Joseph Gomer (missionary)

Joseph Gomer (1834–1892) was an African American missionary on behalf of the United Brethren Church active in Sierra Leone.^[1]

Gomer was born in Michigan. During the American Civil War he served in the Union Army.^[1] Following the end of the war he settled in Dayton, Ohio.^[1] Here he became involved with the United Brethren Church. He married , and in 1870 the couple were approved by the church for approved for missionary work in Sierra Leone, where they arrived in 1871.^[1] Here they were stationed at Shenge, Sherbro Island.^[1] They joined a mission station which had been founded in 1855 and which grew coffee and rubber trees. Gomer introduced improved farming methods. Following a fund-raising tour of the United States, he established an industrial school.^[1]

He remained in Sierra Leone, where he would die of apoplexy.^[1]

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