Duncan O'Bryant: pioneer Baptist Missionary to the Western Cherokees.

The Cherokees probably arrived in what are now Arkansas and Oklahoma as permanent residents in the 1780s.

By 1809, an estimated one thousand Cherokees lived west of the Mississippi, having emigrated from the Eastern Nation (located in parts of North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia) under white pressure. As the century progressed, others were reluctantly on the move. Perhaps five thousand were living in Oklahoma by 1835 (with about 16,500 still precariously holding on in the East). These Native Americans were mostly farmers, governed by a General Council, and constantly scrutinized by federal employees. Five years later, the brutal Trail of Tears took its toll, and the total number (all in the West except for perhaps one thousand hiding in the North Carolina mountains) has been estimated at slightly more than thirteen thousand.

Christian missionaries permanently entered the Western Cherokee land in 1821 when the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (staffed by Presbyterians in the West) began sending preachers and teachers. Ten years later the Presbyterians were joined by Methodist missionaries. A third denomination, the Baptists, also provide a sustained witness to the Western Cherokees, and they are the focus for this article. In light of numerous treaties made and broken, court actions that provided a legal facade for unprincipled confiscation of valuable land, and individual acts of violence to persons and property, one might wonder why any white Christians were ever willingly permitted to work among the Cherokees in the first place.

Moving from East to West

Duncan O'Bryant was born in 1785 or 1786, probably in northwest South Carolina. He married Martha (who was sometimes called Patsy) Whitehead, and they had ten children. The extent of his formal education is unknown, but for a time before 1821, he purportedly lived among the Eastern Cherokees, maybe as a teacher. By 1821, O'Bryant was licensed to preach; in 1825 or 1826, he was ordained to the gospel ministry. During the early 1820s, he was a member of churches in Lumpkin and Hall counties, Georgia. Usually under the sponsorship of the Triennial Convention, O'Bryant was pastor of the Tinsawattee Baptist Church, holding services in a meetinghouse constructed in Dawson County, a school building erected in Cherokee County, and various private residences in those areas. From 1821 to 1831, he taught in schools located in Dawson and Cherokee counties, ranging in size from three to thirty-six pupils and eventually reaching about two hundred different pupils. Most church members and students were probably of mixed ancestry or whites married to Cherokees and used the English language with greater or lesser facility.

Facing hostility from President Andrew Jackson and land-hungry Georgians, O'Bryant acceded to state authority. He and his wife, eight of their children (one was married and remained in Georgia and one was as yet unborn), and his congregation of about twenty-eight joined a larger traveling party early in 1832 and headed for "the Arcansaw Contary" (which included territory that is now in eastern Oklahoma). The move was viewed by the vast majority of Eastern Cherokees as being treasonous, temporarily impeding evangelistic efforts among Native American nationalists. By June 6, they reached their destination, the Flint District of Oklahoma (from whence O'Bryant's first letter from the West was written).

John Alberty, a white man married to a Cherokee, had been one of O'Bryant's supporters in Georgia. Alberty emigrated with a large family and five slaves shortly before O'Bryant and was settled rather comfortably by the time the missionary arrived. Alberty moved O'Bryant and his family into his home, where they roomed and boarded until they occupied their newly built house. The O'Bryants settled at the site of modern Piney, and he made frequent use of the Vineyard post office (then located about a mile north of modern Evansville, Arkansas, and about four miles from the mission station), which he said was "the nearest to us."

Buildings at the Mission Station

Although over five thousand Cherokees had moved west during the half century prior to O'Bryant's arrival, no record of Baptist activity among them has been found. Of course, local churches might well have been organized that escaped written notice, but certainly no mission board had sponsored pastors and/or teachers. Thus, as had been true a decade before in Georgia, O'Bryant was the first recorded residential Baptist missionary in Oklahoma.

O'Bryant's first priority once arriving in Oklahoma was to establish a station where his family could live and where he could engage in preaching and teaching. By October 1832, he was erecting a dwelling house near Alberty's, "[with]in two miles of the Line Washington Cou. A. Ter." About two months later he occupied his cabin, "a house of pine logs 20 by 18, and hewed them down floured [sic] with puncheons...." Missionary Samuel Aldrich, who followed O'Bryant in working among the Cherokees, later described the same house--obviously enlarged in the meantime--as being 38 by 18 feet in size, with front and back porches measuring 38 by 8 feet.

Next to be constructed was a building sometimes referred to as a school house and sometimes as a meetinghouse. Early in 1833, O'Bryant employed two men to build the school house, and they worked as winter weather permitted. He promised the Triennial Convention's board in Boston "a fine school here so soon as we get this house ready." By mid-May of that year, the school was in use, and O'Bryant described it as "A Meeting house twenty four, by twenty, hewed logs, roof, covered with bo[a]rds [i.e., shingles] three ft. lenght [sic] nailed on, Floored with plank, two doors faced and cased[,] lock and Bolt, four windows with twelve lights each, Seats and Pulpit ...." Obviously the structure was intended for, and received, dual usage.

Other construction was completed during the spring of 1833: a kitchen building, a stable, and a fenced enclosure for his animals. At this point, O'Bryant reported to the Triennial Convention's board: "The whole expense [has been] Five hundred Dollars." Later additions to the structures, including masonry chimneys for the residence and meetinghouse/school building, raised the total to about twice that amount. Throughout all of O'Bryant's correspondence, he offered no hint that he sensed a problem concerning the title to the land that he was occupying and to the buildings thereon.

Financial Support for the O'Bryants

Throughout his ministry, O'Bryant spent much of his time facing economic destitution. In the early 1830s, he was allocated $250 annually for his salary from the Triennial Convention. His term of service ran from October 1 through the following September 30. Under this arrangement, he received at least $750 from October 1831 to September 1834, and probably $125 for the year 1834-1835.

O'Bryant, however, viewed his annual stipend to be insufficient for his situation. The influx of emigrants from the East had driven prices up. A recent flood had ruined many of the crops. Since cloth was unavailable, ready-made clothing had to be purchased. Horses had to be shod monthly. The members of his large family were forced to wear shoes all year long--at a cost of $40 annually. The mission was constantly entertaining guests who had to be fed. And, to top it off, everything was "very Dear.... " Said O'Bryant: "I can[']t do here as I did in the old Nation (buy now and pay by & by)[.] [T]he money has to be paid down here, when a purchase is made." Accordingly, the board raised his salary by an unknown amount on June 2, 1834--a raise which apparently was never received on the field.

Federal assistance, a hope entertained both by O'Bryant and the convention's board, was minimal. After some uncertainty, he discovered that he and his family would receive "rashions" from the government for the first year of their residence in the West, and apparently this money was all that ever came from that quarter.

The Tinsawattee/Liberty Baptist Church

"We have never come together in Church order since we came to this country[.] IT]he members have been so unsettled," O'Bryant wrote in October of 1832. Exactly what he meant is not altogether clear.

Shortly after his arrival in Flint District, O'Bryant began to hold preaching services, certainly speaking at least once before June 6. His motivation was clear as indicated by his comments: "the Empire of Darkness [which] has held its reign over this region...." Mentioning "Bro. [Moses] Parris[,] our Deacon," O'Bryant obviously thought of himself as the pastor of a church that he had been serving since 1825, and Parris was a long-time deacon in the church. O'Bryant had helped the church gain freedom from Georgian harassment by moving west. That being true, a case can be made for interpreting the phrase in Church order to mean in church conference.

Greater certainty emerges with O'Bryant's December 1832 letter. He wrote: "We have held church meeting twice since I wrote last--The Tinsawattee Church that Emigrated from the Cher. N. met in conference on 10th. Nov. 1832[.] IT]his church is to be known by the name of [L]iberty and are [sic] to hold her conference meetings on Sat. before second Lord[']s day in every month[.] [W]e meet in the house that I have Built untill [sic] a school house is Built. [O]ur last meetings have been very affecting." At that time the church had twelve members. Probably O'Bryant preached in English, followed if necessary by Parris who would translate.

Evidently the O'Bryant church had been meeting for preaching (but not for conference) since May of 1832. If this understanding is correct, then the Creek church, organized under the leadership of Isaac McCoy on September 9, 1832, was the second Baptist church in Oklahoma--trailing Tinsawattee/Liberty by three or four months. Too much seems to hinge on an indecisive expression to permit complete assurance here, but the possibility at least exists that Liberty enjoyed priority. In any case, the Cherokee church considered November 10, 1832, to be the date on which the new name was adopted and the church was formally reorganized.

Seven months later the congregation was able to occupy its new meetinghouse. O'Bryant's account of this event is sufficiently fascinating to be quoted in full:

   At the opening of a Baptist Meeting house in the Cherokee Nation
   west of Mississippi Arkansas Ter.--June 8th 1833. Sat. 8th. Opened
   meeting at twelve o[']clock A.M. by reading the one hundred &
   twenty second Psalm of David, and prayer, preached from 1st Peter
   Chap. 2nd. vet. 7th. At two o[']clock p.m. the Church met in
   conference by singing, by order of the Church the Bro. Clerk read
   the Articles of our faith that this Church was Constituted upon.
   Lord[']s day 9th. Opened meeting at ten o[']clock A.M. by singing
   and prayer, preached from 1st Peter Chap. 3rd ver. 18th.--Second
   meeting two O, clock [sic] RM. preached from St. Mark's Gospel
   Chap. 16th. 15th. & 16th. ver's. Closed meeting by singing.--

      This meeting came on a time of the highest waters that has [have]
   ever been known by the oldest settlers in this country, and the
   meeting could only be attended by the people who live immediately
   in the neighbourhood. Bro. D. Lewis, from the Creek Nation, failed
   to be with us at the meeting, as was expected.

The size of this congregation can sometimes be determined. At first, the church had fifteen members, but the deaths of three of them reduced the number to twelve. Four were added early in 1833, so that when the meetinghouse was occupied the congregation had sixteen members. Later that year, two new members were added by letter and one by baptism. By that time, O'Bryant said, services were being held each Sunday at Liberty meetinghouse. Early in 1834, "several" entered the church, including a half-blood Cherokee and his white wife. Presumably because of O'Bryant's declining strength, Samuel Aldrich observed: "Formerly meetings have been held at the Mission house but once a month." Not long after O'Bryant's death, the younger man wrote, the church had only twenty-one members, of whom two or three would probably soon be excluded. Based on an 1835 figure, the tiny church most likely was comprised of Cherokees, African-Americans, and whites, in almost equal numbers. Although the church had a tiny membership, only three names are known with assurance: Martha and Duncan O'Bryant and Moses Parris. No doubt the manuscript records maintained by "the Bro. Clerk" have long ago disappeared.

O'Bryant's School

As soon as he arrived on Oklahoma soil, O'Bryant was implored to open a school. He reported that the Cherokees promised him a school with twenty children in it and indicated in the fall of 1832 that a site was then being selected for a building. Even as the structure was being erected, O'Bryant opened a school with twenty pupils, apparently in his own recently completed dwelling. Soon it was serving as many as thirty students. Unlike many early Baptist schools for Native Americans, this school enrolled no boarding students.

During the spring of 1833, the school building/meetinghouse was completed and occupied. Doubtless the earlier, relatively unsatisfactory accommodations had dampened the interest of some parents and children, because on Monday, June 17, 1833, O'Bryant reported only fifteen pupils--seven males and eight females. Thereafter, however, enrollment increased substantially; thirty-five and then forty were claimed before 1833 came to a close. The following year the school was pronounced an "undiminished success." Not really content as a school teacher, O'Bryant sought without success to enlist someone else to occupy the classroom so that he could preach with greater frequency.

In the materials emerging from O'Bryant's western ministry, no indication is given of the subjects that he offered. No doubt he taught elementary reading, writing, and arithmetic. Beyond question, he included large quantities of instruction in the Bible. Although he probably gained some ability to use the complex Cherokee language, he almost surely instructed in English.

O'Bryant and His Fellow Missionaries

O'Bryant maintained an occasional and cordial relationship with other western Baptist missionaries. In his letters, he reflected dealings or an acquaintance with David Lewis of the Creeks, Charles E. Wilson of the Choctaws, and the Johnston Lykinses, the Alexander Evanses, and Daniel French of the Shawnees.

O'Bryant was unreceptive to the non-Baptists in the area, just as he had been in Georgia. "The Presbyterians and Methodist[s] have got churches in this country and hold camp meeting[s] in different parts of this Nation," he wrote in October of 1832, "but I fear they open thier [sic] doors intirely [sic] too wide (that is for the reception of members)[.]" Evidently, he did not visit either Fairfield or Dwight Presbyterian station, nor did he ever meet any of the non-Baptist missionaries. No doubt his hostility rendered communications difficult.

O'Bryant's Premature Death 

During his ministry in Georgia, O'Bryant commented with some frequency concerning his poor health. In Oklahoma, the subject came up only once in the extant materials when, in June 1833, he wrote: "[S]ince I have been out of school my health has improved and I have felt much better in many respects." One is hardly prepared for the next (and also the last) letter in the O'Bryant correspondence file. Martha O'Bryant addressed a message from the Liberty station to the "Dear Bretheren [sic]" of the Boston board which began "This will bear you the painful tidings of the death [of] Mr. O'Bryant, he departed this life the 25th day of August last [1834] with the Billious [sic] fever after an Illness of only eleven days. [H]e gave a living testimony of his happy death[.]" Having talked with Mrs. O'Bryant at some length, Samuel Aldrich added details to the account. O'Bryant died in the forty-eighth year of his life, "leaving ample evidence to surviving friends, that his death was that of the righteous .... He was ill only about ten days[,] nearly all of which time he was delirious. A few hours, however, before his exit [he] appeared perfectly rasional [sic], [and] conversed finely on death & the glorious prospect of soon entering the celestial Paradise. He declared that the Lord's will was his, either to live or to depart & be with Christ, which was far better." A modern physician suggests that perhaps a severe malarial infection contributed to his demise.

O'Bryant's remains were buried at the mission, even though there was "no regular and permanent graveyard" there. The graveyard was on land now located in the Piney community, northeast of Stilwell on what is locally called the Piney Road. Apparently a marker was immediately placed on the grave. The present monument, which was erected about 1907 by Frank Adair, the first Adair County sheriff, bears the following inscription that contains an error of about eleven years regarding the missionary's life span:

DUNCAN O'BRYANT

Died Aug. 1834

Age about 59 years

Missionary

Baptist Preacher

Martha O'Bryant and her nine unmarried children were left (to employ her words addressed to the Boston board) "in very s [sic] helpless & distressed condition." Even in her grief, she wrote of the mission and its members: "The Church has met & through this letter petitions you for a pastor & teacher. Oh how destitute the little flock appears since the death of Mr. O'Bryant.... Our Buildings are well nigh completed...." She signed herself." "[Y]our most affectionate yet bereft Sister in the work of Mis[s]ions[.]"

Johnston Lykins also communicated with the board, "suggesting the importance of some pecuniary relief to his [O'Bryant's] family." On December 1, the board met and authorized "a letter of condolence" and provided $150 for Mrs. O'Bryant "in addition [to] the amount due at the time of his death." Accordingly, on behalf of the board, Aldrich gave her the sum of $400, reporting: "She wishes me to express her sincere gratitude to the Board, and that she is perfectly satisfied with what they have done in her favor." Unfortunately, this amount did her little personal good, for much of it went to clear the estate of financial demands.

At first, Martha O'Bryant wished to return to Georgia, but she probably never did. Soon she was able to purchase "a small improvement" about four miles from the station in Washington County, Arkansas, where she moved in March of 1835. Thereafter her location is usually a matter of uncertainty. The 1850 Arkansas census lists "Martha A. OBrien" as a resident of Crawford County. Some of her children settled in Georgia and Oklahoma, others went to Texas and California and were never heard of again, and others simply dropped out of sight leaving no clues concerning their locations.

The End of the O'Bryant Mission

For almost four years, the Triennial Convention sponsored mission work among the Western Cherokees. O'Bryant was followed by Samuel Aldrich, who served for almost nine months in 1834 and 1835, at which time he died. Aldrich was followed by Chandler Curtiss for about nine months in 1835 and 1836, after which he moved to another Native American mission station in the West.

The property occupied by O'Bryant and his successors soon fell into other hands. An unscrupulous John Alberty claimed the land for himself virtually as soon as O'Bryant was placed in his grave, if not somewhat earlier. Unfortunately, O'Bryant had settled on land without first securing formal approval by the Cherokee General Council. Aldrich soon came to accept the fact that he could not legally occupy the property because of his predecessor's omission. In 1836, the Boston board apparently dropped the whole matter, and no compensation was ever received by the board.

Conflicting accounts exist concerning the ultimate fate of the two main buildings. Perhaps they were used intermittently for educational purposes until destroyed by fire in 1863. Perhaps the dwelling was enlarged in size over the years but was lost to a fire in the 1970s. Perhaps the school building was called the Old Piney School until it was razed in 1907. In any case, a verifiable solution seems now beyond recovery. Certainly none of the original buildings remains.

Two of the three male missionaries succumbed to fatal diseases and were buried in the area. The other was hounded out by a greedy neighbor who enlisted anti-missionary feelings in the Western Cherokee Nation. A church was established or reestablished with never more than about twenty-three members. A school was conducted with never more than forty students. A capital investment of almost $1,000 was made by the Boston board. Salaries and other similar expenditures amounted to perhaps $1,900. On February 1, 1836, it was "Resolved, That the Board deem it inexpedient to continue the Mission among the Western Cherokees...," and the station was abandoned. The lasting benefits of this mission are altogether impossible to ascertain, but a case may be made for the assertion that they were negligible. Later historians understandably have paid scant heed to O'Bryant and his immediate successors. Fortunately for the Baptist cause among the Cherokees, Jesse Bushyhead, Evan Jones, and their colleagues were just over the horizon.

Bibliographical Note

Because of O'Bryant's comparative obscurity, few substantial secondary sources exist. Hence, primary sources have been used extensively in preparing this essay. Major Baptist sources are the correspondence and journals of Duncan O'Bryant, Samuel Aldrich, Chandler Curtiss, and Evan Jones (American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, Correspondence, FM 97, 98, 100; American Baptist Historical Society, Atlanta, GA); printed triennial proceedings of the Triennial Convention and handwritten minutes and printed annual reports of the board of managers of the Triennial Convention, 1814-1847 (microfilm at Jack Tarver Library, Mercer University, Macon, GA, and elsewhere); Baptist Missionary Magazine (published under that and other names in Boston, MA; microfilm at Jack Tarver Library and elsewhere); The Christian Index (Penfield, GA; printed copies at Jack Tarver Library and microfilm there and elsewhere).

The Presbyterian source is The Papers of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Unit 6, reels 738, 739, 743, and 753 (handwritten materials at Houghton Library, Harvard University, and microfilm at Livingston Library, Shorter College, Rome, GA, and elsewhere).

Methodist sources are the annual reports of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the minutes of the Missouri and Arkansas conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church (printed materials at the Methodist Library Collection, Drew University, Madison, NJ).

The federal source is Bureau of Indian Affairs, Record Group 75, M-31, reel 19 (microfilm at National Archives Southeast Region, Morrow, GA, and elsewhere).

Other evidence of early activity comes from I. M. Allen, editor, The Triennial Baptist Register ... (Philadelphia: Baptist General Tract Society, 1836); William Gammell, A History of American Baptist Missions ... (Boston: Gould, Kendall and Lincoln, 1850); Isaac McCoy, History of Baptist Indian Missions ... (Washington, DC: W. M. Morrison, 1840); and Solomon Peck, "History of the Missions of the Baptist General Convention," History of American Missions to the Heathen ..., edited by Joseph Tracy et al. (Worcester, MA: Spooner and Howland, 1840).

Particular appreciation must be expressed to J. M. Gaskin of Durant, OK; J. R. Stogsdill of Vermillion, SD; Marlin Hawkins and Freida Sheldon of Shawnee, OK; Christopher J. Anderson of Madison, NJ; and Laura M. Botts, Susan G. Broome, and Anne F. Gardner of Macon, GA.

Robert G. Gardner is senior researcher in Baptist History at the Jack Tarver Library, Mercer University, Macon, Georgia.