The Reverend Richard Harvey Cain |
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Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina's At-large Congressional District | |
In office March 4, 1873 – March 3, 1875 |
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Preceded by | District created |
Succeeded by | District eliminated |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina's 2nd district |
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In office March 4, 1877 – March 3, 1879 |
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Preceded by | Charles W. Buttz |
Succeeded by | Michael P. O'Connor |
Member of the South Carolina Senate from Charleston County | |
In office November 24, 1868 – March 1, 1870 |
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Personal details | |
Born |
Greenbrier County, Virginia |
April 12, 1825
Died | January 18, 1887 Washington, D.C. |
(aged 61)
Political party | Republican |
Spouse(s) | Laura |
Profession | Minister |
Religion | African Methodist Episcopal |
Nickname(s) | "Daddy Cain" |
Richard Harvey Cain (April 12, 1825 – January 18, 1887) was a minister, abolitionist, and United States Representative from South Carolina from 1873–1875 and 1877-1879. After the Civil War, he was appointed by Bishop Daniel Payne as a missionary of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina.
Richard Harvey Cain was born to a black father and a Cherokee mother in Greenbrier County Virginia, which is now in West Virginia. He was raised in Gallipolis, Ohio, a free state where he was allowed to read and write. He attended Wilberforce University and attended divinity school in Hannibal, Missouri. The American Civil War broke out while he was at Wilberforce. He later claimed that he and 115 students from the mostly black University attempted to enlist in the Union Army but were refused.
Cain worked as a barber in Galena, IL and worked on steamboats along the Ohio River before he migrated south.
He had been licensed to preach for the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844. His first assignment was in Hannibal, Missouri. In 1848, frustrated by the segregationist policies of the Methodists, he joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church, an independent black denomination started in Philadelphia. By 1859 he became a deacon in Muscatine, Iowa. In 1861, Cain was called as a pastor at the Bridge Street Church in Brooklyn, New York. In 1862, he was ordained as an elder in 1862 and remained at the Brooklyn church until 1865.