What an experience it would have been to have been a guest at the Harrison family holiday dinner in 1916.
I can only imagine hearing the family’s adventures working for Booker T. Washington at the Tuskegee Institution or fighting in the Union Army in the Civil War or risking death fleeing slave masters to find freedom via the Underground Railroad.
The family of William and Hannah Harrison, one of the first African American residents in San Bernardino, assembled for Christmas that year, reported the California Eagle of Dec. 30, 1916. Twelve members undoubtedly shared some of their remarkable tales of endurance and achievement as well as the intolerable experiences as slaves.
It’s not often there are many recorded details of the experiences of a family of former slaves during and after the Civil War. The reason we really know about the trials and adventures of the Harrison family is from an article by J. Robert Smith of the Tri-County Bulletin, and published in the Sun newspaper on Oct. 30, 1947.
Smith chronicled two generations of compelling experiences, from slavery to freedom for the elder Harrisons as well as one of their daughters’ less-rigorous but still fulfilling life of her own.
For William Harrison – sometimes known as Bill – surviving his first 25 years was pretty much a miracle. Born into slavery in northern Kentucky about 1840, he was determined to escape to freedom a few years before the start of the Civil War, something his father had succeeded at earlier.
The younger Harrison, according to Smith, was able to evade capture by crossing the Ohio River, helped by a group of Quakers and other members of the Underground Railroad, which assisted slaves to reach freedom in Northern states.
Smith said Harrison, still in his teens, traveled to Winona, Minnesota, where his father – whose name we’ve been unable to determine – had settled.
Next we hear of William Harrison stepping forward in Michigan a few years later when President Lincoln approved the use of African American combat troops in the Civil War following the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Here’s where some of Smith’s article – written two decades after William Harrison’s death – doesn’t completely add up. A state publication in Michigan in 1976 said all of the state’s 1,500 African American volunteers joined the Union Army in 1863 and fought entirely along the East Coast in the Carolinas and Florida as part of the 102nd United States Colored Troops.
However, Smith said Harrison was sworn in in Eaton Rapids, Michigan, and fought with the 102nd mostly in his native Kentucky, even being wounded twice. While recovering, “he had the opportunity of seeing his mother again and meeting his (future) wife who was only 16 and still a slave,” Smith wrote.
Once the war was over, Harrison returned to Kentucky and reunited with Hannah, according to Smith’s article. They married in 1870 and moved to Atchison, Kansas.
At this time, many African Americans left the post-war South seeking employment in northern cities, but Harrison instead was drawn to California, leaving his family in Kansas.
In 1887, he came to San Bernardino and got work as a carpenter, often doing two jobs a day. He also outfitted a rented building near Third and G streets as a house for his family, which soon joined him.
Harrison would soon become a fixture in San Bernardino and was one of the few Black members of the W. R. Cornman Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, the local chapter of Union Army veterans. He died in May 1925 at 85. Hannah died in December 1930.
William and Hannah had seven children.
Their first daughter, Grace, born in 1883 in Kansas, had an especially remarkable life locally, noted Smith’s article. She first joined local schools in 1890, finished elementary grades in five years and entered San Bernardino High.
Gracie, as she was known, was one of 36 members of the school’s 1898-99 senior class. Several sources list her as the first African American graduate of the high school, though her 1960 obituary in the Sun said she was actually the second.
Her skills in the classroom impressed several in the community.
“Through the kindly assistance of interested friends, (she) has been able to take the full course at the Normal School of Los Angeles (today’s UCLA),” wrote the Los Angeles Times on Feb. 25, 1903.
Her graduation – one of the earliest at UCLA for an African American woman – occurred shortly before a fundraising tour of Southern California by Booker T. Washington. That tour included a speech in early January 1903 before a jammed Methodist Church audience in Ontario.
“(As Grace Harrison was) unable to obtain an appointment as a teacher in Los Angeles because of her color, members of the university faculty personally contacted Washington when he was in Los Angeles,” wrote Smith.
It was arranged for her to serve as a teacher at the Tuskegee Institution, the famed institution for African Americans. According to her obituary, she actually taught sixth and seventh grades at the Alabama school, but owing to ill health, her stay there was just one year.
In 1911, she married James Mabra and spent the next 50 years as a prominent member of the San Bernardino community. She was a regular participant in the local political study club, served on many election boards and was called for jury service. She was also a member of the Lily of the Valley Chapter of the Eastern Star.
She died in November 1960 and is buried with her parents and husband in Mountain View Cemetery in San Bernardino.
Historic Pomona
The Historical Society of the Pomona Valley will hold “Harmony and History,” a summer concert from 5 to 8 p.m. on Sunday, July 20, at the historic Phillips Mansion, 2640 Pomona Blvd., in Pomona.
Appetizers and libations will be available while listening or dancing to the music of The Stardust Trio, playing a variety of music. Visitors can also tour the historic mansion. Tickets are $35 and are available at https://is.gd/CiWjjd.
The society will also hold tours of its historic sites on upcoming Sundays. On July 21, the day after the concert, a separate tour of the Phillips Mansion and Currier House will take place. A tour of the historic Spadra Cemetery, 2850 Pomona Blvd., Pomona, will be July 28.
The Phillips tours are $14 and run from 2 to 4 p.m. The Spadra Cemetery tours are $10 and from 4 to 6 p.m.
Tours must be reserved in advance at pomonahistorical.org.
Joe Blackstock writes on Inland Empire history. He can be reached at [email protected] or Twitter @JoeBlackstock. Check out columns of the past at Inland Empire Stories on Facebook at www.facebook.com/IEHistory.
