Who Was B.F. Allen?

By Pauline Masson

Recently downtown businesswoman Nancy Omer began a search for B.F. Allen, the man who was the namesake of the Pacific School for Colored Children that taught elementary students here from 1887 to 1955.

She said some type of marker should be placed near the location of the former schoolhouse at Osage and Fourth streets to show what occurred there.

It turns out that a remarkable happening that propelled Benjamin Franklin “B.F.” Allen into the realm of education polymath took place two years before the end of the Civil War.

In January 1863, President Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves in the rebellious states saying the former slaves could serve in the Union Army. But emancipation did not apply to slaves in states that remained loyal to the Union. On hearing news that slaves were free in the south, Missouri slaves began to lay down their tools and pour over the border into Arkansas to enlist in the Union Army.

Two regiments, the 62nd and 65th United States Colored Troops (USCT) were quickly formed in northwest Arkansas, mostly from Missouri slaves. When the new recruits were sent to Fort McIntosh Texas for training they met with an astonishing turn of events. One white officer issued an order that would make them heroes of another stripe.

Lt. Col David Branson said before they could fight for the Union, the former slaves had to learn to read and write. He gave them seven months to achieve that goal. 

He said any sergeant or corporal who failed to learn to read by January 1, 1864 would be reduced to the rank of private and his place would be filled by a person who could read.

He offered rewards that the men could never have owned as slaves. The sergeant and corporal with the best penmanship in their rank on July 4, 1865 would be rewarded with a gold pen. Every private who could read by that date would be given a good book.

And it worked.

At the end of the war, the 62nd and 65th Regiments USCT had the highest rate of literacy among colored troops. 

On January, 4, 1866, of four hundred and thirty one men; ninety-nine could both read and write under-standingly; two hundred and eighty-four could read; three hundred and thirty-seven could spell in words of two syllables and were learning to read. Fewer than ten men failed to learn the alphabet.

But they did something far more remarkable than learn to read and fight for the Union. The infantrymen had contributed part of their pay each month to establish a school in their home state of Missouri that would teach former slave children once the war ended.

Members of the 62nd Colored Infantry contributed $5,000 and the 65th Colored Infantry gave $1,400. The money was used to establish a school in Jefferson City for colored children. It was named Lincoln Institute for the man who had freed them. All slaves were freed on April 1, 1864 with passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. 

Lincoln Institute opened its doors to the first class in an old frame building in Jefferson City. It was the first school for colored students west of the Mississippi River.

In 1870, the school began to receive aid from the state of Missouri for teacher training. In 1877, passage of the Normal School Law permitted Lincoln graduates to teach for life in Missouri.

In the mean time, in 1878, the growing railroad town of Pacific had built a magnificent four-room brick schoolhouse for white students on Union Street to replace its original frame schoolhouse at Osage and Fourth streets. City fathers took note that colored students were attending school in other towns and designated the former frame schoolhouse as a school for colored children. They named the schoolhouse for a 18-year-old colored school teacher in nearby Moselle, establishing the B. F. Allen School for Colored Students.

Over the next two decades Pacific residents of both races would see the namesake of the school for colored children become the most famous colored educator in Missouri and watch, with awe, as he raised the possibilities of education for colored students to realms the colored infantry soldiers never dreamed of.

By 1896, the institute that the 62nd and 65th regiments had built in Jefferson City has grown to seven teachers. The State legislature was providing funds for the school And B.F. Allen, the Moselle teacher, had joined the faculty to teach ancient and modern languages with the title, professor.  By that time, Lincoln Institute students were studying English, science, mathematics, natural scene, industrial arts. Female students studied cooking and sewing. A college prep department was preparing students to study the same courses as offered in the State University.

At the start of the 1902 school year, Professor B. F. Allen was named president of Lincoln Institute. Over the next sixteen years, he would transform education for black students across the state, growing his small college prep school into a university.

He was a visionary and a weaver of grand ideas. When he returned from the National Educators Association convention in Boston in 1904, he regaled friends at the welcoming banquet with a visionary tour of Harvard’s magnificent buildings with visits to the homes of Longfellow and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

He capped off the introduction of Longfellow and Emerson by launching a literary society for Institute student to explore the lives and works of  grand authors.

He had a practical side. He believed that in addition to reading and writing African Americans should know the fundamentals of farming – both agricultural science the implements used for farming. He organized an annual farm convention that welcomed farmers from across the state to the Jefferson City campus. He expanded the Institute curriculum to include the practical arts of bookkeeping and drafting, and the extra curricular activities of music and athletics.

While he continued to preside over his Institute, his presence was felt in every colored school in the state. He travelled the state speaking at local graduations and farm clubs.

In Pacific, the school that bore his name, which was expanded to three room, was closed in 1955 when Missouri schools were integrated. At that time Lincoln University also opened its doors to students of all races.

But wait, Nancy Omer says no matter how grand and modern Lincoln University has become, we Pacific boosters need to hold onto the history of our little colored school and the man it was named for. She says it’s part of our history that is worth remembering. I agree.