Listed in Arkansas Register of Historic Places on 04/06/16
Summary
The Mount Olive African Methodist Episcopal Church in Bradley County, Arkansas, is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places under Criterion A, with local significance, for its association with the history of the development of the African American community of Mount Olive and the surrounding area. The property is also being nominated under Criteria Consideration A as a religious property deriving its primary significance from its historical importance.
Elaboration
Bradley County and the Mount Olive Community
Bradley County was created out of land from the older Union County in December of 1840. The county was name for the early explorer of the region Captain Hugh Bradley, who led an expedition along the Red River during the 1820s. Bradley County eventually was divided into five other counties; Ashley, Calhoun, Cleveland, Dallas and Drew. The current county seat, Warren, was settled during the 1840s. The decades during the mid-19th century saw an influx of settlers, creating communities at Hermitage in central present-day Bradley County, Parnell Springs, Gravel Ridge and Johnsville.
The site of the Mount Olive community is situated roughly in the middle of the rural towns of Hermitage to the east and Johnsville to west along the current Bradley County Road 45. Nearby, there are also two other very small historic communities; Sumpter to the north and Ingalls to the southwest. The community of Mount Olive was settled by groups of newly freed African-American slaves that had belonged to white members of the surrounding communities, mostly from Johnsville in modern day southern Bradley County. Throughout the mid-19th century, the county’s principle industry was agricultural products; mainly corn, with limited production of beef and pork. While the land comprising Bradley County was part of the much larger Quapaw reservation as defined in treaties during the early 19th century, the land was eventually ceded to the United States government by 1824.[1] Many of the early white settlers of the area, who arrived as early as the 1820s and 1830s, were known to have been slave holders.[2] However, the families most associated with the founding of the Mount Olive community arrived in the Bradley County area only a few years before the outbreak of the Civil War.
According to a slave narrative recorded during the late 1930s Federal Writers’ Project to collect Slave Narratives, Andrew Wilfong, a local leader in the Mount Olive community during the last quarter of the 19th century, was originally owned by the Wilfong family of Bradley County.[3] Andrew had most likely been transported to Arkansas during the early 1860s with the Wilfong family after they relocated from South Carolina to near Johnsville in Bradley County, Arkansas. Daniel and Junius Wilfong, originally born in North Carolina, relocated to land in Bradley County with their wives and at least eight slaves, if not more. [4] According to local histories of the area around Johnsville, many families, including the Crawfords, Pagans and Wilfongs traveled from South Carolina to Bradley County in the years just before the outbreak of the Civil War.[5] Members of many of Bradley County’s slave owning families volunteered to fight in the Civil War, including John “Mac” Pagan and Daniel E. Wilfong. [6] Both men returned to Bradley County after the war to much changed circumstances. The formerly enslaved population of the county, which was as much as if not more than half the population, were not scattering away from their former masters.
While many blacks fled the South to northern cities after the Emancipation Proclamation, some families remained in Bradley County. Several of these former slaves and their families formed a small community in a previously remote area of the county between several of the older communities in the region. Through the purchase of land from larger landowners, for what some records indicate as 50 cents and acre, an African American community of formerly enslaved peoples developed in the woods of Bradley County. Located north of Johnsville, the community of Mount Olive developed into a thriving center with a school, church, small stores, and some industrial agricultural sites like a cannery and tomato shed during the later boom in tomato production. The inhabitants and land-owners around the community of Mount Olive benefitted from the development of the timber industry during the late 19th and early 20th century. During this period of intense westward development, the country was hungry for timber and the large forests of Arkansas were an ample source. The area around the Mount Olive community was seen as a great source of timber and by 1910 a railroad spur of the Warren, Johnsville and Saline River Railroad was constructed to the small community of Geopel, possibly a new railroad camp town named after Frank H. Goepel who was a leader in the Bradley Lumber Company of Warren.[7] In an Interstate Commerce Commission notation for 1926, the railroad spur is noted as being located at Goepel, which is identified as also being either in the same location or very near the Mount Olive community.[8]
According to local oral histories, the Mount Olive Church was started as a local fellowship of previously enslaved blacks who met informally to worship in the manner of the Methodists. Sometime during the final years of the Civil War, as escaped and freed slaves gathered at Mount Olive, a church group was formally founded and a small church building was constructed. The heart of the small community included at least two small store buildings, the church and homesteads according to local oral histories. The site of this original church has now been lost. An early land deed of gift from 1875, found in the Bradley County land records, mentions a transfer of land including “all of the Church property” in Bradley County owned by Charles Pagan and Abraham Pagan to Andy Wilfong, Monroe Wilfong and Marrs Ingraham for a sum of other land. This trade seems to include the early incarnation of the Mount Olive Church, but doesn’t mention it by name specifically. All of the parties to this land transfer were formerly enslaved, most likely to families living in the Johnsville area as the names Wilfong, Ingram and Pagan were all associated with slave owning families in the area prior to the Civil War. Interestingly, Andy Wilfong, Abraham Pagan, Charles Pagan and Marrs Ingram (Ingram Marrs) were all listed as black registered voters in Palestine Township in Bradley County in 1867.[9]
The land in Bradley County was described as wild and rough, with many of the early settlers relying on the use of slaves in order to create profitable large plantations in the area prior to the Civil War. According to local census records from the decades after the Civil War, it appears that many African Americans who stayed in the area became farmers and several started to accumulate land holdings, including Andrew Wilfong. Andrew may have taken on the last name Wilfong after his previous owners. By the end of the 1880s, Andrew and his wife Angeline had 10 children and ran a prosperous farm near Mount Olive.[10] Angeline and Andrew listed their marriage date as early as 1860 in the 1880 census. This would date their marriage to the period of their previous enslavement, most likely under the ownership of the Wilfong family of Johnsville. Land patents and a later newspaper article show that Andrew continued to accumulate land after the Civil War, including a possible 40 acres purchased from the Wilfong family as well as an additional 158 acres just to the southwest of Mount Olive.[11] A narrative collected during the slave narrative project undertaken by the Federal Writers’ Project during the 1930s describes the way that former slave Andy Wilfong had bought land from his previous masters then used the profits from timber sales on his newly purchased land to continue to purchase more property.[12] By the time of his death in 1930, Andy Wilfong had provided land and a house for each of his surviving children.[13]
Mount Olive African Methodist Episcopal Church
By the 1880s, the community church was organized as the Mount Olive African Methodist Episcopal Church. At this time, the surviving original core of the current building was most likely constructed. The nearby cemetery was also in use by the 1880s, as the earliest marked grave is for Robert Wilfong who was born in 1881 and died in 1891.[14] There were most likely earlier unmarked burials and burials marked with field stones. The African Methodist Episcopal denomination was founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1794 after a group of black members of a local Methodist Episcopal church were forced out of the congregation due to their race. It wasn’t until 1863, when Reverend Nathan Warren, a former slave of Robert Crittenden, first secretary of the Arkansas Territory, became the minister of a small group of African Americans in Little Rock and Helena. The church at Mount Olive was one of many small community churches that sprang up around Arkansas under the guidance of the African Methodist Episcopal denomination. The denomination in Arkansas eventually included over 27,000 members in 333 churches by 1890.[15] The rapid growth of the denomination in Arkansas led to the state becoming a national destination for southern conferences and leadership during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In 1918, Andrew “Uncle Andy” Wilfong, a “Bradley County Ex-Slave,” was celebrated for his donation of $1000 to a Liberty Bond campaign in Bradley County in an article in the state wide paper, The Arkansas Gazette. [16] Although the article is definitely a product of the attitudes of the time, the celebration of a former slave who had become a major landowner in his local community, with enough disposable income to invest what would today be over $15,000 dollars toward the war effort, with the promise of more if needed. Late in his life, in April of 1926, Andrew Wilfong deeded the land surrounding the church building to a set of trustees for the Mount Olive A. M. E. Church so that the church community would have direct control over its own property.
The following is a list of families that maintained the Community and Church throughout the 20th and early 21st century; Allison, Avery, Bailey, Blackmon, Campbell, Franklin, Gill, Goulds, Hampton, Hamilton, Hines, Ingram, Johnson, Jones, King, Larry, Lawson, McClain, Martin, Neal, Newton, Phillips, Ross, Russell, Shines, Slater, Steppes, Tatum, Thomas, Thompson, Tolefree, Trotter, Ware, Watts, Webb, Wilfong, and York. [17] Many of these families were founded in the area by formerly enslaved people who had been transported or traveled to the area from across the south, including Alabama, North Carolina, Georgia and other areas of Arkansas.
Early Ministers of the Mount Olive A.M.E. Church, as recorded in church histories and local oral tradition included: Rev. Weeden, Rev. George Burnett, Rev. Lamkins, Rev. Sutton, Rev. Hursey, Rev. George Dennis, Rev. Boone, Rev. Essley, Rev. Pipkins, Rev. Chanals, Rev. Turner, Rev. Sim Colen, Rev. H.S. Scott, Rev. Hoard, Rev. Floyd Harris, Rev. Green, Rev. J.O. Williams, Rev. Fulbright, Rev. Atkins, Rev. D.D. Lambert, Rev. Tyler, Rev. Gillam, Rev. D.D. Nelson, Rev. Hughes, Rev. N.L. Dove, Rev. McDade, Rev. Norris, Rev. Jemmie Brown, Rev. J.F. Vaughn, Rev. L.W. Daniel, Rev. Mason, Rev. Beaver, Rev. Cole, Rev. Cross, Rev. G.T. Blackman, Rev. G.C. Richardson, Rev. Adair, Rev. Blackman, Rev. Pumphrey, and Rev. B.S. Grinage.[18]
Presiding Elders of the church have included the following individuals: Rev. Berry, Rev. Phillips, Rev. Jim Jones, Rev. Dennis, Rev. Whiteside, Rev. Scott, Rev. Shumpert, Rev. Gardner, Rev. Colen, Rev. Nelson, Rev. Towsen, Rev. Eskridge, Rev. Paul Johnson, Rev. Lenon, Rev. Blakley, Rev. Charles Jones, Rev. A. Harris, Rev. Hall, Rev. C.M. Hankins and Rev. C.C. Akins.[19]
Throughout the 20th century, the Mount Olive A. M. E. Church has also been used as a school house, before the completion of the nearby Rosenwald School in 1927, a space for church conventions, reunions, as a community center and a meeting place for local NAACP members.[20] The church still holds the Community Homecoming Event every three years. A tradition that was started in the early 1900s where descendants of the community return home to celebrate in appreciation of God’s blessings. The Mt. Olive Community was successful because of the wise vision shown by the following men of the community: Andy Wilfong, Marrs Ingram, Henry Ross, Monroe “Mun” Wilfong, Albert Ross, Matthew Steppes, Ned McCain, Sol Bradley, Heel Ingram, Rev. Abe Russell, Tom Thompson, Jessie Hamilton, Ray Hamilton, Jim Phillips, Moses Newton, David Campbell, George Campbell, Dan Ingram, Ben Watts, Joe Callum, Jack Denson and Pere Campbell.
Over the last half a century, the Mount Olive A. M. E. Church building has continued to be used by the local community. Although regular church services are no longer held in the building, community events and funerals are still held here. The church has been added on to several times. These additions include a kitchen space and meeting rooms. Most of the windows in the structure have also been replaced with metal frame windows. A tower, which was added to the southwest corner of the structure, was partially removed after being damaged by a tornado in the late 20th century. The large additions and multiple changes to the original fabric of the structure make this structure ineligible for the National Register of Historic Places.
Statement of Significance
The Mount Olive African Methodist Episcopal Church in Bradley County, Arkansas, is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places under Criterion A, with local significance, for its association with the history of the development of the African American community of Mount Olive and the surrounding area. The property is also being nominated under Criteria Consideration A as a religious property deriving its primary significance from its historical importance.
Bibliography
“1867 voter registration (Palestine Township),” Bradley County Roots: Bradley County Genealogical Society, Warren, AR, v. XI, n. 1, 2002.
American Lumbermen: The Personal History and Public and Business Achievements of One Hundred Eminent Lumbermen of the United States. Volume 3. The American Lumberman: Chicago, 1906. Pp 101-104.
“Bradley County.” The Goodspeed Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Southern Arkansas, (1890). Easley, S.C.: Southern Historical Press. 1978.
Bradley County Property and Real Estate Records. Bradley County Courthouse. Warren, Arkansas.
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938. N.p.: n.p., n.d. American Memory. Library of Congress, 23 Mar. 2001. Web. 1 Feb. 2016.
Davis, Princella, and MacArthur Davis. Afro-Americans Bradley County, Arkansas, 1800-1930. Warren, AR: P. and M. Davis, 2008. Print.
Form of Deed of Gift. Bradley County Real Estate Records. September 20, 1875.
Harper, Misti Nicole. “African Methodist Episcopal Church.” Arkansas Encyclopedia of History and Culture, Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=1&entryID=5358.
Information and Oral Histories. Collected by Princella Davis, 2015.
“Martin’s Early Days of Johnsville.” Bradley County Roots. Bradley County Genealogical Society: Warren, AR. v. X, n. 2, 2001.
“Mt. Olive Cemetery,” Bradley County Roots: Bradley County Genealogical Society, Warren, AR, v. XII, n. 1, 2003.
New, Billie W. Bradly County, Arkansas 1890. B. W. New, 1988.
Norman, Bill. “Bradley County.” Arkansas Encyclopedia of History and Culture, Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=1&entryID=750.
Oral histories about Mount Olive, as collected by Princella Davis, 2015.
““Uncle Andy” Strikes a Blow for His Native Land.” The Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock, AR). 1918.
United States Census Rolls: 1850, 1870, 1880, 1900 & 1910.
Woodard, Beverly Jann. Civil War Soldiers: Bradley County. Arkansas, B.J. Woodard, 1990.
[1] Bill Norman, “Bradley County,” Arkansas Encyclopedia of History and Culture, Butler Center for Arkansas Studies.
[2] “Martin’s Early Days of Johnsville,” Bradley County Roots: Bradley County Genealogical Society, Warren, AR, v. X, n. 2, 2001. p 37.
[3] The Wilfong name is spelled in various ways, most usually Wilfong and Wilifong in census records and county records; however phonetic spellings also do appear. For simplicity, the spelling has been standardized to Wilfong for this narrative.
[4] Section 7, Township 15, Range 9. Information from the Real Estate Tax Record Books of 1890, Bradley County. Billie W. New, Bradley County, Arkansas 1890. B. W. New, 1988.
[5] “Martin’s Early Days of Johnsville,” Bradley County Roots: Bradley County Genealogical Society, Warren, AR, v. X, n. 2, 2001. p 36.
[6] Beverly Jann Woodard, Civil War Soldiers: Bradley County, Arkansas, B.J. Woodard, 1990.
[7]American Lumbermen: The Personal History and Public and Business Achievements of One Hundred Eminent Lumbermen of the United States. Volume 3. The American Lumberman: Chicago, 1906. Pp 101-104.
[8] Interstate Commerce Commission, 119 I.C.C. 68 (1926): Valuation Docket No. 646, Warren, Johnsville & Saline River Railroad Company.
[9] “1867 voter registration (Palestine Township),” Bradley County Roots: Bradley County Genealogical Society, Warren, AR, v. XI, n. 1, 2002. p 48. By the turn of the century, all African American names had disappeared from local voter registration lists. Marrs Ingram’s name is spelled various ways throughout local records, including as Mar Ingraham. The most prevalent spelling of Marrs Ingram has been used for this narrative. Marrs Ingram was also an African American landowner in the Mount Olive community and was listed in various county records including county tax rolls, voter lists and the United States Census Rolls.
[10] United States Census, 1880.
[11] ““Uncle Andy” Strikes a Blow for His Native Land.” The Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock, AR). 1918.
[12] Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938. N.p.: n.p., n.d. American Memory. Library of Congress, 23 Mar. 2001. Web. 1 Feb. 2016.
[13] Ibid.
[14] “Mt. Olive Cemetery,” Bradley County Roots: Bradley County Genealogical Society, Warren, AR, v. XII, n. 1, 2003. Bradley County Roots, Vol XII, no 1, 2003
[15] Misti Nicole Harper, “African Methodist Episcopal Church,” Arkansas Encyclopedia of History and Culture, Butler Center for Arkansas Studies.
[16] ““Uncle Andy” Strikes a Blow for His Native Land.” The Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock, AR). 1918.
[17] This list is based on surviving church documents and local oral tradition. Information and oral histories collected by Princella Davis, 2015.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid.