A00029 - Robert Sinclair Hartgrove (Class of 1905), Washington, D. C. Lawyer

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Hartgrove, Meriwether, and Mattingly

September 2, 2020 by Mike Kelly

The past few months have been a challenging time for archivists everywhere as we adjust to doing our work remotely. Fortunately, the materials available in Amherst College Digital Collections enable us to continue doing much of our work.

Back in February, I posted about five Black students from the 1870s and 1880s — Black Men of Amherst, 1877-1883 — and now we’re moving into the early 20th century. A small clue in The Olio has revealed another Black student that was not included in Harold Wade’s Black Men of Amherst. Robert Sinclair Hartgrove (AC 1905) was known to Wade, as was Robert Mattingly (AC 1906), but we did not know about Robert Henry Meriwether. These three appear to be the first Black students to attend Amherst in the twentieth century.

Robert Sinclair Hartgrove, Class of 1905

The text next to Hartgrove’s picture in the 1905 yearbook gives us a tiny glimpse into his time at Amherst. The same yearbook shows Hartgrove not just jollying the players, but playing second base for the Freshman baseball team during the 1902 season.

Freshman Baseball Team, 1902

The reference to Meriwether sent me to the Amherst College Biographical Record, where I found Robert Henry Meriwether listed as a member of the Class of 1904. A little digging into the College Catalogs revealed that he belongs with the Class of 1905.

College Catalog, 1901-02

Hartgrove and Meriwether are both listed as members of the Freshman class in the 1901-02 catalog. The catalog also notes that they were both from Washington, DC and the Biographical Record indicates that they both prepped at Howard University before coming to Amherst. We find Meriwether’s name in the catalog for 1902-03, but he did not “pull through” as The Olio hopes Hartgrove will; Meriwether returned to Howard University where he earned his LLB in 1907. Hartgrove also became a lawyer, earning his JB from Boston University in 1908 and spending most of his career in Jersey City, NJ.

Robert Nicholas Mattingly, Class of 1906

Mattingly was born in Louisville, KY in 1884 and prepped for Amherst at The M Street School in Washington, DC, which changed its name in 1916 to The Dunbar School. Matt Randolph (AC 2016) wrote “Remembering Dunbar: Amherst College and African-American Education in Washington, DC” for the book Amherst in the World, which includes more details of Mattingly’s life.

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WILLIAM B. HARTGROVE, JR. (1877-1918)

POSTED ONJULY 23, 2021BY CONTRIBUTED BY: OTIS ALEXANDER

ASALH Logo

William B. Hartgrove, Jr. one of the founders of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) was born sometime in November 1877 in Washington, D.C. to William B. Hartgrove, Sr. and Rebecca Perry Hartgrove, former slaves. He studied at Howard University. Hartgrove and his brother, Robert Sinclair Hartgrove, who was born in 1881, shared a house in Washington D.C. A graduate of Amherst College in Massachusetts, he later became a lawyer. Because he had difficulty generating sufficient income as an attorney by1909 he was teaching at Armstrong Manual Training School, one of the only two high schools in the District accepting African American students. His annual salary was about $650 but there were times when his only income came from lecturing about African American history.

Hartgrove met and befriended Carter Godwin Woodson, who was then teaching at M Street High School, the other high school allowing Black students. Woodson admired Hartgrove’s intellectual and leadership abilities and began mentoring him. They shared in common a passion for African American history and would often walk together to the Library of Congress when Woodson was working on his doctoral dissertation at Harvard University.

In 1915, Woodson asked Hartgrove to become, with him, one of the five founders of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), later renamed the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, ASALH, when the organization was launched in Chicago. The Association became the first organization dedicated to the study of Black history. Initially its principal vehicle for publicizing that history was its Journal of Negro History (JNH).

The author of many articles and annotated bibliographies of African American works, including the popular The Negro Soldier in the American Revolution, published in 1916, Hartgrove also wrote “The Story of Maria Louise Moore and Fannie M. Richards” which highlighted the accomplished of free Black women of Virginia. One of the women, Maria Louise Moore, was born in 1800 in Fredericksburg, Virginia to a free Black woman born in Toronto and a father from Scotland, the United Kingdom. Both mother and daughter left Virginia and returned to Toronto, Ontario for a better life. Richards eventually returned to Virginia where she founded a private school for Black children. This important early account of the history of Black women was published in the first volume of The Journal of Negro History, Volume I.

While Hartgrove was never a member of the faculty at Howard University, he often lectured on the achievement of Blacks at the institution’s Rankin Chapel, especially the role of Black soldiers fighting on behalf of the country.

In 1918, Hartgrove’s last publication, “The Story of Josiah Henson” was completed by Dr. Woodson because of his illness. William B. Hartgrove died in June 1918 in Washington, D.C. at the age of 44.