1843–1924

Introduction

Born: Ap­ril 17, 1843, Gould­town, New Jer­sey.

Died: Jan­ua­ry 11, 1924, Wil­ber­force, Ohio.

Buried: Gould­town Me­mo­ri­al Park, Gould­town, New Jer­sey.

portrait

Biography

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.

Works

Sources

Lyrics