The Choctaw Freedmen Part 13

The trustees chosen at this time were Mitch.e.l.l S. Stewart, formerly an elder, Matt Brown and James R. Crabtree. They were duly authorized to incorporate and manage the erection of the new church building.

THE NATIVE OAK HILL SCHOOL

The Negroes who were slaves of the Indians, about the year 1880 were enrolled and adopted as citizens, by the tribes to which they respectively belonged, and they then became ent.i.tled to a small part of their public school funds. The amount accorded the Choctaw Freedmen was about one dollar a year for a pupil that was enrolled as attending school. This made possible the employment of a teacher for a short term of three months in the vicinity of a few villages, where a large enrollment could be secured, but left unsupplied the greater number living in the spa.r.s.ely settled neighborhoods.

Our Board of Missions for Freedmen, ever since its organization, has made it the duty of every negro minister commissioned by it, to maintain a school in their respective chapels several months each year, in order that the children of the community might have an opportunity to learn to read the Bible.

The first native teacher in the Oak Hill congregation was J. Ross Shoals, one of the elders of the church, who had a large family and princ.i.p.ally of boys. His work was that of a Bible reader or Sunday School teacher. About the year 1876 he began to hold meetings in the south arbor on Sabbath afternoons for the purpose of teaching both old and young to read the Bible with him. Nathan Mattison succeeded him the next year at the same place as a Sabbath school teacher.

In 1878, George M. Dallas, a carpenter, was employed to build a small frame school house on the southwest quarter of section 27, and after its completion he taught that year the first term of week day school among the colored people of that section. Others that succeeded Dallas, as teachers in this frame school house, were Mary Rounds, Henry Williams and Lee Bibbs.

OLD LOG HOUSE

In 1884, Henry Williams transferred the day school to the "old log house" on the northeast quarter of section 29, a mile and a half northwest of the school house. The motive for this change was the fact there was no supply of good water near the school house, while at the new location there was a good well and a large vacant building available for use.

Robin Clark, its owner and last occupant was an active member of the Oak Hill church.

After occupying this building one or two years he moved to another one near Red river and generously tendered the free use of this one for the Oak Hill school. In 1885 Henry Friarson, another native teacher, taught the school in this same "old log house."

All of these native teachers did the best they could, but deeply felt their insufficiency for the task laid on them, by the pressure of an urgent necessity. All had personal knowledge of the existence and unusual privileges afforded the children and youth of the Choctaws at Wheelock and Spencer Academies. It was also easy for them to see that as farmers they succeeded as well in securing good results from the cultivation of the soil as many of their Choctaw neighbors, and this fact tended to increase their desire to have a "fair chance" and equal share in the matter of educational privileges for their children.

The Oak Hill church and school happened to be near the center of the widely scattered group of a half dozen churches that formed the monthly circuit of Parson Charles W. Stewart. All who were interested in securing a good mission school approved this location as the most convenient for all of them, and, heartily uniting in an appeal for one, pledged their united support of it, when it should be established.

APPEAL FOR OAK HILL

The appeal of the Choctaw Freedmen was presented to the Presbyterian Board of Missions for Freedmen by Rev. Alexander Reid and Rev. John Edwards, the missionaries in charge of the Indian work at Spencer and Wheelock Academies, respectively.

In the early days many of the old Negroes were located near these educational inst.i.tutions and they were sometimes sent by their masters to work for the missionaries. These men living in their midst had opportunity to witness their extreme poverty, utter ignorance and general degradation. They also heard their personal appeals for the light of knowledge and Bible truth. Their sympathetic interest was awakened and began to manifest itself towards them.

They were occasionally accorded the privilege of attending religious services, and at Doaksville, during the ministry of Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury, were permitted to hold occasional Sabbath afternoon meetings in the Choctaw church. Primers, catechisms and testaments were sometimes presented to them, and in this way a few of them learned to read the Bible. The kindly interest of these missionaries won their esteem and confidence and awakened in many of them an abiding love and affection for the Presbyterian church.

It is related that when one of them was asked to unite with another church because it was "more free" he replied, "You are too free for me, I need a stricter church. I believe in staying by the old missionaries.

They were our friends when we were slaves. They treated us well and did us good, and I mean to stay by their church as long as I live."

SLAVERY AMONG INDIANS

The state of religion among all of the people, both Indians and Negroes, was low, "very low". One of the missionaries described that of the Negroes as being like that of the Samaritans. "They fear the Lord and serve their own G.o.ds. As their fathers did, so do they. Their condition is bad, morally and religiously."

It could not easily have been otherwise. The tendency of slavery, under the most favorable conditions has always been in the direction of a low standard of morals and life. Slavery to untutored Indians, in a spa.r.s.ely settled timber country, suggests the most deplorable condition imaginable. Such a slave lacking the example of intelligence and uprightness, often common among white masters, was subjected to generations of training in every phase of depravity and had no incentive whatever to live a better life.

When, however, these slaves of the Indians were accorded their freedom and became ent.i.tled to a part of the public school fund of the Choctaws, they manifested an earnest desire to have ministers and teachers sent them, that they might have churches and schools of their own.

Their great need was a boarding school where the boys and girls especially those in the remote and neglected rural districts, could be taken from their homes and trained under the personal supervision of christian teachers, to a higher standard of living, and, some at least, become fitted to serve as teachers of their own people.

XII

ERA OF ELIZA HARTFORD

1886-1888.

THE HEROIC PIONEER.--FEBRUARY 14, 1886.--BOARDING SCHOOL, APRIL 15th, 1886.--PRISCILLA G. HAYMAKER.--NEW SCHOOL BUILDING IN 1887.--ANNA E.

CAMPBELL.

"I'll go where you want me to go."

The story of Oak Hill as an Industrial Academy, begins with the work of Miss Eliza Hartford of Steubenville, Ohio, the first white teacher in the "Old Log house". She was commissioned by the Freedmen's Board in January, 1886, and was sent in response to the appeal of the colored people of the Choctaw Nation.

The missionaries, Reid and Edwards, had commended as the most favorable location for such an educational inst.i.tution the rural neighborhood occupied by the Oak Hill church, two miles east of Clear Creek in the valley of Red river.

They referred to this as a "pivotal location" for such a school, and wrote, "Here we want to see a good school established that shall grow into a normal academy. The location is central and healthful. If in charge of white teachers, such a school will attract scholars from all the other settlements."

HEROIC PIONEER

Oak Hill, like other schools of its kind, had its early period of heroic effort and self-sacrificing toil, before the usual comforts and conveniences of civilized life could be enjoyed. This was true of the entire period of service on the part of Miss Hartford, February 1886 to August 1888.

When she arrived at Wheelock, where she met a friend, Miss Elder, engaged in teaching the Indians, Rev. John Edwards served as an aid, in making a tour of inspection over the field, of which she was to be the missionary teacher and physician. This journey was made on horseback, which was the most speedy and comfortable mode of travel, over the rough and winding trails through the timber at that time.

As a result of this survey and a call at the home of Henry Crittenden, an elder of the Oak Hill church and a "local trustee of the neighborhood, under the Choctaw law," it was decided that the "old log house" was the best place to establish the school; and the best place for her to live was at the home of the colored elder, Henry Crittenden, three miles east. She was expected to make her daily journeys on horseback; and, in connection with the work of the school, to visit the people at their homes, furnish medicines for the sick and give instruction in regard to their care.

In her description of the old log house Miss Hartford states, "The windows are without sash or gla.s.s and the roof full of holes. The chimneys are of hewn stone, strong and ma.s.sive. The house is of hewed logs, two stories in height and stands high in the midst of a fine locust grove. The well of water near it seems as famous as Jacob's well."

At the request of Mr. Edwards the colored people in the vicinity, after repairing the roof and windows, cleaned, scrubbed and whitewashed the inside of this old log house, and thus prepared it for its new and n.o.ble era of usefulness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ELIZA HARTFORD.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANNA E. CAMPBELL.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PRISCILLA G. HAYMAKER.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: REV. EDWARD G. HAYMAKER.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GIRLS' HALL, 1889-1910.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD FARM HOUSE.

The Pioneer Home of a Choctaw Chief, Leflore, and of the Oak Hill School.]

FEBRUARY 14, 1886

On Sabbath, February 14, 1886, one week after the arrival of Miss Hartford, her first meeting was held and a Sunday school was organized under her leadership. At its close a prayer-meeting was held in which she read the scriptures, the hymns and a sermon.