Allegiance United States Role Author | Name Theophilus Steward Rank Captain | |
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Born 17 April 1843Gouldtown, New Jersey, United States ( 1843-04-17 ) Buried at Gouldtown Memorial ParkGouldtown, Cumberland, New Jersey Other work Author, educator, clergyman Died January 11, 1924, Wilberforce, Xenia Township, Ohio, United States Books Memoirs of Mrs Rebecca, The Colored Regulars, Buffalo Soldiers: The Color, A Charleston Love Stor, Information and Guidance Similar People Archibald Grimke, William Pickens, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg | ||
Service/branch United States Army | ||
Theophilus Gould Steward (April 17, 1843 – January 11, 1924) was an American author, educator, and clergyman. He was a U.S. Army chaplain and Buffalo Soldier of 25th U.S. Colored Infantry.
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Early years
Steward was born to James Steward and Rebecca Gould in Gouldtown, New Jersey. The son of free Blacks reared in a family that stressed education, he received his formal education in the Gouldtown public schools.
Career
Steward was ordained a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1863. Following the Civil War, Steward helped organize the A.M.E. Church in South Carolina and Georgia. He was also active in Reconstruction politics in Georgia. After the war he graduated from the Episcopal Divinity School of Philadelphia, and later was awarded a Doctor of Divinity degree from Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio, in 1881.
From 1872 to 1891 Steward established a church in Haiti and preached in the eastern United States. He was a participant in the March 5, 1897 meeting to celebrate the memory of Frederick Douglass which founded the American Negro Academy led by Alexander Crummell. In 1891 he joined the 25th U.S. Colored Infantry, serving as its chaplain until 1907, including service in Cuba during the Spanish–American War, and in the Philippines. Between 1907 and his death on January 11, 1924, Steward was a professor of history, French, and logic at Wilberforce University.
Personal life
Steward was married to Elizabeth Gadsden (d. 1893) with whom he had eight sons: Frank Rudolph (b. 1872; Stephen Hunter (b. 1874), Theophilus Bolden (b. 1879), Charles, James, Benjamin, Walter, and Gustavus (b. 1883). His second wife was Dr. Susan Smith McKinney, the third African-American physician in the United States. He was a cousin to African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) bishop Benjamin F. Lee.