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Tuckahoe River Trip - Bishop A. W. Wayman Pilgrimage |
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Alexander Walker Wayman (1821-1895) was one of the most active bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods. He extended the bounds of his A.M.E. ministry to
the edge of the battlefield during the war. After hostilities ceased, he established and nurtured churches from Florida to Minnesota and California. Bishop A.W. Wayman was born in Tuckahoe Neck, Caroline County. His family owned the farmland and Tuckahoe riverfront property that included Wayman Wharf, the steamboat terminus of the Wheeler Transportation Line that served Hillsboro in the late 1800s. During the pre-war decades as a church elder, Wayman established and led dozens of parishes in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. He reorganized the Denton parish in his native Caroline
County and dedicated chapels in Denton and Tuckahoe Neck (Deep Branch Chapel, now located at the crossroads of “Griffin”.)
During the Civil War and post-war years, Bishop Wayman organized the Virginia, Georgia, and Florida conferences of the A.M.E. church. He supervised the Midwestern District that included Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and California. He also wrote two histories of the A.M.E. church. These histories were based on his renowned recollection of "the minutest details of incidents that happened a score of years before." In his published histories *, Bishop Wayman called his home "Tuckahoe". According to A.M.E. Bishop Levi J. Coppin (1848-1923), "A. W. Wayman more than any one else, advertised the Eastern Shore as the 'Garden Spot of the World'." Bishop Coppin compared Wayman to Frederick Douglass, calling them two of the "bright lights" in the cause of freedom and education of black slaves and freedmen. They were "the first to come forward with a helping hand to the freedman at a time when he most needed suggestion and guidance" after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. (Bishop L. J. Coppin, Unwritten History, 1919) Bishop Coppin was referring to Wayman's extensive trips to Richmond, Savannah, Charleston, and other southern cities occupied by federal troops, to organize African-American congregations even before the Civil War's end. Bishop Coppin described Bishop Wayman's appearance: "The 'little fat man,' as he termed himself ... did not look like any of our own men. He wore his hair long and brushed it back without parting it. His skin was as smooth as that of a woman. His face beamed with intelligence. His features were prominent, with nothing of the depression characteristic of slave conditions. He was princely in appearance, and may have been a lineal descendant from a royal house in Africa, for he was of unmixed blood. As a speaker he was naturally eloquent, with an easy style. He could preach three times a day without 'soiling' his collar. Upon examination his diary showed that he averaged a sermon a day, year after year. He was much sought by white congregations, especially on camp-meeting occasions. He was conservative in speech and action. Took no prominent part in anti-slavery agitation, nor in reconstruction work. Just worked along evangelistic lines, and at that he seemed never to tire." This Story of the Bishop A.W. Wayman Memorial Tour tells of Bishop Wayman’s boyhood and the Wayman family and farm in Tuckahoe Neck and Caroline County. It tells how itinerant preachers, fleeing white mobs, influenced his decision to enter the ministry. Bishop Wayman gives his own account of the "time of troubles" for black ministers and congregations in Caroline County beginning in the 1830s. He modestly describes his Civil War experiences as a church leader, and his connections with national leaders and events. His recollections of pilgrimages back to Tuckahoe Neck paint a picture of rural Caroline County before and after the Civil War. Follow the arrows to read the Story of Bishop A.W. Wayman. * Most of the material in this Trip Story is found in Wayman’s two published histories:
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