REV. W. W. STALEY, A.B., A.M., D.D., LL.D., EX-PRESIDENT OF ELON COLLEGE

I have been asked to tell why and how I worked my way through college. Because there was no other way to get through college, but to work through, gives the reason why.

My father, John Tilmon Staley, was a school teacher. He died of typhoid fever at twenty-eight, when I was five.

My mother married Archibald M. Cook three years after my father’s death, and was the mother of eight children: three Staleys and five Cooks.

At the close of the Civil War, emancipation left us nothing but land.

In 1866 my uncle, Lieutenant J. N. H. Clendenin, proposed that if I would work with him on his farm he would send me to Dr. W. S. Long’s school in Graham the next winter. My stepfather said he was not able to send me to school, but he would give me my time. I worked on the farm that summer and entered school January 17, 1867, and walked three miles to school that term.

At the end of that term, Dr. W. S. Long proposed 135 to furnish me board, clothes and tuition, if I would live with him and provide wood, keep rooms in order, build fires, cultivate the garden, milk cows, feed horses, and cultivate a small crop in summer vacation. I accepted and entered his service in September, 1867. I hauled wood two miles, cut and placed same in place for fourteen fires, swept schoolrooms and built fires; attended to horses, cows, and garden; went to the country for feed, flour, meat, and live beef and butchered it; cultivated vegetables, potatoes, and corn in summer; did sundry errands for Dr. Long; and recited lessons when other duties did not prevent, and kept up with my classes.

In 1869 I taught the Graham Public School and in the spring I entered the store of Col. A. C. McAlister in Company Shops (now Burlington) as clerk. In addition to my store duties, and with the consent of my employer, I attended to the morning express train and sale of tickets at four o’clock. My pay as clerk was board, laundry, and $10.00 per month; and I received $10.00 per month for attending to the early morning express train. At the end of the year Col. McAlister paid me $5.00 per month more than he had promised.

In the spring of 1871, I spent four months more in the Graham School, and entered the sophomore class in Trinity College, N. C., in September, 1871.............