Mission work among the Chinese by Baptists was in Oregon, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco, and other locations along the Pacific Coast. When the Pacific Railway opened, the mission society saw this as vastly important in sending many more workers to the Pacific Coast and “a hundredfold more means to support them!” In a report to the Executive Board of the American Baptist Home Missionary Society (1869), a missionary wrote,
“We are sorry that the year has passed without our finding a man whom the Board deemed it wise to appoint for the seventy thousand Chinese. Efforts have been made, but thus far without success. To God we must look for suitable laborers, and upon God’s people we call for offerings to sustain them. Never in the history of the world were there such opportunities to do great things for Christ in laying foundations, as at the present hour along the Pacific Railway and on the Pacific Coast.”
As early as 1860, Rev. J. Lewis Shuck had organized a church of nineteen Chinese in Sacramento. By 1870, as many as 150 Chinese gathered on the Sabbath for Sunday school at the First Baptist Church, San Francisco, taught by the members of that church.
When First Baptist, San Francisco was relocating in 1870, its building was available for the Missionary Society to purchase for $30,000 as a suitable location for the Chinese Mission House. There was a formal motion to appoint the Rev. R.H. Graves to inaugurate this work and to purchase First Baptist. There was an appeal to wealthy New York benefactors to come up with the funds to purchase the building. In 1874, the Executive Board was legally advised that they could not use the home mission society’s money or pledge its credit to purchase real estate.
Pressed for space to do mission, the Rev. John Francis,
“with his own means, afterwards purchased a property nearly opposite the church, which he has since devoted to the interest of the mission. This property consisting of a three-story brick house and lot, said to be “cheap at $7,000,” Bro, Francis is willing to deed to the Society whenever they will pay a balance of $3,500 remaining against it.” (1874)
There was an ongoing call to purchase the First Baptist Church building especially when the Methodists and Presbyterians were also spending about $30,000 each on their mission houses.
In 1876, the opinion of the Board on
“the best method of carrying on Mission work among the Chinese, was “that the responsibility of establishing and sustaining Chinese Mission Schools on the Pacific Coast should be left with the English speaking Churches in the places where such schools are needed, as in Portland, Oregon, Oakland, and several other places in California.”
There appears to be no commitment to purchase real estate for a Chinese Baptist House in San Francisco. Since there were mainly Chinese men and no families, the Board “viewed the evangelizing of a population impossible.” The Board believed that funds for Chinese missions are best generated when the work is through local churches.
The Chinese work centered at the Metropolitan Baptist Church in San Francisco for two years came to an end in 1878. The Board sought to place the Chinese work in the hands of a missionary who can speak Chinese and has had experience in China. They wanted this missionary to reorganize the mission by having the San Francisco churches provide room-rent and volunteers to teach Sunday instruction.
Faced with the difficulties of the “Chinese Question,” the mission work suffered in obtaining financial support. The national debate on the question about the Chinese is whether they would become Americanized loyal citizens of the United States. While work continued in Portland, Oregon and in Oakland, the Society’s work in San Francisco was suspended for a large part of the year.
When the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 became law prohibiting Chinese immigration to this country for a period of ten years, many Chinese decided to leave the Pacific Coast to return to China. The Missionary Society was wondering whether there would be enough Chinese in individual churches to continue the evangelization of the Chinese.
While the American Baptist Home Missionary Society was experiencing challenges in their Chinese work, the Southern Baptist Convention had started work in San Francisco for a number of years. In 1884, the Southern Baptist discontinued their work in San Francisco and requested the Society to take it up and carry it forward. A letter dated Feb. 26, 1884 from the brethren of the Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco to the brethren of the American Baptist Home Missionary Society was sent to solicit financial support. It explained that after 10 years or more when the church was established, under the hands of Rev. R. H. Graves, there were some differences between the ministers regarding the management of affairs that led to the temporary cessation of the ministry. The Southern Baptists then sent Rev. J. B. Hartwell to re-establish the Mission and to open a Mission school only to learn that the Southern Board will close the doors in March. The Chinese church brethren wrote,
“Hearing this, we brethren are filled with apprehension, and have no definite purpose of our own. We do not know what is our sin that our mission should again fall to ruin. Next month there will be the misery of sheep without a shepherd. Is it not distressing? But we hope you will pray for us, and therefore this inch of mulberry leaf (this note) begs earnestly that you will again open for us a way for help, that we may humbly hope for favor.
Although San Francisco is but a little corner of land, yet it is the first commercial mart on the great Pacific Ocean, and there are about thirty thousand or more Chinamen here. As the Master says, in urgent words, “The harvest is great, but the laborers are few.” Chinese Baptist Church, 740 Washington Street, San Francisco, Cal. (The Chinese Brethren: Liu Leen Heem, Lee Kwok Feen, Chan Quong Gong, Yee Chong Shan, Fung Sam Tay, Sam Meaggil)
Now that the Mission Board has the opportunity to assume the Chinese work that the Southern Baptists were closing, the American Baptist Home Missionary Society decided to act contrary to their 1876 policy of not having a centralized location for Chinese work and to support the work that Rev. J. B. Hartwell and Mrs. Janie Sanford had underway.
Working from the San Francisco church, Dr. Hartwell became Superintendent of Missions to the Chinese on the Pacific Coast in 1884 that included missions in Port Townsend, Wash.; Portland, Astoria, Albany, Salem, La Grange, Oreg.; and Sacramento, Chico, Sulphur Banks, San Francisco, Oakland, East Oakland, Fresno, Tulare, Los Angeles, and Redlands, Cal.
From this brief historical account, we learned that mission work among the Chinese started in the mid-1800s for the purpose of sharing Jesus Christ to the “heathens.” The American Baptist work in San Francisco struggled with the shortage of funds, the debate over the “Chinese Question” and the decision to support local churches to reach the Chinese instead of what the Methodists, Presbyterians, and the Southern Baptists did by purchasing real estate and establishing a centralized location to carry out missions. It was only after the Southern Baptists decided to close their work in San Francisco did the American Baptist had the opportunity to re-establish and lay down a foundation to do missions among the Chinese.
Next month’s article will explore the beginning of our church built on the corner of Waverly Place and Sacramento Street.
Historical materials were drawn from reports and minutes of the Executive Board of the American Baptist Home Missionary Society.