Johnstone-Walker family papers

This collection consists of diaries and letters of the Johnstone (also spelled Johnston) and Walker families. Almost all of the items in the collection were written by the women of the family, in particular Marianne Cassandra (Howe) Johnstone (Mrs. Thomas Pinckney Johnstone) and her daughters Martha Howe (Johnstone) Walker (Mrs. James Walker) and Mary Sybil Johnstone. Thomas Pinckney Johnstone (died 1883) was a missionary for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions sent to Turkey in 1833, where he served in Constantinople, Trebizond, and Smyrna before returning to the United States with his family in 1853, and the diaries of his wife and daughters record their experiences in both countries. Marianne Johnstone writes of raising her children in Turkey surrounded by hardship and disease, or her attempts to convert her Turkish, Greek, and Armenian neighbors, and of the persecutions suffered by the converts. Martha Johnstone Walker kept diaries which describe the countryside, the happy family life they enjoyed, events such as the visit of the Sultan of Smyrna, and their voyage home to America in 1853, while her sister Mary Johnstone wrote a short history of the family's adventures in Turkey.

The diaries of Marianne and Martha Johnstone continue after their return to the United States and describe their life in Granville (Ohio), where they came in contact with anti-slavery activists, in Salem (Massachusetts), and in New Haven (Connecticut). Martha Johnstone Walker attended Le Roy Seminary in New York, and her school experiences include a women's rights debate and a student rebellion against bad food. A more detailed summary of the diaries, prepared by Curtis Howe Walker, son of James and Martha Walker, is included in the collection. Also included are a record of Johnstone family births and marriages, and six family letters, the earliest of which is a record of Thomas Pinckney and Marianne Johnstone's activities in Smyrna in September of 1846 and of their education of their children. Of the remaining letters, an undated one from Martha Johnstone Walker was written in Turkey and the others were written after the family had moved to the United States.

These papers were donated to Yale University by Mrs. Curtis H. Walker in 1957.