***Eden Rainey Roberts***
(b. January 5, 1856, d. April 29, 1934)
South Carolina. Born free. Black/Mulatto.
Occupation: clergyman, teacher.
Father's occupation: barber, minister.
Mother's occupation: dress maker.
Eden R. Roberts was born in Charleston to free persons of color Benjamin L. and Catherine E. Roberts. His maternal grandparents were Joseph and Mary DeReef, prominent free persons of color in Charleston. The DeReef family had achieved considerable wealth through real estate and the lumber businesses. In 1860, Joseph owned 18 slaves and possessed $40,000 in real estate. He was also an early member of the Brown Fellowship Society, an exclusive benevolence society in Charleston for free persons of color.
Eden's family moved to Anderson, South Carolina in 1857 and stayed there until 1861. In Anderson, Benjamin worked as a barber, and Catherine as a dress-maker. They had accumulated significant wealth by 1860: they possessed $500 in real estate and owned 2 slaves (both woman, a young adult and a child).
The family left South Carolina for the Bahamas at the beginning of the Civil War. On January 1, 1863, they landed at Nassau and stayed there for the duration of the war. Eden attended a government school during this time.
The family returned to Charleston in 1867. Eden continued his education at the Shaw Memorial School. This was a school for African Americans founded 1865 by the New England Aid Society, a Northern missionary society. Eden excelled as a student. He took first prize in the Easter examination in 1869, earning him the praise of Mortimer A. Warren, the principal of the Avery Normal Institute.
In 1871, Eden moved to Greenville and attended the Allen School. In Greenville, he learned shoe-making and worked in the trade for 3 years (until 1874). He then left the trade to work as a country school teacher, teaching school in Newberry and Laurens County.
The next year (in 1875) he was admitted to the University of South Carolina. He entered as a freshman college student following the modern studies track. However, he left the university after only 1 year, reportedly after realizing the university in its present form would likely be closed within a few years. He returned to teaching in Newberry in Fall of 1876.
On November 14, 1876, Eden provided testimony to the U.S. Senate. A Senate subcommittee collected testimony to assess whether citizens in South Carolina had been denied the right to vote in the 1875 and 1876 elections. Eden spoke about his experience in the Longstores precinct. On Election Day, the district managers of election hadn't properly organized and in particular had not appointed clerks, so Eden and some others acted clerks. In that capacity, Eden explained, he witnessed a group of armed white men take possession of the polling station, firing their guns overhead to intimidate African American voters.
The testimony that Eden provided illustrated how limited access to education constrained the political rights of African Americans. Eden was one of three African Americans from the precinct to testify, and he was the only one capable of signing his name.
Starting in 1877, Eden became increasingly involved with the Baptist church. In Fall of that year, he attended a series of meeting at Beaver Dam Baptist Church, and at one of them he joined the Baptist church. Later that year he became involved with the Mt. Morian Baptist church in Camden. The church licensed him to preach in 1879.
The next year (1880) Eden moved to Kingstree and opened a business making harnesses and shoes. Two years later (in 1882) he was ordained as a minister by the Mt. Morian church. He then began working as a missionary in Williamsburg County, successfully organizing what is now Siloam Baptist Church.
Most of Eden's time as a minister (thirty-five years in total) was spent in Florence County. In 1884, he established a pastorate at Trinity Baptist church in Florence, and later he established pastorates at Mt. Carmel Baptist church in Timmonsville, Mt Pisgah Baptist church in Mars Bluff, and Mt. Rona church at Effingham. He also helped run the Baptist Herald newspaper with help from his former classmate J. J. Durham, among others.
Eden was also active in local politics. He served a 4 year term on the Florence Board of Alderman. In his public speeches, Eden appears to have advocated a moderate position the emphasized compromise, if not facilitation, with the white-controlled government. For example, at a Baptist State Convention held in December 1896 (one year after the state constitution was revised to disenfranchise African American voters), one newspaper reported Eden delivering a speech in which he said that
it was the desire of the common-sensed negro to remain among the white people of the South, to whose influence the negro owed much already and on whose help and friendly guidance his future good so largely depended. To the suggestion of the News and Courier [newspaper], the [sic] the negroes migrate in a body to Africa, he would reply in the language of the scripture, "I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness." The negro, he said, did not want to leave and as they were here with us, he besought for them our continued interest and help to make them better fitted to live among us.
While being involved in religion and politics in Florence, Eden also continued his education by taking correspondence courses through Chautauqua University (in Plainfield, New Jersey). He was awarded a degree from the university in 1887.
In 1911, he started working in Benedict College in Columbia. He worked in the ministerial department from 1911 to 1919. Benedict awarded him a D.D. degree in 1919.
Eden resigned from Benedict in 1919 to become school principal of Voorhees Normal and Industrial School (now Voorhees College) in Denmark. He served as principal until 1922.
Eden died in Florence on April 29, 1934. He is buried in the Baptist Cemetery in Florence County.
Sources
1). Pegues, Albert Witherspoon. Our Baptist Ministers and Schools. Willey & Co., Springfield, Mass. 1892.
2). Caldwell, A. B. History of the American Negro: South Carolina Edition. A. B. Caldwell Publishing Co., Atlanta, Ga. 1919.
3). Eighth Census of the United States 1860; Series Number: M653; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29
4). 1860 U.S. census, population schedule. NARA microfilm publication M653, 1,438 rolls
5). 1900; Census Place: Florence, Florence, South Carolina; Page: 14;
6). 1910; Census Place: Florence Ward 2, Florence, South Carolina; Roll: T624_1457; Page: 41A
7). 1930; Census Place: Florence, Florence, South Carolina; Page: 23B
8). Florence, South Carolina, City Directory, 1913
9). Columbia, South Carolina, City Directory, 1916
10). South Carolina Department of Archives and History; Columbia, South Carolina; South Carolina Death Records; Year Range: 1925-1949; Death County or Certificate Range: Florence
11). The Miscellaneous Documents of the Senate of the United States for the Second Session of the Forty-Fourth Congress. Washington, Government Printing Office. 1877. p. 182.
12). "The Colored Editors," May 26, 1891. The Laurens Advertiser. p. 4.
13). "Baptist Convention," December 16, 1896. The Abbeville Press and Banner. p. 11.
Posted 7/22/20