W COURT HOUSE, CLEAR CREEK.
Both buildings ceased to be used about 1899.]

[Illustration: REV. ALEXANDER REID.
Spencer Academy, 1849-1861.]

[Illustration: REV. JOHN EDWARDS.
Wheelock Academy, 1853-61; 1882-95.]

He became a teacher at Spencer Academy, north of Fort Towson, in 1851,
and continued until 1853, when he became the successor of Rev. Alfred
Wright as the stated supply of the Choctaw church and superintendent of
the academy at Wheelock. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 he
passed to California and after teaching two years in San Francisco,
served as stated supply of various churches during the next twenty
years, having his residence during the latter part of that period at
Oakland.

In 1882 he returned and resumed work among the Choctaws, locating first
at Atoka. In 1884 he re-opened the academy at Wheelock, and continued to
serve as its superintendent until 1895, when it became a government
school. He remained the next year in charge of the church. He then
returned to California and died at San Jose, at 75, December 18, 1903.

In 1897, Rev. Evan B. Evans, supplied the Choctaw church at Wheelock one
year. As its membership of 60 consisted principally of students living
at a distance, and they were absent most of the year, the services were
then discontinued. A few years later the services were resumed at the
town of Garvin, where another stone church was built in 1910, during the
efficient ministry of Rev. W. J. Willis.

SPENCER ACADEMY

Rev. Alexander Reid, principal of Spencer Academy, was a native of
Scotland, and came to this country in his boyhood. He graduated from the
college at Princeton, N. J., in 1845, and the theological seminary
there, three years later. He was ordained by the Presbytery of New York
in 1849 and accepting a commission to serve as a missionary to the
Indians of the Choctaw Nation in Indian Territory, was immediately
appointed superintendent of Spencer Academy, ten miles north of Fort
Towson.

He was accompanied by Rev. Alexander J. Graham, a native of Newark, New
Jersey, who served as a teacher in the academy. The latter was a
roommate of Reid's at Princeton seminary, and his sister became Reid's
wife. At the end of his first year of service he returned to Lebanon
Springs, New York, for the recovery of his health, and died there July
23, 1850. Rev. John Edwards immediately became his successor as a
teacher.

Alexander Reid while pursuing his studies, learned the