The Choctaw Freedmen | Page 8

his Memory. "There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God."
REV. JOHN EDWARDS
Rev. John Edwards, the successor of Rev. Alfred Wright, was a native of Bath, New York. He graduated from the college at Princeton, New Jersey, in 1848, and from the theological seminary there in 1851. He was ordained by the Presbytery of Indian Territory December 11, 1853.
[Illustration: THE CHOCTAW CHURCH, CLEAR CREEK.]
[Illustration: THE CHOCTAW COURT HOUSE, CLEAR CREEK. Both buildings ceased to be used about 1899.]
[Illustration: REV. ALEXANDER REID. Spencer Academy, 1849-1861.]
[Illustration: REV. JOHN EDWARDS. Wheelock Academy, 1853-61; 1882-95.]
He became a teacher at Spencer Academy, north of Fort Towson, in 1851, and continued until 1853, when he became the successor of Rev. Alfred Wright as the stated supply of the Choctaw church and superintendent of the academy at Wheelock. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 he passed to California and after teaching two years in San Francisco, served as stated supply of various churches during the next twenty years, having his residence during the latter part of that period at Oakland.
In 1882 he returned and resumed work among the Choctaws, locating first at Atoka. In 1884 he re-opened the academy at Wheelock, and continued to serve as its superintendent until 1895, when it became a government school. He remained the next year in charge of the church. He then returned to California and died at San Jose, at 75, December 18, 1903.
In 1897, Rev. Evan B. Evans, supplied the Choctaw church at Wheelock one year. As its membership of 60 consisted principally of students living at a distance, and they were absent most of the year, the services were then discontinued. A few years later the services were resumed at the town of Garvin, where another stone church was built in 1910, during the efficient ministry of Rev. W. J. Willis.
SPENCER ACADEMY
Rev. Alexander Reid, principal of Spencer Academy, was a native of Scotland, and came to this country in his boyhood. He graduated from the college at Princeton, N. J., in 1845, and the theological seminary there, three years later. He was ordained by the Presbytery of New York in 1849 and accepting a commission to serve as a missionary to the Indians of the Choctaw Nation in Indian Territory, was immediately appointed superintendent of Spencer Academy, ten miles north of Fort Towson.
He was accompanied by Rev. Alexander J. Graham, a native of Newark, New Jersey, who served as a teacher in the academy. The latter was a roommate of Reid's at Princeton seminary, and his sister became Reid's wife. At the end of his first year of service he returned to Lebanon Springs, New York, for the recovery of his health, and died there July 23, 1850. Rev. John Edwards immediately became his successor as a teacher.
Alexander Reid while pursuing his studies, learned the tailor's trade at West Point and this proved a favorable introduction to his work among the Choctaws. They were surprised and greatly pleased on seeing that he had already learned the art of sitting on the ground "tailor fashion" according to their own custom.
The academy under Reid enjoyed a prosperous career of twelve years. In 1861, when the excitement of war absorbed the attention of everybody, the school work was abandoned. Reid, however, continued to serve as a gospel missionary among the Indians until 1869, when he took his family to Princeton, New Jersey, to provide for the education of his children.
While ministering to the spiritual needs of the Indians his sympathies and interest were awakened by the destitute and helpless condition of their former slaves. In 1878 he resumed work as a missionary to the Choctaws making his headquarters at or near Atoka and in 1882 he was appointed by the Foreign Mission Board, superintendent of mission work among the Freedmen in Indian Territory. In this capacity he aided in establishing neighborhood schools wherever teachers could be found. In order that a number of them might be fitted for teaching, he obtained permission of their parents to take a number of bright looking and promising young people to boarding schools, maintained by our Freedmen's Board in Texas, Mississippi and North Carolina. He thus became instrumental in preparing the way, and advised the development of the native Oak Hill School into an industrial and normal boarding school.
In 1884, owing to failing health, he went to the home of his son, Rev. John G. Reid (born at Spencer Academy in 1854), at Greeley, Colorado, and died at 72 at Cambridgeport, near Boston, July 30, 1890.
"He was a friend to truth, of soul sincere, of manners unaffected and of mind enlarged, he wished the good of all mankind."
UNCLE WALLACE AND AUNT MINERVA
Uncle Wallace and Aunt Minerva were two of the colored workers that were employed at Spencer Academy, before the war.