James Augustine Healy - Youth, Education

Youth, Education

James Healy was the eldest of 10 siblings born near Macon, Georgia, in 1839 to Michael Morris Healy, an Irish immigrant plantation owner, and his common-law wife Eliza Smith, a mixed-race African American slave. Born in 1795, the senior Healy immigrated from County Roscommon in Ireland in 1818. He eventually acquired 1,500 acres (6.1 km2) of land in Jones County, Georgia, across the Ocmulgee River from the market town of Macon. He became among the more prominent and successful planters of the area, and eventually owned 49 slaves for his cotton plantation, which was labor intensive. Among these was a young slave woman named Mary Eliza Smith, whom he took as his wife in 1829. Various accounts have described Ms. Smith as "slave" or "former slave", and as mulatto or African American (the latter term includes people of mixed ancestry). The common-law marriage of Michael and Mary Healy was not such an unusual occurrence among immigrants; state law prohibited interracial marriage. Most of their ten children, all but one of whom survived to adulthood, achieved noteworthy success as adults, helped by Healy's financial success and the educations he ensured for them in the North.

Beginning in 1837, like many other wealthy planters with mixed-race children, Michael Healy started sending his sons to school in the North. James, Hugh and Patrick went to Quaker schools in Flushing, New York. Later they each attended the newly opened College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. James graduated as valedictorian of the college's first graduating class in 1849. Younger brothers Sherwood began at Holy Cross in 1844, and Michael in 1849, in its grammar school.