Benjamin W. Arnett

Benjamin W. Arnett (1838–1906) was an African-American educator, minister, bishop and elected official.

He was born a free man March 6, 1838 in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, where he taught school from 1859 to 1867. In his youth, Arnett lost a leg to an infection suffered after an ankle injury while working on a steam boat between 1857-58.

Arnett married May 25, 1858 to Mary Louise Gordon from Geneva and Uniontown, Pennsylvania. They had seven children: Alonzo T, Benjamin W, Henry T, Annie L, Alphonso Taft, Flossy Gordon, and Daniel Payne.

As a pastor in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), Arnett served parishes in Toledo, Cincinnati, and Columbus; under his leadership, St. Paul's Church in Urbana was completed. It has been designated as a historical landmark. In 1888, he was elected bishop, a position he held until his death in 1906.

He was active in religious education as well, and was a delegate to the International Convention of Sabbath Schools in Washington, DC in 1872 and to the International Sunday School Convention in Toronto in 1880. He had an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Wilberforce University awarded in June 1883.

In the 1860s, Arnett was active in the civil rights movement. He was a member of the Pennsylvania State Equal Rights League and in 1864 was a member of the national convention of colored men in Syracuse, New York. He was secretary of the National Convention of Colored Men in Washington, D.C. in 1867 and chaplain of the convention in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1883.

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