Common Place book, 1845

The collection consists of two bound volumes, and an unbound photocopy of one of the volumes. The collection is housed in two half-letter size boxes.

Bound volume, Copy of Manuscripts by Moses C. White, M.D., Pioneer Missionary, Relating to the Founding of Methodist Missions in Foochow, China. Presented to the Wesleyan University Library by his Niece, Cornelia C. White, 1930. (There is also an unbound photocopy of this volume.) In addition to presenting a copy of this volume to Wesleyan, Cornelia White also gave copies to Yale University and the New Haven Colony Historical Society.

Cornelia White appears to have transcribed and copied both published and unpublished material in order to compile this volume. Although pages are not numbered in consecutive order, some of the material in the order that it appears is as follows:

1. Moses Clarke White, a biographical obituary sketch retyped from the original in the Yale Medical Journal, Dec. 1900, v.7, no.6.

2. Moses Clarke White, biographical obituary sketch retyped from original in the New York East Conference Minutes for 1901, in the General Minutes of the Spring Conferences for 1901, page 116.

3. Article by S.H. Gage which appeared in the Journal of Applied Microscopy and Laboratory Methods, vol. 4, no. 1, Jan. 1901.

4. Founding and Early History of Our Chinese Mission, 1847-1853 by Moses C. White , being an address delivered at Boston, September, 1887. Copied by C.C. White with permission of M.C.W.

5. Transcription of letters by Elijah Hedding, Rufus Anderson, J.H. Woolcott, Charles Pittman, etc.

6. Cornelia C. White writes: The following article I pasted, in 1896, in one of my Scrap-books, and from its appearance I judge it was taken from an issue of the Christian Advocate near that date (1848), probably one that my parents saved. C.C.W. (pages 1-5)

7. Early History of the China Mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church By Rev. Moses C. White, M.D. Contains typescript of a letter by Frederick Thomas Keeney, Resident Bishop, Methodist Episcopal Church, Foochow, China to Mrs. Mary E. King (grand niece of MCW), 1923 Dec 4.

8. Toward the end of the volume there is material that is described in the following words: " Copied August 21, 1898, from data given by Rev.M.C. White, and from papers published by him in 1897". Included here is a moving biographical sketch and tribute to Jane Isabel White, transcribed from American Missionary Memorial, including biographical and historical sketches. Ed. By H.W. Pierson. (N.Y.: Harper, 1853.)

The second item is described in an old inventory as a Common Place Book, dated May 24, 1845. Handwritten information on the inside cover of the volume: "The Property of Moses C. White, Middletown, Ct., May 24, 1845." There is a date stamped on an inside page of the volume as October 20, 1937 which is probably when the Wesleyan Library acquired the item. The volume is a combination of diary, notes on lectures that he has attended, Bible references, and scrapbook. Some pages are interleaved with loose correspondence, notes, and plant leaves. There is a page with Chinese characters. A letter or page of Chinese is inserted into the front of the volume.

The first entry in the volume is dated Wesleyan University, Saturday evening May 24, 1845, several days after the end White's last term at Wesleyan. Several entries are dated as Wesleyan, but approximately one-third of the way through the volume is an entry titled, "Fokien Examination Hall at Fukchan" followed by another titled, "Sketches relating to Christianity in Java" which begins "On my return from China in Jan 1853 the ship in which I sailed met with an accident in the Java Sea." It appears this volume was started at Wesleyan, taken to China, and back.

The third item in the collection is the Gospel of Matthew translated into the Fuhchan colloquial dialect. It was prepared from the classical Chinese version in 1851 for the Missionary Lyceum of Wesleyan University.