Arcadia mining camp, Crawford County, Kansas
Date: 1914-1969
A photograph of the Arcadia mining camp. Arcadia was originally founded as Hathaway in 1857 a half mile north of the current town. The post office was later moved to the site of a railroad siding in approximately 1876. Arcadia is located on the Kansas and Missouri state line, in Crawford County, and is roughly twenty miles northeast of Pittsburg, Kansas. Photographs include images of a school, churches, street scenes, school basketball team, and mining operations.

Arma mining camp, Crawford County, Kansas
Date: 1905-1943
Photographs and postcards of the mining camp, businesses, community interests, residents, and buildings in Arma, Kansas. The city of Arma was incorporated in 1909 and is located in Crawford County about nine miles north of Pittsburg. Previously the area was known as Rust, a small coal camp laid out in 1886. The town was inhabited by miners from many of the surrounding mines. Arma continues today and is home to a few businesses, a grade school and a high school.

Baptist Assembly in Ottawa, Kansas
Date: 1895
This photograph is a group portrait of the Baptist Assembly in about 1895. C.K. Morrison is seated left with Mary Hawley (Hughes) seated on the ground. Seated third from left is Gertrude Fazers (Slater), Harriet E. Godrey is standing and Fannie Sibley (?) is seated fourth from left.

Baptist Church, Colby, Thomas County, Kansas
Date: Between 1960 and 1969
A view of the basement and partial above-ground construction of the Colby, Kansas Baptist Church. The church was located at Webster and Grant streets in Colby. It is unknown if this shows the building under construction or after destruction.

Baptist Church in Larned, Kansas
Date: Between 1880 and 1890
This is a photograph of the Baptist Church located on the corner of Broadway and 10th street in Larned, Kansas. There are houses in the background.

Belinda C. Miles to Lewis Allen Alderson
Date: 1832-1834
These six letters were written to Lewis Allen Alderson from his sister-in-law, Belinda C. Miles. Alderson later moved to Atchison, Kansas, in 1858 and was a prominent Baptist minister. He died in Atchison in 1881.

Cary A. Trimble to Lewis Allen Alderson
Date: 1831-1833
These four letters are from Cary A. Trimble in Ohio to Lewis Allen Alderson in Virginia. Alderson later moved to Atchison, Kansas, in 1858 and was a prominent Baptist minister. He died in Atchison in 1881.

Catherine B. Dart to Lewis Allen Alderson
Date: 1832-1833
Several letters written by Catherine B. Dart to Lewis Allen Alderson and his wife, Lucy. Lucy died in February 1833. Lewis Allen Alderson later moved to Atchison, Kansas, in 1858 and was a prominent Baptist minister. He died in Atchison in 1881.

C. G. Taylor to Lewis Allen Alderson
Date: November 1832-September 1833
These two letters were written to Lewis Allen Alderson by his friend C. G. Taylor. In one of the letters, Taylor addresses Alderson's sister, Belinda C. Miles. Alderson later moved to Atchison, Kansas, in 1858 and was a prominent Baptist minister. He died in Atchison in 1881.

Charles Arbuckle to Lewis Allen Alderson
Date: November 1831-August 1832
These four letters are from Charles Arbuckle to Lewis Allen Alderson. Arbuckle writes from Alderson's hometown of Lewisburg, West Virginia. In the letters, Arbuckle encourages Alderson to propose to Miss Lucy B. Miles, whom Alderson marries the day after he graduates from the University of Ohio in 1832. Arbuckle states that "an amiable woman next to religion is man's greatest consolation" but he seeks to remain a bachelor himself. Arbuckle also attended the Staunton Convention leading up to the election of 1832. Alderson later moved to Atchison, Kansas, in 1858 and was a prominent Baptist minister. He died in Atchison in 1881.

Charles Lewis to Lewis Allen Alderson
Date: August 19, 1830 - May 22, 1832
Several letters addressed to Lewis Allen Alderson from his brother-in-law Charles Lewis. Alderson was studying at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. He later moved to Atchison, Kansas, in 1858 and was a prominent Baptist minister. He died in Atchison in 1881. Notes from his sister, Polly Alderson Lewis, are included in the letters.

C. L. V. Bureau to Lewis Allen Alderson
Date: January 1832-November 1832
These seven letters are addressed to Lewis Allen Alderson. They were written by his friend C. L. V. Bureau in Gallipolis, Ohio. Alderson later moved to Atchison, Kansas, in 1858 and was a prominent Baptist minister. He died in Atchison in 1881.

Crossing the Plains, the journal of Harriett Bidwell Shaw
Creator: Shaw, Harriet Bidwell
Date: 1851
Harriett Bidwell Shaw started a journal in September 18,1851, when she and her husband, Reverend James Milton Shaw traveled in a wagon train via the Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico. Harriett was the only woman to accompany the wagon train. She documented their daily activities, the weather conditions, hardships on the trail, encounters with Indians, and buffalo hunting. When the Shaws passed through Kansas they stayed at Shawnee Baptist Mission, Council Grove, and Pawnee Rock and stopped near Fort Mackey on the Arkansas river. They reached Santa Fe on November 14, 1851, where the journal ends. The Shaws eventually went to Albuquerque and then Socorro to establish Baptist missions among the Spanish people. In sum, Shaws journal presents a remarkable picture of the difficulties and rewards of travel to the American West prior to the American Civil War.

Croweburg mining camp, Crawford County, Kansas
Date: Between 1900 and 1940
Photographs of Croweburg, a small unincorporated community in Crawford County located halfway between Arma and Mulberry. Croweburg was made up of four separate mining camps: #14 Croweburg Camp, #15 Croweburg Camp, #16 Croweburg Camp, and New Camp. Being about a half mile apart from one another, the community unified as Croweburg. The town took its name from the Crowe Coal Co., the principal employer of the miners. Croweburg had its own post office from 1908 until 1972. The community still exists. Photographs include images of a church, community hall, a local lake, street scenes, a school, and a meeting hall.

Delaware Baptist Mission globe
Creator: Holbrook School Apparatus Company
Date: between 1855 and 1860
Terrestrial globe on brass stand, used to instruct American Indian pupils at the Delaware Baptist Mission. The mission opened in present-day Wyandotte County around 1836 with the purpose of educating Delaware children and converting them to Christianity. It operated under the leadership of Rev. John Gill Pratt beginning in 1847, and closed when the Delaware tribe was removed to Indian Territory in the late 1860s. The only Kansas town noted on the globe is Lecompton, Kansas' territorial capital from 1855 to 1861.

Dighton Baptist Church, Lane County, Kansas
Date: 1910
The Dighton Baptist Church, Dighton, Lane County, Kansas.

First Baptist Church, Ottawa
Date: Between 1895 and 1950
A postcard and three photographs show four views of the First Baptist Church in Ottawa. The early view shows the unpaved streets around it. The church is located on the southwest corner of Fourth and Hickory.

Future site of the Wyandotte Village Baptist Church, Kansas City, Kansas
Creator: Atkisson Studio
Date: Between 1954 and 1956
Photo of the site where the Wyandotte Village Baptist Church, Kansas City, Kansas, will be built.

General rules
Creator: Simerwell, Robert, 1786-1868
Date: February 15, 1822
This item, titled General Rules for the regulation of the Fort Wayne Mission Family, details the various rules adopted by the Baptist missionaries at Fort Wayne, Indiana, in the winter of 1822. Essentially, this document establishes the guidelines by which the Baptist missionaries at Fort Wayne are going to live by as they work to spread Christianity among the Native Americans in the area. Robert Simerwell was among the first group of missionaries to Fort Wayne, and he was part of the group that established the rules governing their actions at the fort.

George Alderson to Lewis Allen Alderson
Date: March 5, 1829-July 16, 1831
Two letters written by George Alderson to Lewis Allen Alderson. Lewis Allen Alderson later moved to Atchison, Kansas, in 1858 and was a prominent Baptist minister. He died in Atchison in 1881.

Group in front of First Swedish Baptist Church, unknown location
Creator: Wolcott
Date: May 11, 1919
This panoramic photograph shows a group of men, women, and children in front of a brick structure. The information on the back of the photograph says it is a Swedish Baptist Church but the location is not given. There is an additional note that indicates the photo was not from Franklin County.

Hays, Kansas
Date: Between 1886 and 1889
These eight photographs show buildings and views of Hays, Kansas.

Hezekiah Chilton to Lewis Allen Alderson
Date: June 20, 1834
A letter written by Hezekiah Chilton to his colleague Lewis Allen Alderson. Chilton was writing from the salt region of West Virginia known as the Kanawha Salines to his friend in Greenbrier County. Chilton encourages Alderson to join him in his religious pursuits. Alderson later moved to Atchison, Kansas in 1858 and was a prominent Baptist minister. He died in Atchison in 1881.

Isaac McCoy
Date: 1831
A portrait of missionary Reverend Isaac McCoy at age 47. Copied from a painting. Born the son of a Baptist preacher in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1784, McCoy spent his youth in Louisville, Kentucky. He married at age nineteen and moved to the Indiana Territory to preach in communities of settlers, French traders, and Indians. While there, McCoy witnessed what he considered the degradation and suffering of tribes at the hands of whites. He was one of the first to suggest the removal of Eastern tribes to the West. McCoy achieved mild success operating missions in Michigan and Indiana Territory, and training future Kansas missionaries, such as Jotham Meeker, Johnston Lykins, and Robert Simmerwell. He spent progressively more time in Washington D.C., lobbing for the establishment of reservations in the future states of Kansas and Oklahoma. McCoy found sympathy for his proposals, and in 1830 personally surveyed future Indian lands in what would become Kansas. The following year McCoy moved his family to Westport, Missouri, near present-day Kansas City.

Isaac McCoy journal
Creator: McCoy, Isaac, 1784-1846
Date: March 1, 1836 - May 23, 1836
Isaac McCoy kept a journal from 1814 to 1841. This is the thirteenth part of the journal, covering part of 1836. Isaac McCoy was ordained a Baptist minister in 1810 and served as missionary among the Native Americans in present-day Indiana, Michigan, Missouri and Kansas. He was an advocate of Indian removal from the eastern United States, proposing an Indian state in what is now Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma so Native Americans could be free from the "corrupting influences attending association with the frontier people of that early period." Isaac McCoy was a key part in the work of the Board of Foreign Missions in America and the Committee on Indian Affairs on the issues of Native American emigration and the Indian Removal Act.