"The Patriarch of West African Missions": Albert Bushnell

My special interest in particular mission-fields was brought about in different ways at different times. But it is always true that a boy has added interest in any field for which he is enabled to do something. Thus thousands of boys had added interest in the South Sea Islands of Micronesia when they had taken a ten-cent share in the stock of the missionary brig Morning Star, which was being built by children’s money to carry missionaries among those islands. All who had shares in that stock and who had received a certificate accordingly, felt that they were co-workers with the South Sea missionaries, and they had added interest in their co-workers. It was in accordance with this principle that my special interest in the Gaboon Mission in West Africa was secured.

Rev. Albert Bushnell who was called the “Patriarch of West African Missions,” returned for a season from his Gaboon field in 1846. He visited my Stonington home and was to make an address about his work the next evening, in our Congregational Church where I heard Dr. John Scudder and Dr. Daniel Poor. Mr. Bushnell called on my father, and I being present

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heard the two talking about the Gaboon region. Dr. Bushnell said he regretted that he had no map of his country with him, for he would like to point out to his hearers the stations of which he would tell them.

My father, knowing that I prided myself on my skill in map-drawing at school, said that he thought his son Henry could make such a map for him. And then my father asked me if I would not like to attempt it. Of course I was glad to be thought of some service. Every boy likes that idea; therefore I said I would try to do it. At this Mr. Bushnell showed me a sketch of the Gaboon Mission in the Missionary Herald, and indicated how he would like to have it enlarged. At once I secured some large sheets of drawing paper and began my work. In a few hours I had a sketch map of the Gaboon Mission region outlined in India ink, of about three and a half feet by two. Then I shaded the water lines so as to make them distinct; printed in the names of localities in large letters, with a prominent title to the whole. Having mounted the map on map rollers with a cord to hang it by, I thought it would enable all in the church to see the places as the missionary pointed them out.

However it might have been about others in the audience, there was one boy interested in all that the missionary said about his West African field, in the meeting at the village church in my Stonington home with the help of that map. And I never lost my interest thus acquired in the Gaboon Mission, and its patriarch, Albert Bushnell. When I saw a report from one of the stations that I then sketched in I

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thought I knew all about it. And I followed that missionary in my thoughts in all his journeyings and work; and I felt that I was a co-worker with him.

In 1856 Dr. Bushnell made to the American Oriental Society a valuable report of the characteristics of his West African field, and of the people among whom he worked; for he also was doing something for Americans who desired knowledge while he was working for Africans who needed more than human knowledge. In those days there was much interest in West African missions among New England Whigs, because of the attempt to influence slavery in America by colonizing freed slaves in that portion of the “Dark Continent.” Therefore more than one motive affected those who heard about what was doing for Christ in West Africa.

And Dr. Albert Bushnell was a man worth remembering and worth co-working with. On his fifth visit to this country the veteran missionary was quite an invalid, but he longed for added helpers in his field; as however no younger or stronger man was ready to go he felt that he must return. That same year he died at Sierra Leone, December 2, 1879. One who knew the devoted hero well said of him truly: “There may have been greater men than he, but rarely do we meet one so lovely and so loved. He loved Christ with extraordinary love. He loved the souls as few love them. He loved the heathen with a love that often showed itself in tears and prayers, and in appeals. He gave his life for Africa.” And he gained life in giving it.