Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb (November 9, 1846 - October 1, 1916) was born in Hudson, New York to Mr. & Mrs. Alexander Nelson Webb. He was the editor of St. Joseph Gazette and of Missouri Republican before he was appointed by President Cleveland to be Consular Representative to the Philippines. The following year in 1888, he publicly declared himself a Muslim. He was among the first Anglo-American converts to Islam. He founded the American Islamic Press as well as one of the earliest mosques in New York City. His organization Muslim Mission, which he founded in Manhattan in 1893, was among the first Islamic Missions in the United States.

Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah has recently completed a book about the life of Alexander Russell Webb entitled “Islam in Victorian America: The Story of Alexander Russell Webb.”

More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Russell_Webb

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the first recorded American convert to Islam seems to have been a European American, the Reverend Norman, a Methodist missionary. He went to Turkey for missionary work and later he himself became Muslim in the 1870’s. The next famous convert is Alexander Russell Webb. He was a journalist and son of a newspaper editor and publisher in Hudson, New York. In 1887, he was posted as American Consul General in the Philippines. From Manila he corresponded with Badaruddin Abdullah Kur, a prominent Indian Muslim official of the Municipal Council of Bombay and in the process he converted to Islam in 1891. He resigned his diplomatic service, toured India and met Muslim leaders and scholars for two months. He returned to New York in early 1893 and founded an organization in the same year called, American Islamic Propaganda Movement. He wrote three books and articles on Islam. He established seven branches called, Circles of the Muslim Brotherhood, in the East Coast and Mid-Western cities. He died in 1916.

From http://www.messageonline.org/2002junejuly/cover5.htm