Help Desk Number:
(404) 978-2052
Frederick Ayer Records
1865-1867, 1900
0.8 linear feet
Rev. Frederick Ayer (b. 1803 d.1867) was a veteran missionary appointed by the American Missionary Association (AMA) to establish schools for freedmen in Atlanta. He and his wife moved from Belle Prairie, Minnesota to Atlanta in 1865. His first students were from a class formerly taught by two ex-slaves, James Tate and Grandison B. Daniels. The classes were taught first in an old church building and later in a boxcar purchased by the AMA. Ayer served as the AMA's superintendent of schools and financial agent and was one of the eleven signers of the Atlanta University charter.
The Frederick Ayer Records include correspondence, insurance policies for the Storrs School and Washburn Orphan Asylum, faculty monthly reports, and financial papers related to the construction of school buildings and salaries and accounts for Atlanta University faculty and staff. The correspondence includes Ayer's descriptions of conditions of the newly freed slaves when he arrived in Atlanta. There are also letters with Rev. Erasmus. M. Cravath, Secretary of the Middle West Department of the AMA, and one of the signers of the Atlanta University charter, who later served as President of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.