[2] Lynch obtained his early education at an elementary school, instructed by Reverend Daniel Payne of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

[1][2] Lynch attended Kimball Union Academy in New Hampshire, where he spent two years, and then moved to Indianapolis, where he committed himself to ministry.

Lynch was the youngest of the 20 Black church leaders who met with Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and Union General William Tecumseh Sherman at the Green–Meldrim House at what would later be called the "Savannah Colloquy" on January 12, 1865.

[1][5][6] Within a year of Lynch's arrival, the church increased by approximately six thousand African Americans, and twenty meeting houses were created.

[6] To further stress his position and the importance of black unity, Lynch became involved with the newspaper business, and became a publisher and editor of his publication called Jackson Colored Citizen.

[1] While Secretary of State, Lynch had to pay for some of the expenses out of his own pocket because people previously believed that it did not take much to run an administrative department.

[1] While in his second term, Lynch and his African American supporters started to become disillusioned with the Reconstruction process, along with the increasing tension amongst the black and European-American Republicans.