Thomas Jordan Jarvis and the Ku Klux Klan, 1914

Thomas Jordan Jarvis (1836-1915) – a founding father of East Carolina Teachers Training School – had one of the most successful political careers in North Carolina history. However, unlike other prominent state leaders, Jarvis also allegedly had political associations with the Ku Klux Klan, was married to a woman who publicly defended the Klan, and most troubling for the history of East Carolina Teachers Training School, addressed the entire student body, at the invitation of history professor, Sarah “Sallie” Joyner Davis (1871-1954), discussing the Reconstruction period in North Carolina history and the Klan’s role in it. While Jarvis never affirmed personal membership, he and his wife apparently viewed the group sympathetically. Today considered “the most infamous – and oldest – of American hate groups,” the Klan was, from Jarvis’ perspective, a vigilante response to the supposed injustices of the Reconstruction period forced on society’s responsible elements (i.e., white Democrats). Despite his efforts at “explaining” the Klan, Jarvis’ ties to that group, regardless of historical contextualization, stand as an association with enmity seriously marring his overall record of exceptional public service.

One of the earliest allegations that Jarvis, a Democrat, approved of the Klan appeared in The Signal (August 5, 1880), a newspaper published by the Republican State Committee. In an extended piece hostile to Jarvis, the paper posed questions to Democratic leaders including Jarvis. The Signal asked,

“Governor Jarvis, Col. Saunders, Dr. Worth, of the Democratic State ticket … Did you approve of the Kuklux organization? Did you approve of its acts of violence? Did you approve of its murder of [State Senator John W.] Stephens, [Wyatt] Outlaw and hundreds of others? Did you approve of the whipping of [Andrew L.] Ramsour and hundreds of others? Did you approve of the hundreds of nameless crimes committed by this organization in North Carolina in 1869-’70-’71?”

Jarvis did not respond. The “Col. Saunders” mentioned is William L. Saunders (1835-1891), a Civil War colonel who in 1869-1870 “became known as the chief organizer of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina and Chapel Hill.” In 1880, Saunders ran for secretary of state simultaneous with Jarvis’ candidacy for governor. Evidence suggests that Jarvis and Saunders were not only political compatriots, but also personal friends. That aside, the questions posed to Jarvis were possibly just political rhetoric generated by the heated campaign. Undoubtedly they were meant to disparage Jarvis’ good name and standing.

Soon the New York Times published a discussion of the race between Jarvis and Daniel Gould Fowle (1831-1891) for the Democratic nomination in the 1880 election. The Times offered the claims of Fowle’s supporters and then those of Jarvis’ supporters in an attempt to contrast the two as progressive and reactionary. According to the Times, Fowle’s supporters alleged,

“That the records of the Kuklux committee show that Jarvis was a member of this organization, and that his strongest lieutenant – Col. W. L. Saunders – is Secretary of State, and was a high officer in the Kuklux Klan, and refused to answer questions when before the committee at Washington because he could not do so without criminating himself in murders, outrages and whippings inflicted by the Klan.”

Reportedly, Jarvis’ supporters offered no rebuttal but instead claimed, according to the Times, that Fowle’s nomination was supported by David Schenck (1835-1902), a judge who was once active in Klan politics but had lost in his bid for election to the Supreme Court because “of his treachery toward the Klan.” While these analyses were authored by the Times – which was clearly opposed of Jarvis – they suggest that Jarvis’ supporters disparaged Fowle by noting that he was supported by a judge, Schenck, who had betrayed the Klan.

Jarvis likely knew quite a bit about the Klan. In 1902, his wife, Mary Woodson Jarvis (1842-1924), authored a two-part essay for the North Carolina Booklet, a periodical focusing on “great events in North Carolina history” published by the North Carolina Society of the Daughters of the Revolution. Mrs. Jarvis’ essays, entitled “Conditions that Led to the Ku-Klux Klans …” and “The Ku-Klux Klans,” explained, in sympathetic terms, what later historians called the first phase of Klan history, beginning after the Civil War and ending with Jim Crow laws establishing segregation and white supremacy. The Klan was later revived between 1915-1930 in opposition to Catholics and Jewish groups as well as blacks, and then again in the 1950s and 1960s in opposition to the Civil Rights Movement. Without equivocation, Mrs. Jarvis concluded that the Klan was necessary, successful, and justified “since ‘the end attained was mainly good.’” By the time the essays were published, the Klan had atrophied significantly, making it possible for many, including Mrs. Jarvis, to openly discuss its origins, rationale, and tactics. Early on, Klan members were sworn to mortal secrecy.

Some have speculated that Thomas Jarvis helped author the essays. It seems unlikely that he knew nothing of their contents. While Mrs. Jarvis never claimed her husband as co-author, she hinted that she partnered with someone. She wrote,

The author of this sketch has given this subject a good deal of thought and study, during the past year. We have read books, legal and simple narrative, receiving the latter with such allowance as was necessary, where affidavits had not particularized statements; we have visited in various localities of the State, where the order, or orders referred existed in greatest force. We have talked with ministers of the gospel, and men of high official positions in church and State: and we have, all imperfectly, but conscientiously, given our honest views, as deducted therefrom. And, if the question had to be “studied against its proper background of a disordered society and a bewildering people,” we have tried, likewise to do that.”

Mrs. Jarvis might simply have referred to herself with “we,” but the research agenda mentioned makes it difficult to imagine that Jarvis was not by her side in it.

The most incriminating report of ties came from a friendly source: the Eastern Reflector published in Greenville by David Jordan Whichard. On April 3, 1914, it reported that Jarvis had recently spoken to the ECTTS student body on the Reconstruction period. History instructor Sallie Joyner Davis (J. Y. Joyner’s niece) had invited Jarvis to give the talk, initially to her history class, but then, realizing “the value of such a speech she gave the whole school the opportunity of hearing it.” President Wright attended and introduced Jarvis as “one of the leaders of the period.” Reportedly, Jarvis spoke “convincingly of the period because he was in the midst of events and one of the leaders who brought the state out of trouble.”

More specifically, he was a member of the state legislature “throughout the time and speaker of the house when Governor Holden was impeached.” William W. Holden (1818-1892), a Republican governor, 1868-1871, had raised a state militia to attack the Ku Klux Klan, imposed martial law in two counties, and suspended the writ of habeas corpus for accused Klan leaders. For these extraordinary measures, Holden was impeached and removed from office by the Democratic majority in the state legislature. In the wake of Holden’s fall, Democratic leaders Zebulon B. Vance (1830-1894) and Jarvis rose to power. In noting that Jarvis had been speaker of the house when Holden was impeached, the Eastern Reflector alluded to Jarvis’ standing vis-à-vis the Klan: Jarvis led the impeachment attack on the governor who attacked the Klan.

The Eastern Reflector added that Jarvis “made the students realize the terrible state of affairs. He made them understand as they never understood before the Union League and the Ku Klux Klan.” In Mary Jarvis’ first essay, the Union League, organized by Republicans to spread their cause among emancipated African-Americans, was cited as one of the conditions that led to the beginnings of the Klan. Insofar as his account echoed the same theme, Jarvis appears to have been alluding to the essays attributed to his wife. Yet regardless of their source, Jarvis’ remarks at East Carolina in 1914 – one year before his passing – establish that he had decided not to take secrets to the grave. While perhaps a product of the times, this aspect of the Jarvis legacy will likely remain the most troubling and difficult to fathom for those who otherwise must inevitably acknowledge him as one of East Carolina’s founding fathers.