The Reverend Jordan Winston Early was an American Methodist african american preacher, considered to have been one of the pioneers of African Methodism in the West and South of the United States.
Background
Early, a former slave, was born in 1814 in Franklin County, Virginia. After his mother"s death, when Early was three, he 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".
Career
Early and his family were taken by their masters to Missouri in 1826, where Early joined the Methodist Church, and was emancipated in the same year. In 1836, he was licensed as an AME preacher. He helped expand the church in Saint Louis, New Orleans, Illinois, Indiana, and Tennessee.
By 1838, he was ordained a deacon.
In 1840, Early and other supporters built the first AME Church in Saint Louis. He became licensed as an exhorter in 1853.
In the late 1850s, Early evangelized in Tennessee and founded AME missions in Missouri (Kirkwood, Saint Charles, Roche Portuguese, Washington, Jefferson City, Louisiana, Booneville, Saint Joseph, and Weston).