The Teamoh Incident

A Virginia governor invites a delegation of the Massachusetts legislature to his mansion, but upon arrival excludes the only black representative.

Entirely too much prominence has been given to the Teamoh incident. We do not see how Governor O’Ferrall could have done otherwise than have treated the Negro representatives from Massachusetts with official courtesy. After inviting a delegation of members of the Massachusetts Legislature to the mansion in ignorance that one of the number was a Negro, he would have refused to entertain the party after arrival, and would have been open to just criticism from those who have tried hard to give undue prominence to the occurrence.
Governor O’Ferrall’s views upon social equality are well known in Virginia, and it is not necessary for him to offer an uncalled for insult to a Northern Commonwealth in order to emphasize those views and gain any cheap applause from those ignorant of polite proprieties.
No one reveres any less the memory of one of Virginias most distinguished sons because he raised his hat to the humblest Negro who saluted him, and none, whose good opinion is worth having will think any the less of Governor O’Ferral for having acted like a Virginia gentleman under exceedingly trying circumstances.
The bad taste shown by the Massachusetts gentlemen and the cheeky presumption of Teamoh would not have warranted the Governor in losing sight of the fact that they were his guests and he Virginia’s chief officer.

“The Teamoh Incident,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed January 20, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1387.