Fonds

Born Édouard Michel on January 23, 1792, in Saint-Pierre, Martinique, EDWARD MITCHELL was the son of Olive, a free, mixed-race woman from Martinique, and an unknown French father. In 1810, at the age of 18, the young sailor, who dreamed of becoming a ship captain, left his native island. There were two major turning points in young Edward’s life: one was the death of his mother, on December 7, 1808, and the other was Martinique’s invasion by the British and its subsequent capitulation on February 24, 1809. Mitchell boarded The Tropic under the command of Captain William Prentiss, and the ship set sail for Portland, Maine, where the young mariner took up residence in the Prentiss family home.

In November 1810, Mitchell survived a harrowing experience at sea and, believing he had been saved only by the grace of God, he turned to religion, abandoning his life as a seaman and heading to Philadelphia in 1811. There he made the acquaintance of several important leaders of the independent African Methodist and Episcopal churches, and was baptized by Reverend William Staughton, who would later become the president of Columbian College, renamed George Washington University in 1904.

In 1816, Edward Mitchell married Lagune (or Legome) and they had a child together, who died that same year. Four years later, his wife and second child also passed away. This ordeal further strengthened Edward’s commitment to pursue his calling as a minister.

In 1820, Mitchell had a fateful encounter with Dartmouth College president Francis Brown. Brown was ill at the time, and he hired Mitchell to assist him and his wife as they journeyed to Hanover, Hampshire. Brown died only a month later. Edward Mitchell continued to live with the Brown family in Hanover for another four years, during which he served as a lay preacher for the local Baptist Church.

In 1824, with the support of the Baptist congregation, he applied to Dartmouth College. Despite passing the entrance exams, the college’s board of trustees denied him admission, claiming they didn’t want to offend the other students. However, on learning of the board’s decision, the student body submitted a petition to its members, praising Mitchell and exclaiming their willingness to welcome him into the faculty. The student protest had the desired effect, and the board of trustees backed down and approved Edward Mitchell’s application. Mitchell went on to graduate with honors in 1828, at the age of 36, becoming the first man of African ancestry to graduate from the college, and the first from all of the universities that today make up the Ivy League.

Mitchell was ordained as a pastor by the Baptist Church shortly after his graduation, and headed north as part of an evangelical mission. There he met Ruth Cheney, the daughter of Elder Moses Cheney, a Baptist minister. The couple were married in Derby, Vermont, in 1832. The following year, Mitchell and his new wife headed to Lower Canada, where they settled in Sawyerville, Quebec, and where he continued his work as a missionary. The date of their departure coincided with the passing of the British Law of 1833 marking the abolition of slavery in most of the colonies of the British Empire, including in Upper and Lower Canada.

In 1837, Edward Mitchell was appointed pastor of the Calvinist Baptist Society, and he settled with his family on a farm in Georgeville, Quebec, on the shores of Lake Memphremagog, where he lived until his death. Edward and Ruth had three children: Edward Staughton, Naomi Clark, and Nathan Cheney. Edward Mitchell died in Georgeville on March 21, 1872, at the age of 80.

RUTH MITCHELL (née CHENEY) was born September 10, 1803, in Sanbornton, New Hampshire, to Elder Moses Cheney and Abigail Leavitt Cheney. She married Edward Mitchell on March 15, 1832. The wedding was presided over by her father, a Baptish pastor in Derby, Vermont. Ruth lived in Georgeville until the family home and farm were sold in 1882, after which she moved in with her daughter Naomi, who lived in Laconia, New Hampshire, not far from her son Nathan. Ruth Mitchell died on November 12, 1889, in Laconia.

 NATHAN CHENEY MITCHELL, the third child of Edward and Ruth Mitchell, was born August 26, 1841 in the township of Magog. Together with his father, he looked after the family farm, buying up several neighboring pieces of land and helping it prosper. In 1868 he moved to Laconia, but he maintained ties with Georgeville, where he continued to run the farm until it was sold in 1882. Nathan Cheney Mitchell died June 10, 1909, in Stoneham, Massachusetts.

NAOMI CLARK MITCHELL was born November 11, 1839, in the township of Magog. The second of the Mitchell children, Naomi worked as a schoolteacher at the local schools. She moved to Laconia with her mother in 1882 after the family home in Georgeville was sold. Naomi Clark Mitchell died June 1, 1902, in Lowell, Massachusetts.

Sources:
“Finding Community: The Life of Edward Mitchell 1828,” exhibit on display at Rauner Library, Darmouth College, 2022.

Lee, Forrester A. and James S. Pringle. A Noble and Independent Course: The Life of the Reverend Edward Mitchell, Hanover, New Hampshire, Dartmouth College Press, 2018.

Boyko, Janice. “Northern Osiris Newspaper, 1831-1832 Death & Marriage Notices, Derby Orleans Co., Vermont,” in Northeast Kingdom Genealogy [online], June 20, 2004. [https://www.nekg-vt.com/news/news-derby-northern-osiris.php] (accessed January 30, 2023).

Pope, Charles Henry. “The Cheney Genealogy,” in Internet Archive [online]. [https://archive.org/details/cheneygenealogy00pope/mode/2up] (accessed January 30, 2023).