Dedicated educators

Thank you for the excellent article “Shining Lights in the Community” (February-March 2024). In the late 1850s, our little island on the coast of British Columbia experienced a migration of African Americans fleeing slavery, oppression, and the impending American Civil War. In the Salt Spring Museum, there is a colourful mural featuring an artist’s interpretation of John Craven Jones arriving on the island; he was Salt Spring’s first schoolteacher.

The description reads: “If we could step inside Salt Spring Island’s first log schoolhouse built at Central in the early 1860s, we would witness children absorbing Latin and other staples of a classical education, subjects more likely taught in private schools in 19th-century centres of civilization. In 1861, their teacher was John Craven Jones, a 27-year-old African American from North Carolina, who was educated at Oberlin College in Ohio, the first higher-learning U.S. institution to accept blacks and women.

“Since he was not paid by the government, Jones relied on community goodwill to survive. Parents, mostly farmers, fought hard over the years, building a school, forming a board of trustees and following all the necessary protocols to gain recognition as a school district. Despite the fact that Salt Spring had more than enough students to qualify, 11 years would pass before the community would secure a salary for Jones.

“Jones married Almira Scott, daughter of active abolitionists, and their descendants maintained the family tradition of political and educational activism. Jones left Salt Spring Island in 1875.”

Conrad Pilon Salt Spring Island, B.C.