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 gods. 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 sparsely
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 entitled 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 i