1895-1896 A collection of incoming mail received by a prominent American medical missionary family in China that fortunately avoided being butchered at Paotingfu during the Boxer Rebellion due to an illness that forced their return to the United States Medical,Religion

This archive of nine letters, enclosed in their original mailing envelopes, was sent to Dr. Willis C. Noble, his wife, Wilhemina (Willa), and young son, Willis Jr. in Paotingfu (now, Baoding) via Tientsin (now, Tianjin) by their daughters/sisters, Willa C. (Carey) and Sarah G. (Sadie), in New Haven, Connecticut between January 1895 and September 1896. Most are franked with a five-cent Grant stamp (Scott #270), however on is franked with one one-cent Franklin stamp (Scott #264) and two two-cent Washington stamps (Scott #265). All have been canceled with either machine or duplex New Haven postmarks. More importantly, all bear scarce U.S. Postal Agency Shanghai receiving handstamps and an accompanying red Shanghai or Tientsin customs marks in varying degrees of clarity. Six of the nine envelopes are specifically marked for forwarding to Paotingfu instead of pickup at Tientsin. All letters and their mailing envelopes are in nice shape. In these joyful letters, the young women inform their missionary family about life back home including a detailed description about the good-natured sorority hazing, academic successes, ice-skating ventures, church services and events including suppers, pigging-out on mince pie, visits to the shore and swimming, family dinners, clamming with grandparents, and play-fighting with each other while pretending to be dogs. In one of the letters, Sadie included drawings of herself and her mother. The letters are also filled with repeated queries about their father s increasingly poor health. . Noble, who was born in New England in 1854, developed an interest in Chinese missionary work. During his first visit he was struck by the population s immense need for medical assistance so returned home and completed a degree from Belleview Medical School. Upon graduation, he returned to China with his wife, Willa, where they served for 14 years at the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) North China Station in Peking (now, Beijing). In 1893, Willis was sent to Paotingfu, the provincial capital of Chihli Provence and over the next seven years he rebuilt and enlarged the mission compound and built a small hospital complete with a pharmacy. In one year alone, the hospital treated 10,772 outpatients, performed 305 surgical procedures, and maintained an inpatient census of 100. He exhausted himself and became seriously ill in 1895. After recovering a bit, Willis suffered a relapse in 1900 after which he returned to the United States to recuperate along with his family. Shortly after his departure, anti-white/anti-Christian brigands and revolutionaries attacked his mission at the beginning of the Boxer Rebellion and butchered all the residents. The mission did not reopen until the rebellion was quashed. Mail to the mission at Paotingfu is even more scarce than mail sent from it, as most incoming mail saved by missionaries was destroyed during the massacre when the compound was razed. At the time of listing, nothing similar is for sale in the trade. OCLC shows none held by institutions, and the Rare Book Hub shows none as having ever appeared at auction. However, two significant lots of similar mail sent to Noble at Peking, Tientsin, and Paotingfu, totaling about 150 letters have been sold at philatelic auctions in Hong Kong in 2019 and New York in 2020. Selling prices averaged $250 per item without consideration of their contents. (For more information, see the InterAsia Auctions Catalog (23-24 June 2019.) .