[Footnote 1: Wright, "Negro Rural Communities in Indiana," _Southern Workman_, vol. xxxvii., p. 165; Boone, _The History of Education in Indiana_, p. 237; and Simmons, _Men of Mark_, pp. 590 and 948.]
[Footnote 2: Simmons, _Men of Mark_, p. 948; and Hickok, _The Negro in Ohio_, p. 85.]
[Footnote 3: Howe, _Historical Collections of Ohio_, p. 355.]
[Footnote 4: Hickok, _The Negro in Ohio_, p. 89.]
Still better colored schools were established in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and in Springfield, Columbus, and Cincinnati, Ohio. While the enlightenment of the few Negroes in Pittsburgh did not require the systematic efforts put forth to elevate the race elsewhere, much was done to provide them educational facilities in that city. Children of color first attended the white schools there just as they did throughout the State of Pennsylvania.[1] But when larger numbers of them collected in this gateway to the Northwest, either race feeling or the pressing needs of the migrating freedmen brought about the establishment of schools especially adapted to their instruction. Such efforts were frequent after 1830.[2] John Thomas Johnson, a teacher of the District of Columbia, moved to Pittsburgh in 1838 and became an instructor in a colored school of that city.[3] Cleveland had an "African School" as early as 1832. John Malvin, the moving spirit of the enterprise in that city, organized about that time "The School Fund Society" which established other colored schools in Cincinnati, Columbus, and Springfield.[4]
[Footnote 1: Wickersham, _Education in Pennsylvania_, p. 248.]
[Footnote 2: _Life of Martin R. Delaney_, p. 33.]
[Footnote 3: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 214.]
[Footnote 4: Hickok, _The Negro in Ohio_, p. 88.]
The concentration of the freedmen and fugitives at Cincinnati was followed by efforts to train them for higher service. The Negroes themselves endeavored to provide their own educational facilities in opening in 1820 the first colored school in that city. This school did not continue long, but another was established the same year. Thereafter one Mr. Wing, who kept a private institution, admitted persons of color to his evening classes. On account of a lack of means, however, the Negroes of Cincinnati did not receive any systematic instruction before 1834. After that year the tide turned in favor of the free blacks of that section, bringing to their assistance a number of daring abolitionists, who helped them to educate themselves. Friends of the race, consisting largely of the students of Lane Seminary, had then organized colored Sunday and evening schools, and provided for them scientific and literary lectures twice a week. There was a permanent colored school in Cincinnati in 1834. In 1835 the Negroes of that city contributed $150 of the $1000 expended for their education. Four years later, however, they raised $889.03 for this purpose, and thanks to their economic progress, this sacrifice was less taxing than that of 1835.[1] In 1844 Rev. Hiram Gilmore opened there a high school which among other students attracted P.B.S. Pinchback, later Governor of Louisiana. Mary E. Miles, a graduate of the Normal School at Albany, New York, served as an assistant of Gilmore after having worked among her people in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.[2]