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Author: rmwalter
Surnames: May, Fitch, Berry
Classification: biography
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Message Board Post:
Edward Ralph May, the delegate from DeKalb and Steuben Counties to the Indiana
Constitutional Convention of 1850, was the only member of the Convention to vote in favor
of a provision to let African Americans vote in Indiana elections. Although May did not
introduce the proposal and offered a qualifying amendment to it that failed, he voted for
the motion when even its sponsor, George Berry of Franklin County, deserted it. The vote
was 122 to 1. (Report of the Debates and Proceedings of the Convention for the Revision of
the Constitution of the State of Indiana 1850, vol. 1, pp. 244-254.)
Little is known of May; but thanks to the efforts of Amherst College to keep track of its
alumni, we know the following:
Amherst College Class of 1837 (from the Amherst College Biographical Record, Centennial
Edition (1821-1921)found
at:
http://www.amherst.edu/~rjyanco94/genealogy/acbiorecord/1837.html
*May, Edward Ralph. B. Hartford, Conn., May 10, 1819. A. C., 1833; grad. Yale, 1838.
Practised law Norwich, Conn.; Angola, Ind.; St. Paul, Minn. D. Aug. 2, 1854.
*Non-Graduate
May obviously enrolled at Amherst in 1833, then transferred to Yale at some point to
graduate in 1838. The 1850 U.S. Census shows him living in Angola as a head of household,
but the rest of the household consisted of a married couple, Sylvester and Matilda Fitch,
and their three young children, Edson, Eugena and Francis. May's occupation is given
as "lawyer." Sylvester Fitch is listed as being a blacksmith.
May's biography in the 1920 History of Northeast Indiana (Chicago & New York:
Lewis Publishing Company, v. II, pp. 462-463) reads as follows:
"HON. EDWARD R. MAY graduated at Yale College in 1838, and although one of the
youngest of his class, he aqcuired a reputation which gave a promise of future
distinction. After leaving college, he was for two years engaged in teaching school in
the East. Having at the same time, [comma:sic] entered upon the study of law, he was in
due time admitted to the New London Couny bar, in Connecticut. Influenced by the hope of
benefit to his health, he removed to Angola, Steuben County, Indiana, and was admitted to
the bar in 1843. By skill in his profession, and by heartily identifying himself with the
public interests, sustaining and promoting the cause of education, of temperance, and the
institutions of religion, he rapidly acquired position and influence. He was a member of
our State Legislature. He was also a member of the State Constitutional Convention. He
went from Angola to California in the year 1852, and returned the same year, when his
forecasting mind fixed upon !
St. Paul, Minnesota, as a point of commanding importance in the future Northwest. He had
hardly located there when, August 2, 1852, after only a few hours [no apostrophe-sic] he
died of cholera."
The N.E. Indiana History bio differs from the Amherst College bio in that the latter puts
May's death in the year 1854. May would certainly have been a busy man in 1852 to
have traveled from Indiana to California and back, and then to Minnesota in scarcely eight
months, especially in a era before the transcontinental railroad. A little more research
(such as an examination of the Steuben County real estate transfers to see when May sold
his property in Angola) might resolve the question of when he left Indiana.
AS for May's service in the Indiana General Assembly, the 1914 Bowen Company History
of DeKalb County indicates that he served as State Representative for two terms: 1849-50;
and 1850-51.
May must also have lived at least briefly in the South or in a border state. In his
impressively literate speech to the convention on the issue of African American suffrage,
he refers (Debates and Proceedings, v. 1, p. 245, column 2) to having lived in a
slaveholding state.
May does not appear to have played a major role at the convention (a full-text search of
the Debates and Proceedings reveals only 22 references to "Mr. May"), but when
confronted with a moral challenge, as he was on October 28, 1850, on the issue of African
American suffrage, he rose to it with intelligence and courage.
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