XLIII
PARSON CHARLES W. STEWART
DOAKSVILLE, 1823-1896.
"A soldier of the cross,
A follower of the Lamb,
Who did not fear to own his cause,
Or blush to speak His name."
This pioneer circuit rider of the Choctaw Freedmen came forth from a period of slavery, to the Choctaw Indians in the wilds of Indian Territory, that covered the first 42 years of his life. His home was afterwards located near the Kiamichi river, seven miles west of Doaksville. He grew to manhood and always lived in an unimproved, sparsely settled timber country in an obscure and inaccessible corner of the world.
Taking John the Baptist, as his ideal of a good christian worker, he became the leading herald of the gospel message to his people, first in the valley of the Kiamichi, and then going forth in every direction in the larger valley of Red river, he established a monthly circuit of preaching stations, that included the most thickly settled neighborhoods of the colored people in the territory, now included in Choctaw and McCurtain counties. Like John, he seems never to have sat before a camera long enough to leave the world his portrait, and, though serving faithfully as a minister more than 25 years he never enjoyed the privilege and pleasure of attending a meeting of the General Assembly.
Judging him, however, by the results of his work, the circle of churches established and acceptably served for an unusually long period of years, and the number of talented young men, whom he discovered, in the communities visited, and enthused with the longing desire and ambition to become leaders of their race especially useful and efficient teachers and preachers of the gospel, he proved himself worthy to be rated as one of the most aggressive and successful of the early leaders of his race.
"A man he was to all the country dear,
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor ever changed, nor wished to change his place."