Isaac McCoy.
Isaac McCoy was an Indian missionary who worked with several tribes in Kansas and established the Delaware Baptist Mission in Wyandotte County.
McCoy was born near Uniontown, Pennsylvania, on June 13, 1784. The following year, his family moved to Kentucky, where he grew up. In 1817, he began his work as a missionary among the Miami Indians in the Wabash Valley in Indiana. In the spring of 1820, he went to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and in December 1822, he followed the Potawatomi Indians to Michigan, becoming the founder of the Grand River Mission in 1826.
Two years later, he was one of the commissioners appointed to visit the western country and select homes for the Ottawa and Potawatomi tribes. In January 1829, he visited Washington, D.C., and made a report of his investigations, and in July, he again started west. In 1837, he was sent by the government to survey the Delaware Indian lands. While on this work, he made arrangements for missions among the Otoe and Omaha, held a council with the Pawnee, visited the Cherokee and Creek, and assisted in adjusting the boundaries of their reservations.
He made a report proposing locations for the Potawatomi, Ottawa, Miami, New York tribes, and some others. The government accepted his report, and he remained with the Indians on their reservations until 1842, when he went to Louisville, Kentucky, to assume the management of the American Indian Mission Association’s work. McCoy was the author of A History of Baptist Indian Missions. He died in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1846.
Compiled and edited by Kathy Alexander/Legends of Kansas, updated April 2025.
Also See:
See Sources.