This collection reflects the missionary work of the Reverend Carroll Summerfield Long and the Methodist Episcopal Church in Japan. The material ranges from 1863 to 1931, and includes multiple record types. The collection provides an insider’s point of view towards a missionary’s life in 19th century Japan.

Correspondence from the Reverend Long has been recorded in two copy letter books (1881-1885). They include copies of business and personal letters written by Reverend Carroll Summerfield Long, which documents his role as missionary and Presiding Elder in the Nagasaki Conference. Included are financial information describing salaries, grocery lists and other expenses kept by the Japan Mission. Also included is a documented account of the newly established Cobleigh Seminary (1881), as well as the joys and concerns of running a Christian seminary in a foreign land. Personal correspondence is between his friends and family. He keeps his loved ones updates on his life abroad, describing the benefits and challenges he and his family gain while in Japan. One issue which he speaks of often is that of ill health. He writes to his family doctor in one letter, “Our mission is almost broken up by sickness...the few missionaries who are left here...to carry on the work in absence of the sick members” (March 2, 1882). Nearly all the letters are written in English, with a handful written with Japanese characters. In addition, both copy letter books include an index, where the Rev. Long as organized and recorded his letters alphabetically in reference to the respondent.

The collection includes Long’s diary (1881-1883). In which he describes his responsibilities as a minister to the Methodist Episcopal Church, as well as his responsibilities as a father, husband and son to his family. He records his day to day experiences including visitations from various missionaries, his relationship to his students and teachers at Cobleigh Seminary, as well as his reaction and criticism towards his sermons and preaching abilities. He also writes of his personal inspirations to why he joined a religious life and how it has effects his daily routine as a missionary overseas. The collection also includes an excerpt from the diary of the Reverend Long’s daughter Flora Hortense Long Harrison (1908). She describes how her Japanese teacher, Mr. Chiga, became to be a Christian and a Methodist, and the role that her father played in his religious transformation.

The role which the Reverend Long played in the Methodist Episcopal Church can also be seen in the Presiding Elders Manual which he kept for both North Carolina (1886-1888) and Japan (1888). Both manuals give a detailed account of the different conferences he was involved with. The manuals include the names of pastors, number of church members, attendance for Sunday school, as well as the financial information regarding each organization. The role of Carroll Summerfield Long, as well as other missionaries, are depicted in the collection’s thirty-one photographs. These include portraits of Long, his family, members of the Nagasaki Conference. The photographs also include some buildings, including the Wistorua of Kwassui Joyakko and Kwassui Joen, Girls Home Omura.

The collection also includes a number of publications which showcase Long’s writing and descriptions of a life in Japan to his American audience. Included in the publications are pieces written by missionary Elizabeth Russell, the history of Evangelization of Japan, as well as some biographical writings, including an obituary for the Reverend Carroll Summerfield Long.

This collection contains slides, audiotapes, films, a filmstrip, slide scripts and listings, conference reports and promotional materials, correspondence, and some photographs.

This collection contains slides, audiotapes, films, a filmstrip, slide scripts and listings, conference reports and promotional materials, correspondence, and some photographs. The slides contain images taken by Hannah Flammer of diverse subjects, most of which are related to the home and foreign missions of the Methodist Church during the 1940's to the 1960's. These include pictures of schools, hospitals and medical clinics, homes, settlement houses, missions to cities and rural areas, Native American missions, and a variety of scenes from both urban and rural areas that were foci for the church's mission and ministry during this period. There are also many slides of conferences of the Women's Society of Christian Service and other church agencies in which Flammer was active. Many scenes from foreign missions and pictures of foreign missionaries are also included. Most of the slides were used in presentations that Flammer gave to highlight and promote the mission work of the Methodist Church. The audiotapes include recordings of some of Flammer's slide presentations, of Bible studies and lectures given at various conferences that she attended, of radio interviews, and of church music. There are three reels of film, two of which are 16 mm and one is 8 mm. the filmstrip is titled "Swinging toward the Light." Also included in the collection are some printed slide scripts connected to Flammer's slide shows, several letters related to her mission promotion work, a container listing of the audiotapes, reports and promotional materials from some W.S.C.S. conferences that she attended, and some photographs.

The Luddwell Hunter Estes Papers contains the assorted papers, photographs, and writings of Ludd Estes. Together these materials document the life work of Mr. Estes and represent the variety of positions he held within the denomination.

The Bishop Gilbert Haven papers currently consist of correspondence, various writings in the genres of addresses, essays, notes, poems, sermons, speeches along with printed matter and ephemera. There are approximately one thousand and five hundred plus letters between colleagues, friends, abolitionists, ministers, bishops, editors, business persons, strangers, etc. Haven's elevated status in the Methodist Episcopal Church and in New England abolitionist circles is evident from the considerable number of letters from major figures in both the denomination, American politics and intellectual movements during the mid-19th century. The correspondence includes letters from philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, abolitionist and editor William Lloyd Garrison, suffragists and abolitionists’ Lucy Stone and Frances Willard and Frederick Douglass, Bishop Matthew Simpson, Bishop Edward Raymond Ames, Bishop Willard Francis Mallalieu, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, New York Senator Roscoe Conkling, Massachusetts governors’ John Albion Andrew and William Claflin, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Vice President Schuyler Colfax, and Civil War general and President of the United States Ulysses Simpson Grant to name a few. Topics include slavery and the abolitionist movement, denominational issues regarding church polity, viewpoints on race, mission work, the church’s role during reconstruction in the southern states and the treatment of free and ex-slaves as equals in post Civil War America.

There are a few persons or topics Haven collected in correspondence form which needs to be highlighted. The Reverend John N. Mars was a freed slave who worked with a couple of protestant denominations who eventually became a clergy member of the New England Annual Conference. His letters reflect not only the state of race and the need for status change during the Civil War but also his subsequent work as a missionary to the fledgling African American Washington Annual Conference. John Brown makes a short appearance in the correspondence though he personally is not writing Haven but there is one glowing letter Haven wrote Brown just before his execution. There is another letter to a former follower of Brown. Correspondence with national figures such as Grant, Colfax and Emerson are few in number with the originals closed to the public. Letters to and from former classmates of Wilbraham Academy and Wesleyan University are not only worth noting because of their intellectual content of that period which, in turn, produced many abolitionists. Yet the correspondence also illustrates how the two schools produced many leaders in both the Methodist Episcopal Church and influential figures in the New England area and later beyond as these men spread across the United States.

Haven’s family correspondence is insightful for a number of reasons. One of the first observations the researcher will find is the close relationship Haven had with family members both biologically and by marriage, especially the women. He maintains a robust correspondence with his cousin, Bishop Erastus Haven. Mary Ingraham Haven’s correspondence is primarily incoming correspondence from family that Haven maintained close contact with after her premature death. The letters to William Ingraham, his son, one of two children that survived childbirth, reveals a doting father whose pathos and love are apparent in good times and bad. These same letters speak to Haven’s compassionate character which defined his ministry and political views. All the letters to his mother and sisters reveal a “journal” of his career as well as giving support and advice which became bilateral in direction.

The Writing series is composed of different genres that include a variety of mediums by which one can discover the orthodox Protestant viewpoint the Haven maintained despite his liberalism in the areas of racial equality and abolitionism. The largest genre would be the sermons but there are exceptions to this specific genre such as his student commencement speech at Wesleyan. It is often difficult to distinguish between sermons, speeches and addresses by length or Scriptural notation in the titles. The topics are diverse as witnessed in the container list. The documents illustrate a snapshot of higher education’s intellectual training and praxis in the mid-nineteenth century. Haven had a gift for writing poetry, especially the few examples which resonate the sadness over Mary’s death. The essays and musings are a light-hearted romp into Haven’s soul.

The Printed Matter contains published articles related to Haven’s 1862-1863 trip overseas and Mexico in the early 1870s when Haven helped William Butler establish mission work for Northern Methodism. There are also articles on pertinent topics related to the church such as camp meetings, discord over the hymnal, race and Methodist Itinerancy. Almost all of these clippings were published in the denominational newspaper, the Christian Advocate.

The Ephemera series contains photocopied documents with a few exceptions dealing with the history of Haven family’s finances, church activity, truncated genealogy, etc. These primarily deal with the Haven’s life in the Malden area starting in the late eighteenth century. The originals were donated to the Malden Historical Society.

Finally the Diaries series contains six folders ranging in date from 1841 to 1879. These items are not comprised of daily entries. One diary has copies of letter Haven wrote to various individuals. The 1861 diary records Haven's ninety day enlistment in the Union Army as chaplain to the 8th Massachusetts Militia Volunteers.

The researcher will notice photocopies of original documents in folders except the Ephemera series for the reason stated above. The originals either are too large to fit in the standard folder or closed to the public because of security issues. The oversize documents can be viewed by requesting permission from the attending archivist.

This collection documents the professional life of Paul Bentley Kern as a pastor, educator and bishop for the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (1844-1939) and later for the Methodist Church (1939-1968). At the end of this collection the researcher will find various ministerial credentials awarded to Kern and his forbearers.

The manuscripts include sermons (with and without Biblical texts), addresses, and publications which offer a diversity of interests and commitments that shaped Kern's ministry. Major topics of concerns include a strong anti-war stance in both World Wars (though most of the information is centered on World War I), ethics in business, labor, church union in 1939, the Advance, Crusade for Christ, jazz, as well as systematic and practical theological issues, role of the church in America and the world, America as a steward of the world's wealth and resources, temperance, organization of the Korean Methodist Church, and Methodism. Christian education, sociology, matriculation addresses, Reformation Sunday, missions with an emphasis on China round out the rest of the topics. Kern considered all these areas as major forces which could and should shape the ever changing world in the early and middle twentieth century. . Part of the materials include addresses which were part of the Cole Lectures which he delivered at Vanderbilt University in 1935.

Administrative records include correspondence, telegraphs, reports, annual conference materials, and the Council of Bishops. The correspondence segment is centered on congratulatory remarks in the form of letters (1930) and telegrams (1930) which Kern received upon his election to the episcopacy. One of the reports relates to his trips to the Orient where he served his first term as a bishop for the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. There are a small number of field reports from Orient as well. Clippings make up most of Florida, Holston and Tennessee Annual Conferences folder with emphasis on Kern's Episcopal administration in the Tennessee area. There are also a few items relating to China.

This collection is made up of material from the Annual Conferences and local churches of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. The material consists of minutes, histories, photographs, publications, and news clippings and does not contain church records such as baptismal, membership, marriage etc.

This collection is made up of records from the various educational institutions that were run or supported by the Board and administrative material from the Board of Christian Education and its predecessor organizations.

The collection contains Thomas C. Nixon's journals beginning from 1815 to 1872. The journals reflect Nixon's daily activities including personal and business relationships, preaching, and his plantation activity among other topics. Here we see how Nixon's character develops over time and details related to his ministry, especially preaching, and his emotional reactions regarding suspension from the annual conference and the issue of slavery. The early journals discuss a great deal about his dedicated circuit-riding days whereas the later journals reflect on his life as a plantation owner. The collection also contains notebooks, loose journal pages, sermon notes, financial records, and clippings. There is also a photocopied collection of material related to the Nixon Family’s history which contains correspondences, copies of photographs, journals, notebooks, and sermons material along with additional family records.