Collections : [College of William and Mary]

Diary of reverend and missionary Arthur Samuel Burt (1846-1890). His last entry is was made about 4 months before his death and mentions handing over the church's ministry to someone else as his health is deteriorating. The entire journal is about his ministry, funerals, conventions, visitations, marriages, his travels and family. Burt visited many people in the area and lists most of them by their full name. At the end of his life he lives in New Bedford, Bristol Co., Massachusetts. Also included is a 1890 newspaper with his obituaries, some loose notes, a poem and a copy of a letter to Burt that talks about the Starkey Seminary.

Collection contains a single diary of American woman Fanny Kean Leake Pattaon (1867-1939) during her time with the American Episcopal Mission in Kyoto, Japan. She and her husband Rev. J. Lindsay Patton (1866-1915), worked in Japan as missionaries for fifteen years starting in the late 1880s. By the time the diary was written, they had been overseas for several years and had five children, some of whom were born in Japan. The diary includes documentation about Fanny and her husband's religious activity and travel, as well as details about her every day life doing missionary work and teaching. It also has information about the Otsu Incident (an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Czar Nicholas Alexandrovich during his visit to Japan in 1891), and Russia and Japan's falling out afterwards. Fanny in fact visited the Czar the day after the Otsu Incident.

6 page letter from Mr. Nesmith to his sister from Vicksburg, Mississippi. He describes rowing with a friend along the river, working, and writes a lot about society, politics, and his impression of African American life since the Civil War.

Two letters, a total of five pages, written by Rev. James M. Priest to Rev. Daniel Wells, and Hon. Walter Lowrie, respectively. Rev. Priest was a formerly enslaved person, freed on the condition that he emigrate as a missionary to Africa. In both letters, Rev. Priest complains about the lack of funds being provided to his mission and the school he founded in Liberia.

Correspondence, sermons, essays and accounts of Robert Nelson, Protestant Episcopal missionary to Shanghai, China. The collection Includes two account books, a lettercopy book, and articles written by Nelson as well as two manuscript Chinese-English dictionaries compiled by Nelson. Some items, such as a "Count of Missionaries and Staff in China, 1807-1874" illuminate the history of missionaries in China. There is one letter written to Nelson in which the writer has used Wade-Giles transliteration.