Early years Steward was born to James Steward and Rebecca Gould in
Gouldtown, New Jersey. The son of free Blacks reared in a family that stressed education, he received his formal education in the Gouldtown public schools.
Career Steward was ordained a minister in the
African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1863. Following the
Civil War, Steward helped organize the A.M.E. Church in
South Carolina and
Georgia. He was also active in
Reconstruction politics in Georgia. Steward moved from South Carolina to pastor the AME church in Macon, Georgia March 17, 1868. After the church was burned in a mysterious fire, he helped build a new AME church. The cornerstone was laid January 16, 1870 in the presence of 2,000 black Maconites. After the war he graduated from the
Episcopal Divinity School of
Philadelphia, and later was awarded a
Doctor of Divinity degree from
Wilberforce University in
Wilberforce, Ohio, in 1881. From 1872 to 1891 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 was a participant 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 scholars, editors, and activists of this first major African American learned society, refuting racist scholarship, promoting black claims to individual, social, and political equality, and studying the history and sociology of African American life. Between 1907 and his death on January 11, 1924, Steward was a professor of history, French, and logic at Wilberforce University.
Personal life Steward was married to Elizabeth Gadsden (d. 1893) with whom he had eight sons: Frank Rudolph (b. 1872; Stephen Hunter (b. 1874), Theophilus Bolden (b. 1879), Charles, James, Benjamin, Walter, and Gustavus (b. 1883). His second wife was
Dr. Susan Smith McKinney, the third African-American physician in the United States. He was a cousin to
African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) bishop
Benjamin F. Lee. ==Bibliography==