Biographical Sketches of Key Personalities
John Alvord—Alumnus of Oberlin College; Congregational minister; agent for American Anti-Slavery Society; colporteur for American Tract Society-Boston; Superintendent of Schools for the Freedmen’s Bureau
Frederick Ayer—Antebellum missionary to the Ojibwe; ordained by Charles Finney; first AMA missionary in Black Atlanta (1865–1867); founder of the Storrs School, First Congregational Church, and Atlanta’s first temperance society for blacks
Dr. Roderick Dhu Badger—African American dentist opposed to prohibition
Lyman Beecher—Northern antebellum Congregational minister whose preaching and work spurred the creation of benevolent societies
John Emory Bryant—Northern migrant to Atlanta following the war; Republican; outspoken prohibitionist
Alonzo W. Burnett—Editor of Weekly Defiance; sometimes prohibitionist
E. R. Carter—A freedman; pastor of Friendship Baptist Church (1882–1944); graduate of Atlanta Baptist Seminary; outspoken prohibitionist
Alfred Colquitt—Member of Georgia’s Bourbon Triumvirate; Georgia governor (1877–1882); U.S. senator from Georgia (1883–1894); outspoken prohibitionist; friend of William E. Dodge and Henry Grady; supporter of the New South movement
Theodore L. Cuyler—Founding pastor of Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, NY (1860–1890); a founder of the National Temperance Society, and its president (1885–1893)
William E. Dodge—Founding president of the National Temperance Society (1865–1883); major New York philanthropist for African American higher education, temperance, and other causes; visited Atlanta several times; spoke at Atlanta University; friend of Alfred Colquitt
John Dougall—Immigrant from Scotland and Canada; published and edited the New York Weekly Witness; for two years mailed the Witness free of charge to African American clergy, including some in Atlanta; ardent abolitionist and temperance reformer
Smith W. Easley—Alumnus of Storrs School; lodge organizer for Independent Order Good Samaritans in Georgia; Right Worthy grand chief of Georgia’s Grand Lodge; editor of Herald of United Churches; active prohibitionist
Charles Finney—Most prominent antebellum evangelist; professor and president of Oberlin College; promoter of temperance; many of his converts involved in abolitionism, temperance, and other reforms
Wesley J. Gaines—A freedman from Georgia; second pastor of Bethel AME Church (1867–1869); active prohibitionist; a Good Templar; ordained bishop in 1888; a founder of Morris Brown College; author of African Methodism in the South, or Twenty-Five Years of Freedom (1890)
Henry Grady—Editor of the Atlanta Constitution; supporter of the New South movement; active prohibitionist
Dr. J. B. Hawthorne—Pastor of First Baptist Church; supporter of the New South movement; active prohibitionist
Sam Jones—Methodist evangelist from Cartersville, Georgia; active prohibitionist; the “Moody of the South”; supporter of the New South movement
Honorable Jefferson Franklin Long—A freedman from Georgia; a member of the Forty-First Congress (1870–1871), from Macon, Georgia; first African American elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia; an anti-prohibitionist
Jackson McHenry—Aspiring African American Republican politician who worked a variety of jobs; sometimes prohibitionist
Henry L. Morehouse—Baptist missionary and pastor from New York state who served as corresponding secretary of the American Baptist Home Mission Society (1879–1892, 1902–1917) and as its field secretary (1893–1902); Atlanta Baptist Seminary was renamed Morehouse College in his honor in 1912. He originated the phrase “talented tenth”
Daniel A. Payne—Born free in South Carolina; seminary-trained; president of Wilberforce College who organized the AME Church in South Carolina and Georgia following the war; advocate for educated clergy and temperance; ordained an AME bishop in 1852
William A. Pledger—Alumnus of Storrs School; grand worthy master of Georgia’s Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers in 1870s; editor, teacher, Republican Party leader; prohibitionist in Clarke County and anti-prohibitionist in Fulton County
Ebenezer Porter—Antebellum New England Congregational pastor and Andover Seminary professor; the idea to organize several benevolent societies, including the American Tract Society and the American Temperance Society, arose out of Bible studies he hosted
J. C. Price—Minister in the AME Zion Church; president of Livingstone College in North Carolina; a missionary for the National Temperance Society who spoke in Atlanta
Sam Small—Journalist and former-drinker-turned-evangelist; active prohibitionist; worked with evangelist Sam Jones
J. N. Stearns—A founder of the National Temperance Society and editor of National Temperance Advocate (1865–1893); a Good Templar; traveled regularly throughout the South on behalf of temperance; visited Atlanta’s missionary schools several times
“Mother” Eliza Stewart—Organized the South’s first colored chapter of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in Atlanta in 1880 while on a trip through the South on behalf of the WCTU
Michael Strieby—Oberlin College alumnus; secretary of the American Missionary Association
Wilbur P. Thirkield—Methodist minister; founding dean of Clark University’s Gammon School of Theology in 1883; active prohibitionist
James G. Thrower—Northern building contractor who moved to Atlanta following the war; he organized the city’s first Good Templar Lodges (white) and True Reformer Fountains (black); introduced traveling temperance speakers to the black schools; worked closely with National Temperance Society missionaries; a prohibitionist
Henry McNeal Turner—Born free in South Carolina; converted in a Methodist revival meeting and licensed to preach in 1853; army chaplain during Civil War; organized Georgia congregations for the AME Church following the war; Georgia Republican politician during Reconstruction; ordained bishop in 1880; Atlanta resident during the 1880s and 1890s; editor of Southern Recorder; active prohibitionist
Frances E. Willard—President of the WCTU (1879–1898); visited Atlanta in 1881
Elder Joseph Wood—Brought Atlanta’s oldest black congregation into the AME Church in 1865 and served as Bethel AME’s first pastor (1865–1866); founded and pastored Wood’s Chapel (later known as Allen Temple) (1866–1870, 1879–1883); worthy master of Atlanta’s first True Reformer Fountain; leader of a Good Samaritan Lodge; president of the temperance society of the North Georgia Annual Conference of the AME Church