Guide to the H. Maxcy Smith and Margaret J. Smith Papers
Open for research.
H. Maxcy Smith and Margaret J. Smith were missionaries in China for the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. H. Maxcy Smith was born in Pendleton, South Carolina in 1873, the son of Rev. William Cuttino Smith and Mary Martha Maxcy Smith. He received his B.A. from Hampden-Sydney College in 1894. Between 1894 and 1897, he served as principal of the Wahpanucka Institute (also known as the Wapanucka Mission School and the Wapanucka Academy), a school for Chickasaw Indian children in Indian Territory. In 1897, he left the Institute to attend Columbia Theological Seminary, receiving his B.D. in 1900. He was ordained the same year by the Enoree Presbytery. In 1901, Smith was appointed to the Mid-China Mission by the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. Executive Committee of Foreign Missions. Margaret J. Jones was born in 1877 in Ontario, Canada, and grew up in Nebraska. In 1900 she was appointed to the Central China Mission by the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. In 1905, she married H. Maxcy Smith and resigned from her position with the Central China Mission. She was appointed as a Presbyterian Church in the U.S. missionary and joined her husband at the Mid-China Mission. The Smiths served together in China for nearly 40 years. H. Maxcy Smith was mission treasurer and a member of the Associated Mission Treasurers. Margaret Smith did evangelistic work and raised the couple’s four children. The Smiths were interned by the Japanese from March to December, 1943. Upon their release, they returned to the United States. H. Maxcy Smith died in Asheville, N.C. in 1948.
The H. Maxcy Smith and Margaret J. Smith Papers document the Smiths’ work as missionaries in China between 1901 and 1943, and to a lesser extent, H. Maxcy Smith’s work at the Wahpanucka Institute. Materials relating to the Wahpanucka Institute include Smith’s sermons and letters to his family written while he was in Indian Territory, 1894-1897. The letters describe in detail conditions and events at the school as well as topics such as the settlement of the territory (which later became Oklahoma) and assays of minerals. There are also several photographs of the school and its students. Materials documenting the couple’s work in China include notes, articles, and lectures about religion and missionary work in China; accounts of the Mid-China Mission, 1941-1942; photographs of mission stations, missionaries, students, congregation members, buildings, and landscapes in China; printed materials in Chinese, including publications of the China Sunday School Union and Presbyterian Mission Press in Shanghai; and correspondence from H. Maxcy and Margaret Smith to family members, 1901-1945. The letters describe the turbulent political and military situation in China during the period the Smiths served there, detailing the effect of events on the work of the mission and on the Chinese population. There are also several copies of letters from other missionaries serving in China, including a detailed description of events in Nanking in 1937 written by George Fitch. The collection also includes H. Maxcy Smith’s lecture notes from Columbia Theological Seminary and a number of photographs of H. Maxcy Smith, Margaret Smith, and their children.
Summary of Box Contents
Box 1: Correspondence, 1893-1945; writings and lecture notes from Columbia Theological Seminary and Wahpanucka Institute, 1896-1945 and undated; miscellaneous accounts of the Mid-China Mission, 1941-1942
Box 2: Printed materials in Chinese, 1902-1906 and undated
Box 3: Photographs of the Smith family, China mission stations, and the Wahpanucka Institute; photograph album of China, undated; printed materials in Chinese, undated
Box 4: Photograph album of China mission stations, 1912-1917 and undated; photograph of staff of the Associated Mission Treasurers, circa 1934
The Susan E. Hall Scrapbooks at the Presbyterian Historical Society contain bulletins from H. Maxcy Smith and other missionaries to China. Yale Divinity School Library, New Haven, Conn. holds a small collection of papers of Hart Maxcy Smith and Margaret Jones. These papers are part of the China Records Project Miscellaneous Personal Papers Collection (RG 8) and include correspondence, a scrapbook, publications, and several photographs.
Received from members of the Smith family in 1976 and 1977.
This collection is minimally processed: materials may not have been ordered beyond their original condition. Guide revised in 2009 by Jennifer Barr, Archives Intern.
H. Maxcy Smith and Margaret J. Smith Papers, RG 464, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.