John McDonogh
| John McDonogh
(Educational philanthropist from Baltimore and New Orleans) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| Born | December 29, 1779 Baltimore, Maryland, USA Long-term resident of New Orleans, Louisiana | ||
| Died | October 26, 1850 (aged 70) New Orleans, Louisiana Resting place: | ||
John McDonogh (December 29, 1779 – October 26, 1850) was a businessman, planter, and educational philanthropist from his adopted city of New Orleans, Louisiana. Numerous elementary schools were named in his honor followed by the number of the school.
Biography
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, he was a son of John and Elizabeth Wilkins McDonogh. At the age of seventeen, he was apprenticed to a Baltimore merchant, who sent him to New Orleans in 1800. McDonogh soon began his own successful business and purchased large tracts of land in Louisiana and Florida, In 1806, he was named a director of the Louisiana State Bank. He joined a volunteer corps called Beale’s Rifles and fought in the Battle of New Orleans in early 1815, an engagement which made Andrew Jackson a popular name throughout the nation. In 1818, McDonogh ran unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives.[1][2]
After the failed congressional race, McDonogh withdrew from society and moved to one of his plantations, McDonoghville, near New Orleans. An eccentric and a miser, he lived simply. He devoted much of his time to the educational and moral training of his slaves. He developed a plan by which his slaves could purchase their freedom through an early profit-sharing plan. In 1842, some eighty of McDonogh's slaves migrated to the new nation of Liberia in west Africa, a country established as a haven for former slaves. The ship was provided by the American Colonization Society. He earned most of his money in real estate speculation and owned brickyards as well as his plantations. He pioneered improvements in flood control, the use of farm machinery, and “scientific” farming. [1]
At the time of his death, McDonogh had accumulated a fortune in excess of $3 million (probably 100 million in 2020 dollars). In his will, he bequeathed $100,000 each to the orphan asylum of New Orleans and the American Colonization Society. Profits from his investments were divided between the cities of Baltimore and New Orleans for educational purposes. The McDonogh Institute near Baltimore opened in 1873. At the beginning of 1899, New Orleans had constructed twenty-eight schools; two other were located at McDonoghville. McDonogh died in New Orleans at the age of seventy and was interred at McDonoghville Plantation.
Political correctness strikes McDonogh statue in New Orleans
McDonogh is honored by statues to his memory in Baltimore and in Lafayette Square in New Orleans. In 2020, however, n the aftermath of the George Floyd case in Minneapolis, Minnesota, politically correct radical protesters vandalized and destroyed the McDonogh statue and tossed it into the Mississippi River. It was dragged from the river, but its whereabouts are unknown. The attack on the statue came 170 years after McDonogh's death.[3]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 McDonogh, John. A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography: Louisiana Historical Association. Retrieved on May 11, 2020.
- ↑ A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography bases its article on McDonogh three sources: William Allan, Life and Work of John McDonogh (reprinted 1983); The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (1907), and David C. Roller and Robert W. Twyman, eds., The Encyclopedia of Southern History (1979).
- ↑ Bryn Stole and Ramon Antonio Vargas (June 15, 2020). John McDonogh statue dragged out of Mississippi River, whereabouts now unknown. The New Orleans Times-Picayune. Retrieved on June 16, 2020.
