1881-1897
The John and Thomas Westrup Missionary Correspondence Files, part of the International Mission Board, SBC, Missionary Correspondence Files Collection, are located at the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives. The collection consists of approximately 12 letters from O. C. Pope, Managing Editor of the Texas Baptist Herald, and Thomas Westrup written to staff of the Southern Baptist Convention Foreign Mission Board during brothers John and Thomas Westrup’s service as Southern Baptist missionaries in Mexico in the late 1800s. The correspondence includes both typed and handwritten letters. The letters cover the time period from January 4, 1881, to February 3, 1897. The letters describe Southern Baptists’ early missions work in Mexico, the death of John Westrup, and translation of standard works into Spanish. The collection is arranged in chronological order.
Brothers John O. and Thomas M. Westrup were born in London, England on May 3, 1847, and April 10, 1837, respectively. John Westrup was appointed agent of the American Bible Society in March 1867. In 1871, he was appointed missionary of the Baptist Home Mission Society of New York. He was appointed a missionary to Mexico in 1880 by the Texas Baptist State Convention and pastored some small Baptist churches in Mexico. A few months later in 1880, John Westrup was accepted as a missionary of the SBC Foreign Mission Board as the Board’s first missionary to Mexico, with the understanding that Texas Baptists would provide his salary. In December 1880, John was murdered by Indians and Mexicans between Santa Rosa and Monterey. His brother, Thomas, also in Mexico, took up the pastoral work left behind by his brother and was appointed a missionary of the SBC Foreign Mission Board in 1881. Thomas Westrup died Monterey, Mexico, on November 15, 1909.
