The Shared Heritage of a Georgia Church and a Tennessee College

1865 was a momentous year for the United States.  Robert E. Lee surrendered the army of Northern Virginia.  Jefferson Davis was captured, effectively dissolving the Confederate government.  By this year, Erastus Milo Cravath had arrived in Nashville as a field agent for the American Missionary Association.

During this same year, Atlanta was attempting to rebuild itself from the ruins of Sherman’s army.  An AMA missionary by the name of Frederick Ayer secured a Confederate commissary, which was transformed into a 32 by 80 foot chapel.  Following an appeal from AMA Field Secretary Edwin P. Smith, A Cincinnati congregation led by Rev. Henry Martyn Storrs contributed $1,000, which was used to build a two-story addition with four 32 by 20 foot rooms on each floor, and resulting complex was given the name the Storrs School. 

In January of the following year, Fisk College and Normal School opened for classes in Nashville as a result of the efforts of Erastus Milo Cravath, Edwin Smith, and a man named John Ogden.   In August of 1866, President Andrew Johnson declared that there was peace in the United States and that the Civil War was over. In December of 1866 the Storrs School opened as a center of social services, educational classes, and worship for Freedmen and their children.

In May of 1867, a committee affiliated with the Storrs School voted to organize a Congregational Church, the Storrs Church, which eventually developed into the First Congregational Church of Atlanta. The first church service was held the following week in the chapel of the Storrs School and was led by Erastus Milo Cravath.  In August of 1867, the Fisk School was incorporated as Fisk University. 

In 1875, Cravath became the first President of Fisk University. That same year saw its first graduating class of eight students, including two women and two Caucasians.  Cravath spent much of the next several years time touring with the Jubilee Singers.

In 1888, after 11 years in the chapel of the Storrs School, First Congregational Church erected a building of its own.         

Cravath served as President of Fisk University for more than 20 years, and he lived until 1900. Among those who graduated during his presidency were W.E.B. DuBois (1888) and Henry Hugh Proctor (1891).  In 1891, Proctor obtained his Bachelors of Divinity from Yale University.  In 1894, Proctor became pastor of First Congregational Church. Proctor became a major civic leader in Atlanta.  As if to dispel any doubt as to Proctor’s admiration for Erastus Milo Cravath, one need only consider that he named one of his children Roy Cravath Proctor.

In January of 1909, under Proctor’s leadership, formal ceremonies were held for the opening of the current building, claimed to be the first fully equipped institutional church for colored people in the world. It was furnished with a gymnasium, model kitchen, sewing room, library, kindergarten, reading room, bath room, and a Sunday School room. William Howard Taft is said to have stopped by.

Not all of the current windows were installed at the time of the dedication.  Eventually, though, a window was filled in with a collection of hand-painted panels known as the Arch of Law.  The center panel is an image of Moses the Law Giver, above a panel reciting that it is  in memory of Erastus Milo Cravath, President of Fisk University, by Friends. These central panels are flanked on the right by an image of Fisk's Jubilee Hall and on the left by a portrait of Erastus Milo Cravath.