woman. The United States Congress, then dominated by Radical Republicans passed a $25,000 grant for the college to aid in its rebuilding. Payne led the college until 1877. Payne traveled twice to Europe, where he consulted with other British Methodist clergy there and studied their several colleges and education programs. In April 1865, after the Civil War, Payne returned to the South for the first time in 30 years. Knowing how to build an organization, he took nine missionaries and worked with others in Charleston to establish the AME denomination. He organized missionaries, committees and teachers to bring the AME Church to freedmen. By only a year later, the church had grown by 50,000 congregants in that part of the South. By the end of the Reconstruction era in 1877, AME congregations existed across the South from Florida to Texas, and more than 250,000 new adherents had been brought into the church. While it had a northern center, the growing AME Church was strongly influenced by its expansion in the South. The incorporation of many congregants with different practices and traditions of worship and music styles helped shape the national AME Church. It began to reflect more of the African-American culture of the South. In 1881, he founded the Bethel Literary and Historical Society, a club which invited speakers to present and speak on topics relevant to African-American life and a part of the flourishing "Lyceum movement". Bishop Payne died on November 2, 1893, having served the African Methodist Episcopal Church for more than 50 years. Works 1888, Recollections of Seventy Years, a memoir. 1891, The History of the A. M. E. Church, the first history of the denomination. Legacy and honors The historian James T. Campbell wrote of Payne in his Songs of Zion: The African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States and South Africa (1995): "No single individual, with the possible exception of Richard Allen himself, did more to shape the trajectory and tone of African Methodism." Daniel Payne College, a historically black college that operated in Alabama from 1889 to 1979, was named in his honor. After the college closed, the city of Birmingham renamed a street Daniel Payne Drive. Payne Theological Seminary in Wilberforce, Ohio, is named in his honor. A Pennsylvania State Historical Marker was installed in his honor at 239 N. Washington St. at Gettysburg College, recognizing his study there. He is celebrated