-GEORGE CLAYTON SHAW (1863-1936) George Clayton Shaw was born in Louisburg, North Carolina of slave parents who had been taught to read and write by their slaveholders. After the war there were several missionaries from the Board of Missions for Freedmen of the Presbyterian Church who, working in the area, inspired him in the fields of religion and education. These early educational experiences with them prepared him sufficiently to enter Lincoln University, Chester County, Pennsylvania and subsequently receive a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1886. He spent one year in Princeton Theological Seminary, New Jersey, and completed a three year theological course in 1890 from Auburn Theological Seminary, in Auburn, New York. One week after completing his studies he married a Mary E. Lewis of Penn Valley, Pennsylvania, who was to play an important role in his vision of religion and education of Negroes in the South. During the summer months of his studies at Auburn he would return to the South to preach. He was inspired by Dr. Timothy Darling (one of his instructors) and Mrs. Mary Potter (special secretary of the Presbyterial Freedmen's Board) to return to North Carolina and establish first the church (Timothy Darling Presbyterian Church) in 1888, and a next parochial school (Mary Potter Academy) in 1889. It was primarily through the efforts and money of the Presbyterian Board of Missions and the financial aid of Mrs. Mary Potter that the effort succeeded. The location chosen was Oxford, North Carolina, approximately thirty-six miles from his birthplace of Louisburg. In the beginning the students were taught in the church which had been converted from a dilapidated abandoned school building. The building was soon overcrowded with pupils in ages ranging from five to forty-five years - all anxious to learn how to read and write. In the fall of 1892, the Board of Missions paid Mrs. Shaw fifteen dollars a month for three months while her husband earned twenty-five dollars per month for his work in church and school. A small boarding department was also began that year because the poor roads of the time made travel difficult and hazardous in bad weather. The Shaws shared their private dining room with five girls and three boys. The total number of day and boarding pupils at the end of that year was 132. A three story structure was added to the church for classroom and an assembly hall. The average number of pupils enrolled for the next years to the turn of the century was 230. The entire instruction was primarily religious. There were no uniform text books, no crayons, no chalkboards. The majority of books used were those sent by Northern friends. The first graduation exercises were held in May, 1898 when three young people received preparatory diplomas, although several students prior to that year received such thorough college preparatory training under Dr. Shaw that they were able to enter Lincoln University. The Phillips brothers of Lenoir, North Carolina, Toilman Branch of Fayetteville, and Richard Christmas, all entered Lincoln University in the pre-graduate group. The new century in North Carolina was a time of increased educational emphasis. Governor Aycock made this statement to the New York press which asked about the education of the Negro - " We are willing to receive aid for his education, but without aid we shall in the long run teach him. He is with us to stay. His destiny and ours are so interwoven that we cannot lift ourselves up without at the same time lifting him..." This climate saw the expansion of Mary Potter with property valued at $3,000 in 1901 and $7,000 in 1904. Additional buildings of dormitories, dining rooms and gymnasiums for basketball went up. Although a farm owned by the school supplied much of the food it was not long before it was no longer profitable. Each student had to do some type of work to assist in his board and keep. Cottages were purchased for the female teachers who were expected to live on campus even if their original homes were local. By 1910 the school plant was valued at $17,000, and by 1915 - $52,000. The year 1920 found fourteen teachers and 435 pupils with the school divided into departments: primary, intermediate, grammar and normal. In 1924 the well trained faculty were from Lincoln, Howard, Atlanta, Syracuse, and Shaw Universities, Trenton Normal, New Jersey and Oswego Normal with workers for Scotia Seminary. Ten years later the teachers represented graduates of Lincoln, Johnson C. Smith, Virginia Union, Hampton, Winston-Salem Teacher's College, Atlanta Universities, and the University of Pennsylvania. The emphasis was on normal or preparatory courses with Latin and Greek. There was a one year Teacher-Training course under the supervision of the State Department of Education and the graduates received elementary "A" or "B" grade certificates according to the credits they had earned. This was discontinued in 1929 when these courses began to be handled primarily by the colleges and state schools. The courses of study underwent various changes with the changing times. In 1910 the senior class was taught Bible, Plane Geometry, English literature, Compositions and Essays, Latin, Greek, and the theory and practice of teaching. Added later were industrial studies for boys in the shops and domestic science for the girls. The primary grades where gradually discontinued to be taken up by the public school, and in 1933 Mary Potter became completely a high school. The boarding department had enlarged considerably when parents who had recently fled the South for better jobs began to send their children back for the Christian education unavailable to them elsewhere. During the depression era of 1929 to about 1935, the enrollment of boarding students dropped. >From early in the 20th century the school had a dual financial set-up with funds from local contributions added to the chief funds from the Presbyterian Church, tuition fees from day students, collection of board and room from teachers and the funds from boarding students. In 1933, Mary Potter was combined with Redstone Academy of Lumberton, and Albion Academy at Franklinton. Dr. Shaw, now 70 years old, retired and the merged school was handled by Rev. Hermon S.Davis, a former Mary Potter teacher who was at the time pastor of a church in Fayetteville, NC. State accredited in 1922, and accredited by the Southern Association of Secondary Schools and Colleges in 1934, Mary Potter was until 1936 the only high school for African Americans in Granville County. In September of that year, a new county high school was opened at Creedmoor, fifteen miles SW from Oxford with G. Cleveland Hawley, principal. In 1941 another high school was built in the county about fifteen miles north of Oxford in the Berea section, with William C. Baptiste, principal. Mary Potter had 622 pupils in 1940 and 497 in 1941. After the public schools were racially merged in the 1960s, all three high schools eventually became elementary schools with the faculty, for the most part, scattered. Throughout its history of segregated education approximately 50% of the total graduates of Mary Potter Academy have been natives of Granville County. Its graduates have certainly lived the vision of Dr. Shaw by making considerable contributions to the state and the nation. Among its distinguished graduates are leaders in the upper echelons of Education, powerful players in state and national government, and outstanding leaders in the civil rights movement from its beginnings to the present day. Back To AfriGeneas News