He worked in a variety of roles for the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad before joining the Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) and serving as a missionary in Colorado.

After his release Branch entered British Central Africa and established a mission station at Cholo in the Shire Highlands.

He served as superintendent of the station, with Ethiopianist Joseph Booth running the administration and Branch's wife and daughters working as teachers.

After a brief period in South Africa the Branch family returned to the United States where he worked with the African American communities in Denver and Philadelphia.

She left him after Branch refused to follow the teachings of Alonzo T. Jones and he moved to California, where he lived out his final years with his daughter.

[1][2]: 36–37  He was educated at H. M. Van Slyke's school for freed slaves and afterwards worked as a porter, cook and steward with the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad.

Branch rose to become a brakeman of the railroad's trains and, after negotiating with his employer to have Sundays off work, became a lay preacher.

[2]: 57 [3] Branch, Henrietta, Mabel, Paul and Robert boarded a ship at New York on June 4, 1902, for the United Kingdom.

The Branches also experienced discrimination from local Adventists who refused to give them room in their houses, forcing them to take residence in a hotel.

[4][2]: 60  The colonial government's fears were heightened after the 1906 Bambatha Rebellion in South Africa and the SDA, keen to maintain good relations, agreed to withdraw the Booths.

[2]: 60  Despite his opposition to Ethiopianism and his general conservatism, the SDA, keen to reassure the colonial government of their loyalty, replaced Branch with a white American, Joel C.

[3][4] Rogers, with experience of missionary work in South Africa and attitudes towards Africans that were more in line with those of Europeans, was considered more acceptable by the government of the protectorate.

The church leadership had recently become dominated by the East Pennsylvania Conference, and it was only reluctantly that they granted Branch his pension.