The Berea College -Bates/Wright Families Connection
The Bates/Wright extended families has always had an extensive, long-term relationship with Berea College, located in Berea, Kentucky.
The college, founded in 1855 and has a long history of support and service to the youth of the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee. Numerous Bates/Wright cousins have attended Berea College over its 162 years of existence. (The actual count of attendees is unknown.) Our relatives went to Berea largely because the college was tuition-free, and it was the best choice they had at the time. Many Bates/Wright cousins have been successful because of this connection.
In fact, our cousin John Wright (Bad John/Devil John- one of the most famous lawmen of Eastern Kentucky) valued education and recognized the importance of the college. During his lifetime, he expressed a preference for Berea College and encouraged all his children (approximately 27 and counting) to attend.
Bad John wanted all his children“to get an education at Berea”.
William T. Wright, John Wright’s oldest son. William T. (Chid) Wright attended Berea intermittently from 1919 through 1931. He graduated from Berea in 1931 with a degree in agriculture. “Chid” wrote the definitive a biography about his father (Devil John Wright of the Cumberlands, Pound, VA 1970).
Many Berea graduates became educators and returned to their roots to teach their relatives and give back to the mountain people. For example, my mother, Anna Moore Bates graduated from Berea in 1919 and taught 1-8th grades in a one room school in Altro, KY. (Four of my five sisters attended Berea Foundation School for brief periods. My brother, Thomas Garrett Bates and I are Berea College graduates.) There are many more similar stories we could cite as well.
Because of these close connections with Berea College and the Bates/Wright families, we are pleased to announce that the Berea College Library Special Collections and Archives has agreed to receive and place in their permanent collection records from our families.
Towards that end, Dr. Steve Conley (John Wright’s great-grandson) and I delivered 20 boxes of Patricia Lee Brashear’s archival collection to Berea College on May 17th, 2017. These books, notes and pictures will be curated and placed in the Berea College Library Special Collection and Archives for permanent display. They will be available for future research for genealogy, history and social lifestyle of Eastern Kentucky. Because of the college’s special interest in Southeastern Kentucky history, we are encouraging other Bates/Wright family relatives to consider donating their family records to add to this permanent collection.
“Patty May” Brashear was a genealogist whose main interest was the Bates Family. Over the years, she interviewed numerous elderly mountain people and was a avid collector of geological and historical information about Southeastern Kentucky history. Her collection of records was both extensive and extraordinary. Along with her colleagues, Nancy Wright Bays, Benjamin Luntz, and Nancy Clark Brown, she co-authored the book, The 1885 Jones-Wright Feud (Xlibris Corp. 2007)
During the transmittal of records, Berea College librarians shared with us the official transcript of William T. (Chid) Wright. He attended Berea intermittently from 1919 through 1931 during what must have been for him a difficult time. He persisted and finally received his B.A. in Agriculture in 1931. Like many Bates/Wright family members, he was a farmer and returned to Eastern Kentucky as a teacher.
The Bates/Wright Families are grateful to Berea College for collaborating with us in documenting our history and assuring our records and documents have a permanent home. Loyal Jones, (Mr. Appalachia, and Director Emeritus of Berea College’s Appalachia Center) provided us with valuable assistance with this project and we thank him for his advice.
One of the major objectives we wish to accomplish this year for “Collecting Cousins: The Kentucky River Giant” is to explore and document the Bates/Wright extended families connection with Berea College. If you attended Berea, or know about members of your family who have a connection, then send us a note. We would like to conduct an official count of how many of our relatives have a relationship with Berea over their lifetimes. Let us know.