On October 8, 1846 Lewis Grout was ordained a Congregational minister. On the same day he married Lydia Bates in Springfield, Vermont and the newly married couple traveled to Boston that evening. Two days later they boarded a ship bound for South Africa. Lewis was 31 years old and Lydia was 28. The two missionaries were traveling to Port Natal on the southeastern tip of the African continent. Their goal was to live with the native people and introduce Christianity to the region. The British had been colonizing South Africa for forty years and this missionary effort was part of their campaign. They were looking for marketable resources, a trade route to India, and an opportunity to spread the Christian religion.
Two months of sailing brought the Grouts to Cape Town, South Africa. A six week layover in Cape Town acclimated the New England pair to the climate and culture of a different part of the world. The next leg of the trip to Natal seemed short on the map but the rough, long passage by schooner took more than a month. The newly married couple reached their destination on February 14, 1847. It had taken four months to arrive in the place that would become their home for the next fifteen years.
At first the couple lived in a tented wagon. It was months before a wooden three room cottage was constructed and a chapel, which also served as a school, was completed. This became the Umlazi Mission Station in Natal, South Africa. Umlazi is the Zulu word for “Star”.
On July 27, 1847 Annie Grout was born to the missionary couple. Annie would be their only child to survive the African experience. An eighteen month old son born a few years later would succumb to illness.
Annie Grout became a member of the mission. From a young age she helped her mother in school. Instruction in reading, writing, and sewing were mainstays of the program. The mission also introduced extensive monoculture gardening to the natives. Sweet potato and corn were presented as food staples. Much of Annie’s missionary work was devoted to raising plants, preparing foods, and introducing a more sedentary agriculture to the native population.
Lewis Grout wrote at least five books about his South African experiences, including a Zulu translation of the Bible. In one of his publications Grout shared that trade, in the form of goods transported to and from Europe, increased threefold during his fifteen years in South Africa. The major South African exports included wool, ivory, sugar and other agricultural products. Spreading Christianity also proved profitable.
The Grouts found that the Zulus found some of the items they brought with them useful. Many natives did not accept the religious Gospel preached by the Grouts but they appreciated their grinding stone, tools and agricultural practices. After fifteen years of service in South Africa the Grouts decided to return to Vermont.
When the Grouts left the Umlazi Mission there were forty six native residents from fourteen families who lived at the settlement. Eight other churches had been established in the region and they averaged another twelve members at each of the churches.
The Grouts arrived in Brattleboro in 1862. Annie would turn fifteen that summer. She attended the Glenwood Seminary for two years and then went to Mount Holyoke Seminary for four years. During these years she would teach a session of public school in one of the surrounding towns and then attend a session at Mount Holyoke for her own betterment.
In 1865 the American Missionary Association called on Lewis Grout to serve as New England representative and agent for the work they were doing to assist newly freed African Americans at the end of the Civil War. The American Missionary Association worked closely with the federal government in their Reconstruction efforts in the South. Reverend Grout raised mission campaign funds from the 400 Congregational Churches in Vermont and New Hampshire. He also traveled to other New England states on behalf of the AMA.
In Reverend Grout’s autobiography he wrote that he found fulfillment “in pleading the cause of the African, Indian and Chinese on these American shores.” He went on to say that once his family returned from Africa he spent almost twenty years aiding and supporting these marginalized people.
In 1871, at the age of 24, Annie Grout opened a private boarding school, the Belair Institute, in her family’s home in West Brattleboro. Annie was the principal of the school and her mother helped with some of the residential and administrative duties. At the time, the Grouts lived in the house that is presently across the street from the entrance to Green Meadow Road.
The school operated for four years and then Mrs. Lydia Grout became too frail to continue in her supportive capacity. Annie took a teaching job in Philadelphia for a year and then moved to Georgia to work at Atlanta University.
Atlanta University began in 1865. It was founded by the American Missionary Association and was one of the original Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Annie was an English teacher. The University was the first graduate institution serving a predominantly African American student body. By the mid-1870’s it had begun granting bachelor’s degrees and supplying African American teachers to public schools throughout the South.
Annie Grout remained at the University until the end of Reconstruction in 1877. During that year the last federal troops were withdrawn from the South and the Georgia state legislature voted to create a poll tax. This effectively shut African Americans out of the election process.
Intimidation and violence directed towards African Americans, and their supporters, made life in the South dangerous for people like Annie Grout. Her father requested that she return home to avoid the growing threats and intimidation. Annie returned to Brattleboro and took a job working for George Crowell’s publication, “The Household”.
Annie began to pursue the interests she first developed while living in South Africa. She discovered a rare fern that was verified by the world-renowned botanist Charles Frost. She also displayed a large variety of rare flowers at the Valley Fair and oversaw an extensive flower and vegetable garden at her family’s new home on the corner of what was then Main Street and Bonnyvale Road in West Brattleboro.
Annie was also a founding member and secretary of Brattleboro’s Women’s Club, a teacher at the Congregational Sunday School, a member of the Vermont Botanical Club, and secretary/treasurer of the local branch of the American Society of Bird Restorers.
Annie also carried on her youthful missionary practices by raising funds for the McIntosh School in Georgia. This African American school was also supported by the American Missionary Association and Annie served as New England regional fundraiser for the school.
In 1901, at the age of 53, Annie Grout came down with the flu. It progressed to pneumonia and within five days she passed away. Her mother had died four years earlier. Many people remembered her contributions to young people, her commitment to social justice and her love of the natural world. She is buried with her parents in the West Brattleboro Cemetery.