How a copy of the earliest American foreign mission board's First Ten ½ Annual Reports ½ of the ½ American Board of Commissioners ½ for ½Foreign Missions, ½with ½Other Documents of the Board traveled from its place of origin in Boston to a Southeast Asia library in Singapore and then back to the United States is not at all clear. The book is mentioned in a secondhand catalog, and because of my interest in printing in those areas, I purchased the book in 1980.

            A three by one and three-quarters inch ticket pasted on the front inside cover indicates institutional ownership. At its top is space for accession number and date (neither indicated), then Library of the A. B. C. F. M. Mission. Singapore. A serrated rule with a figure 8 in each corner forms the border.

            On the flyleaf opposite, possibly written about 1834 in old ink, is an earlier statement of ownership: "Library of the A. B. C. F. M. Mission at Singapore." And below that—perhaps in pencil, but I have not tested—these words: "Granted, with other bks of the Singapore Missionary Library, to me, by the Prudential Committee, when I left the service of the Board. A. North." This can be dated 1847/48.

            Alfred North (born about 1807, Exeter, N.H.) learned printing under William Williams of Utica, N.Y., and studied Latin, Greek, and Hebrew privately. Ira Tracy (born 15 January 1806, Hartford, Vt.) was a Dartmouth and Andover Seminary graduate. Samuel Wells Williams (born 22 September 1812, Utica, N.Y.) studied privately and learned printing through a crash course under his father, William Williams. The three must be considered together, as each was accepted by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.

            Printer S. Wells Williams (as usually known) and the Rev. Ira Tracy—neither married—traveled together to Canton/Macau, departing New York in the summer of 1833. Williams, layman and artisan, was able to remain. Tactfully, but not necessarily easily, he maintained his Press of the Chinese Repository in Canton active until its destruction by arson twenty years later.

            Missionary Tracy soon found Canton/Macau inhospitable for a clergyman. He departed for Singapore—a region that had been a way station to intercontinental travelers and shipping for centuries—and married shortly after arrival.

            Missionaries had great faith in printing presses. By the time the Norths and the Tracys were settled—the latter being chief of the Mission—the London Missionary Society was no longer interested in printing at the press they had rented. The American Mission soon arranged to purchase the press. Alfred North was, among other things, press superintendent, or "printer."

            By close examination of my notes on books produced anywhere in the Straits Settlements (Penang, Malacca, Singapore) through the year 1850, and a parallel close examination of those reported by Cecil K. Byrd in his published inventory, I found that our total of unique titles is ninety. Though we were investigating the same years, we did not overlap geographically. Unlike presses under the American Board in Jaffna, Madras, Bombay, and Maulmain, where the imprint stated American Mission Press, we found no such identification used at Singapore. Publications were simply Printed at the Singapore Mission Press, or words to that effect. I found the Tracy and North names together in some Auxiliary Bible Society Reports but, as was virtually universal at the time, the name of the alien press superintendent was not in the imprint. Strays, such as several from Bombay, were accidents.

            Neither the Tracy nor the North family remained very long in Singapore. Due to family illness, Ira Tracy transferred to South India in late 1839, and returned to the United States two years later. The Norths remained until the Singapore American Mission was closed in 1843 (at which time those wishing to travel to China were finding entry possible). They were assigned to South India, Madurai, where—less than two weeks later—Mrs. North died of cholera. Alfred North remained several years, but returned to his homeland in 1847 and then requested release from the Mission. Whether he had carried First Ten Reports with him is unknown: my own copy became his at that time.

            Two personal events closely followed: his marriage to the sister of his first wife (with collection of the children under one roof), and his decision to study theology at Auburn Seminary in upstate New York. After several congregational appointments within the state, he moved to the Middle West to serve American Indians. In 1866, he died in Kansas.

            Librarians and historians, including those of us who are both, find vivid evidence of intercultural, international, and interlingual exchange in missionary records. The missionary movement has led to the migration of books and of people who have written some and have owned others.

Sources

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. First Ten Annual Reports . . . with Other Documents of the Board (Boston: Crocker and Brewster, 1834).

Byrd, Cecil K., Early Printing in the Straits Settlements 1806-1858: A National Library Special Publication (Singapore: Singapore National Library, 1970).

Williams, Frederick Wells. The Life and Letters of Samuel Wells Williams, LL.D. Missionary, Diplomatist, Sinologue, by His Son (New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, Knickerbocker Press, 1889).

            Through the kindness of the Congregational Library of the American Congregational Association (Boston) many biographical details were assembled. In addition to the following sources, it was mentioned that the Houghton Library, Harvard University, has the Mission archives

Auburn Theological Seminary. General Catalogue . . . including the Trustees, Treasurers, Professors, and Alumni [for] 1883 (Auburn, N.Y.: Daily Advertiser and Weekly Journal Printing House, 1883).

Congregational Quarterly, volume 11 (new series, vol. 1). (Boston: Congregational Rooms, 1869).

Vinton, John A. (compiler). "Vinton Book Copy." Typescript, volume 1.

Katherine Smith Diehl, Seguin, Texas