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William Syphax

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William Syphax (c. 1825 — June 15, 1891) was born into slavery but manumitted when he was about one year old. He became a U.S. government civil servant in Republican administrations and the first president of the Board of Trustees of Colored Schools of Washington and Georgetown in Washington, D.C.

Life and career

Syphax was born into slavery in Alexandria County, Virginia,[1] about 1825.[2][3] His mother was Maria Carter, an enslaved mixed-race woman who was the daughter of Ariana, a slave, and planter George Washington Parke Custis. He owned the plantation known as Arlington, where Maria and her mother Ariana lived and worked. (Custis was the only grandson of Martha Custis Washington, by her first marriage, and the step-grandson and adopted son of George Washington).[4] Syphax's father was Charles Syphax, a slave at Mount Vernon who had overseen construction of Arlington House.[3]

In 1826 Custis sold Maria, her eldest child Elinor, and William to a Quaker living in Alexandria, Virginia. That year he gave Maria a bequest of 17 acres of land from Arlington.[4][a] He freed all three of them.[3] Charles remained a slave until freed in 1857 by his next master, Robert E. Lee, under the terms of the George Custis will.[3]

William Syphax took up residence in the District of Columbia when he was 11 years old.[2] As a young man, he began working for the United States Department of the Interior in 1851.[1] Because Custis had not legally documented his transfer of land to Maria Syphax, the federal government confiscated her property when it took possession of the rest of the Arlington plantation during the American Civil War. For a time it was used as a refuge for freedmen. William used his connections to help his mother win back control of her property, through a relief bill enacted by Congress in 1826.[3]

After the war, on July 8, 1868, Syphax was appointed to the Board of Trustees of Colored Schools, the school board that oversaw and ran the segregated public schools for students of color in the District of Columbia. He was the second African American appointed to the three-man board (the first being Alfred Jones in 1867);[5][6] Syphax was its first president.[7] He supported the notion of a unified public school system and equal educational standards.[citation needed] He oversaw the construction of the Charles Sumner School and the Thaddeus Stevens School. In 1870, Syphax organized The Preparatory High School for Colored Youth, later named Dunbar High School, a prestigious academic high school.

Death

Syphax died of undisclosed causes at his home at 1641 P Street NW on June 15, 1891.[2] He was interred at Columbian Harmony Cemetery in Washington, D.C.[1]

Legacy

He is the namesake of William Syphax School (Historical) at 1322 Half Street, SW in Washington, D.C. In November 2020, District of Columbia Public Schools announced that William Syphax is one of seven finalists as a replacement name for Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, D.C.[8]

References

Notes
  1. ^ The date of the slave sale can be determined because Smithsonian Magazine says that it occurred shortly before George Washington Parke Custis gave Maria Syphax 17 acres of land taken from the Arlington estate.[3]
Cites
  1. ^ a b c "Funeral of William Syphax". The Evening Star. June 19, 1891. p. 8.
  2. ^ a b c "Death of Wm. Syphax". The Evening Star. June 17, 1891. p. 8.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Keyes, Allison (March 9, 2018). "How the African-American Syphax Family Traces Its Lineage to Martha Washington". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved May 11, 2021.
  4. ^ a b Priest, Dana (February 27, 1990). "Arlington Bequest a Footnote in Black History". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 11, 2021.
  5. ^ Masur, Kate (2010). An Example for All the Land: Emancipation and the Struggle Over Equality in Washington, D.C. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press. pp. 80, 283. ISBN 9780807834145.
  6. ^ Commissioner of Education for the District of Columbia (1871). "Appendix C: History of Schools for the Colored Population. Special Report of the Commissioner of Education on the Condition and Improvement of Public Schools in the District of Columbia. Exec. Doc. No. 315". Executive Documents Printed by Order of the House of Representatives During the Second Session of the Forty-First Congress, 1869-'70. Vol. 13. 41st Cong., 2d sess. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. p. 257.
  7. ^ Brown, Letitia Woods; Lewis, Elsie M. (1972). Washington in the New Era, 1870-1970. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution : U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 12. OCLC 334087; Stewart, Alison (2013). First Class: The Legacy of Dunbar, America's First Black Public High School. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books. p. 27. ISBN 9781613740095; Preston, E. Delorus (October 1935). "William Syphax, a Pioneer in Negro Education in the District of Columbia". The Journal of Negro History. 20 (4): 457. doi:10.2307/2714262. JSTOR 2714262. S2CID 150033950.
  8. ^ Brunner, Rob (November 20, 2020). "Wilson High School Potential Names Include Marion Barry, August Wilson, 'Northwest'". Washingtonian. Retrieved November 24, 2021.

Additional reading

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