Historic Cherry Hill
Special Projects
Catherine Van Rensselaer Bonney
Catherine Van Rensselaer Bonney was born on a cold December day in 1817 into one of the elite Hudson River families of New York State. She was the youngest of Solomon and Arriet Van Rensselaer's eleven children, and from the time she was a teenager until her death in 1891 she thought of Cherry Hill, the Georgian-style house built by her grandfather, Philip Van Rensselaer, as her home. Her early life followed the usual pattern for women of her position: she received an education at the Albany Female Academy, she taught Sunday School at the Dutch Reformed Church, she traveled with her sisters and parents, she copied down family recipes, and she read books. After her father's death in 1852, however, Catherine set her sights on a new and different path, one that would ultimately lead her from the parlor at Cherry Hill to mission schools halfway around the world in Canton and Peking.
Catherine Van Rensselaer Bonney photo
from the collection of Historic Cherry Hill
By the time of her father's death in 1852, Catherine might have been considered a "spinster" because she was thirty-five-years old and unmarried with little to occupy her time and attention. Nevertheless, Catherine surprised everyone when sometime in 1853 she applied to the largest missionary organization in the United States, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) hoping to work with the Choctaw Indians. Her decision to become a missionary upset her family greatly but the family's protests did not undermine Catherine's resolve to follow through with her plans. Unfortunately, the ABCFM turned down her application for missionary service and instead she took a job as a teacher of Music and Embroidery at the Ohio Female College near Cincinnati. When she embarked for Ohio in 1854, it was impossible for her to know that by August of 1856 she would be married to the missionary Samuel Bonney, and traveling across the oceans to China to join him in his religious work.
Catherine Van Rensselaer Bonney's Chinese Jacket
from the collection of Historic Cherry Hill
After Catherine arrived in China she set about crafting a missionary role for herself that went beyond her work as a helpmate to her husband. In 1857, against the wishes of the ABCFM, the organization sponsoring Samuel Bonney's missionary endeavors, she opened a school for Chinese girls and funded the project herself. The school grew over time despite her move from Macao to Canton in the aftermath of the Taiping Rebellion and her occasional ill health. Noting Catherine's increasing student body, Samuel Bonney affectionately remarked in one letter that Catherine was like the old woman who lived in a shoe; the difference as Catherine pointed out, was that unlike the old woman she did "Know what to do." In the estimation of many, her school was well run and well respected. While in China, Catherine and Samuel Bonney adopted a two-year-old girl orphaned by the death of her missionary parents, and named their new daughter Emma.
Catherine Van Rensselaer Bonney's signature
from the collection of Historic Cherry Hill
After Samuel Bonney's death in 1864 Catherine and Emma remained in China until 1867 when ill health and pressure from the ABCFM moved her to come back to the United States. But by 1868, in better health, she was able to reconstitute her mission work on her own terms and return to China under the auspices of the Woman's Union Missionary Society, one of the first mission organizations to sponsor women missionaries exclusively. Ultimately, Catherine had a falling out with her missionary sponsors. This conflict, ill health, and a desire to escape mission work sent her home in 1872.
Once home Catherine faced serious financial difficulties. Her investments lost value in the Panic of 1873 and in an effort to make money she decided to publish a book of family reminiscences. In the two-volume book, A Legacy of Historical Gleanings, Catherine capitalized on both her missionary adventures and her family's involvement in war and politics. Catherine resumed her teaching career and died in Hickory, North Carolina in 1891.
Currently Historic Cherry Hill is seeking funding for the publication of an edition of the papers of Catherine Van Rensselaer Bonney. Historic Cherry Hill's goal is to excite the public's interest in the documents and material culture of this fascinating, historically relevant woman, and to increase intellectual access not only to Bonney's papers, but also to the extensive manuscript and object collection that makes the Historic Cherry Hill museum a unique and valuable resource for scholarship in all fields of American history.
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