Archive of correspondence to Frederick Wells Williams
[New Haven, India, England and Japan: 1877-1915]. A collection of 42 items, mostly manuscript letters signed, from a variety of academics, administrators, and Yale men, to the sinologist Frederick Wells Williams (1857-1928), with a few letters from Williams' father-in-law, the theologian Hemen Lincoln Wayland, to his daughter (Williams' wife) Fanny. Frederick Wells Williams was the son of Samuel Wells Williams, also a sinologist and missionary to China. The elder Williams was the first professor of Chinese language and literature in the United States. The younger Williams continued this trade and was himself a professor of Oriental history at Yale. The majority of the archive is comprised of manuscript letters addressed to Williams, dealing primarily with matters of travel. Williams planned visits to Panama, Morocco, and particularly India, and sought letters of introduction or meetings with men with connections there. The letters chiefly concern meeting up or making plans, with some exceptions as noted below. Included are ALS's from: 1. Ion Perdicaris, Greek-American heir most famous for being kidnapped in Morocco for a high ransom and compelling Roosevelt to declare "Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead!" Perdicaris assists Williams in making connections in Morocco. 2. Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury, who provided 2 colorful letters, one from London: “I am staying here… at this hotel… which bears the honored name Thackery, but which to my horror … I find is a temperance hotel. I shall consequentially not stay long.” The other a cryptic 1p note reading “You can rely upon me to stand by you unflinchingly on the solemn occasion to which you refer, and all the more readily that there are no alien interests to interpose. I shall loom up at half-past six.” Lounsbury was an English scholar at Yale and an authority on Chaucer. 3. Guy Lestrange, a British Orientalist, arranging a meeting 4. William Graham Sumner, Yale Professor of social science. He asks Williams to find a replacement for his wife to speak at the Soc. Sci. Club. and compliments him on his previous lecture. 5. Charles Lewis Slattery, a bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, who provides a “ghost signature” (no letter included) 6. John Ferguson Weir, painter, sculptor, and teacher at Yale, who writes a letter of profuse thanks. “I cannot let the day close without thanking you again for what your friendship prompted and effected – not without great painstaking on your part I know – but which has for me a depth of meaning not to be put in words, though it fills my thoughts.” 7. George Trumbull Ladd, Clark Professor of Metaphysics and Moral Philosophy, apologizing for missing a social call. “I was so absorbed in trying out some new rolls that I did not know anyone had entered the house.” 8. Poultney Bigelow, a Yale classmate of Williams’ and traveling journalist. “Just in from the Alps (and the Himalayas) and the first message from my mound of P. O. Matter is your “US & China” – about which no man can write better than yourself. It was a great pleasure to me last winter in the East to note how tenderly your name is cherished in the minds of scholars & trust you will have many more years of usefulness adding ever to your father’s reputation & your own.” 9. Maurice Bloomfield, American Sanskrit scholar, thanking Williams for assistance. 10. Morgan Shuster, providing a letter of introduction to General Goethals of the Panama Canal Zone, a year after the canal’s completion 11. John Bucher thanking Williams for sending something to him. 12. Theodore Morrison, an administrator and educator on India, regarding letters of introduction for a trip Williams is planning 13. A letter from an unknown author introducing H S Bayley of Hyderabad and “His Highness” (the title I can’t decipher) and advising on how to prepare for Williams’ arrival. 14. C. S. Mellen, “the last of the railway tsars.” Mellen says he will not be able to attend a meeting of the Social Science club because he is having a dinner with the employees and labor orgs of the Boston & Main Railroad. 15. J. G. Jennings inviting Williams to stay with him at his home near Muir College, Allahabad. Jenning was at the time president of the college. In addition to this parade of men of note, there are a few other letters including: 1. Five letters from M. Arao Oiwa, a translator, guide, and print dealer from Japan, discussing the print market in Japan, promising products, and encouraging Williams to send friends and students to Japan to travel. Oita charges 15 yen a day per person to guide them around the country and speaks warmly of his relationship with Williams. 2. A vitriolic ALS from a Maria Smith, who has taken offense at Williams’ comment on the behavior of Christian missionaries in China. “You say also that through it all [the Chinese] have maintained their own ‘superior culture and moral principles.’ Superior culture! And moral principles! As exemplified no doubt in the condition of their women; the state of marriage; the extremely sanitary condition of the country; the system of education; the political organization, and a thousand other notorious systems of debauchery and corruption which have made China what she is and have kept her where she is, sunk in ignorance and superstition.” 3. Four personal letters between H. L. Wayland and Fannie, Williams’ wife. Wayland discusses news about the neighborhood and asks after his grandchildren. 4. A manuscript invitation to attend the second meeting of the Excelsior Society of Yale, and to provide a lecture. Dated 1908, Signed “Y. Z. China”? Also included are a few items of ephemera, photo portraits of two Wayland men, H.L. Wayland’s pamphlet “What Mr. Jenkins thinks” Fannie’s grade book, marriage license, and certificate of proficiency for Remington typewriting, menu for the 20th anniversary of the Yale Wolf’s Head society, of which Williams was a member, a menu to the Norfolk Inn, on which a pen illustration of women at a table has been drawn, a broadside schedule of services for Stewart Street Baptist Church, with Wayland providing a sermon, and a 6.25” x 10” photograph of an outdoor scene, likely Hawaii, with figures labeled in manuscript “Norman Garstin, J. B. Alexander, H. H. Garstin” Norman and H. H. Garstin were English born businessmen who managed a large plantation in Hawaii and moved to California in 1892. Overall an interesting look at the sort of connections a Yale professor maintained at the turn of the 20th century. Item #58428
Price: $1,750.00
