{{Short description|American A.M.E. Bishop (1823–1894)}} {{Infobox person | name = Thomas Marcus Decatur Ward | image = Bishop T. M. D. Ward.jpg | caption = T. M. D. Ward (1902) | other_names = Thomas Mayers Decatur Ward | birth_date = {{birth date|1823|9|28}} | birth_place = Hanover, Pennsylvania, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1894|6||1823|9|28}} | death_place = Jacksonville, Florida, U.S. | occupation = Bishop, missionary, minister, abolitionist | known_for = 10th Bishop and an early representative of the A.M.E. church on the Pacific Coast }}
Rev. '''Thomas Marcus Decatur Ward''' (September 28, 1823 – June 1894) was an American preacher, missionary, bishop, and abolitionist who aided African-Americans escaping slavery. Ward is considered to have been a central leader of African American religious activity in the 19th century and has been referred to as “the original trailblazer of African Methodism” in the United States.<ref name=":0" /> In 1854, Ward took over leadership of St. Cyprian's African Methodist Episcopal Church in San Francisco.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Murphy|first=Larry G.|editor1-first=Larry G|editor1-last=Murphy|editor2-first=J. Gordon|editor2-last=Melton|editor3-first=Gary L|editor3-last=Ward|date=2013-11-20|title=Encyclopedia of African American Religions|doi=10.4324/9781315047201|isbn=9781315047201}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Lapp |first=Rudolph M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GALEv2uoSJkC |title=Blacks in Gold Rush California |date=1977-01-01 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-06545-9 |pages=160 |language=en}}</ref> He was an early representative of the A.M.E. church on the Pacific Coast, and he also served as the 10th Bishop of the A.M.E. Church starting in 1868.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ETQQAQAAIAAJ&q=ward&pg=PA1|title=A History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church: Being a Volume Supplemental to A History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, by Daniel Alexander Payne ... Chronicling the Principal Events in the Advance of the African Methodist Episcopal Church from 1856 to 1922|last1=Smith|first1=Charles Spencer|last2=Payne|first2=Daniel Alexander|date=1922|publisher=Johnson Reprint Corporation|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=Reverend T. M. D. Ward, circa 1865 |url=https://digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:/21198/z1m91sss |access-date=2023-01-29 |website=UCLA Library Digital Collections}}</ref> Ward often went by the name '''T. M. D. Ward''', but was also known as '''Thomas Mayers Decatur Ward'''.<ref name=":3" />
== Childhood and early life == Ward was born September 28, 1823, in Hanover, Pennsylvania.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Encyclopedia of African American Religions|last=Murphy|first=Larry}}</ref> His parents and grandparents were African American and had escaped from slavery and moved to Pennsylvania, where they became active in the Underground Railroad. His uncle was Samuel Ringgold Ward.
Ward grew up in Philadelphia, where he joined the A.M.E church in 1838 at age 15.<ref name=":0" />
== Start of church career == At age 20, he received his license to preach and joined the New England Conference in 1846.<ref name=":0" /> Ward became a church elder in 1849.<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|url=http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=H-Afro-Am&month=0902&msg=hCr1q7HU8AiBus+ivFrdWA|title=H-Net Discussion Networks -|website=h-net.msu.edu|access-date=2018-11-28}}</ref>
Ward soon became a member of the AME church hierarchy in Pennsylvania. He was then elected secretary of the New England Conference for the territories within the national church.<ref name=":1" /> During this conference, Ward broached the idea of a "California mission". The church sent him to San Francisco to accomplish it.<ref name=":1" />
== San Francisco mission == When Ward arrived in San Francisco, he found the AME church to be very small and impoverished. He was forced to find outside work to survive. He lived in a small complex on 532 Bush Lane.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ancestry.com/account/signin?returnurl=https%3a%2f%2fwww.ancestry.com%2finteractive%2f2469%2f41199_1220706242_3974-00448%3fpid%3d1473318659%26backurl%3dhttps%3a%2f%2fsearch.ancestry.com%2fcgi-bin%2fsse.dll%3findiv%3d1%26dbid%3d2469%26h%3d1473318659%26tid%3d%26pid%3d%26usePUB%3dtrue%26_phsrc%3dpYT188%26_phstart%3dsuccessSource%26treeid%3d%26personid%3d%26hintid%3d%26usePUB%3dtrue%26_phsrc%3dpYT188%26_phstart%3dsuccessSource%26usePUBJs%3dtrue&secRedir=1|title=Ancestry - Sign In|website=www.ancestry.com|access-date=2018-12-06}}</ref> Soon after his arrival, the church was attacked by an arsonist in 1854.<ref name="auto1">{{Cite web|url=http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=H-Afro-Am&month=0902&msg=hCr1q7HU8AiBus+ivFrdWA|title=H-Net Discussion Networks -|website=h-net.msu.edu|access-date=2018-12-06}}</ref>
From 1854 until 1856, Ward worked as a Sunday School teacher and pastor at Saint Andrews African Methodist Episcopal Church in Sacramento.<ref name=":22" /> In 1855 and later years, Ward was an active participant in the annual California State Convention of Colored Citizens, including hosting the event at his church in 1857.<ref name=":2" /><ref name="Herron">{{Cite journal |last=Herron |first=Paul E. |date=April 2022 |title="This Crisis of Our History": The Colored Conventions Movement and the Temporal Construction of Southern Politics |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/studies-in-american-political-development/article/this-crisis-of-our-history-the-colored-conventions-movement-and-the-temporal-construction-of-southern-politics/FBADFF636E3D59071555B45DB02DEF48 |journal=Studies in American Political Development |language=en |volume=36 |issue=1 |pages=21–40 |doi=10.1017/S0898588X21000122 |s2cid=246985506 |issn=0898-588X|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name=":22">{{Cite book |last=Taylor |first=Martha C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TsHPDAAAQBAJ |title=From Labor to Reward: Black Church Beginnings in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, and Richmond, 1849-1972 |date=2016-06-24 |publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers |isbn=978-1-4982-3281-4 |pages=5–6, 8 |language=en}}</ref>
Ward became involved in the campaign to Archy Lee.<ref name="auto1" /> In 1857, Lee had been transported from Mississippi to Sacramento. In 1867, Ward helped raise US $50,000 for legal costs of three trials that eventually emancipated Lee.<ref name="auto1" /> Ward later spent US $3,050 to stop Lee's former owner from kidnapping him back to Mississippi.<ref name="auto1" />
After the beginning of the American Civil War, Ward was president of the California Contraband Relief Association and provided funds for the care of the freedmen.<ref name="auto1" /> In the mid 1860s Ward was elected as Bishop to the Pacific Coast at the church's annual conference.<ref name=":1" /> Ward acted as a delegate to and was also the chair of the education committee of the California State Convention of the Colored Citizens.<ref name="auto" />
== Georgia and later life == [[File:Ward Hall, Western University.jpg|alt=Ward Hall (c. 1910), Freedmen University (now Western University of Kansas)|thumb|Ward Hall (c. 1910), Freedmen University (now Western University of Kansas)]] In his later years, Ward returned frequently to the Northeastern United States to preach He was finally reassigned to the fifth district of the church in Georgia.<ref name=":1" /> In Georgia, he presided over numerous general conferences that were held there.<ref name=":1" /> In 1875, the church invited white Americans to the conference for the first time.<ref name=":1" />
In one of his sermons, Ward preached of the importance of education and stated, "Encourage learning and you will live; despise it and you will die".<ref name=":1" />
Ward was often described as "old man eloquent". Another common description made by his colleagues was that he was an overweight man who charmed his audiences with a resonate voice and was a man of courage.<ref name=":1" />
In the late 1870s, Freedmen University (later Western University) was founded and one of the halls was named Ward Hall after him for his work with African-American youth.<ref name=":1" />
Ward was involved in the early 1880s with the founding of Bishop Ward Normal and Collegiate Institute in Huntsville, Texas.<ref name="Foner-2023">{{Cite web |last=Foner |first=Roy |date=2023-06-16 |title=Lest We Forget: The Bishop Ward Normal and Collegiate Institute |url=https://www.samuelwalkerhoustonmuseum.com/post/lest-we-forget-the-bishop-ward-normal-and-collegiate-institute |access-date=2025-08-14 |website=Samuel Walker Houston Museum |language=en}}</ref> In 1886, Ward created a coalition of religious figures dedicated to the study of learning.<ref name=":1" />
In June 1894, Ward died in Jacksonville, Florida,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Berry |first=Lewellyn Longfellow |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dVnPAAAAMAAJ |title=A Century of Missions of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1840-1940 |date=1942 |publisher=Gutenberg Printing Company, Inc. |pages=110 |language=en}}</ref> and he was buried in Washington, D.C.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://ancestry.com|title=The Kansas Blackman|last=Driver|first=W.D|date=1894-06-22}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *{{Commons-inline}} *[https://blackpast.org/aaw/archy-lee-case-1858 Archy Lee Case]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ward, Thomas Marcus Decatur}} Category:1823 births Category:1894 deaths Category:African Methodist Episcopal Church clergy Category:People from Hanover, Pennsylvania Category:19th-century American clergy Category:Clergy from San Francisco Category:African-American missionaries Category:American Methodist missionaries Category:Colored Conventions people Category:African Americans in California