Welcome back students and faculty!

In honor of the first week of classes, we’re highlighting some correspondence from the Penelope Johnson Allen Brainerd Mission Correspondence and Photographs digital collection. As part of the collection’s Brainerd Mission correspondence and receipts series, founder Ard Hoyt wrote to U.S. Indian Affairs agent Return J. Meigs about the construction of the women’s school at Brainerd Mission, a multi-acre mission school located on the Chickamauga River. Learn more about Brainerd Mission, a mission established in 1817 by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to educate the Cherokee Indians.

Ard Hoyt correspondence with Return J. Meigs, 1820 April 1 — Letter from Brainerd Mission founder Ard Hoyt to Indian Affairs Agent Return J. Meigs detailing the construction of the women’s school at Brainerd Mission requesting more funds for completion of the building.

Learn More

Take a look at additional resources that support research about Brainerd Mission and the Cherokee Indians, including Chattanooga author Robert Sparks Walker’s Pulitzter-nominated book, Torchlights to the Cherokees.

Hyde, Anne Bachman. 1868-1959. Anne Bachman Hyde papers. Chattanooga: University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Phillips, Joyce B., and Paul Gary Phillips. 1998. The Brainerd journal: a mission to the Cherokees, 1817-1823. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Walker, Robert Sparks. 1896-1963. Robert Sparks Walker papers. Chattanooga: University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Walker, Robert Sparks. 1931. Torchlights to the Cherokees; the Brainerd Mission. New York: The Macmillan Company.