Daniel Alexander Payne, Gettysburg, Adams County

Don't forget that this coming Saturday, September 24th, is Free Admission Day at all participating Pennsylvania Trails of History sites! I'm hoping to head up to Eckley's Miners Village, because every other time I've planned to go there I've had to cancel. Check out this page for a list of participating sites, and indulge yourself in some free history near you.

Meanwhile, my new friend the Hometown Historian has produced the start of a new playlist, in which he features YouTube channels and other sites which provide him with information and inspiration. I am extremely touched to be featured in this first video, which can be found here; I'm "last but not least" in quite a bit of illustrious company, so definitely check out some of the other recommendations he makes too!

As for today, we'll take a look at a gentleman who spent an important chunk of his life in Gettysburg, but isn't famous for being connected to the battlefield.

The marker stands at 239 North
Washington Street, Gettysburg

Daniel Alexander Payne was born on February 24, 1811 to London and Martha Payne of Charleston, South Carolina. According to his own autobiography, he was of mixed African, European, and Native American descent. His parents, who both died when he was a child, were free people of color in Charleston; his father had fought in the American Revolution. Growing up, Daniel pursued a rigorous education at home, teaching himself science, math, Greek, and Latin, and at 18 years old he opened a school in Charleston. It only lasted a few years, however, before he was forced to close it in 1835 due to new laws which made it illegal to teach any colored person - free or slave - how to read.

Wanting to further his own education and continue sharing it with others, Daniel set sail in May of 1835 for the port of Philadelphia, since Pennsylvania had no such restrictive law. From there he traveled west to Gettysburg, where he enrolled at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg College. The seminary, which was then only about ten years old, was the second Lutheran theological seminary established in North America. The dean of the seminary was theologian Rev. Samuel Simon Schmucker, a famous and somewhat controversial preacher of the time. His students formed a very small class, all of whom lived in a single three-story building with a cupola. The picture at left is a photograph of the building which appears in the museum at the Gettysburg battlefield visitors' center; it later served as a hospital for soldiers injured in the famous battle, and afterward became "Old Dorm," a residence hall for students of Gettysburg College. Today it's known as Schmucker Hall, in honor of Daniel's professor, and is home to the Seminary Ridge Museum under the auspices of the Adams County Historical Society. 

Daniel never actually became a Lutheran minister. He was educated and ordained by the General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States, but never served in one of their churches. Instead, he became part of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), which I previously mentioned in my post about their first female minister, Harriet Baker. He remained with them throughout his life, in Pennsylvania and then Ohio, working to improve education for their ministers. The AME was taking the attitude that by improving their ministry, they could improve their congregations, and Daniel supported this wholeheartedly.

Daniel recommended that AME ministers be educated in a wide variety of subjects, including grammar, literature, arithmetic, geography, and history both ancient and modern, as well as theology and ecclesiastical history. He believed that this would in turn enable the ministers to better educate and guide their people. Although his 1845 attempt to establish an AME seminary didn't pan out, he did succeed in gradually improving the requirements for ministerial education.

Daniel's contributions were deeply appreciated. In 1848 he was named the historiographer of the AME Church, meaning it was his duty to study and record the development of the church's history. In 1852, he became the sixth consecrated bishop in the AME denomination, a title he held for the rest of his life. After relocating to Ohio, he helped to purchase and establish Wilberforce University, named for social leader and abolitionist William Wilberforce. It was jointly sponsored by the AME Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1856 to provide college education for African-Americans, and was the first historically black college which had African-Americans involved in its foundation. 

The school did have to close temporarily during the Civil War, as many of its students were withdrawn (probably for their own protection) and the debts were mounting. But in 1863, Daniel persuaded members of the AME Church to pay off the debt and buy out the sponsorship of the Methodist Episcopal Church. They did so, and elected Daniel as the school's president - the first African-American university president in the United States. He remained at the helm of Wilberforce until 1877, overseeing the fundraising made necessary during the war when southern sympathizers committed acts of arson on the school buildings. He also made two trips to Europe to exchange ideas with British Methodists and study their educational programs.

Daniel kept working. After the end of the Civil War, he returned to the South for the first time since he had boarded that ship for Philadelphia. With the help of nine missionaries, he established an AME congregation in his hometown of Charleston, and it grew  to more than 50,000 strong within its first year. By the time Daniel stepped down from Wilberforce in 1877, the AME Church was flourishing across the entire South all the way to Texas. In 1881 he founded the now-defunct Bethel Literary and Historical Society in Washington, D.C., a club dedicated to hearing speakers and debating topics related to African-American culture and education.

In private life, Daniel was married twice. His first wife, whose name doesn't seem to have been recorded anywhere, died during childbirth in 1848, less than a year after they married; the child also did not survive. He later married Eliza Clark of Cincinnati, but they had no children. The picture at right is taken from his autobiography in 1888 (courtesy of WikiCommons). He died on November 3, 1893, at his home in Wilberforce, Ohio; he was brought to Baltimore to lie in state at the Bethel AME Church, followed by a large funeral and interment in Baltimore's Laurel Hill Cemetery. 

His legacy endures to this day. The Lutheran liturgical calendar remembers him every year, and Payne Theological Seminary in Wilberforce is named after him. He was also the eponym of Daniel Payne College, a historically black college in Birmingham, Alabama; it was founded in 1889 and closed in 1979, after which a street was renamed Daniel Payne Drive to keep his memory there. Daniel's contributions to his church can't really be overstated. I think James Campbell put it best in his 1995 book about the AME Church's history when he said that, except for Richard Allen (the founder of the AME), "No single individual... did more to shape the trajectory and tone of African Methodism."

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Sources and Further Reading:

Payne, Daniel A., D.D., LL.D. Recollections of Seventy Years. Publishing House of the A. M. E. Sunday School Union, 1888.

Campbell, James T. Songs of Zion: The African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States and South Africa. Oxford University Press, New York, 1995.

Daniel Payne at the African-American Registry

Daniel Alexander Payne at FindAGrave.com

Daniel Alexander Payne at the Historical Marker Database

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Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.