Huie Kin 許芹

Huie Kin (許芹, Xu Qin) was born on August 8, 1854 in Wing Ning, Taishan, Guangdong, China, the third child of his family. He had an older brother and sister and a younger brother and sister. His given name was Huie Kin Kwong (許芹光), but he later shortened it. Around June 1868, at the age of fourteen, Huie Kin immigrated to San Francisco, CA with three cousins. He stayed with relatives for a time in Oakland, CA, until he found work as a domestic servant, earning $1.50 a week plus board. He worked for a farmer named Prince for two years in Oakland, then for the Gardner family, at their big house on Telegraph Avenue and Twentieth Street. The mother of his employer taught him to read and write, and he was encouraged to attend Sunday school and evening classes. He was baptized at the First Presbyterian Church in Oakland in July 1874 by Dr. James Ell.

In September 1880, Huie Kin left the Gardiners, still wearing Chinese clothes with a queue, and boarded a transcontinental train for Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio. He attended Lane through the summer of 1882. Because of their poor foundation in English, he and others transferred to Geneva College in the Fall of 1882 in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. While at Geneva College he switched to wearing Western clothes, but kept his queue, as he still intended to return to China. After two years at Geneva College, he attended the Western University of Pennsylvania from 1884 to 1885 in Allegheny City, PA, now part of Pittsburgh. In 1885, while still at Western University of Pennsylvania, Huie Kin received a call to the ministry to become the superintendent of the Chinese Mission and School in New York, New York.

In the summer of 1885, Huie Kin arrived in New York, eventually residing at the Bethany Missionary Institute at 64 Second Avenue. He attended prayer meetings at University Place Presbyterian Church where he met the pastor, Reverend George Alexander, D.D. Dr. Alexander became a mentor and friend. Huie Kin spent his first two months in New York visiting all the Chinese stores and laundries in New York and nearby New Jersey. He rented a vacant parlor at 15 University Place and opened a Chinese Sunday School in October 1885. Huie Kin  and others attempted to reduce the influence of gambling dens that preyed upon the residents of Chinatown on  either side of Mott Street. This exposed him to much danger from the powerful Chinese Tongs, such as the On Leong Association, that ran many of the illicit operations. Just before the Great Blizzard on 12 March 1888,  Huie Kin moved the Chinese Mission to 34 Clinton Place. They were snowed in for days.

Louise Maria Van Arnham came to New York City from Lansingburgh, New York to be a Missionary to the  Chinese community. The pair met, fell in love and marriage was proposed. On April 4, 1889, they were wed, with Dr. George Alexander acting as officiant. After the wedding service, there was a reception for the Chinese community at the Mission.

Huie Kin was ordained by Dr. Alexander in June of 1895 at the University Place Church. In 1896, he sailed from San Francisco to China on the S.S. Peru to bring back students for a Boys Day School. He also visited his home village of Wing Ning after twenty-seven years to visit his parents, who were still “strong”. He returned in May 1896 with thirty boys. In preparation, Louise had rented a large house in Metuchen, New Jersey where the boys stayed the summer before moving to the Mission in the fall.

From 1897 to 1902, the Chinese Mission occupied the Lenox Mansion at 53 Fifth Avenue. The ornate art gallery  was turned into the church assembly hall. In 1902, the building was sold to the politician Thomas Ryan of  Tammany Hall, so they had to move.  In 1902, the Chinese Consulate moved from a large building at 26 West  Ninth Street. Huie Kin’s mission took over the vacated Consulate. To help pay the rent, they converted the third  and fourth floors into a dormitory for visitors and Chinese students. The Sunday schedule included Sunday School, two services in Chinese, and a bible study session. In 1904, Huie Kin and Louise attended World’s Fair in St. Louis, MO, and traveled to see friends in San Francisco, CA. There they were introduced to Dr. Sun Yat Sen, the future President of the Republic of China. At the time he was being hunted by the Qing Government in China for his revolutionary ideas. Dr. Sun told Huie Kin he was coming to New York so Huie Kin extended an invitation for Dr. Sun to stay with them. Dr. Sun arrived and during the stay had long talks with Wang Chung Hui and Wang Chung Yao, two Chinese students at Yale. Huie Kin recalled, “What they were working on nobody in the house had any inkling of, but we were later told that the first draft of the Constitution of the Chinese Republic was made there.” Other sources say that Wang Chung Hui and Dr. Sun worked on the pamphlet “The True Solution of the Chinese Question.” In that pamphlet, they argue that China would be a better neighbor if she became rich, intelligent and had a revolution modeled on American Democracy.

In May of 1908, he and Louise moved the Chinese Mission and Sunday School to 223-225 East 31st Street between Second and Third Avenues. This was to become the Chinese Church and their home where they raised their children and lived until retirement. This building was previously occupied by the East Side Republican Club. It had a library, reading rooms, gymnasium, and bowling alley. The Chinese YMCA established a dormitory on the third floor that was quickly occupied by Chinese students at New York colleges. Dr. Sun returned to New York from England in July 1910. He visited with the Huies, talking until three in the morning of his plans for revolution and how it would be financed. When the final revolts started in Wuchang in central China in Nov 1911 and the government fell, Dr. Sun returned to China to head up the new Republican Government of China in Nanking.

In December of 1910, Reverend Huie Kin and the Reverend Dr. George Alexander, moderator of the Presbytery of  New York City, formally organized the first Chinese Presbyterian church on the East Coast. Fifty Chinese men, one Chinese woman, committee members of the Presbytery, Louise Huie and several of their children held a service in the main hall of the building named “Glad Tidings Hall.” The committee voted to organize The First Chinese Church of New York City and 30 Chinese became the founding  members. On February 15 1915, Huie Kin became the Minister of the First Chinese Presbyterian Church in New York.

In 1919, Huie and Louise traveled to Shanghai and on to Wing Ning, China to settle an interfamily dispute near his family home. They took a train with Caroline across the country to Vancouver, British  Columbia and departed on the RMS Empress of Asia. They traveled for several months by train and boat. They were able to visit their old friend Dr. Sun Yat Sen who was living in retirement at his home on Rue Moliere in Shanghai. The last time Huie Kin was in his home village was twenty-five years earlier. He retired in 1925 due to health issues.

In 1932, Reverend Huie Kin wrote a book titled Reminiscences of Huie Kin which was published by San Yu Press in Peiping, China. In 1933, Huie Kin and Louise traveled to China, where they saw all six of their daughters; Louise in Shanghai, Helen who came to Shanghai from Wuhan, Caroline, Ruth and Dorothy in Peiping and then they visited Alice in the north in Tinghsien.

Huie Kin died on January 18, 1934 at the age of 79 in Peking, China. He was buried in 1934 in the British Cemetery in Beijing, China. The cemetery was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution but it is believed to be located just west of the Western Wall of Beijing in an area identified as the Englisch Kirchhof (English churchyard, abbreviated “Engl Khf”) on the map of Peking from the German Expedition to China, 1900 to 1901.

The editors would like to thank Bob Young, family historian and genealogist.