Thomas Marcus Decatur Ward dating history

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Rev. Thomas Marcus Decatur Ward (September 28, 1823 – June 1894) was an American preacher, missionary, bishop, and abolitionist who aided African-Americans escaping slavery. Ward is considered to have been a central leader of African American religious activity in the 19th-century and has been referred to as “the original trailblazer of African Methodism” in the United States. In 1854, Ward took over leadership of St. Cyprian's African Methodist Episcopal Church in San Francisco. He was an early representative of the A.M.E. church on the Pacific Coast, and he also served as the 10th Bishop of the A.M.E. Church starting in 1868. Ward often went by the name T. M. D. Ward, but was also known as Thomas Mayers Decatur Ward.