Spencer Academy
10 mi. N of Fort Towson, Fort Towson, OKThe Choctaws had a healthy respect for education that their removal to Indian Territory in the 1830s did not destroy. And they continued to send some of their youth to schools east of the Mississippi, But the results of this training in a distant, alien milieu were not always ideal and tribal leaders soon set out to build an educational system of their own in their new homeland. Official action by the Choctaw Council in November 1842 la id the groundwork for this system, Spencer Academy for boys was the first school authorized by this legislation.
Spencer opened February 1, 1844. (It was named for John Spencer, secretary of War from 1841 to 1843, who donated a 250-pound bell to the institution.). In 1846, after trying without notable success to exercise direct control over the school, the Choctaws turned over management responsibilities to the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church. Alexander Reid became the superintendent finally in mid-1849. He stayed for twenty years and is largely responsible for the solid reputation Spencer acquired and for the influence it had on the Choctaw Nation and many of its leaders. Although he strongly opposed slavery -- this among a people that owned slaves and as superintendent of an institution that depended for its well-being on slavery (the Choctaws themselves performed few menial tasks) -- Reid held Spencer together during the trying pre-Civil War years.
There is a curious, but not insignificant, side bar story to evolve from this trying era, Negroes were an intricate part of academy life at Spencer, And two of them, Wallace and Minerva Willis, often sang for the students and missionaries deeply spiritual songs reflecting the Negro's keen awareness of hardships in the present and his abiding faith in a glorious future. Reid responded to these songs, jotting them down, remembering them. And in 1871, after he had left Spencer, he taught them to the Fisk University Jubilee Singers... songs like "Steal Away to Jesus," "The Angels Are Coming," "I'm a Rolling, I'm a Rolling," and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"... perhaps the best known of them all. They were sung before Queen Victoria and around the world, Reid -- in part at least to still his anti-slavery conscience? -- had made his unique contribution to American folk music.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.