Sumter High School: Class of 1896

The Truth... What is it?

Sumter High School, Class of 1896

Dave Pettigrew, SHS class of 1971, has developed an outstanding website in which yearbooks are being scanned onto his free website (HERE..click on a yearbook image) with many class photos, lists of graduates, and an outstanding graphics and text page of the school's history (HERE).

On this page you are now viewing, the memorial #s are memorials on the free Find a Grave (separate but owned by the subscription genealogy website, Ancestry.com).

I want to directly link to some old, online newspaper sources (Sumter's The Watchman & Southron via Library of Congress' Chronicling America, which detail some history and the senior class graduates.

S. C. petition of Legislature, May 1888, HERE.
Commisioner J. T. Green's 1890 letter about the schools, HERE.
Sumter public school system opens 2 Sept 1889, young John B. Duffie, superintendent.
First year (9 months) ends (students: 310 whites & 294 blacks), HERE (Watchman & Southron issue of 4 June 1890, vol. IX #43, page [image] 3, 2nd column from viewer's left near page top).

Links to classes 1889-1912, HERE . W & S of 1910 has 1891-1910 lists HERE and W & S of 1912 lists 1891-1911 HERE.

***(1889-1913, only 10 grades; 1914-1944, only 11 grades)***

***(Student names: before maybe 1915, names by which people were baptized were frequently & without legal process, changed before, say, age 12. Grade school nicknames often changed as the person became older (HERE). In cases of those with 1 or 2 middle names, either or both of those might be deleted as they became older or married. Old printed source material was printed by a more tedious process than today & typos were not uncommon. Females are especially hard to track down from names on graduate lists; so, the birth year range of a graduation group becomes helpful.)***

Sumter HS Class of 1896 (W&S 17 June 1896, page 3, column 3 & 4, "Commencement of The Sumter Graded School", HERE:
(the name they apparently "went by" in italics)

Boys (8):

Horace Harby, Jr., (born 1879), FaG mem. # 132158919
Joseph Herbert Haynsworth, (born 1878); FaG mem. # 29735892
Henry Green Hill, (born 1874);(listed in 1910 W&S), FaG mem. # 85293424
Claude Edwin Hurst, Sr., (born 1880); FaG mem. # 123842297
Edward W. McCallum, (born 1880), FaG mem. # 120816486
Emile Phillips Moses, (born 1880), Emile would become the 1902 football team coach (see his memorial link). In 1943, Maj. Gen. Emile P. Moses was honored in Sumter. Gen. Moses, commanding officer of the Parris Island Marine Base, had had a long and outstanding record in that branch of the service! FaG mem. # 49261244
Claude Rhame, (born 1877), FaG mem. # 79850874
Robert Eugene Wilder, (born 1879), senior class president, FaG mem. # 36424353

Girls (12):

"Beaufort" Brand, (born 1881), FaG mem. # 109591416
Ethel Flinn Cooper, (born 1879), FaG mem. # 90058437
"Mamie" (Mannie?; Mannye?) Mary Alice Dinkins (born 1874), 1894 Winthrop grad. & school teacher in Sumter in 1901; FaG mem. # (42153991).
Caroline Mitt DuRant, (born 1880), She had the distinction of never having been tardy during her entire years of grade schooling, and she left that fall for "Columbia Female College". By 1912 she was working in Spartanburg, S. C. and, in 1922, was executrix of an estate, the document listing her as Caroline Mitt DuRant. After the 1920s, she married M. C. Talbot & both in same cemetery in Florida. FaG mem. # 51823993
Lillie Gregg, (born 1877), FaG mem. # 131550180.
Daisey Hatfield, (born 1878), FaG mem. # 65597751.
Mary Hill, (born 1874), FaG mem. # 51310370.
Beulah Lynam, (born 1877),FaG mem. # 132149343
Lydia Morris, FaG mem. # (not found yet).
"Berta" Roberta Lee Pringle, (born 1876), [also known as "Bertha" Roberta Lee Pringle; a legal document to Willie Shaw has her as “Berta Pringle”], FaG mem. # 94151414
"Margaret" Marguerite Richardson, (born 1876), FaG mem. # 38963006
Ida Stansill, (born 1879), FaG mem. # 48791706

Lincoln HS Class of 1896:
(it is hard to be sure of gender & student vs. adult...see above, "Lincoln Graded School Commencement", W&S, col. 4)

Boys (?4):