12
W. C. HUNTER
The Hunter Journal was presented to the Boston Athenaeum by Dr. Robert W. Hooper on March 27, 1858. Hooper was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts in 1810, graduated from Harvard College in 1830, received a medical degree from the same institution six years later, and thereafter became a prominent surgeon in Boston. Hooper was also a bibliophile and a trustee of the Boston Athenaeum who added substantially to its holdings by gifts. It is impossible to establish definitely how he obtained the Hunter Journal, but it seems probable that it came from his wife's family. In 1837 he married Ellen Sturgis, daughter of William Sturgis who was active in the Orient trade. Many Massachusetts men engaged in the China trade were related. In 1788 Thomas Handasyd Perkins went to China on the Astraea and launched a commercial venture with the aid of his elder brother James. 1803 their nephew J. P. Cushing also travelled there and managed the business until 1828. Other nephews of T. H. Perkins, James Sturgis, and Charles Bennet Forbes also prospered in the China trade. In 1833 the third generation of the family left Boston for the Orient and for the next decade divided his time between Manila and Canton. William Hunter was a business associate of both R. B. Forbes and Russell Sturgis and mentioned the latter in his Journal, Julian Sturgis, son of Russell had vivid memories of Hunter.
In
I remember Mr. Hunter visiting my parents at Walton (England) when I was a boy, a handsome, courteous man with a brown face and white moustache, like a fine type of Anglo-Indian, and speaking Chinese for our amusement with so soft a voice that I have often wondered how much of that soft musical quality was due to him and how much inherent in that unknown tongue.2
Hunter finally left Canton and closed Russell and Company in May 1841. This move was recorded in the letters of William Henry Low, a young man in his twenties who arrived in Canton in September 1839 and joined his brother A. A. Low in Russell and Company.
1 Russell Sturgis joined Baring Brothers and Co. of London after he ended his commercial ventures in China about 1849. He became senior partner of the English firm in 1873.
2 Julian Sturgis, From Books and Papers of Russell Sturgis (Oxford, 1893), p. 206.
12
W. C. HUNTER
The Hunter Journal was presented to the Boston Athenaeum by Dr. Robert W. Hooper on March 27, 1858. Hooper was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts in 1810, graduated from Harvard College in 1830, received a medical degree from the same institu- tion six years later, and thereafter became a prominent surgeon in Boston. Hooper was also a bibliophile and a trustee of the Boston Athenaeum who added substantially to its holdings by gifts. It is impossible to establish definitely how he obtained the Hunter Journal, but it seems probable that it came from his wife's family. In 1837 he married Ellen Sturgis, daughter of William Sturgis who was active in the Orient trade. Many Massachusetts men engaged in the China trade were related. In 1788 Thomas Handasyd Perkins went to China on the Astrae and launched a commercial venture with the aid of his elder brother James. 1803 their nephew J. P. Cushing also travelled there and managed the business until 1828. Other nephews of T. H. Perkins, James Sturgis, and Charles Bennet Forbes also prospered in the China trade. In 1833 the third generation of the family left Boston for the Orient and for the next decade divided his time between Manila and Canton. William Hunter was a business associate of both R. B. Forbes and Russell Sturgis and mentioned the latter in his Journal, Julian Sturgis, son of Russell had vivid memories of Hunter.
In
I remember Mr. Hunter visiting my parents at Walton (England) when I was a boy, a handsome, courteous man with a brown face and white moustache, like a fine type of Anglo-Indian, and speaking Chinese for our amusement with so soft a voice that I have often wondered how much of that soft musical quality was due to him and how much inherent in that unknown tongue.2
Hunter finally left Canton and closed Russell and Company in May 1841. This move was recorded in the letters of William Henry Low, a young man in his twenties who arrived in Canton in September 1839 and joined his brother A. A. Low in Russell and Company.
1 Russell Sturgis joined Baring Brothers and Co. of London after he ended his commercial ventures in China about 1849. He became senior partner of the English firm in 1873.
2 Julian Sturgis, From Books and Papers of Russell Sturgis (Oxford, 1893), p. 206.
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