Josiah T. Settle

Josiah "Joe" Thomas Settle was born a slave in the Cumberland Mountains[1] of East Tennessee[2] or North Carolina[3] on September 30, 1850, to Nancy Settle. His father was the owner of the family, also named Josiah, and at the time of his birth, his master was moving the household from their former home in Rockingham, North Carolina, to Mississippi.[1] His father was wealthy, having been a slave trader while that was possible. He was the son of David and Rhoda Settle. He had two daughters by his first wife, who died in 1829 in childbirth. Nancy Ann was a slave of Azariah Graves, a North Carolina militia general in the War of 1812, and may have been a child of his or someone in his family. Josiah Sr. and Nancy had ten children and Josiah Sr. kept a large number of slaves on his plantation in Tishomingo County.[4] Josiah Sr. felt devoted to Settle's mother and children by her, and in the 1850s manumitted her and their children. As the state forbade the presence of free blacks, in March 1856, they moved to Hamilton, Ohio, although Settle kept his slaves and plantation in Mississippi and lived there in the fall, winter, and spring. In 1858 Josiah's parents married and in 1861, when the American Civil War began, the elder Josiah sold his land and slaves in Mississippi and moved to Ohio and supported the Union. He died in the spring of 1869.[1]

Settle first attended schools near Hamilton, although he faced discrimination in school until the school received a new teacher. In spring of 1866, Settle started preparatory school in Oberlin, Ohio, and entered Oberlin College in 1868.[1] At Oberlin, Settle participated in an integrated baseball club called the Resolutes which included African American Simpson Younger and a number of whites including Phil Dixon and Patrick J. Hannigan. The club played against a number of semipro and professional clubs and was very successful, its only losses coming to the Cleveland Forest Citys.[5] The next year Settle entered the Sophomore class at Howard University. He graduated from Howard in 1872 in the schools first class along with James Monroe Gregory and Arthur Clough O'Hear; O'Hear died in 1876 in Charleston, SC. During his last two years at Howard, Settle clerked in the education division of the Freedmen's Bureau and in the last part of his senior year he became reading clerk of the Washington, DC House of Delegates[1] under Alexander Shepherd.[3] He also began teaching at the university before graduating, and after graduation joined the law department and was admitted to the DC bar. He also was active in DC politics, and served as a clerk in the Board of Public Works, as an accountant in the Board of Audits, and as a trustee of the county schools for the district. He also was active pioneer of the Hillsdale neighborhood.[1]

He was an Episcopalian,[1] and in Memphis attended Emmanuel Episcopal Church.[14] In 1910, he helped organize a Memphis chapter of Sigma Pi Phi along with James Carroll Napier of Nashville.[15] In Memphis, he was a member of a circle of African American elites which included Robert Church, his daughter Mary Church Terrell and her husband Robert Heberton Terrell, Roscoe Conkling Bruce,[16] Charles F. Hookses, and Samuel A. McElwee.[17] Settle was the first president of the National Negro Bar Association (NNBA), serving from 1905[18] until 1913.[19] The NNBA was affiliated with the National Negro Business League which had been organized by Booker T. Washington.

On March 20, 1890,[20] Settle married Fannie McCullough, director of music at Lemoyne Normal Institute. About that time the Settles lived on South Orleans Street.[14]

Settle died on August 21, 1915, in Memphis after a long illness. He had two sons, Josiah T. and Temoy.[3] His sister, Cornelia A. married James Matthew Townsend in 1871.[21]