Restricted The Stonewall Jackson Window - 150 yrs ago

Norman Dasinger Jr

First Sergeant
Joined
Jan 28, 2021
150 years ago today, October 25, 1871: In Atlanta, GA, today's "Daily Sun" has this story of a Confederate General: "Stonewall Jackson's Sunday School.—A visitor will be struck, on Sunday afternoon, at the crowd of negro boys and girls winding their way to the Presbyterian church in Lexington, Va. If he goes he will see a colored Sunday School, superintended by Col. J.T.L. Preston, Professor in Virginia Military Institute. If he asks about the school he will be told: 'This colored Sunday School was organized by Stonewall Jackson when he was Professor in the Virginia Military Instituter. He took the deepest interest in its success (never going to it or from it without earnest, secret prayer,) and when called into the army he expressed himself more loth to leave his Sunday School than any of his other public duties. His interest continued to the day of his death, and he was never known to write a letter to Lexington without making special inquiry after his colored Sunday School.—Lexington (VA) Letter."

On October 23, 2019 Radio WVTF, Virginia's Public Radio will publish the following that we have taken excerpts from: "Two of his slave students married early in the war. Lylburn Downing and his wife Ellen had a son, born the day after Jackson died. They never let young Lylburn Liggins Downing forget what a spiritual inspiration "Marse Major" (as they called Jackson) had been in both of their lives. In the 1870s, the son attended the Sunday class begun by Jackson. Downing matured, completed theological training, and accepted the position of minister at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in Roanoke.....In the course of Downing's forty-two years as pastor of that congregation, it became necessary to replace the window behind the chancel. Reverend downing designed the new stained-glass memorial that dominated the sanctuary. It depicted an army camp, a wide stream of water, and a clump of woods. At the bottom, downing placed the words: "In memory of Stonewall Jackson. Let us cross the river and rest in the shade of the trees."…Lylburn Downing died in 1937. In 1959, fire destroyed the Fifth Avenue Church. The flames and smoke heavily damaged the window. That did not stop the black congregation from restoring the memorial and proudly installing it above the altar at its new church on Roanoke's Patton Avenue."
 
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