Cedar Lake was a settlement in Morgan County, Alabama inaugurated November 6, 1897.[2] It was located within the boundaries of current day Decatur, Alabama near the Louisville & Nashville Railway covering 363 acres for both the town and for growing crops.[2] The land was fertile and used for growing wheat, tobacco and potatoes as well as being partially heavily wooded.[3]
Establishment
The Louisville & Nashville Railway president Mr Smith offered aid to support the founding and promised to set up a depot and side tracks as well as offering shipping concessions.[2] Mrs Lilian K. Ray founded the community in 1897 in an experiment to determine how well a black community could self-govern.[4][5] The town was run as a regular corporation with elected officers.[2] A local congressman, Joseph Wheeler, made arrangements to open a mail station.[6] The Alabama Governor Joseph F. Johnston appointed a notary, a justice and police constable all from the black community.[6] Booker T. Washington took an interest in the new colony and gave material aid.[6]
The establishment of the community gained interest across the county[4] and was written about in The New York Times in the November 14 edition a few days after inauguration.[3]
The founder Mrs Ray was described as being a wealthy English woman[2] and well known in both literary and financial circles.[3] She had come to America from England around three years prior and owned an elegant home in Moulton Heights, Alabama where she had retired too.[3] She was a writer who wrote under the alias of Jack Carleton.[3] She stated that the new colony was not a 'business speculation' and was just an attempt to improve the lives of the black community.[3] She gave money for the founding of a school and a church which the community built themselves and who ordained a Baptist preacher in the church.[3] She also donated $10,000 for the building of 140 houses and then any other practical purpose.[3]
A firm from Providence, Alabama agreed to build a cotton mill with twenty thousand spindles and other firm had agreed than if tobacco was profitable grown they would set up a cigar and tobacco factory.[3]
Governor Robert Love Taylor expressed an interest to Mrs Kay of making a similar colony in Tennessee.[3]
Plans for the community came under bigoted attacks with white supremacists questioning plans for self government in an African American community. "Trying to teach a negro self-government is like casting pearls before the swine", was one statement among several other extremely negative aspersions.[7]
Later history
In 1908 it was listed as having a post office.[8] In the 1920s, Monroe Work's Negro Yearbooks reported it had 300 residents.[citation needed] A Rosenwald school for the community was announced in February 1920 with T. C. Parks a prominent black educator from Huntsville donating $500 to be matched by Julius Rosenwald.[9] Cartie Tate Lewis served as its principal of the two-room schoolhouse.[4]
Johnson's Pond provided acted as both the main water source for the settlement but also offered recreational opportunities for picnics, fishing, swimming and also for baptisms.[4]
By 1939 Cedar Lake had grown to 1200 acres located south of Alabama State Route 67 and was annexed into Decatur in 1967.[4]
References
- ^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Cedar Lake, Alabama
- ^ a b c d e "Negro Colony: Experiment of Mrs. Lillian K. Ray, a Wealthy English Woman". The Indianapolis Journal. 7 November 1897. p. 2. Retrieved 20 August 2022.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "NEGRO COLONY IN ALABAMA.; An English Literary Woman's Plan to Solve the Race Problem in the South". The New York Times. 14 November 1897. Retrieved 20 August 2022.
- ^ a b c d e Journal, Catherine Godbey For The Hartselle Courier. "Cedar Lake: Black community dubbed a social experiment formed in Decatur in 1897". Decatur Daily.
- ^ Logan, Rayford Whittingham (1954). The Negro in American Life and Thought: The Nadir, 1877-1901.
- ^ a b c "Negro Colony in Alabama". The Troy Messenger. 24 February 1897. p. 8. Retrieved 20 August 2022.
- ^ "Nasty rebuke to Cedar Lake in Columbia, Ala - 11". The Columbia Breeze. 25 November 1897. p. 4. Retrieved 20 August 2022.
- ^ "United States Official Postal Guide". 1908.
- ^ "Cedar Lake Negroes Raise School Fund". The Albany-Decatur Daily. 10 February 1920. p. 3. Retrieved 20 August 2022.
Municipalities and communities of Morgan County, Alabama, United States | ||
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| Footnotes | ‡This populated place also has portions in an adjacent county or counties | |