Edwin P. McCabe

Edwin P. McCabe (1850 in Troy, New York – March 12, 1920). As a young man he worked on Wall Street and eventually settled in Chicago in 1872. In Chicago, he was appointed clerk in the Cook County, Illinois office of the U.S. Treasury Department (Taylor). McCabe then traveled to Nicodemus, Kansas in 1878 where he was an attorney and land agent. After two years of residing in Nicodemus he was appointed county clerk of the not long established Graham County, and the next fall he was elected to a full term as county clerk.

At age 32 McCabe was elected Kansas State Auditor, and became the highest ranking African American officeholder outside of the Reconstruction South (AAME). He served two terms as the state auditor and failed to win a third nomination. He then moved to Washington D.C., where he fruitlessly lobbied for an appointment for governor in the new Oklahoma Territory, from President Benjamin Harrison (Taylor). Even though he was not appointed, he moved to the Oklahoma Territory in 1890 still looking to make a difference. He was soon appointed the first Treasurer of Logan County, Illinois. McCabe was also one of three founders of Langston City. The city was an all-black area ten miles northeast of Guthrie. The city was named after a black Virginia Congressman who had pledged his support for a black college in Langston City (Taylor). Finally in 1897, a Colored Agricultural and Normal School was opened, this was later called Langston University. The city was founded on the idea to help stop racial persecution. It was part of a program to create more than twenty-five new “black settlements” within the Oklahoma Indian Territory. McCabe supported the idea of making Oklahoma into an all black state, and wanted to help with the efforts of the idea (Aquilla). Even though this never happened, McCabe played a big role in taking a stand for African American rights in a time where there was a great deal of racial persecution. Edwin P. McCabe died on March 12, 1920 in Chicago, Illinois and was buried in Topeka, Kansas.

References

*Aquilla, Christy. “Chandler: The Ellis Family Story”. 2004. 2006-11-17. [http://www.ellisfamilystory.com/chapter5.htm] .

*Taylor, Quintard. “African American History in the West Vignette: Edwin McCabe.” 2006. University of Washington. 2006-11-16. [http://faculty.washington.edu/qtaylor/aa_Vignettes/mccabe_edwin.htm] .