The history of Dwight Mission, located in Sequoyah County, stretches back 188 years from its establishment in 1829 as an educational facility for native Americans yet many area residents know very little about the complex now known as the Dwight Mission Camp and Conference Center operated by the Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery.
When many Cherokees moved to new lands west of the Mississippi River, in present-day Arkansas, Congregationalist missionaries Rev. Cephas Washburn, Rev. Alfred Finney and other men went also.
In late August 1820 the party chose a site on Illinois Bayou (near Russellville in Arkansas), built a log building, and named the site Dwight Mission, after Rev. Timothy Dwight, president of Yale University.
By May 1821 Dwight Mission was in operation, and it produced two branch missions among the Arkansas Cherokees.
In 1828 a new treaty between the United States and Cherokees mandated that entire nation’s removal westward, this time into present-day Oklahoma.
In May 1829 Dwight Mission was reestablished on Sallisaw Creek, in Sequoyah County near Marble City, about twelve miles above the confluence of Sallisaw Creek and the Arkansas River and thirty-five miles northwest of Fort Smith.
The other two missions moved west as well, one becoming Fairfield and the other, Park Hill.
Quickly, the Dwight missionaries on Sallisaw Creek erected a double log house for a teacherage and girls’ schoolroom and several one- and two-story log houses for the staff.
Eventually, the facility had twenty-one houses, a large dining hall, a barn, and outbuildings.
A school opened May 1, 1830.
At its height, Dwight Mission accommodated more than a dozen staff, including preachers, teachers, industrial instructors, and eighty students.
During the Civil War, several buildings were burned. The last religious service was held there in November 1862 before the complex was abandoned.
The property later went into private hands and was little used. By 1884 only two of the original buildings remained standing.
In 1886 the Cherokee National Council re-established the school, and the Presbyterian Women’s Board of Home Missions provided funds.
A large building was erected as a boarding facility for Cherokee girls. Dwight remained open until 1895, after which it served as a day school. It reopened in 1900 as a boarding school for boys and girls.
A 1944 report indicated that Dwight Indian Training School consisted of nine buildings on eighty-six acres, operated under the Board of National Missions of the Presbyterian Church USA, and served seventy-one students, mostly Cherokee and Choctaw.
The school closed in 1948. In 1950 the property was purchased by the Presbyterian Church USA, and to this day, the Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery continues to maintain the facility as a retreat and conference center.
Dwight Mission is available year-round, offering the perfect place to hold conferences, retreats, meetings, reunions, company excursions, and more. Nestled in the beautiful hills of eastern Oklahoma.
Dwight Mission provides a great atmosphere, lodging, meals, and meeting space, where your group, family, church, or business can enjoy gracious hospitality while accomplishing goals ranging from fun and relaxation to training and development.
In addition to comfortable lodging and modern meeting facilities, recreational opportunities at Dwight Mission include two volleyball courts, two basketball half-courts, four ping-pong tables, a playing field with backstop, a nine-hole disk golf course, canoes, a swimming pool, a fishing/swimming dock at the creek, and hiking.
The site lies three miles southwest of present Marble City or 50 County Road. Dwight Mission was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
