By the Rivers of Water

by Erskine Clarke

  Leighton and Wynkoop hurried to Boston and met with the Prudential Committee of the American Board. They gave their journals to Rufus Anderson, who quickly published extracts of them in the board’s Missionary Herald. The travelers turned over their report on the colonies and talked with the committee about why they thought Cape Palmas was the place to begin the West African mission. But they noted their reservations—colonial efforts at Cape Palmas could lead to conflict between the Maryland settlers and the Grebo and disrupt the work of the mission. Both Leighton and the committee would later regret that they had not taken these reservations more seriously.4

  Their reports to the board complete, Leighton and Wynkoop parted after having spent six months in each other’s constant company. Wynkoop never returned to West Africa, but years later he and his wife traveled to Japan, China, India, and throughout the Middle East, taking two years to visit the stations of a rapidly expanding American Protestant mission movement.5

  IN EARLY MAY 1834, Leighton headed for Savannah. On arrival he found Jane eagerly awaiting him. “Miss Bayard,” he wrote Anderson, is “well, cheerful, glad to see me, and more a missionary than ever.” They took long walks through the city’s streets and parks as Leighton told her about what he had seen and heard and how plans were proceeding for the mission. They were impatient to marry as quickly as possible, but first they wanted to visit Fair Hope together and see Jane’s McIntosh family. So once again they took a schooner south through the inland waters. This time Leighton saw the sea islands—Ossabaw and St. Catherine’s, Blackbeard and Sapelo—through eyes that had seen the African mainland and the swelling surf that pounded its coastline. Here was a landscape as impenetrable as an African mangrove swamp, and here were signs of land cleared and crops raised. But no great towns came into sight as they sailed the inland waters, and no canoes came clustering about their schooner to bargain and trade.6

  From Darien they hurried together along sandy roads to the plantation’s long avenue with its arching oaks before finally being enveloped by Fair Hope and the waiting family. Leighton had written that he wished never to be parted from Jane again until death did its parting, and they were now beginning years of almost constant companionship. They made their plans for a simple wedding in Savannah—Jane, true to character, wanted only family and a few friends to attend the service. And they enjoyed their springtime together at Fair Hope. The plantation gardens were luxurious, and the fragrances of the Lowcountry—tea olives and wisteria, marshes and sea breezes—filled the air.7

  In the settlement and the plantation house Gullah men and women went about their work of laboring for and serving the white family as it celebrated the reunion of a young white man and young white woman in love. Perhaps when Leighton looked into the faces of these African Americans he remembered the Mandingo man with his Arabic Bible, and the fetish priest twisting Leighton’s sleeve, and the Kru guiding ships, and Joe Wilson translating, and Freeman negotiating the palaver. And perhaps Leighton told the Gullah some of his stories—how he had sailed to Africa, and what he had seen and heard in that distant, remembered land. But if he did any of this, he didn’t write it down, because he was finally with his Jane.8

  They were married in the Bayard home in Savannah on May 22, 1834, by the pastor of the Independent Presbyterian Church. Nicholas was there with his new wife, Sarah, but Margaret and James Eckard were not. After three and a half months at sea, they had arrived the previous February in Ceylon and were now settled at the mission station at Batticotta. Charlotte, Jane’s personal servant, was no doubt at the wedding—in the background—along with other domestic slaves. They would have been busy dusting, polishing, cleaning, and baking—doing all that they were told to do so that the wedding could be a simple and happy affair for Jane and Leighton.9

  After a few days in Savannah, the young couple headed for South Carolina and Pine Grove to spend June and July with Leighton’s family before saying their goodbyes. Arrangements had already been made to have Margaret Strobel and her daughter Catherine join the Wilsons in Philadelphia in September. Once there, they would all sail on the first suitable passage that could be secured. Eliza Clay, Jane, and Mary Howard had been working with Mrs. Strobel, helping to prepare her to teach when she arrived at Cape Palmas. A number of prominent white women in the city from several Protestant denominations had organized a mission society, and they had pledged to provide for Mrs. Strobel’s salary and expenses. They gathered clothes for her and for Catherine, making sure they had what they needed for such a place as Leighton and Joe Clay had described, and when the time came, they helped mother and daughter pack their trunks before seeing them off to Philadelphia.10

  Leighton and Jane spent eight weeks at Pine Grove—it was a kind of honeymoon for them, although they were surrounded by family and friends in the big sprawling house. Still, there was space for them to be alone, and time for them to take long walks down sandy roads through a landscape embedded in Leighton’s heart and imagination. Now Leighton heard with Jane the song of the cardinal settling over the land at twilight and together they felt the wind moving through the pines and saw smoke rising from evening fires in the settlement by Boggy Gully. They visited in the settlement and Leighton told about what he had seen of the African coast, what he had learned of the African people, and what he and Jane hoped to do at Cape Palmas.11

  Two children in the settlement were of particular interest to Leighton—they were his slaves, John and Jessie, entailed to him through Leighton’s mother. John was eleven and Jessie was five. Leighton hardly knew them—he had been away from home so long and had seen them so seldom that, years later, he would have difficulty remembering if Jessie was a boy or a girl. He hoped that John would join them at Cape Palmas when he was a little older, but seemed perplexed about what he should do with the children. The South Carolina legislature had passed draconian measures that made it illegal for newly freed slaves to remain in the state, and Leighton did not want to take the children from their mother, who belonged to William Wilson and was a part of her own dense network of family and friends. John in fact said emphatically that he did not want to leave and go anywhere. So Leighton left the children at Boggy Gully, and he and Jane hurried to Philadelphia at the beginning of August.12

  While Jane visited family in the city and at Princeton, Leighton was busy making preparations for their departure. Trade goods had to be purchased in order to transact business with the Grebo, so Leighton bought knives and beads, cloth and scissors, pots, pans, and kettles. Jane’s cousins organized interested supporters in Philadelphia who purchased bedsteads and mattresses, dressers, chairs, and tables for the mission. Leighton ordered books to take out—medical books and travel books, books on the history of Africa and books on natural philosophy and even a complete set of the American Encyclopedia—all to be added to his own personal library. He bought supplies for the proposed schools—slates and pencils, quills, ink, and writing books. All had to be carefully packed in barrels and boxes along with clothes and food supplies—sugar and tea, flour, salt fish, and corned beef—provided by friends in the city.13

  Leighton and Jane were frustrated, however, in their efforts to find transport to Africa. They considered going with a group of colonists who were leaving Norfolk, but the ship was already crowded. There was a possibility of a ship going from Baltimore to Cape Palmas, but it was uncertain. For a while, they thought they would go with a fast schooner from Philadelphia, but it didn’t work out. Finally Leighton heard that his friend Richard Lawlin of the Edgar was in New York and was planning to leave for West Africa in early November. Leighton made immediate arrangements for them to join Lawlin and to go out with “the good captain” on the Edgar.14

  In late October a service was held in the Central Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia to commission Leighton as a missionary to West Africa. Jane, of course, was also going, and was expected to play a critical role in the work of the mission, but she was to go as a missionary wife. Margaret Strobel was also going, in ord
er to teach in the mission, but she was going as a “coloured assistant” to the missionary. Jane and Margaret, and Catherine, too, were not invisible to those doing the commissioning—their presence was noted—but they were simply secondary in a world of white men.

  Rufus Anderson came from Boston to lead the service, which was attended by representatives of several Protestant denominations. He began by insisting that Leighton be careful about the health of those going out. News had recently arrived that three of the missionaries whom Leighton and Wynkoop had visited in Monrovia had died of malaria, and many Christians had become discouraged about the prospects of a West African mission. The preservation of life, said Anderson, was consequently especially important at the Cape Palmas mission in order to avoid deeper discouragement among mission supporters. Anderson expressed great confidence in the progress of science as it sought to ease the terrors of malaria. He insisted that science, together with experience and intelligent piety, was opening a way for a West African mission. Soon, he said, malaria would “cease to be regarded as the mere agent of blind fate, or chance. The connections between causes and their effects are fast being developed in these latter days.” He confidently predicted that science would soon provide a life preserver for missionaries as they entered the miasmas of tropical climates.15

  Anderson then turned to the mission strategy that was to guide the work at Cape Palmas—and in important ways the American Protestant missionary movement for years to come. First, in regard to Cape Palmas, Leighton needed to understand clearly that he was laying a foundation for the future. What was needed in West Africa was a starting point and base of operation. From such a base, other missions could later be established. Leighton, said Anderson, needed to be content with such work and build up as firm a foundation as possible. Second, Leighton needed to remember that the preeminent objective of the American Board was to raise up Christian leaders from among the native people. To do this, Leighton was to start schools in the native towns around Cape Palmas—schools for both males and females. The American Board, said Anderson, intended to recruit “coloured teachers” from the United States to work with Leighton. They had, it was thought, a better chance of withstanding the immediate dangers of an African climate. As for the children of the schools, they were to live with their parents. Then, from among the promising boys, a boarding school was to be established after the successful model of boarding schools in the Ceylon mission. With proper nurture and education, native leaders would begin to emerge from the boarding school. But native leaders would need books—and above all the Bible—in their own language. So Leighton was to learn the Grebo language and reduce it to writing. A printing press was to be established so that books could be prepared and printed in Grebo. From such a start, and in cooperation with other mission agencies in the United States and abroad, Anderson envisioned the spread of Christianity across the continent. Indigenous leaders would carry the gospel throughout Africa not only from the west coast of the continent but also from the south and east.16

  While Africans were to be the primary evangelists for Africa, Anderson insisted that European and American whites were not relieved of their responsibility for missionary efforts on behalf of the African. “Shall the white man,” he asked, “after having trampled upon Africa for two centuries, after having drawn myriads of slaves from its unhappy shores, and made his influence felt, like that of a demon, in every valley, plain and mountain of its fertile regions, and on every oasis of its mighty deserts—shall the white man now turn his back from that unhappy continent? Shall the Church do this? Shall we risk nothing to heal the wounds of Africa which our fathers inflicted?” Then, turning to Leighton, he said: “Long since, dear brother, you have answered these inquiries, and answered them like a disciple of the blessed Jesus.”17

  THE NEXT MORNING, Leighton and Jane met with a lawyer to draw up their wills and other documents in preparation for their departure. They appointed Nicholas Bayard to be their attorney and gave him power to manage their affairs while they were outside of the United States. After enumerating how he was to handle various properties, they instructed Nicholas to manage and take care of the slaves belonging to Jane—and then they added that when they notified him, he was “to send them to Africa if they shall be willing to go.” Thomas and Eliza Clay, having come to Philadelphia for the commissioning service, were witnesses, and Thomas took a copy of the document with him and had it recorded in Savannah.18

  So Leighton and Jane joined Margaret and James Eckard in making the decision to free those who lived in the Hutchinson Island settlement and to send them to one of the new American colonies in West Africa. What remained for Leighton and Jane was a decision about timing: When should the emancipation take place? When should those who lived in the Bayard settlement sail for Africa? But Paul and Charlotte, Charles and Mary, and all the others in the settlement—they, too, had a decision to make: Did they want to go? Did they want to leave the land of their birth for a distant unknown land? Was the burden of slavery so great, was the weight of it so oppressive, that they would be willing to leave behind family and friends for the free air of Africa?

  THE EDGAR DEPARTED New York Harbor on November 7, 1834. Jane became violently seasick as they headed out into the North Atlantic and needed Leighton’s constant care. Once they reached calmer waters, however, she enjoyed being on deck, where she felt the warmth of the sun and the pleasure of a steady breeze. Jane was entering the great adventure of her life. Behind her lay the comforts and privileges of Philadelphia and Savannah and the deep peace she had felt at Fair Hope plantation. Before her lay what she could only know in her imagination—a mission station on an African coast above a pounding Atlantic surf. She was embarking with her handsome young husband into a new world that beckoned her and that seemed to be drawing her into a life of noble purpose and Christian discipleship. She knew that the way ahead would be filled with dangers—especially the waiting African fevers. But the approaching hardships only added to her sense of being a part of a great nineteenth-century movement of Christianity around the globe. Her sister was already in Ceylon. And now she—Jane Bayard Wilson, granddaughter of Major General Lachlan McIntosh—was to be a missionary pioneer for the conversion of West Africa.19

  On December 7, 1834, the Edgar anchored off Goree Island, a short distance from the mainland. The crew needed to repair a damaged yard. Leighton went ashore and found it a melancholy place, for, as he wrote Anderson, it had been the site of one of the most extensive slave markets on the northern coast of Africa. Although the trade had been suppressed for a number of years, Leighton imagined he could see traces of human guilt and cruelty upon the island. The whole place seemed like an immense prison that had been built to confine slaves before they were shipped across the Atlantic. He was told that the 7,000 slaves still held by the wealthier citizens of Goree constituted three-fourths of the population.20

  After a short stop in Monrovia, the Edgar arrived at Cape Palmas on Christmas Eve. Once again, the Grebo gave a tumultuous welcome. Fifteen men paddled out in the largest canoe at the Cape to take them ashore. The four newcomers made their way carefully down the side of the ship as the Edgar rocked in the swells of the Atlantic. Stepping into the long, narrow dugout, they struggled to seat themselves, and then the Grebo suddenly sent the canoe springing forward, the men singing and paddling with great spirit as they plunged through the surf to the beach and a waiting crowd.

  King Freeman was the first to welcome them, and a multitude escorted them to the newly erected mission house. Walking up the hill from the beach, the three women from Savannah—Jane, Margaret, and young Catherine—looked around for the first time at the leaping, shouting, welcoming Grebo with their iron anklets and bracelets ringing from largely naked bodies.21

  When they reached the top of the hill and the mission station, they found the house—brought out the year before from Baltimore—largely complete and surrounded by stunning views. “The situation of our house,” Leighton wrote, “is remarkabl
y pleasant. I do not know that I have ever seen any place where the beauty and grandeur of nature are more harmoniously united.” Standing in front of the house, on the ocean side, they saw the Atlantic reaching out to the horizon, and almost immediately below them, they saw a surf heaving and crashing onto a long white beach. To their left a salt lake stretched out finger-like for eight or ten miles. To their right the pointed roofs of Big Town marked the home of King Freeman and the Grebo, while close by, the little colonial settlement clustered on the Cape’s peninsular. When they walked to the other side of the house, they saw before them, extending inland, a rich and green plain, with a beautiful freshwater stream winding its way toward the Atlantic. In a letter to a Bayard cousin in Philadelphia, Jane noted: “We are elevated fifty feet above the water, and between us and it, a distance of one of your Philadelphia squares, we have a very pretty but irregular descent.” Indeed, they were close enough to the beach for their house to be constantly jarred by the pounding of the waves.22

  They found the house itself an attractive cottage, a story and a half high, thirty-four feet long, and nineteen feet wide. A hall, eight feet wide, ran through the center of the house on the first floor, as in many a Lowcountry home. When the doors were opened, a strong, steady breeze flowed through the hall from the sea toward the land, or from the land toward the sea, depending on the time of day. On one side of the hall was a single room, wrote Leighton, for “sitting, eating, school and a ‘palaver’ room.” On the other side, two rooms had been built—a bedroom and a study. Upstairs were two bedrooms, to be occupied for the time being by Margaret and Catherine, until their own home could be constructed. Two piazzas stretched across the house—one facing inland, and one facing the Atlantic. They were intended to protect the walls during the rainy season, but they were also to serve, as in the Lowcountry, as a place for visiting and relaxing and as a location for evening prayers together.23