BOYHOOD IN WEST VIRGINIA.
We began life in West Virginia in a little shanty, and lived in it for
several years. My step-father soon obtained work for my brother John and
myself in the salt furnaces and coal mines, and we worked alternately in
them until about the year 1871. Soon after we reached West Virginia a
school teacher, Mr. William Davis, came into the community, and the
colored people induced him to open a school. My step-father was not able
to spare me from work, so that I could attend this school, when it was
first opened, and this proved a sore disappointment to me. I remember
that soon after going to Malden, West Virginia, I saw a young colored
man among a large number of colored people, reading a newspaper, and
this fired my ambition to learn to read as nothing had done before. I
said to myself, if I could ever reach the point where I could read as
this man was doing, the acme of my ambition would be reached. Although I
could not attend the school, I remember that, in some way, my mother
secured a book for me, and although she could not read herself, she
tried in every way possible to help me to do so.
[Illustration: “THIS FIRED MY AMBITION TO LEARN TO READ AS NOTHING HAD
DONE BEFORE.”]
In some way, I cannot now recall how, I learned my letters while working
in the salt furnace and coal mines. As time went on, after considerable
persuasion on my part, my step-father consented to permit me to attend
the public school half of the day, provided I would get up very early in
the morning and perform as much work as possible before school time.
This permission brought me great joy. By four o’clock in the morning I
was up and at my work, which continued until nearly nine o’clock. The
first day I entered school, it seems to me, was the happiest day that I
have ever known. The first embarrassment I experienced at school was in
the matter of finding a name for myself. I had always been called
“Booker,” and had not known that one had use for more than one name.
Some of the slaves took the sirnames of their owners, but after freedom
there was a prejudice against doing this, and a large part of the
colored people gave themselves new names. When the teacher called the
roll, I noticed that he called each pupil by two names, that is a given
name and a sirname. When he came to me he asked for my full name, and I
told him to put me down as “Booker Washington,” and that name I have
borne ever since. It is not every school boy who has the privilege of
choosing his own name. In introducing me to an audience in Essex Hall,
[Illustration: READING OF THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. THE SMALL LAD
WITH SLOUCH HAT, AND STICK IN RIGHT HAND IS BOOKER.]
London, during my visit to Europe, in the summer of 1899, Honorable
Joseph H. Choate, the American Ambassador, said that I was one of the
few Americans that had had the opportunity of choosing his own name, and
in exercising the rare privilege I had very naturally chosen the best
name there was in the list.
My step-father seemed to be over careful that I should continue my work
in the salt furnace until nine o’clock each day. This practice made me
late at school, and often caused me to miss my lessons. To overcome this
I resorted to a practice of which I am not now very proud, and it is one
of the few things I did as a child of which I am now ashamed. There was
a large clock in the salt furnace that kept the time for hundreds of
workmen connected with the salt furnace and coal mine. But, as I found
myself continually late at school, and after missing some of my lessons,
I yielded to the temptation to move forward the hands on the dial of the
clock so as to give enough time to permit me to get to school in time.
This went on for several days, until the manager found the time so
unreliable that the clock was locked up in a case.
It was in Malden that I first found out what a Sunday school meant. I
remember that I was playing marbles one Sunday morning in the road with
a number of other boys, and an old colored man passed by on his way to
Sunday school. He spoke a little harshly to us about playing marbles on
Sunday, and asked why we did not go to Sunday school. He explained in a
few broken though plain words what a Sunday school meant and what
benefit we would get from it by going. His words impressed me so that I
put away my marbles and followed him to Sunday school, and thereafter
was in regular attendance. I remember that, some years afterwards, I
became one of the teachers in this Sunday school and finally became its
superintendent.
Every barrel of salt that was packed in the mines had to be marked in
some way by the manager, and by watching the letters or the figures that
were put on the salt barrels, and by hard study in school, I soon
learned to read.
My step-father was not able, however, to permit me to continue in school
long, even for a half day at the time. I was soon taken out of school
and put to work in the coal mine. As a child I recall now the fright
which, going a long distance under the mountain into a dark and damp
coal mine, gave me. It seemed to me that the distance from the opening
of the mine to the place where I had to work was at least a mile and a
half. Although I had to leave school I did not give up my search for
knowledge. I took my book into the coal mine, and during the spare
minutes I tried to read by the light of the little lamp which hung on
my cap. Not long after I began to work in the mines my mother hired some
one to teach me at night, but often, after walking a considerable
distance for a night’s lesson, I found that my teacher knew but little
more than I did. This, however, was not the case with Mr. William Davis,
my first teacher.
After working in the coal mine for some time, my mother secured a
position for me as house boy in the family of General Lewis Ruffner. I
went to live with this family with a good many fears and doubts. General
Ruffner’s wife, Mrs. Viola Ruffner, had the reputation of being very
strict and hard to please, and most of the boys who had been employed by
her had remained only a short time with her. After remaining with Mrs.
Ruffner a while, I grew weary of her exact manner of having things done,
and, without giving her any notice, I ran away and hired myself to a
steamboat captain who was plying a boat between Malden and Cincinnati.
Mrs. Ruffner was a New England woman, with all the New England ideas
about order, cleanliness and truth. The boat captain hired me as a
waiter, but before the boat had proceeded many miles towards Cincinnati
he found that I knew too little about waiting on the table to be of any
service, so he discharged me before I had been on his boat for many
hours. In some way, however, I persuaded him to take me to Cincinnati
and return me to Malden. As soon as I returned home, I returned to Mrs.
Ruffner, acknowledged my sins, and secured my old position again. After
I had lived with Mrs. Ruffner for a while she permitted me to attend
school for a few hours in the afternoons during three months, on the
condition that I should work faithfully during the forenoon. She paid
me, or rather my step-father, six dollars per month and board for my
work. When I could not get the opportunity to attend school in the
afternoon I resorted to my old habit of having some one teach me at
night, although I had to walk a good distance after my work was done in
order to do this.
While living with Mrs. Ruffner I got some very valuable experience in
another direction, that of marketing and selling vegetables. Mrs.
Ruffner was very fond of raising grapes and vegetables, and, although I
was quite a boy, she entrusted me with the responsibility of selling a
large portion of these products. I became very fond of this work. I
remember that I used to go to the houses of the miners and prevail upon
them to buy these things. I think at first Mrs. Ruffner doubted whether
or not I would be honest in these transactions, but as time went on and
she found the cash from these sales constantly increasing, her
confidence grew in me, and before I left her service she willingly
trusted me with anything in her possession. I always made it a special
point to return to her at the end of each campaign as a salesman every
cent that I had received and to let her see how much vegetables or fruit
was brought back unsold.
At one time I remember that, when I passed by an acquaintance of mine
when I had a large basket of peaches for sale, he took the liberty of
walking up to me and taking one of the ripest and most tempting peaches.
Although he was a man and I was but a boy, I gave him to understand in
the most forceful manner that I would not permit it. He seemed greatly
surprised that I would not let him take one peach. He tried to explain
to me that no one would miss it and that I would be none the worse off
for his taking it. When he could not bring me to his way of thinking he
tried to frighten me by force into yielding, but I had my way, and I am
sure that this man respected me all the more for being honest with other
people’s property. I told him that if the peaches were mine I would
gladly let him have one; but under no circumstances could I consent to
let him take without a protest that which was entrusted to me by others.
It happened very often that as I would pass through the streets with a
large basket of grapes or other fruit, many of the larger boys tried by
begging and then by force to dispossess me of a portion of what had been
given me to sell, but I think there was no instance when I yielded. From
my earliest childhood I have always had it implanted in me that it never
pays to be dishonest, and that reward, at some time, in some manner, for
the performance of conscientious duty, will always come, and in this I
have never been disappointed.
In all, I must have spent about four years in the employ of Mrs.
Ruffner; and I here repeat what I have said more than once, that aside
from the training I got at the Hampton Institute under General
Armstrong, Mrs. Ruffner gave me the most valuable part of my education.
Her habit of requiring everything about her to be clean, neat and
orderly, gave me an education in these respects that has been most
valuable to me in the work that I have since tried to accomplish. At
first I thought that her idea of strict honesty and punctuality in
everything meant unkindness, but I soon learned to understand her and
she to understand me, and she has from the first time that I knew her
until this day proven one of the best friends I ever possessed.
One day, while I was at work in the coal mine, I heard some men talking
about a school in Virginia, where they said that black boys and girls
were permitted to enter, and where poor students were given an
opportunity of working for their board, if they had not money with which
to pay for it. As soon as I heard of this institution, I made up my mind
to go there. After I had lived with Mrs. Ruffner about four years I
decided to go to the Hampton Institute, in Virginia, the school of which
I had heard. I had no definite idea about where the Hampton Institute
was, or how long the journey was. Some time before starting for Hampton,
I remember, I joined the little Baptist church, in Malden, of which I am
still a member.
Of my ancestry I know almost nothing. While in slave quarters, and even
later, I heard whispered conversations among the colored people of the
tortures which the slaves, including, no doubt, my ancestors on my
mother’s side, suffered in the middle passage of the slave ship while
being conveyed from Africa to America. I have been unsuccessful in
securing information that would throw any accurate light upon the
history of my family beyond my mother. She, I remember, had a
half-brother and a half-sister. In the days of slavery, not very much
attention was given to family history and family records--that is, black
family records. My mother, I suppose, attracted the attention of a
purchaser who was afterward my owner and hers. Her addition to the
slave family attracted about as much attention as the purchase of a new
horse or cow. Of my father I know even less than of my mother. I only
know that he was a white man, but whoever he was, I never heard of his
taking the least interest in me, or providing in any way for my rearing.
But I do not find especial fault with him. He was simply another
unfortunate victim of the institution which the nation unhappily had
engrafted upon it at that time.