Complex sentence: The youth worked in salt furnaces and coal mines in West Virginia for several years, then made his way east to Hampton Institute, a school established to educate freedmen, where he worked to pay for his studies.
Split into simpler sentences: The youth worked in salt furnaces and coal mines in West Virginia for several years to earn money. He made his way east to Hampton Institute, a school established to educate freedmen, where he worked to pay for his studies.