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THE SNOW HILL INSTITUTE PAPERS COLLECTION
Finding Aid
Call number: HC7
Extent: 2 ½ cubic feet
Black Belt Archives, Station 45, Livingston, AL 35470
www.centerforblackbelt.org
SNOW HILL INSTITUTE PAPERS COLLECTION
SERIES DECRIPTION AND CONTAINER LIST
Location Number: HC7: Room 1, Shelf 1
Finding Aid
Title: The Snow Hill Institute Papers Collection
Physical Description: 2 ½ cubic feet
Physical Location: Black Belt Archives: Room 1; Shelf 1
Introduction: Maris Mott Dauphin, the sister of longtime Snow Hill Institute trustee Mack C.
Mott, donated the Snow Hill Institute Papers Collection to the University of West Alabama in
May 2011. The collection totals about 2 ½ cubic feet of records and contains 2 letter boxes, 1
half-size letter box, and 1 oversized document box. The arrangement of the records is
chronological and alphabetical by record series within a particular year. Many folders in this
collection hold records created over a number of years rather than a single year, and are thus
assigned a date range. In these instances, the folder is classified chronologically based on the
earliest date of the included records. There are no access restrictions on the records in the Snow
Hill Institute Papers Collection.
Institutional History: The school that came to be known as the Snow Hill Institute was founded
in 1893 by William James Edwards in a one-room cabin in northeastern Wilcox County.
Edwards named the school the Colored Literary and Industrial School.1 A former pupil of
Booker T. Washington at the Tuskegee Institute, Edwards emulated Washington’s educational
philosophy by implementing a curriculum rooted in technical instruction. Edwards hoped that his
school would provide the African-Americans of west Alabama with the practical knowledge
needed to run efficient farms, operate a smithy, or work on industrial machinery. Snow Hill
Institute also offered some instruction in the liberal arts.
In expanding and improving the facilities at Snow Hill, Edwards relied on both local and
northern benefactors. A civic-minded, white Wilcox County planter and Confederate Army
veteran named R.O. Simpson donated 100 acres and the one-room cabin to Edwards to enable
Snow Hill’s foundation. The Simpson family eventually sold Edwards’s burgeoning school 1900
more acres of land. Edwards took 14 classes at Harvard University and convinced northern
philanthropists interested in improving the condition of black southerners to donate money to
Snow Hill Institute during his time in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1
http://www.wilcoxareachamber.org/history/snow_hill_institute.htm.
By the early 1920s, Snow Hill Institute could boast of 27 buildings, a staff of 35, and over 400
students. Many of the additional buildings were erected by Snow Hill’s former and current
students of architecture and building science.2 Snow Hill graduates went on to further the
educational mission of Washington and Edwards, founding the Utica Normal and Industrial
Institute (Mississippi), Laurinburg Normal and Industrial School (North Carolina), Street Manual
Training School (Alabama), and Perdue Hill School (Alabama).
While principal of the Snow Hill Institute, Edwards also founded the Black Belt Improvement
League, an organization devoted to the promotion of quality agricultural work, home ownership,
increased education, and a healthy lifestyle amongst the African-Americans of Alabama’s Black
Belt. By the time of his 1924 retirement, Snow Hill Institute’s prosperity belied its humble
origins. Edwards’s personal history mirrors the story of Snow Hill Institute. In his memoir,
Twenty-Five Years In the Black Belt, Edwards recounts his childhood as an invalid cripple
afflicted by scrofula and consigned to the dirt floor of a shanty, his excruciating convalescence
from this condition via habitual knife-scraping of dead bone tissue on his elbow and heel, his
successful academic career at Tuskegee (he was salutatorian of his class), and the foundation of
Snow Hill.3 Snow Hill Institute was operated as a private school until Edwards’s retirement, but
thereafter the state took over administration. In January 2011, Edwards was inducted to the Black
Belt Hall of Fame.
As the twentieth century progressed, African-Americans and whites moved away from
Alabama’s Black Belt in large numbers. Snow Hill Institute’s enrollment suffered accordingly.
The school finally closed in 1973 in the wake of the desegregation of the Wilcox County school
system. The Snow Hill Institute Board of Trustees continued to maintain and lease the timber
land owned by the school and initiated several aborted attempts to re-open Snow Hill. Snow Hill
Institute was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.4 Consuela Lee, a noted
jazz pianist and Edwards’s granddaughter (who was also the aunt of Academy Award-nominated
director Spike Lee), opened a performing arts school on the site of Snow Hill in 1980 called the
Springtree/Snow Hill Institute. Lee’s Springtree/Snow Hill Institute closed in 2003.5
Scope and Content Note:
Inclusive Dates: 1840 to 1982.
Bulk Dates: 1910 to 1970.
The Snow Hill Institute Papers Collection contains records in categories including, but not
limited to, Board of Trustees Correspondence and Minutes, Contracts, Mortgage Deeds, Property
Descriptions, Insurance Policies, and Bank Statements and Deposit Slips. Most of the collection
consists of paper records, but the collection also includes surveyor’s photographs of tracts of
2
Ibid.
William J. Edwards, Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt (Boston: Cornhill Company, 1918), 8-36.
http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/edwards/edwards.html.
4
http://nrhp.focus.nps.gov/natregsearchresult.do?fullresult=true&recordid=2.
5
http://theruralsite.blogspot.com/2010/01/consuela-lee-and-snow-hill-institute.html.
3
land. This collection contains information about the acquisition of land to create Snow Hill
Institute and documentary evidence of the property’s ownership, correspondence between
Edwards, the Board of Trustees, and Robert R. Moton, a contemporary of Edwards and the
influential successor to Washington as principal of the Tuskegee Institute, the value of timber on
the school’s property, the sale of school property during the 1960s and 1970s, a scandal
involving a corrupt principal in 1966 and 1967, and attempts to reopen Snow Hill after its 1973
closure. Researchers interested in the history of Snow Hill Institute, African-American education
in Alabama’s Black Belt, and how a Board of Trustees manages a school’s affairs after it closes
will find merit in this collection.
Series Descriptions:
Bank Statements and Deposit Slips – This series contains records from Wilcox County
financial institutions such as the Camden National Bank. These statements show how much
money Snow Hill had in savings. One set of bank statements pertains to the school’s building
fund.
Board of Trustees Correspondence – This series of folders includes a variety of information.
Some relay information about conflicts between board members over issues such as financial
policy, academic policy, deals with timber companies, and what land Snow Hill should acquire
or sell. The 1927-9 folder in this series documents a case of financial misappropriation that
threatened the solvency of Snow Hill and a bitter dispute between Edwards and the Board of
Trustees concerning the rescission of $125 which had previously been granted him for life.
Contracts/Deeds/Mortgages/Property Descriptions – Often found stored in bundles together
by the original creator, these documents outline the dimensions of Snow Hill’s property and
impart how that property was acquired during the 1890s and early twentieth century and sold off
during the 1960s and 1970s.
Insurance Policies – The records within this series (almost all of which are oversized) show
which buildings had fire insurance coverage on Snow Hill Institute property. Coincidentally, this
provides the researcher with an idea of how many buildings were on campus at any given time as
well as where those buildings were positioned on Snow Hill’s land.
SNOW HILL INSTITUTE PAPERS COLLECTION
SERIES DECRIPTION AND CONTAINER LIST
Location Number: HC7: Room 1, Shelf 1
Finding Aid
Container Listing
Box #1 – 1840-9 C to 1966 B
Folder Name
Finding Aid
1840-9 Contracts/Deeds
1850-9 Deeds
1872-1932 Bills/Contracts/Mortgages/W.J.
Edwards Correspondence
1873 Mortgage Deed
1880-9 Contracts/Deeds/Wills
1890-9 Contracts/Deeds/Indentures/Property
Descriptions
1895-1905,1973 Copies of Snow Hill Articles
of Incorporation and Amendments/Bill for
Copies
1900-9 Contracts/Deeds/Mortgages/Property
Descriptions
1910-9 Contracts/Deeds/Property Descriptions
1914-26 Insurance Policies
1917 Farm Loan Contracts
1920-9 Contracts/Deeds/Property Descriptions
1921 Automobile Fund
1925-33 Personal Correspondence – Robert R.
Moton
1927-9 Board of Trustees/Lawsuit
Correspondence I
1927-9 Board of Trustees/Lawsuit
Correspondence II
1930-9 Contracts/Property Descriptions
1933 Legal Correspondence – Martha Simpson
1937 Cotton Producers Note
1940-9 Contracts/Indentures/Property
Descriptions
1940-8 Insurance Policies
1942 Survey of Lots
1946 Maps
Folder Number
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
1948-66 Brewer and Harris
1949 Camden Academy Track and Field
Ribbon
1950 Addresses
1954 Bills and Receipts
1954-64 Board of Trustees/Timber Land
Management Correspondence
1955-65 Surveyor Overhead Pictures and Maps
of Martha Simpson Land
1956-61 Surveyor Overhead Pictures –
Gilmore Property
1962 Board of Trustees Correspondence – Bids
– Principal Vacancy
1962-72 – Lawrence C. Johnson – Board of
Trustees Minutes/Financial
Statements/Personal Correspondence
1963-4 Bills and Receipts
1963 Board Meeting Minutes/Contract Bid
Notebook
1963-79 Loose Records from Board of
Trustees Book/Leases, Correspondence, Bills,
etc.
1964 Donor Correspondence
1964-73 Hackney Brothers Body Company –
Bank Statements and Deposit Slips – Building
Fund – Receipts
1964-9 Tax Forms
1965-76 Board of Trustees
Correspondence/Financial Statements – Mack
C. Mott
1965-74 Building Fund – Camden National
Bank
1965 Dallas County Property
1965 Pasture Improvement Costs
1966-74 Bank Statements and Deposit Slips –
Camden National Bank
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
Box #2 – 1966-7 P to Undated S
Folder Name
1966-7 Principal Correspondence
Folder Number
1
1967 Business Correspondence – William M.
Wright
1967 Lease Contract
1967-8 Timber Sales Estimates
1968 Pomeroy and McGowin Timber Cruise
Sheets – Gilmore Property
1968-70 Property Dimensions/Timber
Estimates – Gilmore Property I
1968-70 Property Dimensions/Timber
Estimates – Gilmore Property II
1969 Commencement Announcement
1970-2 Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes
1970 Scholarship Letters
1971 Commencement
1971 Personal Correspondence – Martha
Simpson – Snow Hill Taxes
1972 Lease Contract
1972-5 Lot Surveys
1973 Personal Correspondence – Henry E.
Deyo, Jr.
1973 Purchase Option
1980-1 Board of Trustees
Correspondence/Committee for Re-Opening
Snow Hill/Institute Bylaws
1982 Tax Exemption Correspondence
Undated Christmas Cards
Undated Contract
Undated Maps/Property Descriptions
Undated – Scratch Legal Pad
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
Box #3 – 1962-9 Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes Book
Box #4 – Oversized Items – 1889 M to 1946 P
Item Name
1889 Mortgage Deed
1895 Snow Hill Act of Incorporation Copies
1904 Charter Amendment Copies
1905 Deeds
1913 Mortgage Note
1914 Hartford Insurance Company Policy
1923 Mortgage Deeds – Leslie L. Taylor
1923 Mortgage Deed – Rivers Wheeler
1923 Springfield Insurance Company Policy
1923 Springfield Insurance Company Policy
Item Number
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
1925 Hartford Fire Insurance Company Policy
1925 Springfield Insurance Company Policy
1926 National Union Fire Insurance Company
Policy
1926 Springfield Insurance Company Policy
1926 Springfield Insurance Company Policy
1926 Springfield Insurance Company Policy
1926 Springfield Insurance Company Policy
1926 Springfield Insurance Company Policy
1927 Mortgage Deed
1940 Hartford Fire Insurance Company Policy
1943 Hartford Fire Insurance Company Policy
1946 Blueprint – Snow Hill Institute Tract
1946 Property Map
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23