Charles Avery, Rev.

Charles Avery Monument, Allegheny Cemetery

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He made a large fortune in the Lake Superior copper mines. He had no children. After liberally remembering his relatives, he bequeathed $20,000 for the benefit of superannuated Methodist ministers; $20,000 to Oberlin College; $25,000 to a school for colored children in Allegheny City; $150,000 for disseminating the gospel among the negroes of Africa ; and $150,000 for the elevation of the colored people of America. He d. Jan. 17, 1858 ; she d. Feb. 27, 1869, both at Allegheny, Pa. A symbolical monument marks his resting place in the Allegheny cemetery.

THE GROTON AVERY CLAN, Vol. I, by Elroy McKendree Avery and Catherine Hitchcock (Tilden) Avery, Cleveland, 1912. p. 353, 577

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Reverend Charles Avery was born in Westchester County, N.Y., on December 10, 1784 and moved to Pittsburgh in 1812. A successful entrepreneur, Avery owned a cotton mill and pharmaceutical businesses, which flourished, making him one of the wealthiest men in Western Pennsylvania. A devout Methodist, he also was a minister and a staunch abolitionist, abhorring the institution of slavery.

Avery was very much involved in the abolitionist movement and believed that the advancement of the African American was dependent on education. To that end, he founded the Avery Trade School for Colored Youth in March 1849 in Allegheny City at the corner of Nash and Avery streets. The school later became known as Avery College and was one of the earliest vocational schools for Black people in the United States. The school building, made of brick, was equipped with a library initially furnished with 700 volumes of varied literature, the equipment necessary to instruct a variety of natural sciences, and an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church on the third level for worship. Tuition was nominal, set at only $2 per term. Two of the nation’s most prominent abolitionists served as president of the college during its existence, George Vashon and Henry Highland Garnet.

A strong supporter of the Underground Railroad movement in Allegheny County, Avery employed the Avery Mission Church as one of the stops. A tunnel in the basement led to a canal and then on to the Allegheny River. Avery also played an important part in the Amistad trial, providing financial support for legal representation for the Africans when their trial went before the U.S. Supreme Court.

At the time of his death in 1858, Avery left $300,000 to support the education and Christianization of Black people. The funds were divided into two equal parts: one half, $150,000, provided for Black people in Africa and was to be administered through the American Missionary Society; the other half was devoted to colleges that educated Black people in the United States. Among them were Oberlin, Lincoln, and Wilberforce.

An endowment, the Avery Fund, in the amount of $25,000 “provided for 12 scholarships for young colored men in the University of Pittsburg,” as stated in The Negro Year Book. “In accordance with the agreement between the executors of the Avery Estate and the trustees of the University, this fund is to provide instruction for males of the colored people in the United States of America or the British Providence of Canada. The number is not to exceed 12 at any one time or term, nor is an individual to hold a scholarship for a period longer than 4 years. Avery scholarships are granted to undergraduate students in the college of arts, and the schools of engineering, mine economics, and education.” —

Source: The Negro Year Book: An American Encyclopedia of the Negro by Tuskegee Institute, 1916

Avery is interred at Allegheny Cemetery, where a life-size statue greets the visitor, a reminder of the benevolent acts of a man committed to racial equality.