“Teacher Wanted”: Wheeling’s Public Search for a Colored School Teacher in 1871

Newspaper notices trace the competitive examination, selection and formal appointment of Alfred B. Wilson to Wheeling’s growing Colored School faculty.

To learn more about the backstory as to why this faculty position was so critically needed, read this blog on the struggles the Wheeling Board of Education identified 18 months earlier in 1870.

Sometimes an extraordinary piece of history announces itself in the most ordinary fashion.

Buried among advertisements for dry goods, medicines, colleges, farm sales and a visiting circus, readers of the Wheeling Register encountered a bold headline on August 22, 1871:

TEACHER WANTED.

What followed was more than a routine employment notice. It was a remarkably detailed public record of Wheeling’s effort to hire another teacher for its Colored School—the tax-supported public school established by the Wheeling Board of Education only five years earlier.

The advertisement, a companion newspaper report, the announcement of the successful candidate and the Board of Education’s formal confirmation allow us to follow the process almost day by day. Together, these clippings document an important stage in the growth of Black public education in Wheeling.

What Did a $600 Salary Mean in 1871?

The advertised salary—$600 for the ensuing school year—deserves more than a passing mention. If averaged across twelve months, it amounted to $50 per month, or approximately $11.54 per week. Those figures may sound exceedingly small today, but the value of money—and the place of a salary within the economy—was profoundly different in 1871.

A modern inflation comparison provides only part of the answer. Using consumer prices, $600 in 1871 possessed approximately the purchasing power of $17,000 in 2025. That calculation asks a relatively narrow question: how much money would be required today to purchase a comparable collection of ordinary goods and services?

Because this was a salary, however, another comparison is equally important. MeasuringWorth estimates that $600 in 1871 was comparable to roughly $205,000 in 2025 when measured against the compensation earned by workers in the broader economy. That does not mean Alfred B. Wilson enjoyed the lifestyle of a person earning $205,000 today. Rather, it demonstrates that $600 represented a far larger share of contemporary working income than a simple inflation calculator suggests.

The safest conclusion lies between those two figures. Six hundred dollars was not a fortune, and it would not have made Wilson a wealthy man. But it was a meaningful, respectable professional salary that could provide a measure of stability—especially if paid regularly. It placed teaching apart from the uncertain daily wages, seasonal employment and manual labor upon which many nineteenth-century families depended.

The advertisement itself supplies another valuable clue. When the appointment was announced, the newspaper reported that “two or three white applicants” had also sought the position. The $600 salary was therefore not merely a token amount attached to a position no one wanted. It was sufficient to attract several candidates across racial lines and to make the appointment genuinely competitive.

For a Black man in 1871, the significance was greater still. Only six years had passed since slavery was abolished nationally. Legal freedom had not eliminated racial discrimination, occupational exclusion or the barriers that kept most Black men from salaried professional employment. A publicly funded teaching position offered more than wages: it carried standing, visibility and recognition as an educated professional entrusted with the future of Wheeling’s Black children.

Wilson had been required to demonstrate proficiency in orthography, reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, grammar, history and the theory and practice of teaching. He also had to furnish evidence of “good moral character.” After completing that process, he was selected over several other applicants and formally appointed by the Board of Education.

There is also an important distinction to preserve. The published salary does not prove that Black and white teachers received equal compensation throughout Wheeling’s segregated school system. Additional payroll records would be needed to establish that. What the evidence does show is that the Board announced the salary before selecting the successful candidate, opened the examination to multiple applicants and then awarded the publicly funded position to Alfred B. Wilson.

That makes the figure of $600 an important part of the story. Wheeling was not simply allowing a Black educator to volunteer his labor or depend upon uncertain charitable support. The city’s Board of Education was committing public tax dollars to employ him as a professional teacher.

In 1871, that salary represented livelihood, public responsibility and a foothold in the emerging Black professional class. For Wilson and the community he served, the appointment was both a job and an affirmation: the education of Wheeling’s Black children—and the work of the Black men teaching them—possessed real public value.

From One Teacher to a Growing Institution

Wheeling’s Colored School began operating in the fall of 1866 under the authority of the city’s Board of Education. It was created as part of the public-school system, supported through public taxation and administered by the same municipal educational structure responsible for the city’s other schools.

Its first teacher was John W. West, a Black educator whose work appears in contemporary Freedmen’s Bureau correspondence and reports. In 1867, Bureau officials visiting Wheeling described a good, well-equipped school taught by “Mr. West a colored man.” They also noted that money collected through the city school tax was being fairly divided to support the education of Wheeling’s Black children.

West’s surviving correspondence provides an even more personal view. In one handwritten letter, he recommended his brother Robert for a teaching position. Robert West was subsequently hired, placing two brothers among the earliest educators at the school.

By 1871, the Board was again preparing to fill a teaching position. This time, however, the process unfolded publicly in Wheeling’s newspapers.

A Public Call for Applicants

The August 22 advertisement opened simply:

“Wanted—A Teacher for the Wheeling Colored School. Salary, $600.”

It then announced that a competitive examination would be conducted at the superintendent’s office on Tuesday, August 29, beginning at nine o’clock in the morning.

Applicants would be tested in:

• Orthography, or spelling

• Reading

• Writing

• Arithmetic

• Geography

• Grammar

• History

• The theory and practice of teaching

The inclusion of the “Theory and Practice of Teaching” is especially revealing. The Board was not merely looking for someone who could read, write and perform arithmetic. It expected the successful candidate to understand education as a profession.

Applicants were also required to provide evidence of “good moral character,” a common qualification for nineteenth-century teachers. The advertisement explained that, all other circumstances being equal, the candidate who passed the most creditable examination would receive the appointment.

The Board’s Committee on the Colored School nevertheless reserved the right to reject every applicant. The notice was issued by committee members A. S. Todd, August Pollack and John H. Hall.

This was a structured municipal hiring process: a published salary, an announced examination, specified academic subjects, a character requirement, committee supervision and a final appointment by the Board of Education.

The Newspaper Made the Search Public

The Register did more than print the paid notice. Elsewhere in the same issue, its local-news column called readers’ attention to the opening:

“The committee of the Board of Education on colored school, advertise this morning that an examination will be held on Tuesday next of applicants for the position of teacher in the colored school of this city.”

The newspaper directed readers to the advertisement for the complete requirements.

That companion notice matters. It shows that the position was not quietly circulated among a closed circle. The Board intentionally announced it to the public, and the newspaper treated the examination as a matter of local educational business.

For the Colored School, founded only five years earlier, that visibility represented another step toward permanence. The school was no longer an experiment hidden at the margins of city life. Its staffing needs, salary and appointment procedures were matters of public record.

A. B. Wilson Is Selected

On September 1, just days after the examination, the Wheeling Register reported the result:

“A. B. Wilson, a colored man, has been selected to teach the colored school of this city for the ensuing year. There were two or three white applicants for the place.”

Those two sentences contain an extraordinary amount of history.

First, they identify the successful applicant as A. B. Wilson. Second, the newspaper explicitly recognized him as a Black man. Third, it revealed that two or three white candidates had also applied.

The position therefore appears not to have been restricted solely to Black applicants. Yet after the announced competitive process, the committee selected Wilson.

The clipping does not tell us how each applicant performed or what additional qualifications the committee considered. We should not invent details that the surviving evidence does not provide. Nevertheless, the outcome is unmistakable: a Black educator was selected from an applicant pool that included several white candidates.

At a time when racial discrimination sharply limited professional opportunities for Black Americans, Wilson’s appointment was significant. It placed another Black teacher in a publicly financed position and entrusted him with the education of Wheeling’s Black children.

It also illustrates the complexity of the period. The city was operating a segregated school, an arrangement rooted in racial separation. Yet within that unequal system, Black educators such as John W. West, Robert West and Alfred B. Wilson were establishing professional careers, exercising leadership and building an educational institution that would become central to generations of Wheeling families.

Formal Confirmation by the Board

The final step appeared the following morning.

On September 2, the Wheeling Intelligencer published a report from a special meeting of the Board of Education. According to the account, one purpose of the meeting was the confirmation of teachers, including one for the Colored School.

The newspaper reported:

“The Committee on Colored School asked the confirmation of Alfred B. Wilson as teacher of said school the ensuing year. Appointment confirmed.”

With those words, the newspaper supplied Wilson’s fuller name and completed the documentary trail.

The process can now be reconstructed:

• August 21, 1871: The Committee on the Colored School dated its public advertisement.

• August 22: The advertisement and accompanying news item appeared in the Wheeling Register.

• August 29: Applicants were scheduled to take the competitive examination.

• September 1: The Register announced that A. B. Wilson had been selected and noted the presence of white applicants.

• September 2: The Intelligencer reported the Board’s formal confirmation of Alfred B. Wilson for the coming school year.

Few early Black teachers are preserved in the historical record through such a complete hiring sequence.

More Than a Vacancy Notice

This discovery strengthens several important conclusions about the early Colored School.

It was a public institution

The position was advertised by an official Board committee. The examination was held at the superintendent’s office. The successful candidate required confirmation by the Board of Education. The salary came with a public-school appointment.

This was not merely an informal class, a private charity or a school operated independently by the Freedmen’s Bureau. Federal officials observed and reported on the school, but Wheeling’s Board of Education established, financed and administered it.

Its teachers were expected to meet professional standards

The examination covered the foundational academic subjects of the period, but it also tested educational theory and teaching practice. The Board was seeking a qualified instructor, not simply an available adult willing to supervise children.

The faculty was developing

John W. West had carried the enormous responsibility of serving as the school’s founding teacher. Robert West subsequently joined the work. Wilson’s 1871 appointment offers further evidence that the school’s instructional structure was developing during its early years.

Because Robert West had already taught at the school, Alfred Wilson should not be described as the second individual ever to teach there. The 1871 clippings are most precisely understood as documenting the earliest public, competitive teacher-recruitment process yet located for the school—and the appointment of another Black educator to the faculty established under John W. West.

Black educators were building the institution

The history of Wheeling’s Colored School cannot be told solely through laws, Board resolutions, buildings or white civic allies. Black teachers made the institution function.

John W. West opened the school. He reported on its progress, taught its children and advocated for additional instructional help. Robert West joined that work. Alfred B. Wilson then emerged from a publicly advertised examination process to continue the school’s educational mission.

Their names deserve to be remembered.

A Small Advertisement With a Large Meaning

To an 1871 newspaper reader, “Teacher Wanted” may have seemed like one more notice competing for attention on a crowded page.

To us, more than 150 years later, it is something much greater.

It is evidence of a school growing beyond its beginnings. It is a record of public investment in Black education. It reveals the subjects teachers were expected to master, the salary offered for their service and the process through which the Board made its decision.

Most importantly, it restores Alfred B. Wilson to the story.

The clipping captures the moment when a position was announced, candidates stepped forward, an examination was conducted, a Black educator was chosen from a field that included white applicants, and the Wheeling Board of Education placed its official approval upon his appointment.

One small advertisement allows us to watch history happen—from “Teacher Wanted” to teacher hired.

And behind that administrative language stood real people: John W. West, Robert West, Alfred B. Wilson and the children whose growing school required their service.

Their school was segregated, but their ambitions were not small. They were helping build a tradition of Black public education in Wheeling that would endure, develop and ultimately become known through the lasting legacy of Lincoln School.

-T

Historical Language Note

The term “Colored School” appears here because it was the institution’s official historical designation and is quoted directly from nineteenth-century records. “Black” is used in the modern narrative when referring to people and the broader community.

Primary Sources

• “Teacher Wanted,” Wheeling Register, August 22, 1871.

• “Teacher Wanted,” local-news notice, Wheeling Register, August 22, 1871.

• Notice of the selection of A. B. Wilson, Wheeling Register, September 1, 1871.

• “Board of Education,” confirmation of Alfred B. Wilson, Wheeling Intelligencer, September 2, 1871.

• Digitized newspaper pages supplied from the West Virginia/Library of Congress National Digital Newspaper Program collections.