Rev. Andrew Hall Whitfield now (1921) stationed at Charleston, W. Va., is a minister of the M. E. Connection and is a native of Kingston, Jamaica. He was born on October 12, 1877. His parents were John G. and Eliza Jane Whitfield. The paternal grandparents were George and Eliza Whitfield.
Young Whitfield had his elementary training in the local government schools from which he passed to Calabar College for his literary work. Thus equipped he began teaching and taught in his native island for ten years. In the meantime, he had become active in the work of the church and was licensed as a local preacher as early as 1896.
In the spring of 1908 he came to the States and after coming over spent three years in the theological department of Howard University. Graduating with degree of Bachelor of Divinity 1911. In 1911 he joined the Conference at Lynchburg under Bishop Anderson and was sent to Daisy Circuit, Maryland, which he served one year. His next appointment was Point Pleasant, W. Va., which held him two years. From there he went to Buchanan, W. Va., two years, and from there to Huntington where he remained four years, and where under his administration a new house of worship was erected. He went from Huntington to the Capitol City of the State to the Simpson Memorial Station where he is now in his second year.
In his school days he played cricket but has not had much time for athletics since then. Among the secret orders he belongs to the Odd Fellows and Masons.
On March 16, 1912, Mr. Whitfield married Miss Mabel G. Howard of Montgomery County, Md. She was educated at Storer College, Harpers Ferry, W. Va. Mr. Whitfield is a careful student and a close observer. Coming out of an environment where racial distinctions are not stressed and where no color line is drawn, into a realm where those things are emphasized, he has observed certain antagonisms and a spirit of assertiveness which are not prominent where equality of opportunity is taken for granted. The gospel he preaches holds the only solution for that problem as it works itself out in the lives of men and of nations.