Burke Library collection of missionary letters, 1851 -- 1977

After clicking 'Submit Request', users will login with their UNI and password (Columbia affiliates) or their special collections account (external users). Appointments are required and will be arranged according to each individual repository's policy.


Burke Library collection of missionary letters, 1851 -- 1977

This series is open for research.

0.5 linear feet; 0.5 linear feet; 1 box

This series contains individual letters as well as correspondence and other materials of missionaries and related persons doing mission work throughout the world, largely dating from the 20th century. See detailed content notes for futher description.

This series is arranged in chronological order.



Box 1 Folder 1 Dwight Whitney Marsh, 1851

Six letters written by American missionary Dwight Whitney Marsh from the convent of Sheikh Matti in Mosul, Iraq in 1851.

Marsh was born in Dalton, MA on November 5, 1823, and graduated from Williams College in 1842. He studied theology at Andover Theological Seminary from 1842-43, taught in St. Louis, MO from 1843-47, and continued his theological studies at Union Theological Seminary, graduating in 1849. He was ordained on October 2, 1849, then sailed on December 7 from Boston, MA to Mosul as a missionary with the ABCFM. He returned to the US from 1852-53, and married Julia White Peck on October 19, 1852. The couple returned to Mosul where Peck died on August 12, 1859. Marsh returned to the US in 1860, lecturing on his missionary experience and preaching in MA and IL. On August 21, 1862, Marsh married Elizabeth L. Barron. Marsh headed the Rochester Young Ladies' Female Seminary for five years, and preached in the Western House of Refuge. Marsh died on June 18, 1896 in Amherst, MA.


Box 1 Folder 2 Mary Harriet Porter, 1901

Letter written by Mary Harriet Porter while a missionary in Peking, China, about her life and work, as well as a letter written by the mission board about her.

Mary Harriet Porter was a Congregationalist missionary to China from 1868-1886 and again from 1894-1911. Born in Green Bay, Wisconsin on November 22, 1846, she was the daughter of Rev. Jeremiah Porter, who founded the first Presbyterian church in Chicago in 1833, and Eliza Chappell Porter, who helped establish and taught in Chicago's first public school. In 1868 Porter began her first tour in Peking as a member of the North China Mission under the ABCFM, and was the first missionary sponsored by the Woman's Board of Missions of the Interior, headquatered in Chicago. She was in charge of the Bridgman School for Girls until 1882, then moved with her brother, Henry Dwight Porter, and his wife Elizabeth to Pang Chung, China. Between 1886 and 1893, Porter returned to the US and cared for her parents in Beloit, Wisonconsin. After her father died, she returned to Pang Chung and taught in a girls boarding school, but fled to Peking during the Boxer Rebellion (1900) and again taught in the Bridgman School for Girls. From 1906 until her retirement to California in 1911, she served as the principal of the Angel Memorial Bible Training School, which she founded. Porter also compiled and published Methodist church leader Nellie Naomi Russell's China research as "Gleanings from Chinese Folklore" in 1915, and wrote a book about her sister in law titled "Elizabeth Chappell Porter: A Memoir" in 1892. Porter died on January 10, 1929.


Box 1 Folder 3 Unknown, 1904

Handwritten missionary letter sent from Nanking, China in 1904. The author of the letter was a woman who was assigned to a school or orphanage and had lived in China for quite some time, and is forthcoming about the challenges of being a missionary.


Box 1 Folder 4 [to] the Andersons (Rev. William), circa 1920 -- 1944

Mailings to the Andersons, including Rev. William Anderson and members of his household ("Mrs. Anderson" and "Master James"), from missionaries largely in India and Africa. Mailings include letters, newsletters including "Congo Cobwebs" and "Pilgrims Progress," and Christmas cards. Senders include the Cobble family and Ruth Truesdell.


Box 1 Folder 5 Grace and Edward Smith, 1936

Letter from missionaries Grace and Edward Smith who were stationed in In-Tai (Foochow) China. The letter discusses politics and missionary work.

Smith Family Papers, RG 5, Yale Divinity Library.

The Smiths were a family of Congregational missionaries in China, 1901-1950, primarily in Ing Tai and Fuzhou (Foochow). Educated at Amherst College and Hartford Theological Seminary, Edward Huntington Smith devoted nearly 50 years of his life to running an orphanage, raising funds, and promoting Christian education in Ing Tai, Fujian (Fukien), China. His wife, Grace W. Thomas Smith, educated at Tabor Academy and Wheelock College, both in Massachusetts, served as a kindergarten teacher in the United States and China. Their daughter, Helen Huntington Smith, earned degrees from Mount Holyoke College, Union Theological Seminary, and Columbia University. Edward Huntington Smith, who led two generations of his family in service to China, was born at Franklin, Connecticut in 1873. His parents, Harriet H. and Owen S. Smith, came from a line of pious New England farmers. At the age of fifteen, Smith was baptized and received into the Second Congregational Church, Norwich, Connecticut. During his freshman year at Amherst College, Smith attended a Northfield Conference, where he became inspired by the evangelist, Dwight L. Moody. After graduation in 1898, he spent several months with the YMCA in Cuba, helping American soldiers involved in the Spanish-American War. Later the same year, he joined the class of 1901 at Hartford Theological Seminary. After completion of his studies, Smith became ordained at the same Norwich church where his ancestors had worshiped for eight generations. In October, 1901, he married Grace W. Thomas, the daughter of a Methodist preacher. The couple sailed for Shanghai from San Francisco in November, 1901, and arrived at Ing Hok, Fujian (Fukien) Province, the next month. ("Ing Hok" is sometimes referred to as "Ing Tai", "Yung tai" and other variations.) Edward Huntington Smith devoted his life to this mountainous district, often traveling by foot to its farthest outposts, or by boat down the rapids. He spent nearly 50 years (1901-1950) running an orphanage, raising funds, and promoting Christian education. (This figure includes years of furlough, etc.) One of the highlights of Smith's career occurred in 1918 when he met Chiang Kai-shek, whose Nationalist Army was then engaged in fighting war lord Li Hou-chi of Fuzhou (Foochow). In 1946, although officially retired, Smith returned to Fuzhou (Foochow) at his own expense. After his expulsion in 1950, Smith spent much of his time writing on the subject of China, missions, his life and related matters. He died in 1968. Grace W. Thomas Smith, who married Edward Huntington Smith in 1901, was born in 1874 at Pine Brook, New Jersey. After graduating from Tabor Academy, Marion, Massachusetts in 1893, she joined the first class of Wheelock College, Boston, and taught at the Perkins Institute Kindergarten for the Blind in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts for eight years. Her work in China included substitute teaching at the Union Kindergarten Training School, and the establishment of a local kindergarten, in addition to raising the couple's own four children. At the time of her death in 1939 she was known as the "Mother of all Ingtai." (credit to: Smith Family Papers, RG 5, Yale Divinity Library).


Box 1 Folder 6 Alice Wilcox and Ellen Ling, circa 1937

A letter each from China missionaries Alice Wilcox and Ellen Ling.


Box 1 Folder 7 Alma Cooke and unknown , 1938

One letter written by Protestant missionary to China Alma Cooke; one letter from an unknown missionary to China (the letter is signed, "Mother") detailing vacations, alarms of war, and medical and general information about missionary friends in China; and one letter from an unknown missionary to Foochow Fukien China (the letter is signed, "Margaret") detailing information about the hospital and Foochow panic caused by bombings.


Box 1 Folder 8 Helen Hawbaker, 1955

Aerogramme letter from SIM Nigeria Missionary nurse Helen Hawbaker to Mrs. William Farber.

Helen Gladys Hawbaker was born on May 24, 1922 at Dallas Center, Iowa to Clarence Earl and Mary G. (Beshore) Hawbaker. She graduated from Minburn High School in 1938, and attended the University of Iowa in 1944, receiving her nursing degree in 1947. After graduation, she worked in Iowa City until 1948, when she attended Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, receiving her diploma in the Missions Course in 1950. Hawbaker then worked on missions in Nigeria as a nurse in 1951 and returned to the Perry, Iowa area in 1986. She died on December 10, 2010.


Box 1 Folder 9 Joe Kettner, 1964 -- 1966

Two letters from American missionary Joe Kettner, who was based in Prome, Burma.

Rev. Joseph F. Kettner, M.S., 77, of The Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette, 85 New Park Avenue, Hartford, died Wednesday (March 6, 2002). He was born in San Francisco, CA, April 17, 1924, son of the late Joseph and Alice (Slamin) Kettner. He attended schools in Bronx, NY and Shelton, before entering the La Salette Seminary, Hartford in 1941. He made his First Profession of Vows July 2, 1945 at La Salette Novitiate, Bloomfield. He continued his studies for the priesthood at La Salette Seminary, Milford, Iowa and Ipswich, MA. He was ordained a priest on September 26, 1950 at Our Lady of Sorrows Church, Hartford by Archbishop Henry J. O'Brien. After ordination he taught at La Salette Seminary, Jefferson City, MO. He volunteered to serve in the La Salette Missions in Burma and left for Burma in June, 1954. He served for 12 years in Burma before returning in 1966. Over the next years he served at La Salette Seminaries in Cheshire, Jefferson City, MO, and Belleville, IL. Fr. Kettner again volunteered to serve in the La Salette Missions in Argentina from 1971 to 1985. Upon returning to the states he served as Parochial Vicar at Good Shepherd Church, Orlando, FL until his retirement to Hartford in May, 1998.


Box 1 Folder 10 John Sharpe, 1967

Letter from English missionary John Sharpe while serving at the St. David's Anglican Mission at Eiwo, Papua New Guinea. The letter discusses fundraising efforts in England, deaths of missionaries due to a volcanic eruption, fighting during war, and other topics.

The Reverend John Leslie Sharpe (1934-2006) was a missionary in Papua New Guinea, doing pastoral work on the frontier between the Church and mental-health care. He completed his National Service as a medical orderly. In 1954 he went to train at Kelham, then in 1958 he was ordained to a curacy in Charlton, in south London. There he ran a secular youth club of more than 1000 members, and another for 140 church young people. Four years later, he began an eight-year ministry in Papua New Guinea, first as a parish priest, then as Archdeacon of Northern Papua, working alongside Bishop George Ambo. In 1970, he returned to England to study for the Birmingham University Diploma in Pastoral Studies. As a curate, he had met the founder of the Richmond Fellowship, who awakened in him an interest in psychotherapy. After four years in the Southampton City Centre Team Ministry, he was chaplain to the South West Hampshire Psychiatric Services from 1975 to 1993. He was based at Knowle Hospital, a large Victorian mental institution near Fareham. He undertook further training, including courses at the Institute of Group Analysis. This enabled him to work as a group analyst and psychotherapist, particularly among adult survivors of sexual abuse; as a supervisor of psychotherapists and counsellors; and as a consultant to team ministries. He became the Bishop of Portsmouth's Adviser on the Ministry of Healing, and promoted this ministry in the diocese. In 1986, he was made an Hon. Canon of Portsmouth Cathedral.


Box 1 Folder 11 Thomas Callanan, 1977

Four letters from Irish missionary Thomas Callanan, and a copy of Edward Fisher's book "Mindanao Mission" signed by Callanan, which relates Callanan's experience in the Philippines in WWII during the Japanese occupation.

Fr. Thomas Callanan was born in Moylough, County Galway, Ireland in 1912. He died at Dalgan on September 16, 1987. Callanan received his secondary education at St. Jarlath's College, Tuam and St. Joseph's College, Ballinasloe before arriving at Dalgan Seminary in 1931. He was ordained priest there in 1937. He went to the Philippines in 1938 and spent WWII in Mindanao; in all, he spent 49 years on mission in the Philippines, including spending his last years as chaplain to Reyes Memorial Hospital in Manila.