A Doctor Caned

Part Two of our series on Dr. John Cox Hupp

The headline was designed to make readers stop: “A Doctor Caned.”

No violence had occurred. On the evening of November 24, 1873, the office of Wheeling physician and education reformer Dr. John Cox Hupp filled with members of the city’s Black community. They had come not to condemn the doctor, but to honor him—with an elegant, gold-headed walking cane.

The following morning, the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer reported that the gathering had been arranged to present Hupp with this unusual civic award. The newspaper described his office as “crowded with colored people” and identified the Reverend W. S. Wilson, pastor of Wheeling’s Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, as their representative.

Wilson paid what the paper called “a glowing tribute” to Hupp’s character and spoke of the doctor’s efforts to secure better educational opportunities for Wheeling’s Black children.

The date makes the occasion even more remarkable. Because the article appeared on November 25 and described the presentation as having occurred “last evening,” the ceremony took place on November 24—Dr. Hupp’s fifty-fourth birthday. Whether deliberately timed or providentially coincidental, the presentation gave Hupp an extraordinary birthday tribute from the very community whose educational rights he had defended.

An Honor Bestowed by the Community

This was not an official government decoration or an award issued by a professional association. It came directly from Wheeling’s Black citizens.

That distinction gives the cane exceptional historical significance.

The people presenting it had lived through slavery, the Civil War, emancipation, and the uncertain first years of freedom. Their children attended a segregated public school, but the community was determined that segregation would not be used as an excuse for neglect, inferior facilities, or exclusion from the benefits of public education.

Their resolutions explained precisely why Hupp deserved recognition:

“We, the colored citizens of Wheeling, in our transition from bondage to the state of freemen, do consider the question of Education first in importance.”

They described the disadvantages under which their children had labored because of the “poor arrangement” of their schoolhouse. They then credited an improvement in those conditions largely to:

“the unflinching stand taken by our distinguished fellow-citizen, Dr. J. C. Hupp, before the Board of Education.”

That language matters.

The resolution did not identify Hupp as the founder of Wheeling’s Colored School. By November 1873, the school had already existed for approximately seven years. Contemporary evidence establishes that it had been organized by the Wheeling Board of Education in 1866 as a municipal public school, supported by public tax revenue. John W. West served as its first teacher, and his brother Robert later joined him.

What the 1873 article documents is something different—and historically just as important. Dr. Hupp used his position and influence before the Board of Education to demand better treatment and improved educational arrangements for Wheeling’s Black children.

The community that witnessed his efforts chose to thank him in its own words and on its own terms.

“The Sincere Thanks of Every Man, Woman and Child”

The resolutions adopted by the Wilson Lyceum were unequivocal:

“Resolved, That on account of the interest he has taken in the promotion of Education among us he is entitled to the sincere thanks of every man, woman and child of color in this city.”

The authors were also careful to explain the larger principle being honored. They did not portray Hupp’s actions merely as personal favors bestowed upon a dependent community. Their language placed his advocacy within the broader struggle for equality:

“Resolved, That while we have no right to claim the Doctor and those who acted with him as our special friends, we do claim the right to honor them not only as high-toned gentlemen, but also on account of the great principles they support, ‘Equal Rights and Justice to all.’”

As a physical expression of that gratitude, the Lyceum resolved to present Hupp with a gold-headed cane:

“as a small token of our high appreciation of the ‘interest’ thus manifested,” upon which he might “lean when he comes to his declining years.”

The cane was described as a “fine, substantial walking-stick,” with a handsomely ornamented head bearing the inscription:

“Presented to Dr. J. C. Hupp by the colored citizens of Wheeling.”

It was both a personal gift and a public declaration. The inscription ensured that anyone who saw the cane would understand who had presented it—and why.

Dr. Hupp Responds

Hupp’s reply, preserved at length by the Intelligencer, reveals how he understood the meaning of the occasion.

He began by addressing the gathering not as patients, constituents, or petitioners, but as “Friends of Education.”

“I cheerfully accept this token of your regard, so unexpectedly and cordially extended, as proof of your appreciation of recent successful efforts in obtaining for the colored children of the School District of Wheeling, ‘the privileges and advantages of a Free School Education.’”

That statement is important to the history of Wheeling’s Black public school. Hupp described his work as an effort to obtain more fully for Black children the privileges and advantages of public education. He was fighting within an existing public-school system to ensure that its promises extended to children whom society too often neglected.

His speech then widened from Wheeling’s Black school to the purpose of education itself:

“The people of Wheeling have great reason to feel proud of their schools and to rejoice in the privileges, advantages and blessings they realize educationally. Here the people are beginning to view the subject of education in its proper light.”

For Hupp, education was not a private luxury reserved for families with wealth or influence. It was the foundation of citizenship and free government:

“Education broad, sound, and correct is the price of liberty—Education forms the man.”

He continued:

“‘Education is the bulwark of our Nation,’ and…FREE SCHOOLS are the strong pillars of our civil liberty and of our republican institutions.”

These were not merely ceremonial phrases. In 1873, West Virginia’s public-school system was still young. The state had been created only ten years earlier, and the ideal of publicly supported education for every child remained contested in both principle and practice.

Hupp argued that a state’s greatness could not be measured by military power, accumulated wealth, or impressive buildings:

“They see that the real wealth of our country consists, not in the sums of money paid into its treasury—that its real strength consists, not in fleets and armies—that its real glory consists, not in the splendid palace, the lofty spire, or the towering dome; but in the intelligence and morality, the comforts and happiness of its citizens.”

He then distilled that belief into a striking declaration:

“Men, intelligent, high-minded men, constitute a State.”

In Hupp’s view, schools were not charitable institutions standing at the margins of civic life. They were where the future of the republic was being formed.

Education as a Public Responsibility

One passage in Hupp’s speech may sound startling to modern readers. He said that the nation’s children were “public property.” In its nineteenth-century context, however, he was not denying the rights of parents or asserting ownership over children. He was arguing that their education affected the entire society and therefore could not be treated as a purely private matter.

“The people of this country, looking down the prospective of time, see that their children will, in a few years, constitute the beings who are to support or overthrow the institutions of our country—that their children are public property, and that their superintendence should be a public concern.”

The future of republican government, he believed, depended upon the education of all children. Public schools therefore represented a collective responsibility.

Hupp praised West Virginians for their willingness to support those schools through taxation. His language transformed the ordinary act of approving a school levy into a democratic proclamation:

“Very recently in West Virginia the voice of the people was heard on the subject of laying a levy for Free School purposes—‘LAY THE LEVY’—was the utterance of the people, thundered from Kanawha to Hancock, and reverberated from the western Panhandle to the eastern Panhandle.”

The generation paying those taxes, he said, could take satisfaction in what it had accomplished, but the fullest judgment would come from the future:

“In this happy condition of educational affairs the present residents of our city and State may rejoice; but for it, posterity will bless them.”

“Without Distinction of Race, or Color”

The most historically powerful portion of Hupp’s address came when he described education opening across the country:

“We see the empire of learning opening to all conditions of life, without distinction of race, or color, or previous condition of servitude.”

Only eight years had passed since the end of the Civil War. The Fourteenth Amendment had been ratified five years earlier, and the Fifteenth Amendment only three years earlier. Across the nation, the meaning of freedom was still being fought over in schools, courthouses, legislatures, and communities.

Against that background, Hupp publicly envisioned an educational system open to people regardless of race or former enslavement.

He described the growing network of institutions carrying education into communities throughout the region:

“A mighty power, not physical, however, has been at work among us, and it is this power, becoming more and more active amongst the people, that is bringing into healthy action free schools, and high schools, and normal schools, and teachers’ institutes, and free night schools, and academies, and colleges in every part of the great Mississippi Valley.”

His vision included both boys and girls:

“Surrounded with these educational facilities the people are constrained to educate their sons, that they may grow up as plants in their youth. They are constrained to educate their daughters, that they may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace.”

He called upon the entire community to continue the work:

“Let the whole people labor, hoping for success, and press forward, trusting that perseverance will bring its own reward, and each remembering that the great lesson of life is to apply himself with diligence to the work that is before him.”

A “Mighty Revolution” Through Education

Hupp concluded with the most sweeping oratory of the evening. He imagined education flowing across West Virginia and beyond, driving ignorance from every neglected place:

“Then, soon a mighty revolution shall be brought about; ignorance and superstition will be compelled to retreat from our borders; education will gush forth in healing, healthful and moralizing streams, and flow on and on, until throughout all West Virginia, and the wide world, no dark corner shall remain as a lurking place for ignorance.”

The language reflected the religious and moral vocabulary of the period, but its central message was unmistakable: education possessed the power to transform individuals, communities, and the nation.

Hupp closed by thanking those gathered in his office:

“Friends of Education, I thank you; and I thank, also, the gentleman who, in language so courteous, has extended to me your good wishes, together with this proud token of your regard.”

Recognition Earned, Not Invented

Later commemorative accounts would sometimes incorrectly identify Dr. Hupp as a founder of Wheeling’s Colored School. The surviving contemporary record tells a more precise story.

The Wheeling Board of Education established the tax-supported school in 1866. John W. West became its first teacher, and Robert West later joined him. Those facts should remain firmly at the center of the school’s founding history.

Correcting that record does not diminish Hupp. It allows us to appreciate his actual contribution.

In 1873, Wheeling’s Black citizens did not honor him for a legendary founding role. They honored him for something they had personally witnessed: his willingness to take an “unflinching stand” before the Board of Education, to insist upon improved conditions for their children, and to support the principle of “Equal Rights and Justice to all.”

That is a powerful legacy in its own right.

The gold-headed cane was more than an attractive object. It represented the judgment of a community that knew the difference between words and action. Its inscription preserved the identity of the people who offered it. Their resolutions preserved the reason.

And Dr. Hupp’s response preserved his belief that public education—broad, sound, properly supported, and available without distinction of race—was nothing less than the price of liberty.

-T

Source and Research Notes

The principal source for this installment is “A Doctor Caned,” The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, Tuesday morning, November 25, 1873. The article records the presentation ceremony, Hupp’s response, the cane’s inscription, and the resolutions adopted by the Wilson Lyceum.

The ceremony can be dated to the evening of November 24 because the newspaper described it the following morning as occurring “last evening.” Biographical sources give November 24, 1819, as Dr. John Cox Hupp’s date of birth, making the presentation the evening of his fifty-fourth birthday.

This article should be read alongside the contemporary records documenting the school’s actual establishment by the Wheeling Board of Education in 1866, its support through municipal school taxes, and the service of John W. West as its first teacher.

Terminology Note

This post uses Black in the modern narrative. Terms such as “colored,” “freemen,” and “previous condition of servitude” appear only when quoting or closely identifying language used in the 1873 source. They are preserved because the original words reveal how Wheeling’s Black citizens and their allies described education, freedom, and equality during Reconstruction.