John McDonogh (December 29, 1779 – October 26, 1850) was an American entrepreneur whose adult life was spent in south Louisiana and later in Baltimore. He made a fortune in real estate and shipping, and as a

slave owner The following is a list of slave owners, for which there is a consensus of historical evidence of slave ownership, in alphabetical order by last name. A * Adelicia Acklen (1817–1887), at one time the wealthiest woman in Tennessee, she inh ...

, he supported the

American Colonization Society The American Colonization Society (ACS), initially the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America until 1837, was an American organization founded in 1816 by Robert Finley to encourage and support the migration of freebor ...

, which organized transportation for freed people of color to Liberia. He had devised a manumission scheme whereby the people he held as enslaved could "buy" their own freedom, which took them some 15 years. In his will he provided large grants for the public education of children of poor whites and freed people of color in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

and

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, and by the 1970s some 20 schools in the New Orleans public school system were named for him.

Life and career

McDonogh was born in Baltimore and entered the shipping business there. In 1800, his employers sent him as

supercargo A supercargo (from Spanish ''sobrecargo'') is a person employed on board a vessel by the owner of cargo carried on the ship. The duties of a supercargo are defined by admiralty law and include managing the cargo owner's trade, selling the merchand ...

on a ship to

Liverpool, England Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

, to procure a cargo of goods for the Louisiana trade. He was successful, and after a second such voyage decided to make his home in New Orleans. Establishing a store and engaging in the "commission and shipping business", he prospered there. By 1807, McDonogh turned his focus away from his mercantile operations to focus on real estate, acquiring large tracts of land in

Spanish West Florida Spanish West Florida (Spanish: ''Florida Occidental'') was a province of the Spanish Empire from 1783 until 1821, when both it and East Florida were ceded to the United States. The region of West Florida initially had the same borders as the er ...

. He reportedly expanded his holdings by renting properties in respectable neighborhoods to brothel owners. When neighbors to these properties sought to move, McDonogh would purchase their properties and then evict the brothels. In 1818, he was a candidate for the

U.S. Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

. After he lost that election, he left New Orleans and settled across the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...

, establishing the town of McDonoghville, now called McDonogh, which is in present-day Algiers and Gretna. The site of his McDonoghville home has long since eroded by the flooding of the Mississippi River. The young McDonogh was mentioned as having unsuccessfully courted Micaela Almonester, who went on to become the Baroness Pontalba, one of the most important figures in New Orleans history; however, there are no documented sources of this rumor. He was also rebuffed in courtship later in life. A failure to marry and the loss of the Senate race may have contributed to a life which has been described as reclusive. He was a prominent citizen but not well-loved; one obituary proclaimed his benevolence, "notwithstanding the general opinion to the contrary," while another noted that "his manners were rigid, severe and repelling," and a third observed that he left "no friends to grieve at his death." William H. Seymour, a local and near-contemporary chronicler, described him in 1896 as having been an "eccentric philanthropist" who "for twenty-two long years toiled" within the walls of his "somber dwelling". McDonogh was a workaholic and worked long hours almost until the time of his death, administering his vast land holdings, which were believed to be the largest (but not the most valuable) of any private individual in the country in 1850 when he died. His land holdings entirely surrounded the rapidly growing city of New Orleans and elsewhere in southeast Louisiana.

Slaveholding and manumission

McDonogh was a

slaveholder The following is a list of slave owners, for which there is a consensus of historical evidence of slave ownership, in alphabetical order by last name. A * Adelicia Acklen (1817–1887), at one time the wealthiest woman in Tennessee, she inh ...

. In 1822, he devised a

manumission Manumission, or enfranchisement, is the act of freeing enslaved people by their enslavers. Different approaches to manumission were developed, each specific to the time and place of a particular society. Historian Verene Shepherd states that t ...

scheme by which his slaves could buy their freedom. The process took about 15 years; thus he was able to profit from their labor before he set them free. McDonogh was also active in, and contributed to, the

, which enabled freed black slaves to emigrate back to Africa. McDonogh used the Society to provide passage to Liberia for many of the people he had once enslaved.

David and Washington McDonogh

McDonogh identified two of his slaves, David K. McDonogh and Washington Watts McDonogh, as "youths of great promise" for manumission to Liberia. In preparation for manumission, McDonogh taught David and Washington to read and write, in violation of Louisiana laws. Wishing to prepare the pair further to become missionaries, John McDonogh arranged for them to begin studies at

Lafayette College Lafayette College is a private liberal arts college in Easton, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1826 by James Madison Porter and other citizens in Easton, the college first held classes in 1832. The founders voted to name the college after General Laf ...

Easton, Pennsylvania Easton is a city in, and the county seat of, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, United States. The city's population was 28,127 as of the 2020 census. Easton is located at the confluence of the Lehigh River, a river that joins the Delaware R ...

starting in May 1838. Washington struggled academically; he left the college in June 1842, and went on to spend the rest of his life in Liberia, eventually becoming elected to the lower house of the national legislature. David did well at Lafayette, studying medicine, anatomy, and even apprenticing to a local doctor/pharmacist, and graduated in September 1844. David refused to be deported to Liberia, however, and eventually settled in New York City where he was active in politics and medicine. David eventually received a medical degree in 1875. He died in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.

Legacy

John McDonogh Statue, Lafayette Square, New Orleans, Louisiana

Although during his life McDonogh was an infamous

miser A miser is a person who is reluctant to spend, sometimes to the point of forgoing even basic comforts and some necessities, in order to hoard money or other possessions. Although the word is sometimes used loosely to characterise anyone who ...

, he left the bulk of his fortune—close to $2 million—to the cities of Baltimore and New Orleans for the purpose of building public schools for poor children—specifically, white and freed black children. This was unprecedented, and proved controversial. His heirs contested the will, and the case, '' McDonogh's Executors v. Murdoch'', went to the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

. This delayed execution of the will until 1858, with New Orleans receiving a settlement of $704,440. Baltimore already had a substantial public school system, but McDonogh's will also stipulated the creation of a "school farm" for underprivileged boys outside of the city.

McDonogh School McDonogh School is a private, coeducational, PK-12, college-preparatory school founded in Owings Mills, Maryland, United States in 1873. The school is named after John McDonogh, whose estate originally funded the school. The school now enrolls ...

in Owings Mills, Maryland, founded in 1873, was the result. The New Orleans public school system had been established in 1841, but the McDonogh Fund facilitated major expansion. Eventually over 30 schools were built, most emblazoned with his name and a number. By the early 1970s there were 20 McDonogh schools remaining in New Orleans. In the 1980s and 1990s, many of those were renamed in a movement to remove the names of slaveholders from New Orleans' public schools. The following John McDonogh schools are still in operation, post-Katrina: John McDonogh High School and McDonogh #7, #15, #26, #28, #32, #35, and #42. McDonogh's will proved difficult to administer because of the large number of properties involved, many of which were rented. Also, McDonogh had stipulated the properties to be a perpetual trust and that no properties could ever be sold. The trustees eventually got a court ruling allowing them to sell off the property. Money from the trust funded schools for about 100 years, although because of population growth the estate was not sufficient to cover the entire school systems expenses.

Gravesite and annual commemorations

After McDonogh died in 1850, he was buried alongside his slaves in the McDonogh Cemetery (now known as the McDonoghville Cemetery) on his plantation in present-day

Gretna, Louisiana Gretna is the second-largest city in, and parish seat of, Jefferson Parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana. "Gretna, Louisiana (LA) Detailed Profile" (notes), ''City Data'', 2007, webpage: C-Gretna "Census 2000 Data for the State of Lou ...

. In 1860, his remains were exhumed and re-buried in the

Green Mount Cemetery Green Mount Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Established on March 15, 1838, and dedicated on July 13, 1839, it is noted for the large number of historical figures interred in its grounds as well as man ...

. In 1945, John McDonogh's remains were again exhumed and re-buried, this time on the campus of McDonogh School in Owings Mills, Maryland. McDonogh rests there to this day, under a monument on which his rules for living are inscribed. The same monument had marked McDonogh's grave in Baltimore; it was transported to the McDonogh School campus in 1945 as well. In return for his legacy, McDonogh asked "that it be permitted annually for children to plant and water a few flowers around isgrave." Since 1875, the students at McDonogh School have honored this wish in the school's annual Founder's Day ceremony. In New Orleans, the annual ceremony became subject to one of the first protests of the civil rights era, the McDonogh Day Boycott of 1954. African American advocacy groups, including the NAACP, objected to the tradition of white children going first and proposed allowing both racial groups to participate simultaneously on opposite sides; when this suggestion was rebuffed by police, a boycott was organized. McDonogh No. 26 School is the last school in the metropolitan New Orleans area which honors this tradition. In their annual John McDonogh Day ceremony, students place flowers on the

cenotaph A cenotaph is an empty tomb or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. Although the vast majority of cenot ...

in honor of McDonogh at the site of his former tomb in the McDonoghville Cemetery.

Other monuments

In 1938, as part of the

Federal Art Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administrati ...

, a bust of McDonogh by

Angela Gregory Angela Gregory (October 18, 1903 – February 13, 1990) was an American sculptor and professor of art. Gregory has been called the "doyenne of Louisiana sculpture". She became one of the few women of her era to be recognized nationally in a field ...

was erected at what was designated "McDonogh Place", a small park in

Uptown New Orleans Uptown is a section of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, on the east bank of the Mississippi River, encompassing a number of neighborhoods (including the similarly-named and smaller Uptown area) between the French Quarter and the Jefferso ...

at St. Charles Avenue and Toledano Street. In 1958, it was moved to Duncan Plaza by the new City Hall. On June 13, 2020, protestors toppled the bust of John McDonogh from its base in Duncan Plaza and tossed it into the Mississippi River. On June 14 the bust was retrieved from the river, and returned to city officials.