Читать книгу The Choctaw Freedmen and the Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy - Robert Elliott Flickinger - Страница 70

Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury, a generous hearted missionary to the Indians, having charge of a church building at Doaksville, encourages the slaves in the vicinity to meet in it occasionally on Sabbath afternoons, for the purpose of receiving instruction in the Bible and shorter catechism.

This Bible instruction does not result in the organization of a church at that place, but opportunity is given for the manifestation and development of the religious instinct of a number of persons, amongst whom there are two young men, who were destined later to become influential leaders among the enslaved people whom they represented.

After their emancipation, one locates on the west bank of the Kiamichi river and later becomes known as Parson Stewart, the organizer and circuit rider of a sufficient number of churches, at the time of his decease in 1896, to form the Presbytery of Ki a mich i.

The other, accompanied by several personal friends, migrates fifteen miles eastward and founds a home in the Oak Hill neighborhood. In the course of a short time he is visited by the parson and his home becomes a house of worship, where a church is organized and Henry Crittenden is ordained as its ruling elder.

A Sunday school for Bible instruction follows the establishment of public worship, and two years later it is followed by the establishment of a week-day school, for the benefit of all the children and youth in the neighborhood. Eight years later, when the trained missionary teacher arrives, the inspiration of a new life is infused into the church and Sunday school, and the week-day school becomes an important industrial academy, where the Bible is the basis of the moral and religious instruction. In 1905 they receive an allotment of lands that they may become independent owners of their own homes. In 1908 statehood brings the rural public school and in 1912, an intelligent Freedman is entrusted with the management of the Industrial Academy, church and farm.

This sequence of events includes the dark period of slavery and illiteracy followed by instruction in the Bible, the light of the world; the development of the native preacher of the gospel as a leader, the organization of the church, followed by the Sunday school, the week-day school, the academy, normal, public school and finally a native superintendent of the academy and independent ownership of land.