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Laura Caroline BATTLE 1824-1919 |
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Charles PHILLIPS 1822-1889 |
Emily Crowe Singleton FOSTER 1827-1912 |
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Ebenezer Pettigrew VERNER 1816-1891 |
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Mary Catherine PHILLIPS 1852-1938 |
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John Samuel VERNER 1849-1912 |
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Samuel Phillips VERNER 1873-1943 |
He was the first born child of his parents. He devoted much of his life to African exploration and affairs, and identified with his posthumous mentor, David Livingstone (1813-1873), the great African Explorer, whose exact date of death was probably May 1, 1873. He may have wanted his birth date to remain a mystery for future generations so he could be seen as a reincarnate of Livingstone.
Phillips life is covered well in works of his own writing and works written by close relatives. He wrote an autobiography that covers his early schooling in SC, visitations with his mother's relatives in Chapel Hill NC [who "owned the place"], and revelations of his interest in people of African origin. His autobiography also includes a bit of his own family history and descriptions of the rural South during the reconstruction era. His life can be well traced at the Verner Collection in the Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina, Columbia SC.
Phillips graduated as the "first honor graduate" of the South Carolina College [now, University of South Carolina], Columbia SC in 1892. After graduation from college, for several years, he worked in various capacities for the Southern Railway Co. in Columbia SC. In 1894 he took a teaching position at the Stillman Institute in AL, a seminary for African-Americans, where a Verner cousin was the Principal. On Sept. 25, 1895 he was examined and ordained to the Ministry of the Southern Presbyterian Church by the Stillman Institute in Tuscaloosa AL.
After his first trip to Africa, in 1895-1899, he wrote a substantial book: Pioneering in Central Africa, published by the Presbyterian Committee of Publication in Richmond VA in 1903. From this, he was invited to present numerous lectures and authored many article on Central Africa, and became one of the founders of the American Anthropological Association. In 1899, he published an African work: Mukanda Wa Chiluba, written in phonetic Tschiluba language to convey moral concepts to native Africans. There were three trips to follow, two of which were to satisfy the terms of a contract with the St. Louis Exposition Company that was headed by William McGee to produce the great St. Louis World's Fair to commemorate the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Phillips was hired specifically as a special agent to bring African Pygmies and other indigenous people from their native homes in Africa to be put on display at the St. Louis Fair in 1904, along with thousands of people from all over the world. Much of this period of his life, 1903-1907, is described in Ota Benga - the Pygmy in the Zoo, published by St. Martin's Press, 1992, paperback by Dell, 1994, by Phillips Verner Bradford and Harvey Blume. He returned to Central Africa on a fourth trip to satisfy some investors' interests in natural resources, until the Congo Free State was taken from King Leopold II (private hands?) and became the Belgian Congo, a ward of the Nation of Belgium.
After his attempts collapsed to build a mining company, the American Congo Company, in the Congo Free State, because his investors lost their franchise from King Leopold II, Phillips returned to the U.S. and accepted a post in the Panama Canal Zone as a Health Officer. He received a commendation for his work there, but relocated to North Carolina in 1919 to accept a position as the head of the County School Board for Transylvania County. On Nov. 23, 1920, the Council of the American Geographical Society elected him a Fellow of the Society. He and his family lived in Brevard NC until he died on Oct. 10, 1943.
Before his second trip to Africa in 1903, he married Harriett Dunlap Bradshaw (1873-1960)in 1901 in Columbia SC. She was familiarly known as "Hattie".
At some unknown time, probably before he was married to Hattie during his first trip to Africa in 1895-1899, he had at least two children; a daughter and a son, by an African woman who was residing at the home for orphans at Luebo, the Southern Presbyterian Missionary House. His wife, Hattie, did not accompany him on any of his African trips. He may have visited with or stayed with this unknown woman during his third trip, 1905-1906, where he spent 15 months collecting artifacts and exploring the jungle with Ota Benga. The daughter of this liaison was met by Dr. John C. Crawford, Professor of History at Montreat College NC, during a trip he made through Luebo in the 1950's seeking to retrace Phillips' footsteps while collecting Congolese coins (a hobby in which he is a leading expert). According to Crawford, this African daughter of Phillips had married a village Chief and had many children [probably born in the 1915-1930 period], of whom many progeny may have survived to modern times.
Phillips is buried at the Davidson River Cemetery overlooking the French Broad River near Brevard NC.