Greek-American physician and educator (1820–1898)
John Celivergos Zachos (; December 20, 1820 – March 20, 1898) was a Greek-American physician, literary scholar, elocutionist, author, lecturer, inventor, and educational pioneer. He was an early proponent of equal education rights for African Americans and women. During the American Civil War, he was the superintendent at Port Royal and a main figure in the Port Royal Experiment. In his book, " Phonic Primer and Reader" he developed a special system to educate freed slaves. He advocated and expanded the oratory systems of François Delsarte and James Rush.
He was born in Constantinople modern-day Istanbul to Greek parents. Both his parents participated in the Greek War of Independence and migrated to Greece after the outbreak of war. His father died during the war and he was given to Samuel Gridley Howe by his mother. He was a young refugee traveling to the United States of America. In America, he was educated at Mount Pleasant Classical Institute and one of his teachers included Gregory Anthony Perdicaris. At the academy, he also met Chauncey Colton whom he followed around the country to different educational institutions one was outside of Philadelphia and the latter was Kenyon College in Gambier Ohio. Zachos attended Kenyon College and graduated with honors and also obtained a medical degree but did not practice medicine because of his love for literature and teaching. He became an Army surgeon during the American Civil War serving primarily at Port Royal. Zachos became a Unitarian Minister, briefly taught at Cornell, and finally settled in New York City where he was the curator of the library at Cooper Union and a professor at the institution until his death.
He was the fourth honorary member of the National Association of Elocutionists. Zachos was one of the founders of the Beta Theta Pi Society, the Literary Club of Cincinnati, and the Ohio Society of New York. He developed the Zachos Method which is outlined in his book "The New American Speaker". The technique uses an acting method for public speech and the book features a large assortment of Shakespearean monologues. As an inventor, he invented the stenotype. His nephew George Canfield Blickensderfer later invented the blickensderfer typewriter. Zachos' daughter Helena Zachos continued his work as a prominent elocutionist. The Helena Zachos Award at Wells College was named after her. He died in New York City at 77 years old.
Early life.
Zachos was born in Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. His parents were Nicholas and Euphrosyne Zachos. They were from Athens. Nicholas Zachos was a general in the Greek army during the Greek War of Independence, where he was killed in battle in 1824.
Samuel Gridley Howe an American surgeon and Philhellene was also fighting for Greek independence. He brought John Celivergos Zachos along with other young Greek people back to the United States to educate them.
Namely traveling with Zachos and Howe was a young refugee who survived the Chios massacre named Christophoros Castanes. In 1851, he wrote a book on his travels called "The Greek Exile, Or, a Narrative of the Captivity and Escape of Christophorus Plato Castanis." This book includes John C. Zachos and other Greek children.
Education and marriage.
In 1830, Zachos was in the United States. He was placed in Mount Pleasant Classical Institute in Amherst Massachusetts with Christophorus P. Castanis and other Greek children. Their instructors were Gregory Anthony Perdicaris and Petros Mengous and the assistant principal and founder was Chauncey Colton D. D. Zachos later traveled to an Episcopalian institution twenty miles north of Philadelphia. Bristol Manual Labor College, Dr Colton was the founder and President it combined manual labor and study. He remained there from 1833 to 1836.
By 1837 Zachos again followed Dr. Colton to Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. Chauncey Colton D. D. took a position as Professor of Homiletics at the institution. Zachos' classmates included Rutherford B. Hayes and Stanley Matthews. He graduated from the institution by 1840 with honors. Zachos gave two commencement speeches one was in Classical Greek and the other was in English. As a young adult, he was noted for fine speaking, he won prizes whenever he competed. He was the founder of the Society of Kenyon College.
By now, Zachos and Matthews were close friends and the two lived together in Cincinnati, Matthews's hometown. Matthews pursued a law degree under Salmon P. Chase and Zachos was a teacher, while he continued a graduate Degree at Kenyon College. Colton also traveled to Cincinnati. He founded a few schools where Professor Zachos also taught.
By 1843, Zachos finished his second degree from Kenyon College. By now Zachos enrolled in Medical School under the prominent Dr. Reuben D. Mussey where he continued his studies for three years. By the late 1840s, Zachos decide not to practice medicine due to his love for teaching and literature.
Zachos, Stanley Matthews (judge), Ainsworth Rand Spofford, and nine others founded the Literary Club of Cincinnati in 1849. One year later Rutherford B. Hayes became a member. Other prominent members included William Howard Taft and notable club guests Ralph Waldo Emerson, Booker T. Washington, Mark Twain, and Robert Frost.
He married Harriet Tompkins Canfield Zachos on July 26, 1849. Harriet Tompkins was born on January 15, 1824, to George Washington Canfield and Catherine A Clark. Harriet's second cousin John Caldwell Canfield married Ella Todd, Abraham Lincoln's niece. Harriet Canfield and John Zachos had six children born between 1850 and 1865. His daughter Mary Helena Zachos became an American college professor and elocutionist. His son Ainsworth was named after close friend and abolitionist Ainsworth Rand Spofford.
Middle years.
By 1850, Zachos was the co-owner and principal of the Cincinnati Female Seminary on the southeast corner of Ninth and Walnut. The school was founded by Miss Margaret Coxe in 1843. Together they were also co-principals of Cooper Female Institute in Dayton Ohio.
Zachos was very active in Ohio during the 1850s. He was involved with the Ohio State Teachers Association and created the Association for Advancement of Female Education. Zachos was also the editor of the Ohio Journal of Education.
During the early 1850s Zachos wrote several books: "The New American Speaker" and "Introductory Lessons in Reading and Elocution".
Educator Horace Mann, a fellow Bostonian and close friend to Samuel Gridley Howe, took a position at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Mann invited Zachos to the college. Zachos became a principal of the preparatory school in 1854 but remained at the post for three years because Mann could not secure his tenure. At Antioch College, Zachos read Shakespeare and lectured courses on the English Poets. During his time at the institution, Zachos stayed busy traveling around Ohio with his many other organizations.
By 1857 Zachos moved back to Cincinnati he took random teaching jobs and wrote four more books before the onset of the Civil war. "The Primary School Speaker", "The High School Speaker", "The Analytic and Phonetic Word Book and Analytic Elocution". At this point Zachos was perfecting public speech and education.
American Civil War.
At the onset of the Civil War, Zachos was summoned by close friend Salmon P. Chase to go to Port Royal. He was formally sent by the Boston and New York Education Commissions to prove the former slaves could be educated. On March 13, 1862, Zachos was on Parris Island in command of 400 freed slaves on a plantation. Zachos spent a total of 16 months at Parris Island. Zachos took on many roles during this time, he was an Army Surgeon, Teacher, Store Keeper. The military stronghold was supervised by Zachos under General Rufus Saxton. He is noted for writing and reciting poetry to the freed slaves.
"Ye sons of burning Afric's soil,"
"Lift up your hands of hardened toil"
"Your shouts from every hill recoil"
"Today you are free"
Zachos left Parris Island towards the end of 1863 to conclude the experiment. While he was at Port Royal he studied the difficulties former slaves encountered with learning how to read. Namely, older slaves had a hard time due to years of torture and psychological abuse.
Zachos traveled back to Boston. He lived in the neighborhood where he grew up and where Samuel Gridley Howe still maintained a residence. During the beginning of 1864, Zachos assembled a group of uneducated immigrants, both male and female. The test subjects did not speak or read English.
Zachos, with the knowledge he acquired from the former slaves, put together a curriculum to instruct the test subjects. Because he did not have a book he used charts and the chalkboard. The students had to wait until March 1864 to receive the first book which had an extremely long title " The Phonic Primer and Reader, A National Method of teaching Reading by the Sounds of the Letters without altering the Orthography. Designed Chiefly for the Use of Night-Schools Where Adults are Taught, and for the Myriads of Freed Men and Women, Whose First Rush from the Prison-House of Slavery is to the Gates of the Temple of Knowledge".
The test concluded that the new technique he created during his time at Port Royal was effective enough to teach adults. It was a simple teaching method. The method employed a unique phonic education technique of teaching English reading by sounds of letters. That same year an official book was published to educate the former adult slaves. "Phonic Primer and Reader". Thus was coined the phrase: The Port Royal Experiment. After his work Salmon P. Chase gave Zachos an extraordinary recommendation.
Career and later life.
Another notable Greek American abolitionist was a resident of Boston around this period. His name was Chaplain Photius Fisk. Zachos continued living in Boston for another two years. He became a Unitarian Minister. He gave twelve lectures at the Lowell Institute. Both Samuel Gridley Howe and Zachos Departed Boston at around the same time. Samuel Gridley Howe traveled back to Greece to carry relief to the Cretan refugees and Zachos moved to Meadville Lombard Theological School.
In May 1866, he became the Professor of Sacred Rhetoric. While at the Theological School he established another Literary Society. American author, historian, and Unitarian minister Edward Everett Hale spoke very highly of John C. Zachos. 
Historian Earl Morse Wilbur describes Zachos call to minister at the Independent Congregational Church (Unitarian) of Meadville (Pennsylvania), writing: "A call was given, January 28, 1866, to the Rev. John Celivergos Zachos of West Newton, Mass. He accepted the call and began his ministry here at the beginning of May, at a salary of $1500, in addition to the rents of the minister's house, and with four weeks' annual vacation." Wilbur wrote further:Something of the schoolmaster was apparent in his style of preaching. He was a versatile man, with an uncommonly wide range of interests; a Greek in temperament as well as by birth, fond of abstract themes, and inclined to consider subjects rather from the philosophical or speculative than from the practical side. Yet, though fluent in language, he was not considered an especially strong preacher, nor yet a superior pastor. In addition to the work of his ministry, he was professor of Sacred Rhetoric and Oratory in the Theological School during the two years of his residence here, and continued to hold this office during the year after his departure, returning to give lectures. To him, it is said, is due the suggestion that led to the forming of the Meadville Literary Union in December, 1866. Mr. Zachos resigned in July, 1868, and left Meadville at the beginning of October, in order to accept a call to the church at Ithaca, N. Y. His departure was generally lamented, as the loss of a faithful minister who was ready to devote himself to every good cause, and who had endeared himself to all classes by his affable manner and his kindness of heart.
By 1868 Zachos moved to Ithaca, New York to the Ithaca Chapter of the Theological Seminary. He remained associated with the former institution until 1871. While at Ithaca Zachos also lectured and taught classes at the newly founded Cornell University.
In 1871, now 51 he moved to New York City where he would stay until the time of his death. Peter Cooper and John C. Zachos became good friends. Zachos influenced the foundation of Cooper Union. He taught literature and public speech. In 1876 he was Peter Cooper's first biographer. He was a Professor and Library Curator at Cooper Union.
Zachos invented