Charles Sumner Wilson

Charles Sumner Wilson is the earliest identified Black student to enroll at Tufts, though his student record does not indicate he received a degree. Wilson was born in 1853 to a middle-class Black family in Salem, Massachusetts. His father, Thomas Wilson, died in the American Civil War, a member of the 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, one of the first Black units in the Union Army. His mother, Rebecca Eldridge Wilson, was part of the Salem Female Anti-Slavery Society, the first woman-founded abolitionist society in the United States, and was also an accomplished poet.

Wilson’s family was prominent enough in the Black community that they knew radical Republican Benjamin Butler, a Union general and a member of the House of Representatives. In 1870, Butler nominated Wilson for admittance to West Point. Wilson was the first Black student nominated by a sitting member of Congress to any of the service academies. Wilson was unsuccessful in his attempt to go to West Point; he was a few months shy of the required age cut-off.

Wilson enrolled at Amherst College in 1873 and remained there until 1875. In 1876, he was recorded as attending Tufts for a school year. There is no record indicating he graduated from Amherst, Tufts, or another college. An Amherst alumni directory noted that Wilson worked for a law firm in Danvers in 1877, and he passed the bar in 1880. Wilson is believed to be the first Black man to practice law in Essex County.

In 1891, a Boston newspaper reported that Wilson had threatened the Salem police marshal over a debt and attempted to sue him. According to the single news account, Wilson also showed signs of insanity and was examined by medical professionals. According to the 1900 census, Wilson was a resident at the Almshouse in Salem, a poorhouse and mental asylum, although it is unclear when Wilson first lived there or the reason for his admittance. However, the same police marshal Wilson accused of owing money was investigated for and charged with financial crimes in 1901. It is impossible to know if the marshal forced Wilson to the Almshouse to make his accusations go away or if Wilson was genuinely ill.

On January 17, 1904, Wilson died at the Danvers Insane Asylum at the age of 51. His life represented a number of momentous firsts—first Black student nominated to West Point and first Black lawyer in Essex County—but ended in seeming tragedy, with more questions than answers.

Biography written and researched by Cat Rosch

Source:

Amherst College Archives & Special Collections