By Stacen Goldman, FHC Curator
It is a well-known truth here at the Framingham History Center that you find the greatest treasures in the archives when you’re looking for something else. So it was inevitable that when I found myself looking through a box of old Framingham Daily Tribunes for some now-forgotten reason, I uncovered a totally different story I had never heard before; the story of the Mount Carmel Baptist Mission, Framingham’s first Black church.
The first reference I found to the Mission was on February 13, 1912, regarding a celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday organized by the church’s members. The report begins with: “In the evening in Liberty Hall, the colored citizens of the town, who attend the Mt. Carmel Baptist Mission, gave a fine Lincoln entertainment, in charge of Joseph Bryant, who trained the singers, and gave a very pleasing solo himself. The hall was comfortably filled with townspeople, including some of the veterans of Gen. Foster Post.”
Just three days later, perhaps due to the success of that first report, we see the emergence of a column in the Tribune focused entirely on the Black community in Framingham. This column is primarily centered on members of the Mount Carmel Mission and their extended networks and families, sometimes stretching outside of Framingham. The columns I have seen span 1912 and 1913 and were initially called “News of the Colored Townspeople” before becoming “News of the Mount Carmel Mission” or “Mount Carmel Mission Notes.”
The columns were written by Joseph Bryant, who was the organizer of the Lincoln Exercises mentioned in that first article. Bryant was an active member of the community in South Framingham. In addition to writing this column, he held day jobs as a painter and a janitor at the Palmer apartments. He was an accomplished singer who performed regularly at the Princess Theater, and he was secretary and ad hoc choir director at the Mount Carmel Mission. Bryant’s wife, Irevia, was an agent for The Crisis – the NAACP’s quarterly magazine– in Boston.
No specific date has been identified, but the Mount Carmel Mission began meeting sometime in early 1911 in the house of George Butner (158 Grant Street). Butner was a Foreman for R.H. Long (who, through other mentions in these columns, seemed to be in very good standing with the Mission). This first meeting in the Butner house included “scarcely a half dozen members.” By the time of the “Lincoln Exercises” in 1912, the Mission had long left Mr. Butner’s house behind. According to the articles, columns, and regular postings of Mission meetings in the Tribune, the primary location of the Mount Carmel seems to have been “Liberty Hall” on Howard Street, a building whose exact location remains surprisingly elusive.
The move out of the Butner house coincides with the Mission’s rapid growth over the next two years. In a column from June 1913, Bryant comments on this growth, noting, “in our Sunday school alone we have three classes… and our permanent officers are a superintendent and an assit. [sic] superintendent, clerk, treasurer, librarian, and teachers also for our respective classes.” He finishes by noting, “Some day you will read the news of the laying of a corner stone for the colored Baptist church in Framingham, State of Massachusetts.” In addition to worship meetings, they were hosting regular fairs, concerts (or “entertainments”), and lectures focused on Black culture and experience in America.
Bryant not only reported on the official business and activities of the Mission, but on the everyday comings and goings of the Black community that sprung up around it. He depicts an active, tight-knit community. Reports range from the success of the first Black barber shop in town – “The colored brothers appreciate the fact of being able to go to their own barber Mr. Garner on Grant St. and are glad he is doing so nicely” – to field trips taken by local school children – “The Misses Mildred Jackson and Gladys Warrick of the Franklin St. school was in Boston Friday with their respective classes on a sight-seeing expedition.” – to entertainers expected in town – “Miss Mamie Anderson, a noted singer of Worcester is scheduled to sing for us in the near future.”
It is also evident that the members of the Mission were generous and supportive of one another. There are frequent reports of community members visiting and helping each other in times of illness. They were also frequently sharing gifts and resources with one another. In one column, Bryant records “Brother Mancer Tuckers is willing to share with the members of the Mission some of the choice milk his cow is giving. Brother Tucker is quite a stockman as he raised this cow from a small calf. But he forgot to train her not to kick.”
This kind of joke is very common. Reading these columns, one gets a real sense of the easy camaraderie that existed within this community. Some of my favorite excerpts are clearly just Bryant gently ribbing his friends and neighbors:
July 19, 1913: “The four leg chicken of Brother William Jones died this week. May be it has gone where it does not need quite so many legs, as the wings will come in handy.”
November 29, 1913: “Brother J. W. Liggins made quite an addition to his house having built a vestibule on to his front porch. He asked Brother Reynolds to have a look at his workmanship and Brother Reynolds quickly discovered that Brother Liggins had forgotten to put on the roof. Always be careful, Brother Liggins, either let the roof be first or last; make sure.”
July 19, 1913: “It is too bad that the fish in Farm pond that goes by the name of Bass has gotten so well acquainted with Bro. Fred Jackson the barber, that they do not bite at the bait. He catches horn pouts now. May be Monday is a good day to fish.”
I love these not only because they are funny, but because this is where the richness and fullness of the Mount Carmel Mission really comes back to life. You get a sense of Bryant himself, as a man and as a writer, but also of the people he loved. They were school children and business owners; they were activists and intellectuals; they were speakers and singers and builders and farmers and families and friends. What’s most clear from these moments is that the community around the Mount Carmel Mission was often joyful, and the door was always open for the rest of the town to join in that joy.
September 6, 1913:
“GRATEFUL TO WHITE FRIENDS
Our Labor day exercises given under the auspices of the Brotherhood was well attended and enjoyed by all. We had quite a number of our white friends and the way that they spent their money, it seemed that they were enjoying themselves, likewise Charlie Wayland’s employer, Dan McLaughlin, is a money spender especially when he comes across such nice, clean, and wholesome food as the Brotherhood served. Our president, Brother Bell, deserves much credit for having arranged everything in the manner in which he did. We must not forget the loyalty of R. H. Long in letting us have such a nice place to hold such festivities. Let us all appreciate such kindness.”
Our newspaper collection is fairly sporadic, but between 1912 and 1913, our collection includes twenty-nine columns and articles about the community that formed around the Mount Carmel Mission. I would not be surprised to learn that there were many more published during that time period that we just don’t have. In these articles, over 100 individuals are mentioned by name. While these individuals can be found in census records, cemetery records, and other national resources such as draft records, information about the Mission itself seems to go cold. In 1913, Bryant reports that he is temporarily relocating his family to Boston, due to an inability to find affordable housing in Framingham. He states his intention to remain involved with the Mission, and to come back to town as soon as he is able to find proper accommodations, but that never seems to have come to pass.
It isn’t clear how much longer the Mission was active after that point. Finding any further evidence of the Mount Carmel Mission has proven to be a real challenge. No records of its existence can be found in the town directories, and none of our maps from this period identify any buildings on Howard Street as “Liberty Hall.” But I started with one well-known truth about working in the archives, so I will end with another: there is no buried story we can’t eventually uncover. The Mount Carmel Baptist Mission is a crucial part of Framingham’s story and I have no doubt we will find a way to learn more about it.
If you know anything about the Mount Carmel Mission, or about any of the individuals who were associated with it, please reach out to Stacen Goldman at curator@framinghamhistory.org.