Ministers A. M. E. Church Take Notice
Christian Recorder: November 16, 1893
About a year ago, one Dr. Alfred H. Chase came to my house and expressed a great anxiety to go to Africa and become a missionary. He exhibited some intelligence, and manifested such an acquaintance with missionary work, and showed me so many of the finest recommendations I ever saw, that I became exceedingly impressed with him. But I told him there was no money in the Missionary Department to send him. He said he had $500.00 in the hands of his brother in the city of Philadelphia, and if I would give him an appointment to any African work which I might designate, he would meet his own expenses and support himself for at least a year. I granted his request by giving him an appointment to Lagos, Africa, with the distinct understanding that he would meet me in New York when I started to Africa, and proceed with me as far as Liberia, assist with the conference, and afterward proceed on to Lagos. But before leaving my study, to guard against all contingencies, I had him to sign a paper, which I hold, that will convict him of the basest perjury.
When I reached New York, I looked in vain for Dr. Chase. I proceeded to Africa, attended to my duties and returned, expecting letters from him awaiting me, but I found none and presumed that he was dead or had taken shipping to Africa and that I had missed him. But shortly after my arrival home, I received several letters inquiring about the said, Dr. Chase. I wrote to several ministers, if they could find him to take the papers from him I had given and sent them to me. For I was ashamed to let the Church know I had been deceived by a ministerial trickster, but in each instance, he had left and gone to parts unknown. Another letter has just reached me from Indiana, which shows that he is going around preaching and collecting money in the name of an African missionary, and exhibiting the appointment which I gave him.
This will authorize, and I hereby request any minister in the A. M. E. Church to whom Dr. Chase may present the papers signed by myself, to take the papers away from him even if it requires the aid of a civil officer. He has proven himself a cheat and a swindler, and if anyone should desire his prosecution, I will send them papers over his own signature, which will establish more than I have written.
H. M. Turner
Atlanta, Ga., Nov. 2, ‘93
