Browse Items (1 total)
- Description is exactly "The Canaan neighborhood of west Florence was named after early resident and former slave brick mason Cain Leach.
Before the Civil War Cain Leach was a slave brick-mason of a “Mr. Leah” [Leach?] before becoming the slave of Lauderdale resident John S. Morrow (1809-1887) sometime after 1852. In 1860 Morrow’s real estate was valued at $16,000 and his personal property at $29, 428. Morrow’s plantation was located just outside Florence.
According to the 1860 slave census schedule, John S. Morrow had ten slaves, five men and six women, ranging in age from five to forty-six. The forty year-old black male enumerated as one of Morrow’s slaves is probably Cain.
Cain's first wife Patsy was the slave of Mrs. Kirkman and in 1863 and 1864 Cain rented bottom land from the Kirkmans, who testified in his Southern Claims petition that Leach "appeared to be a free Negro and appeared to have control of his own time.” For his part, testifying in February of 1873, John Morrow said of his former slave that “His only interest in the claims is to do Cain justice as an old faithful servant. Claimant . . . is and was a trusty [sic] man, and a provident one.”
Morrow was apparently a Unionist, willing to sacrifice slavery in order to preserve the Union. When war broke out and Confederate regiments were being raised in the neighborhood, Cain "hollered for Mr. Lincoln . . . hollered hurraugh."
According to his Southern Claims Commission petition, supporting Lincoln almost got Cain lynched but calmer heads prevailed and after 24 hours incarceration and a trial before Judge Hawkins he was released with only a whipping, the argument basically being that as an ignorant slave Leach had no idea what he was talking about. Fearing for his slave, John Morrow hired Leach out to a Confederate company as a cook, then, after Morrow’s son Edward joined the Confederate Army, sent Cain with Edward as his body-servant or camp slave. After the war Cain and Edward worked together farming Jackson Island in the Tennessee River for a few years.
Cain’s first wife’s name was Patsy (ca. 1812-1896). Cain worked as a farmer and a plasterer. He lived on West Tennessee Street after the war. Patsy Leach died in January of 1896. Her Florence Times death notice said of her: “Old Aunt Patsey [sic] Leach, one of our most worthy colored women, living in the Western part of the city, died Thursday morning, aged about 78 years.”
In March of 1897 Cain married a woman named Mary Herman (1865-1929), some thirty years younger than him. Mary Herman Leach died December 7, 1929 and was buried, presumably in the City Cemetery two days later.
Cain Leach died Monday, February 22, 1903. He was buried, presumably in the black section of the Florence City Cemetery (there is no marker) the next day after funeral services conducted at St. Paul AME Church; both the Florence Times and Florence Herald published death notices for him. In its Friday, February 27, 1903 issue the Times wrote:
“Old Uncle Cain Leach, one of our most venerable and worthy colored citizens, died on Monday afternoon, last aged 79 [sic] years. He had lived many years in Florence and always had the respect and good will of the people. He was one of the first settlers in the part of the city in which he lived and its location, Canaan, took its name from him.”
The Carpenter High School was founded in the Canaan neighborhood in 1876 by the American Missionary Association and originally the pastors of First Congregational Church (ca. 1875-ca. 1939) at 115 N Seminary Street were principals of the school. In November of 1894 Prof. Young A. Wallace had taken a hiatus from his job as principal and teacher of Florence's District School for Negroes and was teaching the Carpenter High School. By June of 1895 Miss Mary L. Corpier, a graduate of Fisk University, was the assistant to the principal, Rev. William L. Johnson and by April of 1897 was in charge of the school and it's teacher. By 1897 the school had 60 pupils who paid .50 per month tuition.
By 1894 the school was meeting at Leach's Hall on West College Street. See the page on the Carpenter High School in the School collection here for more information on the school.
"
Sort by:
