"Floating Freedom School"

Was an educational facility for free and enslaved African Americans on a steamboat on a steamboat on the Mississippi River.It was established in 1847 by the Baptist minister John Berry Meachum. After John's death in 1854,the Freedom School was taken over by Reverend John R.Anderson, a former student,

and closed sometime after 1860.

In 1847,John was forced to close the school he had been operating in a St.Louis 

church basement.Earlier that year,the Missouri legislature had passed a law that made it illegal to provide "the instruction of negroes or mulattoes,in reading or writing.John was and one of his teachers were arrested by the sheriff and threatened.

To circumvent the new state law in Missouri,Reverend Meachum bought a steamboat which he anchored in the middle of the Mississippi River,thus 

placing it under the authority of the federal government.The new floating 

"Freedom School" was outfitted with desks,chairs,and a library.Students were 

ferried back and forth  between St.Louis in smallskiffs.The school eventually attracted teachers from the East.

Hundreds of African American children were educated at the Freedom School in the 1840s and 1850s.Those who could pay were charged one dollar a month.

One of the early students was James Milton Turner,who would go on to establish 

30 new schools for African Americans in Missouri after the Civil War.Another 

was John R.Anderson,who received much of his reading and religious and training from the school.Reverend Anderson later took over management of the school after John's death.School attendance dropped of just before the Civil War,with 155 African American children enrolled in 1860.

The exact location of where the school was anchored in the Mississippi River is unknown.Possibilities include near where John built steamboats (also unknown),

up north near Alton illinois,or somewhere else near St.Louis.