Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Washington, Booker Taliaferro

WASHINGTON, Booker Taliaferro, educator, b. in Hale's Ford, Franklin co., Va., 18 April, 1856. He is of African descent, and early removed to West Virginia. He was graduated at Hampton institute in 1875, and in the same year entered Wayland seminary, whence he was called to fill the chair of a teacher at Hampton. There he was elected by the Alabama state authorities to the presidency of Tuskegee institute, which he organized in 1881. Under his management it has grown from an institution with one teacher and thirty students to one with twenty teachers and 300 students. The property consists of 540 acres, a blacksmith's shop, saw-mill, carpenter's shop, brick-yard, printing-office, and several large school-buildings, one of which, shown in the vignette, was built by the students. It is valued at $68,000, and is out of debt.