Illinois School for the Deaf

[It took eight months of searching through more than 1,300 old newspapers on microfilm to find this detailed explanation of the events surrounding the 1855-56 crisis in Jacksonville. The Board Minutes and Annual Reports provided little information on what happened.] Mickey Jones, Ph.D.

The Alton Weekly Courier
February 14, 1856

A Public and Private Calamity—The Illinois Deaf and Dumb Institution

Geo. T. Brown, Editor and Proprietor

In this progressive age, where many appear to make the accumulation of wealth the chief business of life; where everything but self is forgotten in the strife for place and power, private calamities seldom occur of sufficient intenseness to arrest attention. To do this, requires a blow which will affect the great heart of the public, and such a blow, we deeply regret to say, has fallen upon one of our State benevolent institutions, involving great private wrongs and outrages upon suffering humanity.

About fifteen years ago, the attention of the benevolent of this State was turned to the large number of Deaf and Dumb persons growing up in ignorance within our borders, the result of which was the passing of an appropriation by the Legislature for the founding of an educational institution for the Deaf and Dumb at Jacksonville. Up to the year 1845, all the money obtained for this purpose was devoted to the erection of suitable buildings, and in the fall of that year, the school was opened, by Thomas OFFICER, Esq., formerly of the Ohio Institution at Columbus, with the best wishes of the humane throughout the State for its success. The two succeeding years were a period of great trial to the Institution. Its means were limited; it was burdened with debt, and the buildings were unfinished. During this period, Mr. OFFICER, instead of receiving his salary, frequently advanced sums from his own private means to enable the Board to carry on the school. During the first term, nine pupils attended. During the second term, about twenty enjoyed the benefits of the Institution, and from time onwards and until recently, the constant increase in the number of pupils, the ability and faithfulness of the teachers, with Mr. OFFICER at their head, who proved himself not only an able teacher, but a father to the young and unfortunate, were all matters of sincere joy to everyone who sympathized with the afflicted, and were moved in their behalf.

During the winter of 1852-3 Governor MATTESON, without our knowledge or desire, appointed us a member of the Deaf and Dumb Board. In every educational movement we have felt a deep interest, and in none so much as that of the Deaf and Dumb. From that time until we tendered our resignation last month, we attended every meeting of the Board, with perhaps a single exception, and did whatever was in our power to advance the interests of the Institution. The law required that a majority of the appointments to the Board should reside out of Morgan county, a provision intended to guard against the very evil now befallen the Institution. They were not so made. Of the twelve appointments, a majority were made from Morgan county. We had not acted long with the Board before we discovered that a number of the members resident in Morgan county, were acting in a manner calculated to greatly impair, if not destroy, the usefulness of the Institution. Some of the powers absolutely necessary in the government of the Institution were taken away from Mr. OFFICER. Persons in the employment of the Board, living in the Institution, were retained long after their total unfitness had been demonstrated, against the remonstrances of the Principal, and until, in one case a member of the Board preferred charges against the individual in question. The Principal was slandered and abused, his motives impugned, and himself threatened with personal violence for speaking of the disqualifications of some of the favorites of those Morgan county members. Under his management the Institution had grown to be one of the most flourishing in the West, and an ornament to the State. But patient endurance of repeated indignities and insults had ceased to be a virtue, and in September last, Mr. OFFICER tendered his resignation of his position as Principal, but was continued temporarily till the first of January last, at which time he left the Institution. It was impracticable to get the members of the Board who resided in foreign counties always to attend, and the result was the Morgan county members, banded together, controlled the entire action of the Board, and have ruled so as to ruin the Institution.

With these men we have remonstrated in the strongest terms. We have at different times stated their proceedings to the Governor, with the hope of having them checked, which has also been done by other members of the Board, (Messrs. SMITH and PARKS of Joliet, and Judge SKINNER of Chicago,) but all without effect, and feeling that we were powerless to avert the meditated destruction, on the 2nd of January last, tendered to Gov. MATTESON the resignation of our Trusteeship, as follows:

Alton, Ills., January 2, 1856.

His Excellency, Gov. Matteson

Sir: Believing that the action of a majority of the members of the Board of Trustees of the Illinois Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb, who are residents of Morgan county, is directly calculated to destroy the usefulness of the Institution, I cannot consent to act longer with them, and hereby tender to you my resignation as a member of the Board.

Very Respectfully, Your Ob’t Serv’t,

GEO. T. BROWN

For reasons similar to our own, Judge Wm. THOMAS, of Jacksonville, also resigned his Trusteeship about the same time, and since then Judge SKINNER, of Chicago, another member of the Board, has also resigned, being unwilling to act with men who seemed bent on doing all the mischief they could to the Institution. In all this we have reason to know that the course of Judges SKINNER and THOMAS and ourselves has been approved by the great majority of the best citizens of the town of Jacksonville, who have viewed the actions of those Morgan county members with feelings of strong indignation.

After Mr. OFFICER left the Institution, it was, and has remained until within a few days, without a Principal. The ablest matron the Institution ever had, Mrs. TOTTEN, a highly educated Deaf and Dumb lady from the New York Institution, was compelled to give up her situation to escape the annoyances of parties in the Institution who desired her place. So indignant were the pupils at the course pursued by these men, they became completely disorganized, and up to the present time, every pupil who could get away, has left, although the Directors used every effort to restrain them by keeping their trunks, threatening them with imprisonment, actually carried into effect in Springfield by the Marshall of that city taking some of them into custody, and lastly, whipping them by one of the officers of the Institution.

From an exposition of this description, we have heretofore shrunk, hoping that the Governor, who had been advised of most of these proceedings by Judge SKINNER, of Chicago, Mess. PARKS and SMITH, of Joliet, and ourselves, would take this matter into his own hands and put a stop to the outrages committed, but after receiving a copy of the following letter, written by Mrs. E. F. REDFERN, of Whiteside county, in this State, the mother of one of the female pupils, addressed to the Editors of the Morgan Journal, after an examination into the conduct of the Institution, we have thought we would be derelict in our duty to the people of the State, to the parents of the pupils, and to the pupils themselves, if we longer remained silent. Let every parent read this letter, and sympathize with the afflicted mother and child, while they pronounce their solemn condemnation upon the authors of so much mischief.

To the Editors of the Morgan Journal

GENTLEMEN: I am a stranger to you and to the citizens of your town. I am no advocate of “Woman’s Rights,” and unused to the self-reliance of those of my sex who are accustomed to harangue or instruct the public. You may deem my intrusion an impertinence, but when I tell you I am a mother, and have a mother’s heart, and a heart too that has for long years yearned over a poor unfortunate mute daughter, you will perhaps excuse and pity me, if you cannot approve my present effort and design.

Our daughter was at your Deaf and Dumb Asylum, and we supposed under charge of Mr. Officer, in whose care we have ever felt she was both safe and happy, and blessed with precious means of moral and mental improvement. I came down here two hundred miles from home, to visit her, not dreaming of removing her from Mr. Officer’s care. Just before I started I received a circular from a Mr. Dunlap, one of the Trustees, saying, in substance, that Mr. Officer had retired from his post as principal of the Institution, but that measures had been taken to so effectually provide for all the interests of the pupils, that their parents need feel no anxiety or alarm. My husband presumed that Mr. Officer had only changed his nominal relation to the Institution, and we both of course supposed that he was retained as an instructor of some of the classes.

Judge then of my great grief and surprise on arriving at the Institution, I found that Mr. Officer had been forced, by three members of the Board of Trustees, to remove entirely from the Institution; that a man had been put in his place, whose only recommendation is that he is a great politician, who can and who will, as I am told, sustain these three members of the Board against Mr. Officer, and against a great part (and the best part) of the people of your town, and all the officers and pupils of the Institution, and I am convinced against the wishes, as well as best interests, of all their parents and friends throughout the State, who know the facts in the case—a man whom all the pupils despise as the tool of a Board that they feel has robbed and oppressed them, and have therefore nicknamed him Beelzebub—a man who (as I know) knows not a sign of the mutes, and can neither speak nor answer when spoken to, and who absolutely does nothing but sit in the corner and smoke his pipe from one week’s end to another, on a salary of $1,500 per annum, which we fathers and mothers are taxed to pay.

That some thirty-six or thirty-eight of the pupils (all that can get away) have already gone; the others gathered together in groups about the building, like lambs without a shepherd, herding promiscuously, in circumstances of absolute danger, without any proper watch, or even proper keys to their dormitories, and all learning absolutely nothing but despair and mischief, and crying and struggling to go home; some dragging their own trunks in the night on hand-sleds to the depot, because forcibly detained and threatened with chastisement in the day-time; others forced back again, even from Springfield, and compelled at last to run away, against the efforts of the arbitrary, unlawful, and tyrannical power that thus strives to coerce and retain them; the sick without proper care, or even needful medicine and fire, and the well under no control, and in no possible condition to study or to learn, whatever efforts their teachers may make to instruct them. What becomes of their letters to their parents? Who intercepts them? Our daughter says she has repeatedly written us letters, which we have not received. What is the character of these Trustees and Superintendents, and what the character of the men about your post-offices? Are we in France or in America? As a poor woman—nay, as a heart-broken mother—I would like to know.

Where are we to send our child now to be educated? Till my unexpected arrival, she had cried with the crying, and despaired with the despairing. She shall now go from her prison—but where shall she go? Alas! her fond dreams of education, and hopes for life, are all rudely dispelled by the sad blow that sundered her from a teacher who was the idol of every mute child’s heart, as well as the pride of the State and of the West. Well, we must go home, and would have gone in silence, though in sorrow, had it not been for the distinct knowledge that scores of other fathers and mothers in the State are still deceived by the same artifices and the same false circulars that deceived us.

I look through your papers, and I see not a word, (though I find your citizens all deplore these disasters as much as I do,) except that I learn that one of them published a most fulsome eulogy of the present incumbent, “Smoker,” not, however, as a teacher of mutes, but as a reverend politician! and that it is pledged to sustain those three Trustees in all their measures of misrule and ruin. Why is this? Why do you suffer people abroad to be thus deceived?—I presume you have good reasons. But I can give to myself no reason for leaving your place without doing the utmost in my power to let other fathers and mothers know what the actual condition of their poor children now is, and is likely to be for months and years to come. My only advice to them is to come to the Institution and see for themselves, and take care of their dear children, without delay, whatever representations they may receive from the Board, or from any other quarter; and in writing this, I only feel that I have discharged a most solemn duty to them, to the State, and to God, whatever others may say or think of it. And I would crave it as a favor of you, gentlemen, that you would either give this poor and imperfect account of mine a place in your paper, for the benefit of those poor children and their parents, or acquaint yourselves with the facts in the case, and prepare some statement more opposite and suitable to this great calamity. E. F. REDFERN

Here, then, is the simple and affecting tale of a sorrowing mother. Who can read it without deep emotion? How grossly was she deceived by the circular issued by the Board! How many more sorrowing parents would there be, if they but knew the dangerous positions in which their children were placed! Let parents think of what this mother says: “Gathered together in groups about the building, like lambs without a shepherd, herding promiscuously in circumstances of absolute danger;” “learning absolutely nothing but despair and mischief;” “crying and struggling to go home;” “dragging their own trunks in the night on hand-sleds to the Depot, because forcibly detained and threatened with chastisement;” “THE SICK WITHOUT PROPER CARE, OR EVEN NEEDFUL MEDICINE AND FIRE;” “the well under no control,” &c., &c. Parents, look on that picture, drawn by an afflicted mother, an eye witness of what she writes, who had spent nearly a week in investigating the condition of the Institution, and ask yourselves if these men are performing the trust reposed in them, and carrying out the benevolent intentions of the people of the State, who taxed themselves for the moral and intellectual advancement of the unfortunate mutes. Would one of you be willing to trust your son or your daughter to the tender mercies of an Institution so conducted and controlled? Herding together “like lambs without a shepherd;” fearful and unfortunate, without a single friend they can confide in, or from whom they can crave advice. Not a woman in the Institution to whom the female pupils can communicate their desires, or through whom, even to a physician, they can make known their complaints!!