Dwight Mission was first established in 1821 among western Cherokees in Pope County, Arkansas Territory, by Rev. C. Washburn of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. It moved in 1829 to this new land of the Cherokees in Indian Territory. The site was at Nicksville, a post office named for Gen. John Nicks, whose widow, Sarah Perkins Nicks, was the first woman appointed to a U.S. government position in Oklahoma, in 1832.