***Peter Verdier Hazel***
(b. Abt. 1857)
South Carolina. Black.
Occupation: teacher
Peter Hazel was born around 1857 in Charleston, South Carolina to unknown parents. He attended the Avery Normal Institute, graduating in 1873. He then went to Atlanta University and entered into the College Preparatory Course for 1873-74. He studied alongside John L. Dart and Thomas J. Reynolds.
Peter left Atlanta and registered as a student at the University of South Carolina on November 21, 1874, entering as a freshman college student. He returned to Atlanta University the next year, following the College Course for the 1875-76 academic year.
Peter left Atlanta University at the end of the academic year and moved to upstate New York to attend Madison University (now Colgate University). His studies at Madison University were funded by the Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society (an auxiliary to the American Baptist Home Mission Society) using donations from members of the Clarendon Street Church in Boston, MA. Peter worked at a Baptist church in Utica while a student at Madison.
At Madison University, Peter was a well-regarded public speaker. At a December 19, 1878 Junior Exhibition, he delivered a lecture titled "Every Nation a Mission." He spoke about how the "black race," like other nations, has a mission, and while its progress was slow, improvement was "possible and probable." At commencement, he delivered a lecture titled "The Elements of Power in Abraham Lincoln." Peter graduated from Madison University in 1880 with a B.P. degree (an undergraduate degree awarded for completing the Scientific Course).
Shortly before Peter graduated, the Madison student newspaper devoted most of an issue to the senior college students. The issue included "Class Prophecies," humorous predictions by select senior students about their future. Peter contributed the following item:
To deal with magnitude is this man's forte;
Cube root and Calculus his daily sport.
Sesquipedalian words are his delight,–
He goes for τό πνεύμα [the spirit] with all his might–
"Correlatively speaking", understand.
A statesman unsurpassed, his mighty hand
Shall make Liberia joyful when she feels
Him tugging at her laboring chariot wheels.
"Hic jacte Pete," his epitaph shall be,
"Here mourns Liberia, and here sleeps P.V."
Peter returned to Charleston after graduating, but around 1900, he started working as a teacher in Kingstree, South Carolina. He was teaching in Sumter County in 1900. By 1910, he had left South Carolina and was living in Rockingham, North Carolina, continuing to work as a teacher.
He may be the Peter Hazel that appears in the 1920 U.S. Census, living in Newport News, Virginia and working as a "canvasser."
Sources
1. "Annual Report of the Regents of the University of the State of New York" Weed, Parsons, and Company, Albany. 1881.
2. "Class Prophecy" June 16, 1880. Madisonensis. Page 4.
3. "Personals" February 15, 1879. Madisonensis. Page 11.
4. "College and Town" January 18, 1879. Madisonensis. Page 6.
5. 1870; Census Place: Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina; Roll: M593_1487; Page: 352A
6. 1880; Census Place: Hamilton, Madison, New York; Roll: 860; Page: 167C
7. 1900; Census Place: Concord, Sumter, South Carolina; Page: 1;
8. 1910; Census Place: Rockingham, Richmond, North Carolina; Roll: T624_1110; Page: 21B
9. 1920; Census Place: Newport News Ward 3, Newport News (Independent City), Virginia; Roll: T625_1899; Page: 9B
10. "Woman's Work" The Baptist Home Mission Monthly, December 1878, Vol. 1., No 6. p. 90.
Posted 5/27/20