Some Early African American Work in Oklahoma Methodism

• Island Ford (along Grand River; an African American work)

  

  Camp Meeting of the 2nd
  Awakening Period of American
  Church History; illustrative
  of the work of early preachers in remote
  areas

• Snow Creek (along the Verdigris; an African American work)
• Salt Creek (South side of the Arkansas River; African American)
• Wyandotte Mission, which had been birthed from the work of an African American in Ohio, transplanted to the area of Baxter Springs, Kansas and then south into Indian Territory.

As found, names of early ministers and members will be listed as well. According to the work on Oklahoma Methodism by Clegg and Oden it is noted that when James Iliff was placed as superintendent of the Wyandotte Mission work he held quarterly conferences and at one of these Arthur Bean, "a Negro, was licensed to preach and immediately appointed to Island Ford, which was part of the Snow Creek Circuit." It was noted in the Clegg work that several such men met in the annual conference sessions of the Indian Mission for renewal of licenses and appointments as pastors "intermittently" (pg. 36).

---Sources, Teepee to Towers, A History of Methodism, pg. 65
    Clegg and Oden. Oklahoma Methodism in the Twentieth Century,1968