TWENTY YEARS AMONG THE MEXICANS, A Narrative of Missionary Labor.

Cincinnati: Chase and Hall, 1875 . First Edition. Hardcover. FINE. 214pp., yellow endpapers, gilt-stamped titles to spine and upper board inside decorative banners on upper board with scroll work and gilt devices on spine, pebbled green cloth. Exceptionally nice copy.

SABIN 67885A. RAINES p.171; TATE found her observations on Comanche raids interesting.
Melinda Rankin, Presbyterian missionary and teacher, was born on March 21, 1811, in Littleton, New Hampshire. In 1847 she came to Texas as a missionary to Mexicans. She taught at the Huntsville Male and Female Academy and wrote for religious publications. She is believed to have opened a school with Rev. W. Adair at Cincinnati, Texas, in 1848. While there she wrote the introduction to her first book, Texas in 1850 (1850) and was based on a trip she made to Texas in 1848. This is a separate publication featuring her return to Texas and life along the border as a missionary. There ia a chapter on Brownsville during the Civil War; being taken by the U.S. troops, many incidents of travel in Texas, opening of a school for Mexican children on the American side of the Rio Grande, activities of the bandit Cortina, she was delayed at Bagdad and much other interesting events in her stay along the Texas/Mexico border. An extraordinary account of her life in Texas.