SPECIAL FEATURE
THE FATHERS OF THE JEWELS
By Skip Mason

JEWEL CALLIS' FATHER:
 Rev. Henry Jesse Callis

Rev. Henry Jesse Callis was born in 1858 in Matthews County, Va., to Jesse and Nettie Smith Callis.  His father was the keeper of a grist mill. As a young boy, Henry Jesse fell in with the Union Soldiers and was carried to nearby Yorktown, Va., where he was taught by the Quakers.  He attended Hampton Institute.   Hampton Institute, founded in 1868 to educate freed Black men, was in the same geographical area in the 1870s.  Later he was taken north by Captain Colquitt of Connecticut and spent a year with them in New York before going to Long Island.  Henry Jesse  returned to Hampton and completed his work in 1879 and taught for two years in Matthews County and Norfolk County, Va.  He even had a short stint as a waiter at the Hygeia Hotel and operated a catering firm from 1885 to 1886.

JEWEL CHAPMAN'S GRANDFATHER:
 Mr. George Thompson

Charles Henry Chapman was born in 1876 in Cayuga County, N.Y.  By 1880, he was living with his grandfather George Thompson in the City of Geneva in Ontario County, New York. It is not known what happened to Jewel Chapman's father. As I have said before, Jewel Chapman's family background has been the most evasive. The search is still on to learn more about his early childhood.

JEWEL JONES' FATHER: 
Dr. Joseph E. Jones

Jewel Jones's father, Joseph Edom Jones, was born of slave parents in Lynchburg, Va., on Oct. 15, c. 1852, and spent his childhood working in the tobacco factory.  He received his early education from a private school and was taught by R.A. Perkins and James A. Gregory (who later became dean of the college department of Howard University).  In 1868, Joseph Jones entered the Richmond Institute (now Richmond Theological Seminary) with plans to prepare himself for the ministry.  After three years of study, he left  Virginia for  Hamilton, NY, and entered the preparatory department of Madison  University (now Colgate), from which he graduated in 1872.  Mr. Jones was then appointed by the American Baptist Home Mission Society of New York as an instructor at the Richmond Institute where he taught languages and philosophy, later Homiletics and Greek studies.  His pursuit of the ministry led to his ordination in 1877.  He had been baptized in 1868 and was a member of the Court Street Baptist Church in Lynchburg.  He was made an honorary member of Alpha Phi Alpha through Gamma Chapter and was the only father of a founder to share membership in the fraternity.  He died in 1922.
 

JEWEL KELLEY'S FATHER, GRANDFATHER AND UNCLE: 
Mr. Richard Kelley,
Rev. W.H. Decker, Rev. Eli George Biddle
 
Kelley's father, Richard, was a veteran of a Civil War regiment from Massachusetts.  He worked as a carpenter in Troy, N.Y.  Jewel Kelley always credited his father's tenacity for his zeal to see that the Fraternity  became a reality. Richard Kelley  migrated from Virginia as a fugitive slave during the Civil War.  
His grandfather, the late Rev. W.H. Decker, was one of the most cultured and  capable preachers and pastors of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, a denomination established in 1796.  Jewel Kelley's uncle and godfather,  Rev. E. George Biddle, of Boston, lived for more than 100 years, and studied at Harvard, where he graduated from the Divinity School.  He was, at the time of his death, the last surviving member of the Boston Regiment of the Grand Army of the Republic. 
 

JEWEL MURRAY'S FATHER:
 Mr. Daniel Alexander Payne Murray

Daniel Murray was named for Daniel Alexander Payne, his father's friend and a Bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church who pastored Baltimore's Bethel A.M.E. Church, attended private school in Baltimore.  When he was five years old, he studied at other schools in Baltimore before entering the Unitarian Seminary, where he graduated in 1869.  Three years later, Daniel Murray moved to Washington, D.C., where at the age of 19, he secured an appointment in the Congressional Library as the personal assistant of Ainsworth R. Spofford, the Librarian of Congress.  During his 40 years at the library, he  began to classify material for a book he wanted to  published titled, "The Historical and Bibliographical Encyclopedia of  the Colored Race Throughout the World."

Though much work was done on the book,  after 20 years of research, it was never published.  Mr. Murray owned a substantial amount of real estate. He communicated often with DuBois and Booker T. Washington on scholarly issues.
 

JEWEL OGLE'S FATHER:
Mr. Jeremiah Ogle

Very little is known about Jeremiah Ogle. According to the 1900 Census records, he was born in Georgia around 1843. He was deceased by the time Robert Harold Ogle entered Cornell. 

Jewel Ogle married into the distinguished Moore family of Ithaca, N.Y.  His wife's grandfather was Henry Moore.  Moore, born in 1910 in Baltimore came in a wagon to Ithaca in 1840 from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania  Just a few years prior to his arrival Ezra Cornell arrived in the village of Ithaca to later return after building many telegraph lines.  The Moore family preceded the founding of Cornell in 1868.  He established a successful barber shop and accumulated some wealth.  In 1850, Moore erected his house on South Plains 
Street. The Ithaca Journal described Moore as a "highly respected and honorable citizen.  Moore ran for Alderman and lost by one vote.    
 

JEWEL TANDY'S FATHER:
 Mr. Henry A. Tandy

Henry A. Tandy, came to the blue grass area of Kentucky, shortly after the war in 1865.  Lexington was created in 1775 after a group of pioneers in the Kentucky District of Virginia named their campsite Lexington. Henry Tandy, with very little education only attending schools when he was  not engaged in work, found employment in Mullens Photography Studio,  developing negatives on plates of glass.  After two years, he began his career  as a brick mason for G.D. Wilgus, one of the largest contractors and builders in Central  Kentucky.  He rose rapidly to foreman.  In 1892, after the death  of Wilgus, he formed Tandy and Byrd Contractors, which became one of the leading contractors and builders in Lexington, constructing buildings and residences throughout the city.  Furthermore, Henry Tandy employed many young  men in construction, was looked upon with great respect in the community and was active in numerous fraternal organizations.  
 

The Men of Ithaca

The African-American community in Ithaca was small and close knit.  Jewels Murray and Kelley often remarked about how supportive the residents were of their idea to begin a fraternity. There were several men who greatly influenced the lives of the founders while in Ithaca.   One, whose name is only known as Mr.
Cannon,  was very instrumental in their development.  Among the more noted was Archie Singleton, husband of Annie Singleton, who worked as a butler for a white family in Ithaca.  He was a native of South Carolina. Rev. Nelson was the husband of Clara Nelson.  It was in their home where Eugene Kinckle Jones and Vertner Woodson Tandy resided.Edward Newton was one of the most well-known residents of Ithaca.  For over 40 years, he worked as a janitor for the Chi Psi fraternity house at Cornell.  He was so well-loved and respected that the white fraternity established a special fund for him and his wife, Mrs. Lula Newton (after his
death).  It was in the Newton's home where their future son-in-law,  C.C. Poindexter, convened many of the early social gatherings in the fall of 1905 and 1906. Robert Plummer, was the father of Alpha Chapter initiate Frank V. Plummer. He too worked as a janitor in one of the fraternity house on College Avenue at Cornell.   Others who have been featured previously included Rev. Edward Ulysses Anderson Brooks and Rev. Theodore Auten, pastor of the AME Zion Church in Ithaca, New York 

"I saw in my vision my ancestors who had been in slavery, my father who had escaped from that despicable system and had gone back south as a soldier in the Union Army to help in subduing of those who held him in bondage. He seemed to encourage me in my determination to help unite our group in a unit.  I firmly believe that it strengthened me in the desire to press my point for a fraternity."
Jewel George Biddle Kelley, 1954

"We must look at our college men and women for leadership.  They have almost supplanted the old order.  They shall be our leaders because, in addition to their superior education and training, they have that essential broad faculty for ignoring the petty things of life, brushing them hastily aside in order to get down to real human problems before them."
12th General President Raymond W. Cannon, 1926

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HE AIN'T HEAVY, HE'S MY BROTHER? 
A COMMENTARY FROM BROTHER WILL DAILEY

 "What possessed the brothers to make the U.S Vice President an honorary life member.  Now, I'm not certain of the exact date that the frat abolished honorary members, but I thought that it was some time prior to 1964.   Furthermore, despite whatever noble accomplishments that ... [Vice President Hubert H.] Humphrey was renowned for, it strikes me as odd that in the middle of the Civil Rights movement, that Alpha would chose to honor someone of his position (and consequently race).   This oddity occurs not only because I know that there were a myriad of Black men who were marching onward and upward, and struggling for the cause, who were obviously overlooked for the honors bestowed upon the vice president, but also because if honorary members had indeed been abolished, then what would prompt  us to make this exception to the rule?  I am well aware that one's tenacity in pursuing the aims and precepts of Alpha is not defined by his color, yet in light of accusations that the fraternity had abandoned Bro. DuBois a few years earlier, as well as talks that indicate that the same had occurred to Bro. King during his moment of need, I am weary of Alpha's priorities during this turbulent era.  Skip, can you please let a brother know what your  research has uncovered, as well as pose this question to brothers who were around and active during the '50s and '60s (especially those who were in college).  Was Alpha deep in the trenches with those who posed revolutionary ideas and tactics, or did individual brothers choose to affiliate on their own in this capacity? 
I  am very interested in knowing if we were the conservative traditionalist type who chose to use the conventional channels of negotiation, or the nouveau type brothers who possessed the political savvy and fierceness to stare oppression in the eyes and demand liberation by any means necessary?  Because 
each brother will have different experiences, I am more interested in knowing how Alpha Phi Alpha -- the Fraternity -- presented itself in the movement.  I remember vividly our conversation when you told me about your book on the Jewels, and how we have made them icons in the frat almost to the expense of their more
mortal side.  I must admit, as well, that at times it's extremely easy to make the Jewels larger than life.  You had the insight and vision, however, to dig up the past and reveal some of those characteristics about the Jewels in such a fashion that we could see ourselves in them.  Likewise, I know that there are some
painful realities about Alpha that we as a brotherhood need to acknowledge, but we are too blinded by our accomplishments to admit.   

I guess that technically I'm an alumni brother now, but my heart is still with the undergrads, and I thank you for looking out for us Neos for Life.  Keep on pressing on, brother, and God will bless all that you do.  My prayers are with you and yours, and I look forward to our next encounter.

In Brotherhood,

William Dailey
07BT96, Epsilon Lambda