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“The Montgomery and West Point Railroad is about five miles distant from Tuskegee, the nearest station being Chehaw. From there to Tuskegee, until about twenty years ago, the usual mode of conveyance for passengers and baggage was stage coach and omnibus, while all goods were transported by wagon. It was a tiresome, troublesome and expensive method. This difficulty has been overcome through the Tuskegee Railroad which now connects the two points.

“The population of Macon County before 1860, was largely heavy landed proprietors. They suffered immensely by the results of the war from disorganized labor, and reverses stripped them of much of their property. The county is almost exclusively agricultural, and the average yield year by year, of corn, cotton, peas, potatoes and other things grown on well regulated farms, is fairly good.”

When I reached Tuskegee, I found that Mr. Lewis Adams, a colored man of great intelligence and thrift, who was born a slave near Tuskegee, had first started the movement to have some kind of Normal School in Tuskegee for the education of colored youth. At the time he conceived this idea Hon. W. F. Foster and Hon. A. L. Brooks, both white Democrats, were members of the Alabama Legislature, and Mr. Adams so interested them in the movement that they promised to use their influence in the Legislature to secure an annual appropriation of $2,000 toward the expenses of a Normal School, provided one could be properly organized and started. Messrs. Foster and Brooks were successful in their efforts to secure the appropriation, which was limited in its use to helping to pay teachers. A Board of three Commissioners was appointed to control the expenditure of this $2,000. When the school was first started this board consisted of Mr. Geo. W. Campbell, Mr. M. B. Swanson and Mr. Lewis Adams. After the death of Mr. Swanson, Mr. C. W. Hare was elected in his stead.