had increased the congregation nearly fivefold and it built a new church.[1]
After his marriage in 1877, Allensworth was called to the State Street Church in Bowling Green, Kentucky. In addition to preaching, he gave public lectures. That fall, he went to Boston to give a series of lectures, after studying public speaking in Philadelphia. On his return, he met people from the American Baptist Publication Society in Philadelphia, who appointed him as Sunday School Missionary for the state of Kentucky. He had always worked to build up the Sunday Schools at his churches, and this gave him the chance to continue to work on education around the state. The Colored Baptist State Sunday School Convention of Kentucky appointed him to the position of State Sunday School Superintendent. That year, he invited his mother to live with him and Josephine. They had several months together before she died in 1878 at the age of 96.[1]
With his leadership positions and public speaking, Allensworth became increasingly interested in politics. In 1880 and 1884, he was selected as Kentucky's only black delegate to the Republican National conventions.[1]
In 1877 he married Josephine Leavell (1855-1938), also a native of Kentucky; they had met while studying at Roger Williams University in Nashville, Tennessee. She was an accomplished pianist, organist and music teacher. They had two daughters together, Eva and Nella.
In 1886, Allensworth gained an appointment by asking for support by both southern and northern politicians; his appointment was confirmed by the Senate, as necessary at the time, and approved by the president. He was one of the few black chaplains in the US Army and was assigned to the 24th Infantry Regiment, known as the Buffalo Soldiers. His family accompanied him on assignments in the West ranging from Fort Bayard, New Mexico Territory to Fort Supply, Indian Territory and Fort Harrison, near Helena, Montana. His wife played organ in their chapels.
At Fort Bayard, Allensworth wrote Outline of Course of Study, and the Rules Governing Post Schools of Ft. Bayard, N.M.. The Army adapted these for use as the standard manual on the education of enlisted personnel.
By the time of his retirement in 1906, Allensworth had reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, the first African American to do so.
Upon leaving military service, Allensworth and his family settled in Los Angeles. He was inspired with the idea of establishing a self-sufficient, all-black California community where African Americans could live free of the racial discrimination that pervaded post-Reconstruction, turn-of-the-century America. His dream was to build a community where black people might live and create "sentiment favorable to intellectual and industrial liberty."
In 1908 he founded Allensworth in Tulare county, about thirty miles north of Bakersfield, in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley. The black settlers of Allensworth built homes, laid out streets, and put up public buildings. They established a church, and organized an orchestra, a glee club, and a brass band.
The Allensworth colony became a member of the county school district and the regional library system and a voting precinct. Residents elected the first African-American Justice of the Peace in post-Mexican California. In 1914, the California Eagle reported that the Allensworth community consisted of 900 acres (360 ha) of deeded land worth more than US$112,500.
Allensworth soon became a town, not just a colony. Among the social and educational organizations that flourished during Allensworth's golden age were the Campfire Girls, the Owl Club, the Girls' Glee Club, and the Children's Savings Association, for the town's younger residents, while adults participated in the Sewing Circle, the Whist Club, the Debating Society, and the Theater Club. Col. Allensworth was an admirer of the African-American educator Booker T. Washington, who was the founder and longtime leader of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Allensworth dream that his new community could be self sufficient and become known as the "Tuskegee of the West".
The Girls' Glee Club was modeled after the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University, who had toured internationally. They were the community's pride and joy. Allensworth's streets were all named after notable African Americans and/or dedicated white abolitionists, such as Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and Uncle Tom's Cabin author Harriet Beecher Stowe.
The dry and dusty soil made farming difficult. The drinking water became contaminated by toxins as the water level fell.
In 1914 Allensworth was struck and killed by a motorcyclist in Monrovia, California. Over the next couple of decades, the discouraged community slowly dispersed and moved away and the Allensworth township was reduced almost to a ghost town.
Allensworth is the only California community to be founded, financed and governed by African Americans. The founders were dedicated to improving the economic and social status of African Americans. Uncontrollable circumstances, including a drop in the area’s water table, resulted in the town’s decline.
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