William Quincy Atwood was born in 1839 on a Alabama plantation called Shell Creek, which was owned by Henry Stiles Atwood, his white father and owner.
However, his story is not the typical slave’s life, according to a brief description of his childhood.
“With the usual kindness and care which parents generally give to their children, he did not feel the curse of slavery, except in the want of school training … He was provided with nearly everything he wished, and in this respect was, perhaps, no more denied than is usual to children,” according to Rev. William J. Simmons, president of the University of Louisville, who wrote a book about successful black men in 1887. (Simmons did not state where he found his information.)
In 1883, when William Atwood was 44 years old he said, “Education will destroy this enemy (prejudice). We should sacrifice all things but honor, to educate our children … we must cultivate a greater love for the higher education … as you train the physical nature he becomes active, strong and enduring. By cultivating the mind he grows higher and greater, more dignified and respected. By the cultivation of the moral man, he grows better, more noble and beloved.”
Everything began to change in 1851 when his father died. William was 12 years old at that time. His father, Henry Atwood left a will providing for his nine children and their three mothers, as well as seven others in his household. His will stipulated that his plantations be sold and the group taken to a free state.
Once free, each child would inherit $8,000 and $2,000 would go to each of the three mothers of the children. The children’s trust fund was to be invested in land and the rest to be loaned out on good security and to pay for a good education, according to the case Atwood’s Heirs vs. Beck.
But then, the problems began when the will went to probate court in Alabama. Henry S. Atwood’s sister, Sally Northrup of New York, and her family contested the will. The Northrups wanted to keep the children and mothers in bondage and keep the money allotted or if the will was declared valid then the “heirs” wanted to be made guardians of everyone since they had “ties of kinship,” according to Auburn University Archives and Manuscripts department.
Northrup also claimed “They had ties of kinship with the deceased which made them better qualified to implement his intentions. Interestingly enough, Atwood’s will only left $5,000 to Sally Northrup and stipulated that the money be outside her husband’s control … and the residue of his estate, if any remained left to her,” according to Auburn University Archives.
The executors Henry Atwood named to handle his will, and he named four, two as backups for the first two, “failed to qualify,” according to Alabama court reports. The courts appointed two attorneys, but Calvin C. Sellers died soon after, then leaving Franklin R. Beck, an attorney, as sole administrator. It was Beck who stayed with the case throughout the court battle, until the Civil War began, according to several reports.
The case began with the Chancery Court of Wilcox County, Ala., that voided the trusts saying masters could not create trusts for slaves who were still in Alabama and declared they could not be emancipated according to state law. But that court gave the money to two children already living in Ohio. (Henry Atwood took two of his older children to Aberdeen, Ohio, so they would be free sometime before 1851.) Since they were free they could inherit money, according to what was then called the ‘Common Law’ of Alabama, which was taken from Roman law, according to manuscripts.
Also according to Alabama laws at that time, masters had no common law right to emancipate slaves because the common law had not recognized slavery. If slaves could not be freed directly by the owner, why should the law allow them to be freed by a trust, according to information from Auburn University Archives.
But Beck argued, that owners had absolute control over their property, because slave owners could take slaves to free states to free them. Furthermore, this power could be transmitted to an executor of a will, according to Auburn University Archives.
Both parties appealed the decision until the case was reviewed by the Alabama Supreme Court. Finally, the state supreme court justices left the decision to Beck. The justices wrote there is no valid objection to the validity of the trusts but no mode had been provided for the enforcement of carrying out Henry Atwood’s wishes. So it became the responsibility of the person carrying out the will, according to the Alabama Supreme Court Records –Atwood’s Heirs vs. Beck.
“…He (executor) must be left to his own conscience, and to the obligation imposed by this official oath, yet, as we have seen that the trusts are not illegal, and the removal may lawfully be made by the representative of the deceased, it is clear the court will not interfere to prevent the trustee from complying with and carrying out the lawful desire of the testator (deceased father),” according to Atwood’s Heirs vs. Beck.
While the court battle went on for years, the children and their mothers were taken to Ohio by someone because they arrived in Ripley, May 15, 1853. There were no accounts found how this happened but at least some of their father’s wishes were carried out, despite opposition by his sister’s family and the laws of Alabama. William and his brothers went to a black school in Ripley. Then in 1856, William went to Iberia College, Iberia, Ohio, until spring of 1859.
In the 1860 Ohio census: J.M. Atwood, 24, Williams Atwood, 22, John Atwood, 21, and D.W. Atwood, each have a real estate value of $15,700 and a personal value of $2,000. All of the young men were Henry Atwood’s sons, according to documents. However, this money could have been from ventures that William Atwood and his brother, John Stiles Atwood delved into while they traveled to California in 1859. According to the Delta College Library archives, they operated a restaurant, were horse dealers, and eventually invested in gold and silver mining during the Gold Rush.
William returned in 1860 or 1861 to Ripley, where he taught school and talked about the war, according to Simmons. Sometime during this period, he traveled to Saginaw, Mich., and opened a logging business.
When he was about 23 years old, at the outbreak of the Civil War, he organized a volunteer black troop in Ripley. But black troops were not accepted at the start of the war. So he returned to Saginaw and continued to build an empire in the lumber business. He married in 1872, to Charlotte M. Eckles of Georgia, in Cleveland, who graduated from a school in Salem, Mass. They had five children, according to the Delta College library.
He was prominent in Republican politics and in 1888 was elected as a delegate-at-large to the National Republican Convention at Chicago. Then, twice more he was elected as a Republican delegate.
By his middle age, he was a student of history, philosophy and the cultured classics, as well as a forceful orator. He was described as a man who possessed modesty without humility and dignity without arrogance, according to archives.
The Ripley local paper ran a speech that William Atwood gave in Lansing, Mich., on Aug. 1, 1883:
Most people of this country, “… are ignorant of our virtues and conversant with our vices, and judge the whole race by the vices of the few. It is a duty to be intelligent, and a crime to be ignorant, wisdom is the light reflected from the focus of moral courage …”
He also said in his speech, “If you would have the confidence and respect of others, you must love yourselves and respect yourselves and each other. Love your own color, and with intelligence, industry, and probity, command others to respect it, give no place to color prejudice among yourselves and with consistency spurn it in others.”.
“I would have my race become their own protectors and guardians. I would have you demonstrate ability and command respect. I would have you by a dignified mien of character demand recognition for all of our rights as citizens and free men,” William Atwood said.
“Let us forgive and forget their faults, let us be generous and let us be just. Could I gently lift the curtain and point you to the dark intervening clouds beyond, I will tell you further on the sun is shining out brightly, when there will be no invidious distinction based upon color of a man, there will be no Blackman, no Whiteman, no Redman, no Dutchman, no Irishman, Frenchman, Italian, or Chinaman; but evolved from our institutions and civilization, identity in interests, one country and one people; all interests and races assimilated in the grand cosmopolitan of the world, and known and respected the world over as a justice loving, chivalric honor protecting American citizens,” William Atwood said in 1883.
He died Dec.19, 1910, in Saginaw. He was worth at that time $103,000, which would be equal to $1,735,650 in 2002. He became one of the wealthiest men in Saginaw in the late 1800s by operating Atwood Sawmill 1874-1888 and many other business interests, according to manuscripts.
Also, his five brothers were all successful, according to their mother’s obituary in 1881, Mrs. Candis Atwood. It said all her sons received a college education with four attending Iberia College; one son attended college in Ann Arbor, Mich.; and one a college in Lincoln, Penn. At the time of her death, her son John had a successful livery business in Ripley, while another son was a lawyer, one a member of the Mississippi legislature, another a farmer in Kansas, while the fifth brother was a clerk in the Pension Office in Washington D.C.
For more reading visit the Union Township Public library, Ripley, Ohio, or visit the library online at www.ripleylibrary.com.
For Black Pioneers in the Michigan Lumber Industry see.wwwjstor.org.
Read the entire mansucript of “Atwood’s Heirs vs. Beck” in the Auburn University Archives at: www.lib.auburn.edu/archive/aghy/manumission/atwood.htm.
Visit Delta College for more information at: www.delta.edu/libary
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