James Hunnewell business papers

Correspondence, account books, and other papers of a Boston merchant engaged in trade in Hawaii and other Pacific islands. Although the bulk of the collection relates to James Hunnewell, there are business papers of James F. Hunnewell, Charles Brewer, and Henry A. Peirce. There are letters from a number of missionaries, including a few native ones. There are extensive ship papers and a dozen logbooks; ships represented by the most material include the Eliza Warwick, John Gilpin, Polynesia, Syren, and Washington Allston. There are papers relating to the Kansas Aid Fund (the Middlesex County Committee for) and the Sailors' Home Society, of Honolulu.

Correspondence with women in James Hunnewell's papers include letters from Susannah Hunnewell to her husband in the Sandwich Islands that discuss religion and the difficulty of living far apart. For all but seven months of the first eleven years of their marriage, James Hunnewell was living in the Pacific. The collection also includes seven letters from Elizabeth Dorr, secretary of the Dorchester Sailor's Friends Society, concerning the donation of books to be placed in a ship's library for the "spiritual renovation of our brethren of the deep."

Missionary S. M. Bingham (married to Rev. Hiram Bingham) wrote three letters to James Hunnewell. Her letters mainly discuss her hopes for his conversion. Two letters from Lucy Whiting (S. M. Bingham's sister) concern Sophia and Lucy Bingham (daughters of the Binghams) who were sent back to the United States to be educated.

Maria Chamberlain, the widow of Rev. Levi Chamberlain, wrote four letters to James Hunnewell while living in Honolulu. Topics include her financial situation, her children, selling her home, her work as a missionary, and the education of Maria Kekela, a Hawaiian girl being raised by one of the missionary women.