William Jones Boone

William Jones Boone (文惠廉, Wénhuìlián) was an American Episcopal bishop whom the gazetteer counts as the founder of the American settlement in Hongkou.

Trained in medicine, he was among the first American Episcopal missionaries in China, working in Batavia from 1837, Macao from 1840 and Xiamen from 1842. After the Treaty of Nanjing he urged that the new access be used to expand mission work. He was elected bishop in 1844 and came back in 1845 with nine missionaries, settling first inside the county city.

Soon he rented land and built a house in Hongkou, from where he extended the mission into Jiangsu and Zhejiang. In 1848 Hongkou, north of Suzhou Creek, was set aside for American residents. The gazetteer’s entry for Boone says the agreement was with daotai Wu Jianzhang, while its entry for Lin Gui says Lin Gui granted it at Boone’s request; the two entries differ and the daotai’s identity here is not settled by the gazetteer. He died in 1864.