Powhatan Beaty: Fighter and Thespian

Happy Friday! I have a crazy weekend ahead of me, starting this afternoon giving a tours at Findlay Market and again Saturday morning; then I'm off to volunteer at the Books by the Banks at Duke Energy Convention Center. Before all of that goes down, I just needed to regroup and walk through Washington Park. This park is super rich in history.

In the early 1800s, Washington Park was a cemetery. However, with the growing public health issues, particularly the vapor rising from the grounds of the property, the City of Cincinnati acquired the land in the 1850s and transferred the remains north to and reinterred in Spring Grove Cemetery, which is the third largest cemetery in the United States. The park slowly declined during the Great Depression and World War II, but underwent renovations in the early 2010s. It reopened in July 2012 in time for the World Choir Games, with a performance from a choir from Gifu, Japan, one of Cincinnati's ten sister cities.

Parrott gun

There are so many stunning features at this park, but one that really caught my attention is the cannon (Parrott gun) that dates back to the Civil War in homage to the soldiers inducted in the park. One of the soldiers was an African American, Powhatan Beaty.

.


Powhatan Beaty was the 1st Sergeant, Company G of the 5th U.S. Colored Troops. Born a slave in Richmond, Virginia, he moved to Cincinnati when he was twelve years old. He gain his freedom in the early 1860s, and as a student, he participated in theater and made his public acting debut in a school production.

Now, the Civil War breaks out. Beaty enlists from Cincinnati in June 1863. The department of War grants permission for Ohio to form an African American regiment. Beaty and his squad became the 127th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, which was later redesignated as the 5th United States Colored Troops.  Beaty took command of his company at the Battle at Chaffin's Farm in New Market Heights, Virginia after all the officers had been killed and/or wounded. For his bravery, he was awarded the Medal of Honor.

After the war, he returned to Cincinnati, raised a family, and pursued acting and public speaking full time. He gave public readings for charity and was known as a elocutionist for Cincinnati's African American community. In 1884, he and Henrietta Vinton Davis put on a musical and drama festival in Melodeon Hall in Rushville, Indiana; that festival proved to be successful.

Due to the success of the Melodeon Hall festival, opportunity came calling for Beaty  in Washington, D.C. He was invited to do Shakespearean productions, with his work taking him particularly to Ford's Theater, and even toured with Davis in Philadelphia before moving back to Cincinnati to live the rest of his life. Upon his return to Cincinnati, he helped form the Literary and Dramatic Club and became the organizations dramatic director in 1888.

His son A. Lee. Beaty became an Ohio state legislator and an assistant U.S. District Attorney for southern Ohio under Haveth E Mau.