Biography of Solomon H. Buchanan

Solomon Buchanan
Solomon Buchanan

Solomon H. Buchanan is a native of Glen Rose, Somervell County, Texas. At the age of eight he was bereft of both of his parents, and those, into whose care he drifted, were not willing he should learn a letter. By some means he attracted the favorable notice of Miss Mary A. Pearson, a missionary of our Home Mission Board. Furnishing him the funds for the trip, she sent him at the age of 18 in 1903, to Oak Hill Academy with request to become an earnest Christian teacher. At the Academy Mrs. Mary R. Scott of Pittsburgh became his teacher. She taught him his letters and first lessons in spelling and reading, giving him considerable time and attention, while the other boys were playing. Perceiving his special fondness for music, she taught him the chords on the piano, and thus gave him a start on that noble instrument, which has ever since been his favorite.

He has always found the study of books a rather difficult task, owing to the lack of early training in them; but he has proved a good student and a very valuable helper at the Academy. The longing desire to become a capable and successful teacher, has kept him there, amid all the changes that have occurred since his arrival in 1903. He has now acquired an unusual degree of skill as a performer on the piano and his enthusiastic accompaniments on that noble instrument contributed greatly to the pleasure and delight of the work at the Academy. He has become an earnest worker in the Sunday school and endeavor meetings. He has a strong voice for song or public address, and has become an excellent leader of religious meetings. He served one year as an assistant teacher at the Academy. He has proved himself a very efficient and valuable helper at the Academy, always looking after the entertainment of visitors.

In 1912 he was ordained an elder of the Oak Hill Church and in May of that year was sent as one of the commissioners of the Presbytery of Kiamichi, to the general assembly at Louisville, Kentucky. Through the courtesy of Rev. E. G. Haymaker, he spent the summer of 1903 at Winona Lake, Ind. He is now serving, as superintendent of the farm work and musical instructor, at the Bethesda Home and school at Wynnewood, Oklahoma.

The boy who wins is,
“Not the one who says, ‘I can’t’;
Nor the one who says, ‘Don’t care;’
Not the boy who shirks his work,
Nor the one who plays unfair.
But the one who says, I can’,
And the one who says, ‘I will;’
He shall be the noble man,
He the place of trust will fill.”


Surnames:
Buchanan,

Collection:
Flickinger, Robert Elliott. Choctaw Freedmen and Oak Hill Industrial Academy, Valliant, Oklahoma. Presbyterian Board of Missions for Freedmen. Pittsburgh. 1914

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