Stephen Jesse Oslin

Stephen Jesse Oslin (1858-1928) was "a teacher, preacher, poet, musician, composer, author and publisher" from Walker County, Alabama. Beginning his teaching career in Arkansas, he studied with W. D. C. Botefuhr in Fort Smith during the 1880s and briefly published a music journal, The Tempo, from that city. Most of his early career, however, was spent in the Indian Territory (today eastern Oklahoma), where he served as the western correspondent for the Ruebush-Kieffer Musical Million.

In 1905 Oslin incorporated the Eureka Publishing Company, in Stigler, I.T., where he published songbooks, a paper called The Eureka Messenger, music theory texts, and held sessions of the Eureka Music Normal. His singing classes and music normals were taught by a cadre of teachers in Arkansas, Texas, and Alabama as well. In 1918 he moved the business to Mena, Arkansas, where it continued operating through the 1920s. He died near Little Rock in 1928.

Oslin's greatest influence was as a teacher: among his students were Will W. Slater, Will M. Ramsey, J. A. McClung, and Albert Brumley.

Sources:

Shaw, D. A. "Sketch of Rev. Oslin and his life work," The Mountain Eagle (Jasper, Alabama), Oct. 4, 1905, page 4. Newspapers.com.

FamilySearch, "The Family Tree," database, FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org : accessed 30 March 2025), Stephen Jesse Oslin (2DXR-1QZ), Details.
(https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/2DXR-1QZ">https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/2DXR-1QZ)

"The Eureka Publishing Company." Corporation information, Oklahoma Secretary of State, filing number 1911001385. (https://www.sos.ok.gov/corp/corpInformation.aspx?id=1911001385)

Kehrberg, Kevin Donald. "I’ll fly away": the music and career of Albert E. Brumley. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kentucky, 2010.

"Eureka Publishing Company & S. J. Oslin." Worldcat.org public list. (https://search.worldcat.org/lists/cb6b58df-8035-4205-863e-90abb04d2623)

--David Russell Hamrick