Merze Tate

	Merze Tate

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Doraville Whitney was the first Black settler in Isabella County in 1860. The first documentation of an African-American settler in Mecosta County Michigan was James Guy. His deed was signed by Abraham Lincoln. He obtained 160 acres in Wheatland Township on May 30, 1861. Lloyd & Margaret Guy were the first Black settlers in Montcalm County in 1861. The Homestead Act of 1862 allowed each settler 160 acres in Michigan. By 1873 African-Americans owned 1,392 acres in the three counties of Isabella, Mecosta and Montcalm. In the 1860's most of the land in Remus was owned by the Old Settlers.

Merze Tate

(1905 - 1996)

Vernie Merz Tate, daughter of Charles and Myrtle (Lett) Tate, was born February 6, 1905, in the rural Blanchard, Michigan area. She began her education at age 5 in a one-room framed building located on a corner acre of her family's farm. Merze was eager to learn as a small child and her interests only increased as she gained further knowledge of far away places and things.

She received a tuition scholarship from Western Michigan Teachers' College where she received her teachers' diploma. She taught for one year in Cass County while continuing classes through correspondence. She returned to Western and gained permission from the college president to accelerate her subjects and completed the four year Bachelor of Arts requirements in three years. She earned the highest scholastic record at Western and became the first "Colored" American at Western Michigan Teachers' College to earn a Bachelor of Arts Degree. During the 1920's Black teachers could not teach at the high school level. She accepted a contract in Indianapolis, Indiana, attended the Teachers College at Columbia University, where she earned a Masters' Degree in 1930.

In 1932 Merze became the first "Colored" American woman to enroll at Oxford University where she studied European diplomatic history, advanced economics and world trade, international relations, and international law. By June 1935 she had completed her studies and received a Bachelor of Literature Degree from Oxford, becoming the first Black American, man or woman, to receive that degree. She also studied German at the University of Berlin. The position of Dean of Women and an opening to teach history at Barber-Scotia College in Concord, North Carolina, was fulfilled as Merze began her career in teaching at the college level.

Professor Tate obtained her Ph.D. in government at Harvard University, and Radcliff College. She taught at Morgan State College and accepted the position as Dean of Women. Following that position Miss Tate joined the Department of History at Howard University, where she continued her career until her retirement in 1977.

Dr. Tate was the author of seven books, published by Macmillan, Harvard University Press, and Yale University Press and has received many grants for her research and scholarship.

Merze was born among the pine trees of Michigan. She grew up in a frame house built from pine lumber. She attended a grade school built of the same pine timber that stood near a grove of pine trees. Merze was laid to rest in a pine coffin in Pine River Cemetery near Blanchard, Michigan.

Source: The Old Settlers: A Nation Within Itself (1988)


	Merze Tate

There are "Old Settlers" who came from Canada via "The Underground Railroad." It was the most dramatic nonviolent protest against slavery in the United States that began in the Colonial Era and reached its peak between 1830 and 1865. An estimated 30,000 to 100,000 slaves used the "railroad" to get to Canada; many others escaped to Mexico, the Caribbean, and Europe.