Angela Matthews, for Black Heritage Trail of NH

On May 26, 1926, Portsmouth’s Elizabeth Ann Virgil became the first African American to graduate from the University of New Hampshire, where she majored in home economics and was active in several music clubs including the Treble Clefs, a group she helped to found.

White social conventions at the time prohibited Elizabeth from teaching in New Hampshire and necessitated her moving to the South to teach in segregated schools in Virginia and Maryland. She was an exceptional teacher and was sent by her school district for advanced courses at Columbia Teachers College. In the late 1930s she gave up teaching and returned to Portsmouth to care for her mother. She held various positions with small local businesses as well as clerk-typist in the Programming Department at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. In 1951 she took a job as secretary in the Soil Conservation Department of UNH where she worked for twenty-two years until her retirement in 1973.

Elizabeth Virgil’s portrait hangs near the entrance to the Dimond Library. Unveiled at a reception in 1991, the painting by Grant Drumheller depicts her beloved piano and surrounds her serene presence with roses and lilacs. The university bestowed the honor in recognition of “the barriers she had overcome and the trail she had blazed as the first Black woman to graduate from the institution.”

Miss Virgil, as she was known by all, established a scholarship fund in honor of her mother, Alberta Curry Virgil, who was born the daughter of a former slave. “She encouraged us on so many impossible things because she believed that God was with us,” said Miss Virgil. “I had opportunities offered to me that I never dreamed possible. I set up the fund especially for my people, but it’s for anybody who wants it.”

Miss Virgil was a bold pioneer who spent her life side-stepping the limitations of racism or combating in her own way its subtle or overtly hateful aspects. She was a woman of many talents and sang in several community and church choirs including North Congregational Church, York Congregational Church and the Rockingham Choral Group. Highly regarded for her leadership, Miss Virgil held a position on the UNH President’s Council and volunteered at every opportunity, beginning in high school, with the Red Cross.

–Angela Matthews has volunteered for  PBHT and BHTNH since the 1990s.  She has served as a tour guide, grant writer, fundraiser, and speaker and was an incorporator of PBHT in the 1990s and in 2016 an incorporator of BHTNH, then serving on the first board of directors. 

This article is part of an ongoing series aimed at highlighting and honoring the stories of notable Black historical figures and families who helped shape New Hampshire and Maine. These stories were originally collected by the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire for a project with the Episcopal Church of New Hampshire. Stories are being shared with the partners in The Granite State News Collaborative."