In 1998 DNA testing of descendants of the Jefferson, Hemings and Woodson male lines showed conclusively that there was no match between the Jefferson and Woodson lines the Woodson male line did show western European paternal ancestry. According to professional historians, this was not supported by known historical evidence. Her father believed that he was the oldest son of Sally Hemings and President Thomas Jefferson this tradition became part of the family's oral history. Additionally, Berlin Crossroads was a prominent spot on the Underground Rail Road, with the Woodson's opening their home to many runaway slaves. Her father and some brothers became black nationalists, which influenced Sarah Woodson's activities as an adult. The nearly two dozen families living there by 1840 established their own school, stores and churches. In 1830 the Woodsons were among the founders of a separate black farming community called Berlin Crossroads, since defunct. They founded the first black Methodist church west of the Alleghenies.
They left Greenbrier County, Virginia, where the Woodsons were one of only two free black families in the entire county. Her parents had moved to the free state of Ohio in 1820 after her father purchased the whole family's freedom for $900. Sarah Jane Woodson, the fifth daughter and youngest child of eleven of Jemima (Riddle) and Thomas Woodson (1790–1879), was born free in Chillicothe, Ohio, on November 15, 1825. She wrote a biography of her husband and his rise from slavery that is included among postwar slave narratives. Early served as national superintendent (1888–1892) of the black division of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), and gave more than 100 lectures across five states. After marrying in 1868 and moving to Tennessee with her minister husband Jordan Winston Early, she was principal of schools in four cities. She also taught for many years in community schools.
A graduate of Oberlin College, where she majored in classics, she was hired at Wilberforce University in 1858 as the first black woman college instructor, and also the first black American to teach at a historically black college or university (HBCU). Sarah Jane Woodson Early, born Sarah Jane Woodson (Novem– August 1907), was an American educator, black nationalist, temperance activist and author.
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