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Name: HURLBURT, Charles Erwin (Rev.)

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Birth Date: 11.6.1860 Fort Atkinson, Ohio

Death Date: 28.1.1936 Los Angeles

Nationality: American

First Date: 1901

Profession: Served for many years with Africa Inland Mission

Area: Kijabe, 1922 Arua, West Nile

Married: In Lorain, Ohio 21 Dec 1883 Alta Matilda Houghton b. 8.1.1858 Penfield, Ohio, d. Oicha

Children: Alta Elizabeth (21 Aug 1888 Kansas-1921); Charlotte (1890-1891); Charles Greenleaf (1892-1931); Agnes Abbie (1893); Harry Houghton (1895-1977); Paul Frederick Elisha (1896-1991)

Book Reference: Gillett, SE, HBEA, Tignor, Roosevelt, Land 1903, EAHB 1905, Hut, North, Drumkey, Red 22, Grasshoppers, EAHB 1906, AJ, Dow, EAHB 1904, EAHB 1907, Leader14, Red Book 1912

General Information:

Visited Roosevelt at the White House and Roosevelt returned the compliment by visiting the Mission at Kijabe in 1909
SE - Rev C.E. Hurlburt - Kijabe - July 1909
Land Grant 1903 - 'Africa Inland Mission, Kambu per Rev. C. Hurlburt - Mission Work & cultivation, about 31.66 acres - Kikuyu - Jan 28th - Freehold. Further Grant - Africa Inland Missions (Rev. Hurlburt) - 185 acres, within zone - Kijabe - July 18 - Freehold
Drumkey 1909 - Cattle Brand - E8H - AIM, Kijabe
Drumkey 1909 - African Inland Mission, 1906 - Rev. & Mrs Charles E. Hurlburt, Miss Alta Hurlburt at Kijabe
Grasshoppers - In 1875 Charles almost totally supported his mother and the two younger children. During his growth to manhood God never failed the family. Charles married, set up a plumbing business, dabbled in dentistry and joined the YMCA. Soon he took up an appointment as full-time evangelist and then YMCA State Secretary. …….. As President of the [Philadelphia] Missionary Council when the news of [Peter Cameron] Scott's death broke, Hurlburt felt the time had come to tell them, 'God has laid the African work on my heart'. After consulting ythe missionaries the Council asked him to become Director of AIM. …..
The Hurlburts amazed their friends by announcing in 1901 that they planned to take their five children, aged 4 to 12 years, to East Africa despite the terrifying scale of missionary mortality. They accompanied 4 new missionaries …… The Hurlburts found Kangundo, 40 miles from the new railway, too remote for the headquarters. In 1903 they moved to Kijabe, alongside the new lines as they plunged dramatically into the Rift Valley. …
By 1917 Charles Hurlburt was a sick man. He had to cancel a visit to England because doctors recognized 'emotional stress' and ordered long periods of rest. Parasites ravaged his health and travel sapped his strength. With his eye still on Lake Chad, Hurlburt decided that Kijabe was too peripheral for his headquarters and moved to Aba in Congo in 1919. Two deaths hurt him deeply. His daughter Alta and daughter-in-law Elizabeth, fellow missionaries in Aba, died within 2 years of each other. ………..[ Then he fell out with the Council in the USA ] 1922 … One source stated that 'Mr Hurlburt's attitude toward the AIM drastically changed after an operation for a brain tumour'. Unwell in California, he felt hurt because the council ignored his suggestions and starved him of information. At the annual meeting in New York on 31 July 1925, 14 council members and 18 missionaries noted that 'Rev C.E. Hurlburt is forced to resign'. ……… Whether or not Charles thought he had resigned is doubtful. He sought to drum up support among missionaries for several months.
In November 1926 he made a final, impassioned appeal for overall leadership, insisting on 'the need and necessity that a competent General Director be appointed and given full confidence and power'. Then he seemed to accept the inevitable parting. ….. His health improved dramatically as soon as he left AIM. He became Superintendent of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles and then founded a new society, the Unevangelized Africa Mission, to serve unreached tribes in Congo and French Equatorial Africa. He was still in harness in his 77th year when he suddenly collapsed. His doctors said his kidneys were 'shot all to pieces' probably as a result of recurring blackwater fever. He died a week later on 27 January 1936. His widow, Alta, returned to Africa where she died at the home of her daughter, Mrs Bell in Oicha. …….. His gracious shadow falls on every development in AIM's first three decades. Without him the mission would have been stillborn.
The multitude of churches in east and central Africa who trace their origins back to AIM probably owe more to this man than to any other.
Agricultural Journal 1908 - Brands allotted and registered - C.E. Hurlburt, AIM Kijabe - Kiambu E8H
North - Visited AIM Mission in EA 1898; dep. Zanzibar for England 28-1-1899
EAHB 1904 - Ulu District Residents - Hurlburt, C. - A.I. Mission, Kangundu
Red Book 1912 - General Director - Africa Inland Mission
EAHB 1905 - at Kijabe with wife and daughter.

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