John Marrant

John Marrant (June 15, 1755 – April 15, 1791) was an American Methodist preacher and missionary and one of the first black preachers in North America. Born free in New York City, he moved as a child with his family to Charleston, South Carolina. His father died when he was young, and he and his mother also lived in Florida and Georgia. After escaping to the Cherokee, with whom he lived for two years, he allied with the British during the American Revolutionary War and resettled afterward in London. There he became involved with the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion and ordained as a preacher.

Marrant was supported to travel in 1785 as a preacher and missionary to Nova Scotia, where he founded a Methodist church in Birchtown. He married there before settling in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1790 he returned to London. He wrote a memoir about his life, published in 1785 in London as ''A Narrative of the Lord's Wonderful Dealings with John Marrant, a black''; also published were a 1789 sermon, and a journal in 1790 covering the previous five years of his life. Provided by Wikipedia