Charles Hartwell
Charles Hartwell (Chinese: 夏察理; Xià Chálǐ; Foochow Romanized: Hâ Chák-lī) (December 19, 1825 – January 30, 1905) was an American missionary with the American Board who spent most of his life in Fuzhou, China.
Born in Lincoln, Massachusetts, Hartwell studied theology at Amherst College, earning a Master of Arts in 1852. He was ordained that year and sailed to China in 1853, arriving in Fuzhou on June 9, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life, apart from three brief visits to the United States (1865–67, 1877–78, 1890–91).
Hartwell became a leading sinologist, fluent in the Fuzhou dialect and a proponent of its romanization. He translated about a quarter of the New Testament into the Fuzhou colloquial and wrote extensively in the dialect, including the Three Character and Four Character Classics, as well as the second edition of the Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect. He also produced school textbooks (including a series known as the Hongkong Readers), a meteorology book, and contributed temperance articles to English- and American journals.
The fiftieth anniversary of his arrival in Fuzhou was celebrated on May 26, 1903; Jubilee Notes to commemorate the event appeared in 1904. Hartwell married twice: first to Lucy E. Stearns on September 6, 1852 (she died July 10, 1883), and then to Hannah Louisa Plimpton Peet Hartwell in 1885. He died of heart failure in Fuzhou on January 30, 1905, and was then the senior missionary of the American Board in China. His wife died three years later, and his daughter Emily Susan Hartwell remained in the field until 1937.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 10:01 (CET).