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Descendants of Slave, Owner to Meet on
Campus October 22
Descendants
of John Newton Templeton, a former slave
and the first African-American graduate of
Ohio University, will meet descendants of
Templeton's former owners for the first
time Friday, Oct. 22, on the Athens campus
of Ohio University.
The
Templetons and the descendants of William
Williamson, who brought Templeton family
members to Ohio from South Carolina after
they were freed from slavery by
Williamson's family, will meet the day
before the rededication of
Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial
Auditorium. The auditorium is named in
honor of Templeton and Martha Jane Hunley
Blackburn, who in 1916 became the first
female African-American Ohio University
graduate.
Templeton
was born a slave of Thomas Williamson in
South Carolina around 1805. Though
Templeton died in 1851 -- before the Civil
War or the Emancipation Proclamation -- he
was emancipated by his owner's will in
1813 and brought to Adams County, Ohio, by
his owner's son, the Rev. William
Williamson, a Presbyterian minister and
abolitionist. Templeton enrolled at Ohio
University in 1824 and university
President Robert Wilson hired him to work
in his home. When he earned his degree in
1828, at a time when most blacks were
enslaved and illiterate, Templeton became
the fourth African-American college
graduate in the United States.
For
more information, please read the
full
text of this news
release.
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