Guide to the Mitchell Family Papers

Two generations of the Mitchell Family served the Presbyterian Church's Board of Foreign Missions in several different capacities from 1885 until 1966.

Arthur Mitchell (1835-1893) served as secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions from 1885 until his death. Two years after his graduation from Williams College, Mitchell entered Union Theological Seminary in New York. Following his graduation from Union in 1859, he married Harriet E. Post and accepted a call to the pastorate of a Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Virginia where he remained until the outbreak of the Civil War. From 1861 until 1885, he pastored congregations in Morristown, New Jersey (Second Presbyterian Church), Chicago (First Presbyterian Church) and Cleveland (First Presbyterian Church).

Arthur Mitchell's interest in foreign missions predated his appointment as secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions by more than quarter of a century. An outspoken advocate on the subject of missions, his views on gained him national recognition within the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.

In 1885, Mitchell agreed to accept the secretaryship of the Board of Foreign Missions which he had originally declined 15 years earlier. Once appointed, Mitchell corresponded regularly with missionaries throughout the world. Three years prior to his death, Mitchell toured mission stations throughout China, Japan and Thailand to experience and observe the work in these areas. On his return to the United States, despite his failing health, Mitchell continued to speak out on the subject of missions until his death in 1893.

Several of Arthur and Harriet Mitchell's seven children served as missionaries for the Board of Foreign Missions. The eldest daughter, Susan Mitchell Ogden [1861-d?], was appointed with her husband, Rollo Ogden, to the Mexico Mission in 1882 but returned home the next year presumably for health reasons. Alice Post Mitchell [1862-1916] served the India Mission from 1895 until her death in 1916. Julia Mitchell Kunkle [1878-1973] was appointed to the South China Mission in 1916 with her husband, John Stewart Kunkle, and retired from the field in 1950.

Alice Mitchell, second eldest of the Mitchell daughters, entered the New York Medical School for Women in 1881 and graduated four years later. Dr. Mitchell interned at the Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago where she was the first woman intern. In 1887, she continued her medical studies in Zurich and Vienna before returning to New York. She was appointed physician to the Dow Hospital for Women in Peking in 1887 but a serious illness precluded her from leaving the country.

In 1895, she was appointed to the India Mission where she served as a teacher, physician and finally principal of that institution until her death in 1916.