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<p align="center" style="margin-top: 6pt"><b><font face="Arial" size="2">
JENNINGS FARM: <br>
NURTURING EDUCATION AND ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRITS</font></p>
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<p align="center"><font face="Arial" size="2">Nicholas E. Hollis<br>
All Rights Reserved</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial" size="2">The emergence of the Jennings educator-entrepreneur character,
exemplified by the children of Calvin and Laura (Hastings) Jennings of
Brookfield, coincided with the New England Renaissance (1815-1865). During
this unique period, great American writers such as Thoreau, Emerson,
Whitman, Melville, Longfellow, Dickinson and others fueled a quest for
transcendental awareness and the humanities. It was a golden age of
letters, arts, education and social ethics where heroism and faculty of
reason were revered. Horace Mann (1796-1859), who would later become
recognized as the "Father of American Education" � as Massachusetts� first
Secretary of Education (1837) had begun to create a solid framework by
campaigning and fundraising for public schools, libraries and teacher
training. In nearby Worcester, the anti-slavery abolitionist movement, led
by William Lloyd Garrison, gained a stronghold which would later spark the
women�s suffrage and workers� rights movements.</font></p>
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<p align="right"><font face="Arial" size="1"><i>(Photo courtesy of
Jennings Heritage Project archives)</i></font></p>
<p><font size="2">JENNINGS EDUCATION--Inspired by home
schooling, farm chore discipline and the New England Renaissance in
the early 19th century, generations of Jennings descendents became
educators, teachers and physicians. Two of Deacon Calvin Jennings'
daughters are seen enjoying a summer afternoon in the 1880s.</font><font face="Times New Roman" size="2"><BR>
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<p><font face="Arial" size="2">Following her graduation from Mt. Holyoke Academy in 1843, Sabrina
Jennings, younger sister of Joel Albert Jennings, traveled to Port Jervis,
New York at the junction of the Delaware and Neversink Rivers, where she
taught school and later (1850) co-founded a young women�s finishing school
with Julia Aldrich called the Neversink Academy. Subsequently, as
Sabrina�s sisters (Marcia and Frances Jennings) and Susan Bates Jennings
(Joel�s wife) joined the teaching staff and enrollment expanded to include
male students, the institution became known as the "Jennings Seminary".
The institution was housed in an impressive, four story building which
dominated the town. In the mid 1850s, Sabrina left Port Jervis to teach in
Philadelphia and later in Racine, Wisconsin before returning to Port
Jervis and finally to Farmington, Massachusetts (Normal School). In the
1870s, Sabrina moved back to Brookfield to take care of her aging parents
on the farm � in a silent struggle between duty and inclination. Sabrina
taught Sunday school at the Congregational Sabbath Church and joined the
Women�s Temperance Union. She died at 67 while visiting a sister in
Swanton, Vermont in May 1890 and was buried in Brookfield in the Jennings
family plot. Her obituary, which was published in the town newspaper,
extolled the strength of her character, grounded in its unruffled, calm
spirit, "whose tongue was the law of kindness".</font></p>
<i><b>
<p><font size="2" face="Arial">Frontier Education<br>
</font>
</b></i><font size="2" face="Arial">Education grounded on Christian teachings and Scripture was often
a pillar and a launching pad for many peregrinating Jennings in the
Nation�s push west. In the early settlements of the Ohio Valley and
Kentucky, Jennings were conspicuous in leadership positions. Similarly,
near key "jumping off" points � such as St. Louis � towns, counties and
parks named after Jennings family members still mark the journeys and the
farm settlements of those who sought agrarian stability close to nature.</font></p>
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<img border="0" src="../images/wheeling-bridge.jpg" width="564" height="362"><br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="1"><i>(Photo courtesy of Jennings
Heritage Project archives)</i></font></td>
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<td width="100%"><font size="2">WHEELING BRIDGE AT THE OHIO RIVER --
Completed in 1849, it was the longest suspension bridge in the
world. As a pet project of Henry Clay, the span accelerated
America's westward migration. <br>
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<p><font lang="0" face="Arial" size="2" FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10">
Some adventurous spirits challenged the wilderness even more directly,
like Edmond Jennings (1751-1840) who migrated from Virginia to North
Carolina and into Tennessee - and became a veteran Indian fighter during
Lord Dunmore's War (1774), the Northwest Campaign under General George
Rogers Clark (1778-79) and the Battle of Blue Lick (1782) . These
ferocious, bloody contests--most notably the Battle of Point Pleasant
(October 10, 1774) at the junction of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers, were
instrumental in opening the Ohio Valley for settlement. In 1784 after his
father (Jonathan) was killed by Indians near Nashville, Edmond gave up
inherited comforts, took his long rifle and disappeared, clad in
buckskins, into the forest primeval. He moved westwards on river
waterways, trapping and seeking his fortune, eventually arriving in
southwestern Missouri where he lived with Osage Indians for fifteen years
in modern day Jasper county.
</font>
<font lang="0" face="Arial" size="2" FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10">
Jennings adopted the language, customs and rugged lifestyle of the Osage,
who were known for their hospitality and generosity - as well as their
stature as warriors. According to oral histories, Jennings paid scant
notice of white settlements on a nearby bluff over the Spring River. He
was too busy in the educational process - "learning the ways and words of
the Osage." When Jennings finally returned to Tennessee, he operated
a ferry service along the Cumberland River at Jennings Creek and regaled
his passengers/neighbors with colorful stories (thickly accented) -
triggering an unintended land-rush of settlers into Missouri. </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial" size="2">In the late 1820�s Berryman Jennings traveled from his boyhood home in
Kentucky to southeastern Iowa and became the first public school master in
that territory in a one room log cabin near Keokuk, overlooking the
Mississippi River. In April 1832 Jennings enlisted and fought in the Black
Hawk War. Later, he migrated to Oregon, set up a steamboat service on the
Willamette River, traded dry goods with San Francisco and became elected
to the Oregon legislature. The town of Jennings Lodge (near Portland) is
named for him.</font></p>
<i><b>
<p><font size="2" face="Arial">Entrepreneurial Visions <br>
</font>
</b></i><font size="2" face="Arial">In his blend of educator and entrepreneur, Berryman Jennings could
easily have met Joel A. Jennings and/or traded with Oliver Burr Jennings,
who had also migrated to San Francisco in the early 1850s (originally of
Fairfield, Connecticut), and set up a dry goods merchandise business in
partnership with Benjamin Brewster. The partners became successful,
outfitting prospecting camps along the coast and around Sacramento. Oliver
B. Jennings would return east wealthy and join his brother-in-law, William
Rockefeller, as an early investor in the Standard Oil Trust, eventually
becoming a leading trustee with John D. Rockefeller.</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial" size="2">Joel Albert Jennings became moderately successful panning for gold and
investing the real estate in San Francisco, but lost it to dishonest
partner in a swindle while he was out of the city. Jennings� attempts to
reassert his rights in wild, wooly San Francisco were met with such
threats of violence, both legal and physical, that he was forced to write
off the investment as irrecoverable. He returned East in 1854, and after
the birth of a third son, Emerson Pratt Jennings, he re-outfitted himself
and headed back to the gold mining camps, using the Isthmus of Panama
crossing to save time. Although he never struck it rich, dying tragically
of malaria during a later expedition in 1873, Joel Albert�s oldest son,
William Nevinson Jennings, became a successful in the steam printing and
office supply business in the 1880s while another son, Arthur, achieved
prominence as an architect.</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial" size="2">As the nation surged with Manifest Destiny and new industrial power in
the late nineteenth century, the educational foundation forged in the
trail-blazing adventures of countless sacrifices, including the Jennings
of Brookfield, formed a bond with modern day descendents, who continued
the legacy as physicians, educators, architects, business leaders,
politicians and lawyers � and helped shape modern America.</font></p>
<hr>
<p style="margin-top: 2"><b><font face="Arial" size="2">For Additional Reading:</font></b></p>
<u>
<p><font size="2" face="Arial">The Flowering of New England</font></u><font size="2" face="Arial">, Van Wyck Brooks, Boston, (1941)</font></p>
<p><font size="2" face="Arial"><i>"Forty</i>
<i>Years Record of the Class of 1845- Williams</i> <i>College,</i> (1885),
pp.87-89</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial" size="2">*Emily Dickinson, the famous poet and author, was a distant relation of
Sabrina Jennings by virtue of a marriage between Stephen Jennings and
Hannah Dickinson on May 18, 1677.</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial" size="2"><i>In Jasper County: The First Two Hundred
Years</i>, by Marvin L. VanGilder.</font></p>
<p><font lang="0" face="Arial" size="2" FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><i>
Our 'Dances with Wolves' Ancestor</i>, <u>The Joplin Globe</u>, November
15, 2004 (Andy Ostmeyer), Joplin, Missouri<br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial" size="2">November 28, 2004</font></p>
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<p align="center"><font face="Arial" size="2"><b><i>Jennings Heritage
Project<br>
</i></b>1312 Eighteenth Street NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20036<br>
Telephone: 202-887-0238 <br>
Fax: 202-887-9178<br>
Email: <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a> </font>
<p align="center"><b>
<a href="origins_of_a_farmer_soldier.htm">Farmer-Soldier Tradition: The
Jennings of Brookfield</a></b><p align="center"><b><a href="../heritage.htm">
<font face="Arial" size="2">Heritage
Preservation</font></a></b><font face="Arial" size="2"> </font>
<p align="center"><b><font face="Arial" size="2">
<a href="JHP%20enrollment%20form.htm">Enrollment Form for Jennings
Heritage Project</a></font></b><p align="center"><b><a href="../default.htm">
<font face="Arial" size="2">Home</font></a></b><font face="Arial" size="2">
</font>
<p align="center"> <p align="center"><b><i><font size="2" face="Arial">"Leadership
Education and Character Development Through Historical Scholarship"</font></i></b></td>
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