"Jordan Winston Early"(1814-1903)

Was an American Methodist multiracial preacher,considered to have been one of the pioneers of African Methodist in the West and South of the United States.In 1868,he married Sarah Jane Woodson,and the couple were prominent in spreading Methodism and black nationalism,and his wife taught where ever he preached.Jordan,a former slave of mixed-race,was born in Franklin County,Virginia.After his mother's death,when he was three,he and and his siblings were cared for by a maternal aunt,an uncle who taught him astronomy,and an older woman on the plantation,known as "Aunt Milly."He became a minister at the age of 12.Jordan and his family were taken by their masters to Missouri in 1826,where he joined the Methodist Church,and was emancipated in the same year.While working on a Riverboat that piled between St.Louis and New Orleans,he learned how to read and write,taught by Presbyterian minister and a shipmate.Joining the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832,Jordan worked to build more local congregations.In 1836,he was licensed as an AME preacher.He helped expand the church in St.Louis,New Orleans,Illinois,Indiana,and Tennessee.By 1838,he was ordained a deacon.In 1840,Jordan and other supporters built the first AME Church in St.Louis.In 1843,he married Louisa Carter,and they had eight children,four of whom survived to adulthood.The Early's sent their children to Wilberforce University.He became licensed as an exhorter in 1853.In the late 1850s,Jordan evangelized in Tennessee and founded AME missions in Missouri (Kirkwood,Saint Charles,Roche Port,Washington,Jefferson City,Louisiana,Booneville,Saint Joseph,and Weston).After Louisa died in 1862,he married Sarah Jane Woodson on September 24,1868.The couple were prominent in spreading Methodist and black nationalism;his wife taught where ever he preached,serving as principal in four cities.Jordan and Sarah retired to Nashville from active minister appointments in 1888.Sarah wrote a biography of her husband and his rise from slaverly that is included among postwar slave narratives.