I thanked him for his advice, and
proceeded on my journey.
The first place I went to in the North, was Northampton, Mass.,
where I spent nearly a half-day in looking for a coloured family with
whom I could board, never dreaming that any hotel would admit me. I
was greatly surprised when I found that I would have no trouble in
being accommodated at a hotel.
We were successful in getting money enough so that on Thanksgiving
Day of that year we held our first service in the chapel of Porter
Hall, although the building was not completed.
In looking about for some one to preach the Thanksgiving sermon, I
found one of the rarest men that it has ever been my privilege to
know. This was the Rev. Robert C. Bedford, a white man from
Wisconsin, who was then pastor of a little coloured Congregational
church in Montgomery, Ala. Before going to Montgomery to look for
some one to preach this sermon I had never heard of Mr. Bedford. He
had never heard of me. He gladly consented to come to Tuskegee and
hold the Thanksgiving service. It was the first service of the kind
that the coloured people there had ever observed, and what a deep
interest they manifested in it! The sight of the new building made it
a day of Thanksgiving for them never to be forgotten.
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