y for the uses of the local
congregation, was purchased in a suburb on the west side of Valliant.
The trustees chosen at this time were Mitchell S. Stewart, formerly an
elder, Matt Brown and James R. Crabtree. They were duly authorized to
incorporate and manage the erection of the new church building.

THE NATIVE OAK HILL SCHOOL

The Negroes who were slaves of the Indians, about the year 1880 were
enrolled and adopted as citizens, by the tribes to which they
respectively belonged, and they then became entitled to a small part of
their public school funds. The amount accorded the Choctaw Freedmen was
about one dollar a year for a pupil that was enrolled as attending
school. This made possible the employment of a teacher for a short term
of three months in the vicinity of a few villages, where a large
enrollment could be secured, but left unsupplied the greater number
living in the sparsely settled neighborhoods.

Our Board of Missions for Freedmen, ever since its organization, has
made it the duty of every negro minister commissioned by it, to maintain
a school in their respective chapels several months each year, in order
that the children of the community might have an opportunity to learn to
read the Bible.

The first native teacher in the Oak Hill congregation was J. Ross
Shoals, one of the elders of the church, who had a large family and
principally of boys. His work was that of a Bible reader or Sunday
School teacher. About the year 1876 he began to hold meetings in the
south arbor on Sabbath afternoons for the purpose of teaching both old
and young to read the Bible with him. Nathan Mattison succeeded him the
next year at the same place as a Sabbath school teacher.

In 1878, George M. Dallas, a carpenter, was employed to build a small
frame school house on the southwest quarter of section 27, and after its
completion he taught that year the first term of week day school among
the colored people of that section. Others that succeeded Dallas, as
teachers in this frame school house, were Mary Rounds, Henry Williams
and Lee Bibbs.

OLD LOG HOUSE

In 1884, Henry Williams transferred the day school to the "old log
house" on the northeast quarter of section 29, a mile and a half
northwest of the school house. The motive for this change was the fact
there was no supply of good water near the school house, while at the
new location there was a good well and a large vacant building available
for use.

Robin C