Nuyaka Mission

The Nuyaka Mission, Oklahoma site is located in Okmulgee County, Oklahoma, approximately 15.7 miles west of the intersection of U.S. Route 75 and State Highway 56 (6th Street) in the City of Okmulgee, Oklahoma. The Nuyaka Mission is included on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Okmulgee County, Oklahoma. The mission was established by Alice Mary Robertson at the request of the Creek Council, and run by the Presbyterian Church.Initially the Creek principal chief proposed to name the mission Robertson Institute, in honor of William S. Robertson, but his daughter, Augusta, wrote a letter stating that the family preferred that the name should be from the Creek language. Therefore, Nuyaka Mission was named for the nearby Creek town of Nuyaka. According to one source, the name Nuyaka is from the Creek pronunciation for New York, which was the site of a meeting between President George Washington and 26 Creek chiefs. The meeting was to discuss a treaty and to obtain a cession of Creek land to the U, S. Government. Reportedly, the Creeks were so impressed with New York City that they named one of their towns for it. White men wrote the town name as Nuyaka. Ironically, some of the official correspondence cited by Carolyn Thomas Foreman, gives the name as "New Yorker Mission" and "Nuyarker Mission."The mission consisted of four buildings. One building contained a chapel/assembly room and some school class rooms. The second building held the superintendent's apartment and housed the boys. The other two buildings were cottages that housed the girls and the teachers who supervised them. Initially, the mission enrolled seventy boys and girls. It had seven female teachers and one man who supervised the boys after school hours.Rev. Thomas Ward Perryman, a Creek who had been educated at Tullahassee Mission, was the first pastor and taught religious classes.