Raynor HCA 2013-07
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/18/2013
Autograph Letter Signed, “Alonzo Potter” 3pp. quarto, March 30, 1847, Philadelphia, with integral leaf addressed to Rev. Pierre P. Irving, Secy of the Foreign Comtte, Missionary Room, Broadway, New York, it reads in part: “...I have recently been asked to cooperate in efforts to establish a Mission on Factory Island near the mouth of the St. Johns on the West Coast of Africa to be placed as soon as possible under the agency of Africans partly from this country and partly of native origin. Our present states are (I believe) all on the territory owned by the Maryland Loincration Society, none of them being within the limits of that owned by the American Society. What would your committee think of an attempt by churchmen of Pennsylvania to establish such a mission at the point above mentioned which is about midway between Sierra Leone & Cape Castle on the Gold Coast & to assume both the support & the superintenent of it? Your Committees of course having a general oversight & receiving Reports either directly from the Missionaries or through the Agents of the Contributors...The Characteristic features fo the undertaking are (I suppose) first, an exclusive African Agency, & secondly, support from one Diocese with the power on the part of the Donors & ecclesiastical Authority of that Diocese to direct under the general supervision of the Board the application of funds & the course of measures. The subject of a native or African Agency seems to be attracting very general interest at this time, forced upon us as it is by the mournful breaches which death is constantly making in the ranks of the white laborers...” Very Good condition. The Right Reverend Alonzo Potter (1800-1865) was an American bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States who served as the third Bishop of Pennsylvania. He advocated temperance reform and frequently delivered a lecture on the Drinking Usages of Society (1852); he was an opponent of slavery and published a reply to the pro-slavery arguments of Bishop John Henry Hopkins (1792-1868) of Vermont.
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