Saturday, December 09, 2017

J. Ellis and the "Chickasaw Christian Church"

I have been evangelizing about three months in northern Texas and the southern part of the Indian Territory. . . . Since crossing the Red River into the Indian Nation, I have been very successful. I gathered up a very pleasant congregation of Indians and whites and organized them into a Christian Church under the name "Chickasaw Christian Church."

--J. Ellis, Christian Standard 9, no. 21 (May 23, 1874), pp. 162-63, as quoted in Stephen J. England, Oklahoma Christians (Bethany Press, 1975), p. 41.

1874. England suggests that this marks the very beginning of missionary activity among the Chickasaws in Indian Territory conducted by anyone with connections to the Restoration Movement. Note that Ellis's report quoted above comes years before Murrell Askew's arrival in I.T. (1881).