eaching, which was by far his
most important work. He opened a classical school for white persons,
"teaching in Granville, Wake, and Chatham Counties."[4] The best
people of the community patronized this school. Chavis counted among
his students W.P. Mangum, afterwards United States Senator, P.H.
Mangum, his brother, Archibald and John Henderson, sons of Chief
Justice Henderson, Charles Manly, afterwards Governor of that
commonwealth, and Dr. James L. Wortham of Oxford, North Carolina.[5]

[Footnote 1: _Ibid_., p. 74; and Baird, _A Collection_, etc., pp.
816-817.]

[Footnote 2: Paul C. Cameron, a son of Judge Duncan of North Carolina,
said: "In my boyhood life at my father's home I often saw John Chavis,
a venerable old negro man, recognized as a freeman and as a preacher
or clergyman of the Presbyterian Church. As such he was received by my
father and treated with kindness and consideration, and respected as a
man of education, good sense and most estimable character." Mr. George
Wortham, a lawyer of Granville County, said: "I have heard him read
and explain the Scriptures to my father's family repeatedly. His
English was remarkably pure, containing no 'negroisms'; his manner was
impressive, his explanations clear and concise, and his views, as I
then thought and still think, entirely orthodox. He was said to have
been an acceptable preacher, his sermons abounding in strong common
sense views and happy illustrations, without any effort at oratory
or sensational appeals to the passions of his hearers." See Bassett,
_Slavery in N.C_., pp. 74-75.]

[Footnote 3: See Chapter VII.]

[Footnote 4: Bassett, _Slavery in North Carolina_, p. 74.]

[Footnote 5: John S. Bassett, Professor of History at Trinity College,
North Carolina, learned from a source of great respectability that
Chavis not only taught the children of these distinguished families,
but "was received as an equal socially and asked to table by the most
respectable people of the neighborhood." See Bassett, _Slavery in
North Carolina_, p. 75.]

We have no evidence of any such favorable conditions in South
Carolina. There was not much public education of the Negroes of that
State even during the revolutionary epoch. Regarding education as a
matter of concern to persons immediately interested South Carolinians
had long since learned to depend on private instruction for the
training of their youth. Colored schools were not thought of outside
of Charleston. Yet