ssions of
the American Board.

As early as 1849, while he was yet a licentiate, he was commissioned as
a missionary to the Choctaws, and, locating at Goodland, remained in
charge of the work in that section until 1866, a period of seventeen
years. During the next thirteen years he served as principal of the
Lamar Female Seminary at Paris, Texas. His next and last work was the
development of the mission school for the Choctaws at Nelson, which had
formed a part of his early and long pastorate.

=Rev. Harvey R. Schermerhorn=, became the immediate successor of Mr. Stark
as superintendent of the new Spencer Academy and continued to serve in
that capacity until 1890, when the mission work among the Indians was
transferred from the Foreign to the care of the Home Mission Board. The
school was then discontinued and he became pastor of the Presbyterian
church at Macalester. After a long and very useful career he is now
living in retirement at Hartshorne.

These incidents, relating to the work of the Presbyterian church among
the Indians, especially the Choctaws, have been narrated, because the
men who had charge of these two educational institutions at Wheelock and
Spencer Academies, were very helpful in effecting the organization of
Presbyterian churches, the establishment of Oak Hill Academy and a
number of neighborhood schools among the Freedmen in the south part of
the Choctaw Nation.

DOAKSVILLE AND FORT TOWSON

Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury, an early Presbyterian missionary to the Choctaws,
was located at Doaksville near old Fort Towson. He secured the erection
of an ample church building and rendered many years of faithful service.
He died and was buried in the cemetery at that place in 1870.

Doaksville, though no longer entitled to a place on the map, is the name
of an important pioneer Indian village. Here the once proud and powerful
Choctaws established themselves during the later twenties, and were
regarded as happy and prosperous before the Civil War.

Fort Towson was built by the government to protect them from incursions
on the part of the wild Kiowas and Comanches, who still roamed over the
plains of Texas. The name of Ulyses S. Grant was associated with it just
before the Mexican war. The generous hospitality of Col. Garland, who
died there after a long period of service, is still gratefully
remembered.

During its most prosperous days, which were long before the Civil War, a
considerable number of aristocra