Introduction
Born: April 17, 1843, Gouldtown, New Jersey.
Died: January 11, 1924, Wilberforce, Ohio.
Buried: Gouldtown Memorial Park, Gouldtown, New Jersey.
Born: April 17, 1843, Gouldtown, New Jersey.
Died: January 11, 1924, Wilberforce, Ohio.
Buried: Gouldtown Memorial Park, Gouldtown, New Jersey.
Theophilus was the son of James Steward and Rebecca Gould, husband of Elizabeth Gadsden, and cousin of African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church bishop Benjamin F. Lee.
He was ordained in the AME in 1863. After the American civil war, he graduated from the Episcopal Divinity School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1881, he received a Doctor of Divinity degree from Wilberforce University, Wilberforce, Ohio.
Gould helped organize the AME Church in South Carolina and Georgia. On March 17, 1868, he moved from South Carolina to pastor the AME church in Macon, Georgia. Steward was also active in Reconstruction politics in Georgia.
From 1872–91, Steward established a church in Haiti and preached in the eastern United States. 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.
He participated in the March 5, 1897 meeting to celebrate the memory of Frederick Douglass, which founded the American Negro Academy led by Alexander Crummell. From the founding of the organization until his death in 1924, Steward remained active among the society’s scholars, editors, and activists.
From 1907–24, Steward was a professor of history, French, and logic at Wilberforce University.