Author
Alfred W. Nicholson
# Alfred W. Nicholson
Alfred W. Nicholson was a nineteenth-century religious figure whose scholarly work contributed to the documentation and preservation of African American ecclesiastical history during the post-Reconstruction era. His biographical work on Reverend Alexander Bettis exemplifies the important role that religious historians played in recording the lives and legacies of Black church leaders whose contributions might otherwise have been overlooked by mainstream historical narratives. Through his writings, Nicholson helped establish a foundational record of African American ministerial achievement and theological influence in the American South.
From Brief Sketch of the Life and Labors of Rev. Alexander Bettis
p. 6 In ante bellum flays, during slavery, there lived not far from Trenton, in Edgefield coun ty, South Carolina, an aristocratic, cultured and very wealthy family of white people whose name was Bettis. They owned a negro man of unadulterated African extraction, who by permission of his owners, became the father of a child by a negro woman who belonged to and lived on the plantation of Colonel John Fair. The child was named Jack, and al though he was the property of Col. Fair, he ultimately chose for his paternal inheritance the name of Bettis. During slavery, as well as in the after years of freedom, he was known as Jack Bettis. Now the Widow Jones, whose plantation was near Trenton, had among her negro slaves a beautiful mulatto girl whose father was not a negro. The girl was 'known as Annis Jones. By the consent of the…
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