Progress in Everything Good and Great: The Colored Sabbath School of Simpson Chapel

On a June morning in 1874, Black children began gathering at Simpson Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church in Wheeling. They arrived carrying baskets and bouquets, prepared for a day that would combine education, faith, fellowship and the simple joy of being together.

Shortly before eight o’clock, the children were called into formation. Led by the officers of their Sabbath school, they marched down Eoff Street, continued along Fourteenth Street and proceeded toward the railroad for an excursion to Thompson’s Grove.

The occasion was the first annual picnic of the Colored Sabbath School of Simpson Chapel.

A brief report published in the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer on June 5, 1874, preserved what might otherwise have disappeared from the historical record: the names of its leaders, the route of its procession, the activities of the day and the pride surrounding a growing Black educational institution.

The newspaper’s most powerful observation was also its simplest:

“We mean progress in everything that is good and great.”

That sentence captures far more than a pleasant summer picnic. It expresses the aspirations of a community building institutions for its children less than a decade after the end of slavery.

A Procession Through Wheeling

The picnic took place on June 4, 1874, at Thompson’s Grove. George Rollins, superintendent of the Sabbath school, helped organize the children before their departure. W. F. Gaskins was identified as the school’s principal, and Rev. E. Lawson served as pastor of Simpson Chapel.

The children’s procession through Wheeling would have been difficult to overlook. This was a visible public expression of Black organization, education and community life during Reconstruction.

Only nine years had passed since the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery throughout the United States. Just eight years had passed since Wheeling’s Board of Education established the city’s publicly funded school for Black children and employed John W. West as its first teacher.

Now, another Black educational institution was marching through the streets.

The Simpson Chapel Sabbath School was not a replacement for Wheeling’s public Colored School. It was part of a larger network of community education that surrounded and strengthened it. During the week, children might receive instruction through the public-school system. On Sunday, the church provided another setting in which they could read, recite, sing, speak publicly, study Scripture and learn the responsibilities of leadership and service.

Together, the public school, the church, the family and other Black community organizations created an educational infrastructure that extended far beyond a single classroom.

A Day of Learning and Fellowship

After reaching Thompson’s Grove, the children were given time to explore and enjoy their surroundings. They played among the trees until the superintendent called everyone together for the organized portion of the day.

There was singing. There were prayers. There were addresses by respected community figures.

Rev. E. Lawson, pastor of Simpson Chapel, spoke to the children and families. Principal W. F. Gaskins offered remarks, as did Francis Lee, whom the newspaper described as well known among Wheeling’s Black residents. Lee had traveled widely and used his experience to speak about the progress of Black Americans.

The gathering therefore joined recreation with purpose. The children were given a day of freedom and enjoyment, but they were also surrounded by adults who believed in their ability to learn, lead and contribute to the future.

The newspaper observed that anyone who had seen the Sabbath school a year earlier would have been astonished by its improvement. That statement suggests that the school was still young, growing quickly and benefiting from determined leadership.

The picnic celebrated that growth.

It gave children something tangible to belong to. It allowed families to see the results of their collective work. It enabled church and school leaders to affirm publicly that Wheeling’s Black children were worthy of education, investment and opportunity.

More Than Sunday School

The term “Sunday school” can sound modest to modern readers, suggesting little more than a weekly religious lesson. In the nineteenth-century Black community, however, Sabbath schools could serve a much broader purpose.

They promoted literacy at a time when education had been legally or practically denied to generations of African Americans. They created opportunities for children to practice reading and memorization. They encouraged music, recitation and public speaking. They trained teachers and future church officers. They also taught discipline, cooperation, organization and civic responsibility.

For adults who had been denied formal schooling, the church could also offer continued opportunities to read, study and participate in structured discussions.

The Sabbath school was therefore both a religious institution and a school of community leadership.

This was especially important during the years immediately following the Civil War. Freedom had changed the legal condition of Black Americans, but freedom alone did not provide classrooms, books, trained teachers or secure institutions. Those had to be created and defended.

Wheeling’s Black families did not wait passively for someone else to construct that future.

They participated in the public Colored School, supported Black teachers such as John W. West and built complementary institutions within their churches.

Simpson Chapel’s Sabbath school belonged to that tradition.

A Regional Educational Movement

More than two decades later, another Wheeling Daily Intelligencer article demonstrated how extensive Black Sabbath-school work had become.

On April 21, 1897, the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer announced that the fifth annual Sunday School Convention of the Wheeling District of the Pittsburgh African M.E. Conference would be held in Wheeling on June 3, 4 and 5. Black Sabbath-school workers were expected from throughout West Virginia, eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Although the clipping does not identify the specific Wheeling church in which the sessions would occur, it unquestionably establishes Wheeling as the host city and as the center of an organized regional Sabbath-school district.

The published program was remarkably ambitious.

Participants were scheduled to discuss the responsibilities of Sunday-school teachers, methods of increasing attendance, obstacles faced by rural schools, temperance education and the role of the Sabbath school as a training place. Reports would be presented, instructional ideas exchanged and awards distributed.

This was not casual or unorganized work. It was an educational conference.

Black teachers, ministers and church leaders were evaluating their schools, sharing methods and asking how their institutions could serve children more effectively. They understood that a successful Sabbath school required preparation, accountability and trained leadership.

The 1897 convention should not automatically be identified as an event held at Simpson Chapel. The surviving clipping does not name the venue, and the African Methodist Episcopal Conference was denominationally distinct from the Methodist Episcopal affiliation identified for Simpson in the 1874 article. Nevertheless, the convention reveals the broader educational culture in which Simpson’s Sabbath school operated.

By the end of the nineteenth century, Black religious education in the Upper Ohio Valley had become interconnected, organized and regional.

Simpson Church as a Community Institution

Although the complete history of Simpson Church remains to be reconstructed, later records demonstrate its enduring importance to Wheeling’s Black community.

Simpson was associated with some of the city’s most accomplished African American leaders. Dr. Boswell Henson Stillyard—physician, civil-rights advocate and the first known Black person elected to Wheeling City Council—was a member of Simpson and served as president of its Board of Trustees beginning in the 1890s. His funeral was held there in 1916. Archiving Wheeling’s biography of Dr. Stillyard documents his long relationship with the church.

The church also became a gathering place for Black fraternal organizations. In 1912, its pastor, Rev. G. W. W. Jenkins, delivered an address before a large regional assembly of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows. The Ohio County Public Library preserves the newspaper account of that gathering.

By 1930, Simpson M.E. Church was hosting a public mass meeting to protest inadequate educational and recreational facilities for Wheeling’s Black residents. Committees were organized to appear before the Board of Education and City Council.

In 1931, Lincoln School held its literary, declamation, essay and oratorical contests at Simpson. The church also hosted leadership training, Bible classes, youth organizations, musical programs and social events. Reports collected by the Ohio County Public Library reveal the breadth of Simpson’s community activities.

The institution visible in those later records had deep roots. The 1874 Sabbath-school picnic allows us to see some of those roots taking hold.

A Legacy Worth Recovering

The children who marched from Simpson Chapel in 1874 may not have imagined that anyone would still be interested in their picnic more than 150 years later. Most of their names were not printed. We do not yet know what became of them, where they lived or how their education influenced their lives.

But their presence matters.

They belonged to the first generation of Black children in Wheeling to grow up after emancipation. They were coming of age while John W. West and other pioneering educators were establishing the foundations of public Black education. They were surrounded by families, teachers, ministers and community leaders determined to transform the promise of freedom into lasting institutions.

Their Sabbath school gave them a place to learn. Their church gave them a place to gather.

Their procession gave them visibility. Their picnic gave them joy.

Most importantly, their community gave them a message: they were capable of progress in everything good and great.

That message would continue through Simpson Church, Wheeling’s Colored School, Lincoln School and the generations of Black educators and community leaders who followed.

Recovering this history is about more than identifying another church program. It is about recognizing the many institutions that sustained African American education when opportunity was limited and equality remained unfinished.

A small newspaper clipping has preserved one summer day in 1874. Through it, we can once again see the children assembling, hear the singing and imagine the procession moving through the streets of Wheeling.

They were marching toward a picnic—but they were also marching toward a future their community was working together to build.

-T

Sources and Historical Note

The principal source for this post is “Colored Sabbath School Picnic,” published in the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer on June 5, 1874. The article reports the first annual picnic of the Sabbath School of Simpson Chapel M.E. Church, held the previous day at Thompson’s Grove.

Additional context comes from “The Fifth Annual: Sunday School Convention of the Wheeling District,” published in the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer on April 21, 1897.

Historical terms such as “Colored Sabbath School” are retained when identifying institutions and quoting nineteenth-century sources. They reflect the language of the period and should be understood within their historical context.