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It was on July 8, 1750, in Brimfield, Massachusetts, that pioneer Presbyterian missionary Joseph Bullen was born. He studied at Yale, graduating in 1772, and became pastor of a Congregational church two years later, in Westminster, Vermont. He also worked as a teacher, a miller, and a farmer, and served as a chaplain in the American War of Independence, and later was elected to serve in the Vermont legislature. He and his wife Hannah had nine children.
In 1796, he answered the call of the New-York Missionary Society to serve as a missionary to the Chickasaw Indians in the Mississippi Territory. A charge was given to him in March 1799 by John Rodgers. Later that year, he made his way through wilderness to reach his destination, receiving a letter of safe passage from Chickasaw chief William Colbert. Robert M. Winter writes, “On June 2, 1799, Bullen preached the first sermon in the Chickasaw Nation, also the first Presbyterian sermon in Mississippi” (Outposts of Zion: A History of Mississippi Presbyterians in the Nineteenth Century, p. 10).
This photo shows the reconstructed log cabin church known as the Bayou Pierre Presbyterian Church, at Port Gibson, Mississippi, organized by Joseph Bullen, as it stood in 1807. It was one of several Presbyterian congregations organized by Bullen in the Mississippi Territory.
Bullen recorded his experiences in a journal, extracts of which from the year 1800 were published by the New York Missionary Magazine and Repository of Religious Intelligence. He returned to New England briefly and was re-authorized to continue serving as a missionary to the Chickasaw Indians, which he did, organizing a school, and planting churches in the Mississippi Territory. Other missionaries came and, by their combined labors, the Presbyterian Church obtained a foothold in the “Old Southwest.” In 1816, the Presbytery of Mississippi was organized, and Bullen was chosen as its first Moderator. He died on March 26, 1825, and is buried in Jefferson County, Mississippi. Today, we remember his labors on behalf of the kingdom of Christ, especially as the first pioneer Presbyterian missionary in Mississippi.
