Born Aug 9, 1835 .. Danville, Va.
Died Jan 1 1917 .. Kansas
Born August 9th, 1935 in Danville Va. His mother died 2 years later giving birth to his brother John.
Alfred's family operated a plantation and factory making plug tobacco. The Jarrell family disapproved of slavery, and freed their slaves 2 years before the civil war, and then hired their former slaves to work for the plantation and factory.
At age 12, Alfred's father died from a sudden hear attack. As a young adult, he moved to Indiana to work for a man who taught him the millwright business. He later joined his brother, Sanford, on a farm in Atchison, KS.
When the Civil War broke out. Alfred and Sanford enlisted. Alfred served in Company A, 6th Regiment, Kansas Cavalry from 1 Aug 1861 to 15 Nov 1864. He enlisted again on 11 Mar 1865 as a private on the Hancock Corps stationed in Washington, DC, and was on guard duty the night President Lincoln was shot (though not guarding the President!). It is said that he served as one of the guards over Lincolns body.
Alfred Jarrell staked his claim to the quarter section that this house would eventually sit on in the first Oklahoma Land Run, April 22 1889 and was deeded the 160 acres in Payne County, OK on 3 Nov 1891.
According to the homesteading laws of that time, A homesteader could 'prove up' by making certain improvements to their claim and by living on that claim for 5 years, or by living on the property for 1 year, and paying a fee of $1.25 per acre. Union veterans of the civil war had a special privilege. After 1 year of living on a claim, and making the required improvements, they could reduce the remaining required time by 1 year for every year of their service to the Union army during the Civil War. Hence Alfred Jarrell, having made the required improvements and with his several years of service, 'proved up' in 1 year. On November 3rd. 1891 he was issued his 'final certificate' #89 making him one of the first 100 people to officially turn their claim into a deed and now own their land in Oklahoma.
On 25 Nov 1891, he deeded 40 acres of his land to the Oklahoma Agricultural College at Stillwater. "Theta Pond" sits on part of that land. His son, Edwin, was in the first class of 6 to attend Oklahoma A&M in 1892. Classes were held in local churches durring those first years of Oklahoma A&M. The first academic building, later known as Old Central, was constructed and dedicated on June 15, 1894, on the southeast corner of campus.
Edwin Jarrell, age 20, was in the first graduating class of Oklahoma A&M in 1896.
Alfred Jarrell's daughter, Mary Winnetta Jarrell also attended Oklahoma A&M, and was the first woman/co-ed in 1903 to earn a diploma at Oklahoma A&M, as well as find a husband at the new college. Her future husband, Thomas Jefferson Hartman (class of 1898) were both early graduates.
Thanks to the foresight and generosity of Alfred Jarrell, and other men like him, Oklahoma had higher education nearly two decades before it became a state. Think of the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of students that have gone to Oklahoma A&M (and Oklahoma State University as it has been renamed).
The first students graduated from OAMC in 1896. The graduation class included six men, and the graduation ceremonies were held in the College Building, which is now Old Central. Pictured here, standing left to right, are James H. Adams, Arthur W. Adams, Ervin G. Lewis and Oscar M. Morris. Seated left to right are Alfred E. Jarrell and Frank E. Duck.
The first class at Oklahoma A & M College consisted of six men and two women. The women, however, had to drop out of school just before graduation. Emma Smith dropped out to tend to an illness in her family and Kate Neal had dropped out on account of an illness herself. This left the first graduating class to hold Arthur W. Adams, James H. Adams, Frank E. Duck, Alfred E. Jarrell, Ervin G. Lewis and Oscar M. Morris.
A critical player in the development of the Edmon Low Library was the father of Alfred E. Jarrell, a member of OAMC’s first graduating class. Jarrell’s father donated most of the land to the college where the library stands. Jarrell spoke of the days when the library was found in Old Central, saying “where possible, we would sign for the book, take it home, put our feet in the oven of the old wood burning cook stove, and make our notes in comfort!” Pictured is Alfred E. Jarrell at the groundbreaking of what would be the Edmon Low Library.