User:Bruin2/Draft/George W. Mowbray, Sr.

George W. Mowbray (1847 - 1910), a native of England, immigrated to the United States in 1869, where he and his wife settled initially in Binghampton, New York. His parents were members of the Church of England, and he became a serious student of religion. Reportedly, he delivered his first sermon at the age of sixteen. Friends referred to him as,"the boy preacher."He soon became a licensed minister in the Weslayan Methodist church.

In 1869, young Mowbray and his wife (nee Hannah E. Harley of Garthrope, England) sailed to the United States, where he was appointed as the minister of the Binghampton, New York Methodist Church for the next six years. He became a U. S. citizen during this time, and continued to preach at other churches in New York and Pennsylvania, until he moved to McCune, Kansas, in 1886.

In 1887, the Southern Kansas Methodist Conference sent him as a missionary to the Indian Mission Conference in Indian Territory, where he mainly served members of the Creek Nation in the vicinity of Tulsa, Oklahoma. He then became the second settled minister of Tulsa's First Methodist Church. He retired from the ministry in 1896 to manage a mercantile store in downtown Tulsa that had been founded by his recently-deceased son-in-law, T. J. Archer. He also plunged into a wide range of civic activities that included:   Mowbray also founded Mowbray Undertaking Co., which he operated until his death in 1910.
 * Helping to organize the Methodist Episcopal Mission School and serving as its director for eleven years;
 * Serving as the president of the Tulsa Public School board;
 * Becoming a founder and member of the Commercial Club (later renamed as the Chamber of Commerce);
 * Serving as fifth Mayor of Tulsa (1903-04);
 * Was Grand Master of the International Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) Grand Lodge of Indian Territory;{{efn|was notable for leading building of the Odd Fellows Home in Checotah, Oklahoma.