The unfinished book
On March 26, 2021, I was recording myself in American Sign Language discussing Deaf founders of Deaf schools in the 1800s. I held a newspaper clipping written by the Deaf man who founded Scranton School for the Deaf in Pennsylvania, James Koehler, from The Silent Worker, a newspaper of, by, and for Deaf. My fur baby, Baylee, pawed my leg for my attention. Distracted, I dropped the clipping. Baylee and I pounced on the clipping as it fluttered in the wind. Suddenly, something happened. We found ourselves standing on the Fannin Campus of Georgia School for the Deaf. I looked up and grinned as
I read the plaque above the doors in front of us. It read, “Ellen G. Fisher Library.” She was the first Deaf librarian at GSD. The name has been missing for over a century and I was seeing it in real life.
We entered and took in our surroundings. The chalk writing on the blackboard behind the librarian’s desk read, “Today is August 26, 1912.” We were 110 years in the past.
An older woman walked among the bookshelves and picked up a book covered with cobwebs. She spoke in eloquent old ASL, “I’m Mattie. I am curious about this book.” She brought the book over and flipped to the title page, which read, ‘The Unfinished Book.’ Baylee pawed me again as we stared at the book and then at one another.
She gestured for me to begin reading the book. I exclaimed, “Wow! Josephus Berry Edwards, a native of Lexington, Georgia…”
“Yes,” The woman smiled, “He was the first Deaf teacher at GSD. Almria Peugh Carruthers and he were my favorite teachers. They taught in the original one-room log cabin until GSD dismissed Almria. Josephus left the following year, in 1850.”
“What happened afterwards?” I asked. She shook her head and said, “I wondered all these years. Someone told me about this book.”
GSD would not open for another decade after the state passed John Flournoy’s proposal to establish a Deaf school in Georgia.
Asa Prior of Cedartown and the Cedar Valley Academy paid for two of his 14 children — five born Deaf — to attend American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut, from 1832 to 1835. Starting in 1834, young Deaf Georgians were sent to ASD at the state’s expense. In 1835, at age 11, Josephus entered ASD and attended for five years.
The first permanent Deaf school in the U.S., ASD was the place to train future teachers and administrators of Deaf schools. In the early days, it appears ASD students who graduated after at least four years could become teachers. Conversely, hearing people who trained were considered qualified to run Deaf schools.
As I continue reading, there are no mentions of Josephus’s whereabouts from when he graduated from ASD on Sept. 21, 1840, to when he taught at GSD in 1846.
Reports appearing a decade later — including one by Wesley Connor, the fourth GSD superintendent — support a theory that he taught at ASD. Perhaps, Josephus trained Oliver Fannin, who was quietly hired by the state of Georgia as the first GSD superintendent in 1844. But the ASD museum says nothing mentions Josephus taught there.
When GSD officially opened on May 15, 1846, newspaper articles recognized Josephus as the first Deaf teacher with four students, including Almira, who was hired to teach shortly afterward.
In a special book detailing GSD’S first 100 years, Josephus was listed as a teacher from 1847 to 1858, 11 years. However, records reveal that Josephus’s life took a different path.
Josephus married Harriet Bruce, his sweetheart from ASD, on Dec. 22, 1850, in South Carolina. They had four children, two of whom died young. A surviving child, Emma (Edwards) Morris, was Deaf.
Josephus left GSD in 1851, the same year Joseph Johnson, Oliver’s cousin, was hired. He began teaching at South Carolina School for the Deaf from 1850 to 1852. That is when things become murky.
Josephus returned to his hometown in 1855 to open a private Deaf school. He taught at GSD again in 1858 for one year. Coincidentally, Josephus returned after Joseph went to Alabama, and left when Oliver was terminated.
The 1860 Census lists Josephus as a teacher living with his parents and his children. His wife was placed at the Central State Hospital in Milledgeville, Georgia, from 1859 until her death in 1887. Josephus returned to his hometown and reopened his private Deaf school in 1868. The next year, he passed away.
I close the book. Mattie stared at me in stunned silence, then wondered why it was titled “The Unfinished Book.” I speculated that the author was not finished researching and perhaps hoped someone would finish it.
She took the book and placed it into my hands. She was deeply gratified with what she had learned. Her eyes implored as she said, “Finish the book.”
I blinked and did a double take. I was in my backyard, holding the newspaper clipping in one hand and “The Unfinished Book” in the other. Baylee was pawing my leg.