Bloomfield Academy (Oklahoma)
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Bloomfield Academy Site
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| Nearest city | Achille, Oklahoma |
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| Coordinates | 33°47′58″N 96°23′1″W / 33.79944°N 96.38361°WCoordinates: 33°47′58″N 96°23′1″W / 33.79944°N 96.38361°W |
| Built | 1852 |
| NRHP Reference # | |
| Added to NRHP | November 15, 1972 |
Bloomfield Academy was a Chickasaw school for girls founded in 1852 by the Reverend John Harpole Carr, located in the Chickasaw Nation in Indian Territory, about 3 miles (4.8 km) southeast of the present town of Achille, Oklahoma. It was a boarding school funded by both the Missouri Conference of the Methodist Church and the government of the Chickasaw Nation. Rev. Carr was a licensed Methodist preacher who had joined the "Indian Mission Conference" in 1845 and traveled around the Doaksville circuit for six years. His first wife, Harriet, died in 1847. Carr continued his work for the school and remarried in 1852. The new Mrs. Carr joined the faculty, teaching music and "fancy work" to the girls.
The Academy closed during the Civil War, and the property was taken over by the Chickasaw Battalion, a Confederate Army unit. After the war, Carr was appointed to a new position by the Methodist Church South, He had married his third wife in 1865, and the couple moved to Texas. The Chickasaw Nation government took control of Bloomfield Academy and reopened it in 1867. A series of superintendents followed. Perhaps the most notable of these was Douglas H. Johnston, who remained in the post from 1880 until 1895. In 1897, Johnston was elected governor of the Chickasaw Nation, a position he held until the Chickasaw government was abolished by Oklahoma Statehood in 1907.
Responsibility for the Academy was taken by the Federal Government, and the school continued in its former surroundings until 1914, when most of the buildings were destroyed by a fire. The school moved to Ardmore, Oklahoma. The school was made coeducational and renamed Carter Seminary in 1934.
In 2004, Carter Seminary moved to a new location on Lake Texoma, where it operates at present.
In the fall of 1847, the Missouri Conference appointed Rev, Carr to superintend the construction of Bloomfield Academy in the Choctaw Nation. In 1852, he selected a site and began the construction, even performing some of the manual labor himself. Carr married has second wife, Miss Angelena Hosmer, a native of Massachusetts, in June, 1852.
Funding was always tight. One source was an annual contribution of $1000 from a fund that Congress has voted for George Washington, but which the former president had set apart for educational purposes. The Choctaw Nation and later the Chickasaw Nation contributed two-thirds of the annual operating expenses, while the Methodist Board contributed one-third. Expenditures were held down because Rev. Carr, a skilled woodworker, performed all of the carpentry and cabinet work himself. In addition, he also raised corn, wheat and potatoes on the Academy property. He even added two orchards producing peaches, plums and apples. Mrs. Carr was the teacher of handicrafts ("fancy work") and music.
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