John Fox Slater

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fox_Slater

John Fox Slater (March 4, 1815 - May 7, 1884), United States philanthropist known for assisting in the education of emancipated African American slaves.

Early life and career

Slater, the son of John Slater (Samuel Slater's brother and partner), was born in Slatersville, Rhode Island in 1815 where his family was active in Slaterville Congregational Church and owned the local textile mills and village. John F. Slater was educated in academies at Plainfield, Connecticut, and Wrentham and Wilbraham, Massachusetts. At seventeen he entered his father's woollen mill in Hopeville, Conn., of which he took charge in 1836. This and other mills he owned in partnership with his brother, William S Slater, until 1873, when his brother took over the Slatersville Mills and he assumed sole ownership of the mills at Jewett City. In 1842 he removed from Jewett City to Norwich; there he helped to endow the Norwich Free Academy, to which his son presented the Slater Memorial Hall. Slater also endowed Park Congregational Church in Norwich and donated Slater Library. Slater died on the 7th of May 1884 and his funeral was held at Park Congregational Church, where he was an attendant.

Philanthropy

In 1882 he donated $1,000,000 to a board of ten trustees, incorporated in New York state, for the uplifting of the lately emancipated population of the Southern states, and their posterity, by conferring on them the benefits of Christian education. Among the original trustees of the Slater Fund were Rutherford B Hayes, Morrison R Waite, William E Dodge, Phillips Brooks, Daniel Coit Gilman, Morris Ketchum Jesup and the donor's son, William A Slater; and among members chosen later were Melville W Fuller, William E Dodge, Jr, Henry Codman Potter, Cleveland H Dodge and Seth Low. In 1909 by careful investment the fund had increased, in spite of expenditures, to more than $1,500,000.

The fund has been of great value in aiding industrial schools in the South, its largest beneficiaries being the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute of Hampton, Virginia, the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute of Tuskegee, Alabama, Spelman Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia, Claflin University in Orangeburg, SC, and Fisk University, in Nashville, Tennessee. At Winston-Salem, NC, is the Slater State Normal and Industrial School, founded in 1892 and named after the founder of the fund (now part of Winston-Salem State University). Other state normal schools for African Americans received assistance from the fund, as have some Southern urban school boards.

Other

The John Fox Slater House is another legacy. His son William A. Slater presented the Slater Memorial Museum to Norwich Free Academy in memory of his father.