While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
"And Hannah took Samuel to
the Temple of the Lord and said to Eli, the
priest; I have lent him to the Lord as long
as he liveth."
The object of this chapter is to note the
names and careers of a number of the young
people that during the early days were sent
or encouraged to attend other educational
institutions. As early as 1884, two years
before Miss Hartford came to Oak Hill, Rev.
Alexander Reid, of Atoka took the lead in
arranging for two young men to go to Biddle
University, Charlotte, North Carolina, and
five young ladies to Scotia Seminary, at
Concord, North Carolina. Later the teachers
at Oak Hill aided and encouraged others to
attend these and other Christian
institutions of learning established
elsewhere by our Freedmen's Board. The
present is an opportune time for noting the
results, in the way of increased happiness
and added usefulness to these young people
by one or more years of special training in
youth.
In 1884 Richard D. Colbert of the Beaver Dam
Church was sent to the preparatory school at
Biddle University and remained till June
1887. After his return he taught school
eleven years. He was then licensed by the
Presbytery, and has been preaching the
gospel ever since that time.
In 1884 Henry Williams of Doaksville, (Fort
Towson) was sent to Biddle University and
remained three years. On his return he
became a teacher of public school and in
1892 married Annie Ball.
In 1884 Celestine Hodges a daughter of
Samuel and Charlotte Hodges, Wheelock, was
sent to Scotia Seminary and remained four
years. On her return in 1888, she became a
teacher and has been teaching most of the
time since, serving the first two years as
an assistant at Oak Hill.
She became custodian of the buildings, after
the departure of Miss Hartford, and was
teaching the Oak Hill school, when Mr.
McBride arrived a month or so after its
opening. Two years later she founded a
school and Sunday school along Sandy Branch,
that a few years later developed into the
Church, that bears that name. She is now
located upon and improving her own farm
southwest of Antlers.
In 1884 Susan Homer, daughter of Wiley
Homer, Grant, was sent to Scotia Seminary
and remained two years. On her return she
served as a teacher until she married Albert
Brown. She is now a widow, occupying and
improving her own farm, near Grant.
In 1884 Marie Jones and her sister Fannie
Jones, daughters of the late Caroline Prince
(1911), and Virginia Shoals, daughter of J.
Ross and Harriet Shoals, all from the Oak
Hill Church, were sent to Scotia Seminary.
Marie Jones after spending some time at
school engaged in teaching and later became
the wife of Mr. Sands, a Methodist minister,
now located at Kingston, New York.
Fannie Jones remained at Concord, going
to school and working in the city until
1898, when she located at St. Louis, where
she became the wife of Mr. McNair, and
taught school a number of years. She is now
occupying the old home near Oak Hill.
Virginia Shoals, now Mrs. Perry, returned in
1901. She has taught school several years
and is now living on her own allotment of
land near Red River, where she has founded
and is endeavoring to maintain a Christian
home.
Rev. Wiley Homer
Rev. William Butler
Rev. And Harriet Stewart
Edwards
Rev. And Maria Jones Sands
Mary Homer (B. 1873) a daughter of Wiley
Homer, Grant, after completing a course at
Oak Hill attended a Choctaw government
school, 1890 to 1894. She engaged in
teaching until her marriage to Martin
Shoals. She is now improving her own farm
and educating her children at Oak Hill.
Hattie Homer (B. 1876), a sister of Mary,
after attending a Choctaw government school
at Grant 1890 to 1894 and completing a
course at Oak Hill, taught school until she
became the wife of Nick Colbert, an elder of
the Beaver Dam Church, after his decease she
married Bud Lewis and is now occupying and
improving her own farm.
Harriet Stewart (B. 1873), and Fidelia
Perkins, daughter and step-daughter of
Parson Stewart, in 1892 were taken by Mrs.
Emma F. McBride, matron, to the Mary Allen
Seminary at Crockett, Texas. They remained
until Harriet was promoted to the senior and
Fidelia to the junior class. Both of them
engaged in teaching.
Harriet Stewart after teaching a few years
in 1898 became the wife of Rev. Pugh A.
Edwards, a minister of the A. M. E. Church
and is now occupying and improving her own
farm near Hugo.
Fidelia in 1900 married Thomas H. Murchison,
and located at Garvin, where she and her
husband have taken a very active part in
promoting the work of the Presbyterian
Church. She served as one of the first
superintendents of the Sunday school and he
as an elder. She is now serving her sixth
year as teacher of the public school at
Millerton. She is a good penman, an
acceptable teacher and is making a record of
commendable usefulness.
Buds Of Promise
Favored Young Choctaw Freedman
Martha Jones, a daughter of
Caroline Prince, and Nannie Harris a
daughter of Charles B. Harris, in 1893, were
sent to Crockett, Texas.
Nannie Harris contracted consumption and
died the next year after returning from the
school, and Martha Jones going with one of
her teachers, located at Frankfort,
Kentucky.
Johnson Shoals, son of J. Ross and Hattie,
was an early pupil at Oak Hill, and an
assistant teacher at that institution during
the last term, 1912-1913. He has enjoyed a
four years' course of study at Tuskeegee,
and four years at the Iowa State
Agricultural College, Ames, Iowa. During the
last four years he has been working on the
old home farm during the summer and teaching
school during the winter, which is an ideal
plan for the average young man to pursue in
early life.
Malinda A. Hall in 1900, after completing
the grammar course at Oak Hill Academy, was
sent by Mrs. Edward G. Haymaker to Ingleside
Seminary at Burkeville, Virginia, where she
graduated in 1904. She has taught public
school one or more years. Commencing in
February 1905 she rendered five years of
faithful and efficient service as teacher of
domestic science and superintendent of the
Christian Endeavor society at Oak Hill
Academy. In 1911 she became the wife of
William Stewart and they are now improving
their own new farm home south of Valliant.
Edward D. Jones, a class mate of Malinda
Hall and native of Bluff, Okla., after
completing the grammar course in 1900,
graduated from Jackson college, Jackson,
Miss., five years later, and in 1909 from
the Medical school at Raleigh, N. C. He has
since been engaged in the practice of
medicine in his native state and is now
located at Nowata, where he has acquired an
extensive and lucrative patronage.
In 1903 when Carrie E. Crowe returned to
Mary Holmes Seminary at West Point, Miss.,
she was instrumental in having Lizzie Watt
and Iserina Folsom, both Oak Hill pupils,
follow her to that institution.
Lizzie Watt was from Arkansas. Going with
her mistress to spend some time at Winona
Lake, Ind., she there met Mrs. M. E. Crowe,
matron at Oak Hill. So great was the
interest awakened she became a pupil at Oak
Hill that fall, and remained until she was
encouraged to go to the Mary Holmes
Seminary. When last heard from, through the
head of that institution, she was teaching
and doing well.
Iserina Folsom, daughter of Moses and Martha
Folsom, after her return from West Point in
1905, married Amos Ward, a farmer, and lives
at Grant.
Samuel A. Folsom of the Forest Church, and
early pupil at Oak Hill, in 1903-5 spent two
years at Biddle University. On his return he
taught one year at Oak Hill Academy, aided
in the erection of the temporary Boys' Hall
after the fire of Nov. 8, 1908; and, serving
as foreman of the carpenters, made it
possible for the superintendent to erect
Elliott Hall in 1910, by employing only the
labor of students and patrons of the
academy. On becoming a member and elder of
the Oak Hill Church, he enjoyed the
privilege of representing the Presbytery in
the General Assembly at Denver in May, 1909.
Returning later in search of health he died
there at 29, Jan. 11, 1912.
George Shoals, in 1903-05, spent two years
at Biddle University. Since his return he
married Redonia Grier and they are now
improving their own farm near Grant.
George Stewart, 1903-5 spent
two years at Tuskegee. In 1910 he married
Ara Brown, an Oak Hill student, and they are
now industriously and successfully improving
their own farm near the academy at Valliant.
In 1904, when the Pittsburgh Mission at
Atoka was closed, Mrs. O. D. Spade, one of
the teachers, took Lucretia C. Brown, a
pupil of eight years, to her home at
Bellefontaine, Ohio, and enabled her to
graduate from the Grammar and High schools
of that city in 1910. In 1912, after
rendering one year of earnest and faithful
service as assistant matron at Oak Hill
Academy, she became the wife of Everett
Richards, one of the older students at Oak
Hill that year; and they are now improving
and enjoying their own farm home near
Lukfata. When their home was gladdened by
the birth of their first born on Christmas
night, 1913, they named it, Lucian Elliott,
in honor of Mrs. Spade, her youthful
benefactress.
Samuel S. Bibbs and Henry D. Prince in 1904
went to Biddle University and remained one
year. Henry, after supporting his venerable
mother until her decease in 1911, is now
industriously engaged in improving his own
farm near the academy. S. S. Bibbs in 1912
married Fannie McElvene, and is now located
at Broken Bow, where he is making a good
record in a new section of the country.
On March 4, 1906, James Stewart and Mary
Garland, two previously promising Oak Hill
students, were married at the academy. They
are now industriously and earnestly
developing a comfortable home on their own
farm.
These incidents relating to the special
education of the first young people among
the Choctaw Freedmen are quite suggestive
and interesting.
These young people may be said to represent
buds of promise found in the wilderness,
where the wild flowers bloom that are cared
for only by a Heavenly Father's eye. They
are transplanted for a time, where they may
receive Bible instruction, industrial
training and a foretaste of the privileges
of an enlightened Christian civilization.
They are then returned to the wilderness
with the Bible in hand, like the Huguenots
and Pilgrim Fathers, when they first came to
America, to become the standard bearers of
truth, purity and industry, founders of
prosperous Christian homes, and intelligent
promoters of the best interests of their
people.
Their education and training was the first
intelligent effort to provide a supply of
competent native teachers and preachers for
the colored people in the south part of the
Choctaw Nation. However humble their station
and limited their attainment, they represent
the first generation of native teachers.
It was also an effort to introduce into the
homes of the people on their return, correct
ideals of an intelligent Christian
civilization. It was the day of small things
and of humble beginnings.
It is encouraging to note that in all
instances where they remained long enough in
school to make sufficient progress, they
became teachers and Sunday school
superintendents on their return to their own
neighborhoods. Some of them are still
teaching and one after teaching eleven years
has made a good record as a faithful
minister of the gospel.
The Presbytery Of Kiamichi,
Garvin, Okla., April, 1914
Wiley Homer,
His People And Chapel At Grant, 1904
Those that have married have
in most instances become the founders of
prosperous Christian homes, and the most
influential leaders in their several
communities. By their industry, frugality
and piety, they are proving themselves, in a
very commendable way, to be "the salt of the
earth and the light of the world," among
their own people.
Several of them died soon
after their return from school. This is a
disappointment that is more deeply felt in
Mission work than elsewhere. The proportion
of short lives in this list is perhaps no
greater than would be found in similar lists
taken from other sections of the country.
Good health and the disposition to take good
care of it are very important assets, on the
part of those who are encouraged to take
special courses of training in missionary
educational institutions.
These incidents were not without their
influence on the mind of Alexander Reid in
leading him to approve the plan of
establishing a boarding school for the
Freedmen in Indian Territory and Oak Hill as
the most needy and favorable location for
it. The Board was maintaining missions at
Muskogee and Atoka, but those locations were
not then attractive. One of his last acts in
1885, his last year, was the purchase of the
Old Log House from Robin Clark for the use
of the school.
Rev. T. K. Bridges
Rev. T. K. Bridges
W. R. Flournoy
Doll Beatty
Rev. P. S. Meadows
James R. Crabtree
The fact this emigration to
distant schools continued, after the
establishment of Oak Hill as a boarding
school, awakens a little surprise. Only a
very limited number of them in later years
remained at Oak Hill to complete the Grammar
course. The good old rule of local
prosperity "Patronize Home Industries," or
institutions, seemed to have been forgotten.
The sentiment began to prevail that any
school abroad was better than one at home.
The general prevalence of this sentiment
tended to put a slight check upon the
successful development of the work at Oak
Hill. It was bereft of the presence and
cooperation of its older and best trained
pupils, just when their example of self
control and habits of study were beginning
to exert a good influence over the new ones.
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includes some historical materials that may imply negative stereotypes
reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. These
items are presented as part of the historical record and should not be
interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in any way endorse the stereotypes
implied .
Choctaw Freedmen and Oak Hill Industrial
Academy, 1914, Robert Elliott Flickinger
