Stephen Paxson: November 3, 1808 – April 22, 1881

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✪ Stephen Paxson was an American Protestant missionary remembered for his work with the American Sunday School Union. He is known for being responsible for starting over 1,300 Sunday schools in small towns across frontier rural America with a total attendance of about 83,000 pupils. He is also known as the Apostle to Children and regarded as the single most influential figure responsible for evangelizing the American frontier.

Stephen Paxson was born to Joseph and Mary Lester Paxson on November 3, 1808 in New Lisbon, Ohio, one of seven children. Stephen’s father Joseph died while the children were young and poverty forced his mother to find other families to take in Stephen and his siblings. Stephen was first indentured to Harman Fagan with the promise he would be permitted to attend school for at least three months out of the year.  

However, Stephen became crippled by a painful condition known at the time as the “white swelling.” He would remain lame and handicapped to some degree throughout his entire life. He was also born with a serious speech impediment and nicknamed “Stuttering Stephen.” Because his stutter was so pronounced, he was never allowed to attend school. On his very first first day, he was so excited he could not say his name or age. His classmates laughed at him and the teacher sent him home with a note saying he was not welcomed back at school until he learned to talk. As a result, he never received a formal education, but remained inquisitive and determined enough to eventually teach himself to read by learning the alphabet from shop signs and fence posters. He also avidly collected and studied discarded newspapers.

As a crippled and handicapped person in frontier America, there were few available jobs for which Stephen could qualify. He was eventually apprenticed to a hatter and became a hat maker. He also enjoyed music and taught himself to sing and play the fiddle. He soon became a favorite fiddler at the local Saturday night dances.

In his early life, Paxson was not a professed Christian nor member of any church or congregation. He had no personal interest in religion whatsoever and never set foot in a church until he was already in his 30s, when his daughter Mary begged him to attend church to help her win a gold star for attendance. He agreed to go, but only to put his foot in the door long enough hoping his presence would be counted toward’s Mary’s prize. However, once at the church he was approached by the minister. They needed a Sunday school teacher for that day and Paxson was pressed into service. The cirriculum was simple enough; Paxon asked study questions from a book and students would search and read back answers from their Bibles.

Paxson returned each Sunday to teach the class. At first, he considered himself to be a moral man who had no need for salvation, Christ, or the church; but after four years teaching & thinking about the material in the Sunday school book, he was personally converted to Christ.

After his conversion; his enthusiasm suddenly became passionate and knew no bounds. He soon left his job as a hat maker and sold his family’s home in Winchester, Illinois to move to a simple log cabin home on Hickory Hill in Pike County so he could become a Sunday school missionary. His original salary was only one dollar a day. Highly motivated, Paxson began to work to overcome his handicaps. Eventually, he learned to walk without too much discomfort and overcame his stuttering by taking deep breaths to relax and then expelling it slowly while talking.

Paxson traveled alone for most of the year. His missionary ministry covered an area stretching all the way from the Great Lakes in the north to the Gulf of Mexico in the south. East from the Allegheny Mountains to the Rockies in the west. Along all of his travels, he made a habit of always stopping to visit every child he met along the way, hoping to persuade them to come to Sunday school. This habit became such a central part of his ministry that his horse learned to stop whenever children came into sight. This led him to become known as “the Apostle to the children.”

Paxson’s ultimate goal was to establish a Sunday school in every community he visited; and he seized upon every opportunity to do so by talking to parents, town leaders, and the local children themselves. It’s said whenever he arrived in a new town, his horse would automatically turn in at every school and church without command.

During the winter months when travel was more difficult in the frontier, Paxson would use that time to visit the larger towns in the East, seeking to start Sunday schools in each community, and raising funds for the work of the American Sunday School Union. In particular, to secure donations to furnish smaller libraries of Sunday school books for the frontier communities at half cost. During his travels he also spoke & preached to public groups five nights a week and three to five times each Sunday. His ministry organized 1,314 Sunday-schools containing 83,405 scholars and teachers where none had existed before, including aiding and encouraging an additional other 1,747 Sunday schools with 131,260 scholars and teachers.

Paxson endured many hardships due to the pain of his physical infirmities. He often traveled roads alone with his horse named “Robert Raikes,” through all extremes of weather; many of which were primitive and barely considered little more than unmarked trails at the time, covering over 100,000 miles by horseback during his lifetime. One of his favorite sayings was “A Sunday school born in a snowstorm will never be scared by a white frost.” He also traveled with no guarantee of any accommodations, often sleeping out in the open. He also had to endure the hardships of separation from his family over these long periods of time; however, his wife proved to capable, loving, and supportive of his mission: caring well for their children during these long absences.

The Sunday schools founded by Paxson were Union Sunday Schools which created a devotional umbrella in which many different Christian denominations could meet to participate and study the Bible together. His ministry was extremely fruitful and extended more than forty years thru two generations, bringing tens of thousands to church. He once set a personal record of starting forty new Sunday schools in forty days. It’s said one man even moved twice in an effort to avoid Paxson and his Sunday schools. However, when Paxson showed up again at the third place to which he had moved, he came to hear Paxson preach and was so moved by his message he enrolled himself and his seven sons in the Sunday school and contributed a sizable donation towards starting a Sunday school library.

In his later years, Paxson would retired to the home office of the American Sunday School Union in St. Louis where he was placed in charge of the Union’s Sunday School Book Depository which was responsible for filling orders for the smaller rural & frontier libraries for which he so often raised funds. He was very adamant about book orders being filled on the same day they were received. While living in St. Louis, Paxson and his family were members of the Pilgrim Congregational Church.

In October 1880, the Paxsons celebrated the fifty year anniversary of their marriage at their home in St. Louis. Paxson spent much of this time making scrapbooks documenting his life labors and writing letters of encouragement to others.

Paxson became an invalid during the last three months of his life. Several days prior his death, when it finally became evident he would never recover, his son, Reverend W. P. Paxson, asked him if he was prepared to die. Paxson replied, “Son, that was settled many years ago.” Paxson’s final message to his friends was “I die at my post. All is clear and bright and peaceful. No fear, no tremor, but rest and comfort in God.” He passed away at his home in St Louis on April 22, 1881 and is interred at Bellefontaine Cemetery. The American Sunday School Union would go on to establish over 61,297 Sunday Schools across the country with 407,244 teachers and 2,650,784 students.✪