[Footnote 1:  An Account of the Endeavors Used by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, p. 15.]

[Footnote 2:  Bourne, Spain in America, p. 241.]

The work of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was also effective in communities of the North in which the established Church of England had some standing.  In 1751 Reverend Hugh Neill, once a Presbyterian minister of New Jersey, became a missionary of this organization to the Negroes of Pennsylvania.  He worked among them fifteen years.  Dr. Smith, Provost of the College of Philadelphia, devoted a part of his time to the work, and at the death of Neill in 1766 enlisted as a regular missionary of the Society.[1] It seems, however, that prior to the eighteenth century not much had been done to enlighten the slaves of that colony, although free persons of color had been instructed.  Rev. Mr. Wayman, another missionary to Pennsylvania about the middle of the eighteenth century, asserted that “neither” was “there anywhere care taken for the instruction of Negro slaves,” the duty to whom he had “pressed upon masters with little effect."[2]

[Footnote 1:  Special Report of the U.S.  Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 362.]

[Footnote 2:  Wickersham, History of Education in Pennsylvania, p. 248.]

To meet this need the Society set the example of maintaining catechetical lectures for Negroes in St. Peter’s and Christ Church of Philadelphia, during the incumbency of Dr. Jennings from 1742 to 1762.  William Sturgeon, a student of Yale, selected to do this work, was sent to London for ordination and placed in charge in 1747.[1] In this position Rev. Mr. Sturgeon remained nineteen years, rendering such satisfactory services in the teaching of Negroes that he deserves to be recorded as one of the first benefactors of the Negro race.

[Footnote 1:  Ibid., p. 241.]

Antedating this movement in Pennsylvania were the efforts of Reverend Dr. Thomas Bray.  In 1696 he was sent to Maryland by the Bishop of London on an ecclesiastical mission to do what he could toward the conversion of adult Negroes and the education of their children.[1] Bray’s most influential supporter was M. D’Alone, the private secretary of King William.  D’Alone gave for the maintenance of the cause a fund, the proceeds of which were first used for the employment of colored catechists, and later for the support of the Thomas Bray Mission after the catechists had failed to give satisfaction.  At the death of this missionary the task was taken up by certain followers of the good man, known as the “Associates of Doctor Bray."[2] They extended their work beyond the confines of Maryland.  In 1760 two schools for the education of Negroes were maintained in Philadelphia by these benefactors.  It was the aid obtained from the Dr. Bray fund that enabled the abolitionists to establish in that city a permanent school which continued for almost a hundred years.[3] About the close of the French and Indian War, Rev. Mr. Stewart, a missionary in North Carolina, found there a school for the education of Indians and free Negroes, conducted by Dr. Bray’s Associates.  The example of these men appealing to him as a wise policy, he directed to it the attention of the clergy at home.[4]