Notes on Black Churches in the 19th and early 20th Century

It was nice to see earlier this week the front page recognition for the 50th anniversary of the Pauline African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church on the corner of Suunyview and Fisher and next to I-5.

Rev. Daniel Jones

Salem has never had a very large proportion of Black residents, but it was a sad commentary on things that oldest extant church building wasn't dedicated until the 1970s.

What about the 19th and early 20th centuries? The print headline, "Salem's first Black church turns 50," was perhaps a little misleading.

Earlier this week

The earliest formal congregation, a "church" in that sense, may be associated with Rev. Daniel Jones in the 1870s.

As documented in the white papers, and written for a white audience, the evidence is slim and biased. So these are notes only, not at all a continuous or complete narrative.

But there is evidence for one or more Black congregations, if not a physical church building. (Update: There is a physical church, built in 1892! See below.) They are hard to pin down, as the paper was not always clear about naming and distinguishing between African Methodist Episcopal Zion and African Methodist Episcopal congregations, which are distinct denominations. The earliest may also have been just Methodist Episcopal or colored Methodist Episcopal, also, unsurprising given the centrality of Jason Lee and the Methodist Mission here.

There is also little in the way of evidence for connecting them between the years, and they each may be completely independent and not at all directly ancestral to any later one. Each group may have been composed of substantially new residents as people moved in and out of the Salem area. More research might tell us more about that.

The 1870s: Rev. Daniel Jones and Others

January 2022

You may recall the history column by Kylie Pine on Emancipation Jubilee celebrations earlier this year. (The piece is available at the Mill's site now, with footnotes and links.)

It featured Rev. Jones.

After he had left Salem, Rev. Jones received a short chapter and engraved portrait in an 1887 book on prominent Black Americans.

Rev. Daniel Jones

From Men of Mark (1887), with two links added:

He taught school in Jacksonville and Salem, Oregon, at different periods. In the latter place he joined the M. E. church in 1869. He was converted really in the middle of the street in the city of Philadelphia at the age of twelve, but didn't unite with any church until the time mentioned. He was licensed to exhort soon after, attaching himself to the church, and was soon admitted on trial in the Oregon Conference. He entered the Willamette University at Salem, being the first colored man ever admitted within its walls as a student. A young white man in the class refused to recite in the algebra class with him because of a dread of the contact. The teacher, Mr. O. Frambes, with his big, sympathetic heart, told him at once to pack up his little bundle and leave the institution; but a good night's rest and a cool reconsideration caused him to become reconciled, and the next morning found him working at the "minus and plus," for he had just discovered the unknown "quantity" in Jones.

In 1873 Bishop R. S. Foster gave Mr. Jones about as long a transfer as Methodist preachers usually get, four thousand miles, from the Oregon to the Newark, New Jersey conference....

He was elected a delegate from the State of Oregon, to the Civil Rights Convention, which met in Washington, District of Columbia, in 1873.

Pine found an entry in the 1870-71 WU Bulletin for a Daniel Jones as student, but it is interesting to note that Robert Moulton Gatke's Chronicles of Willamette is silent on this or any first Black student.

The Emancipation Jubilee celebrations give us more evidence that notices about ordinary church activities, so we'll dwell on them a little bit, and perhaps add some detail, building on a couple of points in Pine's piece.

About the first celebration in 1868, Pine says

It is difficult to determine where in Salem the first celebration was held. Both extant newspaper articles describing the event use quotation marks around the venue description. One calls it the “Church School House” and the other the “Methodist Church South.” I’m sure these nods were probably understandable to readers at the time, but a bit mystifying in the present. The 1871 Salem City Directory does list a South Salem Methodist Church with a capacity to seat 300 people, but again in maddening vague detail doesn’t list where in South Salem it was....

The 1878 Linn and Marion County Atlas marks a "South Salem M.E. Church" and the 1895 Sanborn shows one in the same location, with more detail.

(Library of Congress)

It might have moved between 1871 and 1878, but this location is a strong candidate.

January 7th, 1870

The celebration in 1870 takes place in a theater, "The Wigwam," which a few years later became the Oro Fino. The event is not associated with any church and Rev. Jones is not listed. The notice praises the date as "the seventh anniversary of the greatest event that has happened in our national history since the Declaration of Independence." That's unambiguously positive.

Feb. 5th, 1953

The Wigwam, according to Ben Maxwell, was on the site of Otto J. Wilson's garage, where Santiam Bicycle is today.

Rev. Jones does appear on the program for 1872, this one at the new Reed Opera House.

January 10th, 1872

The 1872 celebration then moved for supper to "the School House." That may be Little Central School, the site of the "Colored School."

Since Men of Mark says Jones was a teacher in Salem, perhaps he also taught at Little Central. In part because of the limitations of our sources, we have focused on white women teachers like Lucy Mallory and Charlotte Dickinson. The reality may be more complicated and more interesting. The Oregon Encyclopedia suggests Little Central was discontinued as a segregated school in 1872, and it would be good also to learn more about the subsequent integration.

Both halves of the celebration in 1872 appear to have been popular, well-attended, and at least partially integrated. "[A]s the invitation was general, the house was crowded by citizens....Very many of our best citizens, irrespective of politics, were present, both at the celebration and at the supper."

About this time Rev. Jones founded a church. Pine cites an 1872 city directory:

Colored M.E. Church. – Place of meeting, corner of High and Marion streets. Organized April 17th, 1871, with 11 members. Rev. David [sic] Jones, pastor.

That's the same location as Little Central School. Maybe the church used the same building. That's definitely something to learn more about.

There were also missionary activities at this time.

Rev. W. H. Hillery, working across the west coast, visited and preached in 1871. (Hillery ran into problems and was defrocked in 1884, however.) It is hard to know what relation his preaching might have to Jones' church. The AME Zion Church would be distinct denominationally from a colored ME Church, but that might not be very relevant here in Salem of the early 1870s.

History of
the AME Zion Church

May 17th, 1871

June 21st, 1871

The reference to the Methodist Episcopal Zion Church on Third between B and C streets is tantalizing. 

Alas, this is in Portland, printed in Salem from a digest extracted from other papers. Contemporary Salem readers would be able to supply the relevant information.

New Northwest, October 31st, 1873

Abigail Scott Duniway's paper has a listing of Portland churches, and the AME Zion church is listed there on North Third between  B and C.

But Hillery may have preached at the main Methodist church in Salem to a largely white audience that June meeting. Or it is possible that he preached to Jones' Methodist church.

As you see from the New Northwest note, Jones appears to have moved to Portland, where he was pastor at the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church (distinct from the African Methodist Episcopal Zion church, where Hillery had also preached),

Pine says Rev. Daniel Jones was based in Salem, but he had a lot of activity in Portland, and the transfer notice also says he was based in Portland. (That notice is dated January 14th, 1873, but the New Northwest has a ongoing listing for Rev. Daniel Jones at the Colored ME Church in Portland through September 25th, 1874. There may yet be some timeline to sort out, though it is also possible there were two Rev. Daniel Jones.)

Even in 1872 he was listed in a notice for a Portland celebration of the 15th Amendment.

April 10th, 1872

May 29th, 1872

The relation at this early time between Black church communities in Salem and Portland is of interest. Jones may have had to move to the larger city to find a congregation that was large enough to support him as pastor. 

As with Rev. Hillery, missionary activity and visiting preachers are also a recurring theme.

The 1890s

August 29th, 1891

After a gap of 20 years, in 1891 Rev. G. W. White arrived to start a church and plan for a building. First Methodist appears to have hosted the introductory meeting.

October 3rd, 1891

For a few months they worshiped at the German Methodist Episcopal Church on Union and Church Streets.

November 21st, 1891

On the southwest corner
of Union and Church, 1895 Sanborn
(Library of Congress)

In the late spring they stopped meeting at the church and moved around a little, it seems. Certainly there is more to the story than the understated announcement here from March. It seems likely they were asked to leave rather than voluntarily leaving, but it is hard to be certain.

March 26th, 1892

Later the German Methodist Church moved to southeast corner of 13th and Center, where the apartment block is today. But they did not seem to host the African Methodist Episcopal congregation any more.

The congregation continued on, and later notices in the paper merely specify meeting in "north Salem." They also named the congregation after St. Paul, and transitioned to a new pastor, Rev. J. P. Simmons. (Update: See addendum below for more detail on the church building they did in fact construct in north Salem.)

September 30th, 1893

The congregation disappears in the paper, but they reappear four years later. It's hard to say whether they were meeting continuously, and the paper simply lost interest in printing meeting notices, or whether they met only sporadically. This notice from 1897 does reference a "church," but there had been no announcement of a building campaign, and it might best be understood as a storefront arrangement.

January 19th, 1897

Rev. Wilbur T. B. Harwood was a little bit of a radical!

Jan. 25th, 1897

A note a few months later locates Rev. Harwood in Heppner, and he disappears from the Salem papers.

There appears to be a gap of nearly 15 years.

Early 19-teens

In 1911 there is a new attempt at a church. This congregation picked a lot where Sleepy Hollow rises to Fairmount Hill, and the effort met straight-up hostility. The episode is really ugly. And the paper ratchets up the racism, implying or even threatening violence, though likely couched as "humor."

September 26th, 1911

That "the colored people of this city met and organized the African Methodist Episcopal church at Salem" suggests a discontinuity from the group meeting in the early 1890s. But it's hard to be firm in drawing conclusions from the paper and its white bias.

October 5th, 1911

October 7th, 1911

The support from the WCTU should be noted.

A few years later a congregation is again meeting at the WCTU Hall, whether continuously or a new congregation is again not clear. Rev. George Raymond is not listed, nor is Rev. Matthews, and instead Elder W. W. Howard is visiting and Deaconess E. B. Howard is pastor. This may be evidence, too, for female leadership in the congregation.

February 23rd, 1918

Elder Howard was based in Portland, and later moved on to even larger, district-level and national-level responsibilities.

Oregonian, May 30th, 1915

The circuit riding and Salem's on-going status as a satellite congregation, not large enough to support its own pastor, has been in every instance a significant detail. (And may echo the way the current Pastor commutes from Vancouver.)

October 16th, 1919

In notes on the 1919 annual conference, there's another name associated with Salem, A. C. Yearwood. I have not yet found anything on him.

Even though there is not a steady mention in the paper, these suggest a more continuous history for the AME Zion Church here.

As far as I know, we lack a detailed history of the WCTU here in Salem, and it would be good to have a closer understanding of their work. They were not merely temperance scolds, and may have been more influential here than we give them credit. You may recall the description for Leslie Dunlap's online talk at the Mill in the fall of 2020:

I find that instead of either “progressive” or “conservative,” the movement [of the WCTU] was a meeting ground, where African American, Native American, and white participants debated the purpose and direction of women’s political participation.

This hosting of the AME congregation looks consistent with that.

We also lack much in the way of church history here, of the formation of congregations, the social history of their members, and the politics of each congregation. There are internal and institutional church histories, but not necessarily ones written from the outside that engage wider social and political currents.

As a primary institution in Black communities, churches and congregations here deserves special attention. Maybe research by the Oregon Black Pioneers will turn up more.

There are lots of loose ends here.

See also:

• "Lucy Rose Mallory: Publisher, Feminist, and Spiritualist" and a little on the two Central Schools
  
• On the dedication of WCTU Ramp Memorial Hall in 1903
  
• And on the persistent misidentification of its building
• The Oregon Encyclopedia on the First African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Portland.
  

Addendum, January 9th, 2023

Here's a major piece from February 2021 I missed in my research.

February 2021 - reproduced at the Mill

Pine writes:

Just a few months after Rev. White arrived, the congregation had raised $200 and purchased property. On December 29, 1891 (at 4 pm in the afternoon) the deed for Lot 9, block 14 in the River Side Addition in North Salem was recorded at the Marion County Courthouse. It was signed and witnessed by church trustees H.B. Smith. R.C. Starkey, George T. Reynolds, William Gorman and E.H. Shepard. The lot purchased corresponds today to the southern end of what are now the Susan Lee Apartments on east side of Liberty Street between the railroad tracks and River Street NE.

The church building went up quickly. Planned to be 20 x 30 feet and cost between six hundred and seven hundred dollars, funding for the new church was raised throughout a large section of the Salem community. One listing of contributors included many well-known Salemites like George Whitaker (then president of Willamette University), Z.F. Moody (former Oregon Governor), and B.F. Drake (manager of the Salem Iron Works). The building was finished by May 1892, less than a year after Rev. White had arrived to plant the church. The Oregon Statesman editorialized that “Mr. White has worked hard during his stay of less than a year here, and has certainly accomplished much for so short a period.”