Materials collected by Nelson for his doctoral thesis about evangelist B. Fay Mills. This includes his correspondence with possible sources of information, such as Mills’ daughter; copies and transcripts of articles and obituaries by and about Mills as well as some of his sermons.

The material in this collection consists entirely of material gathered by Rev. Daniel W. Nelson in the early 1960s for use in his dissertation on B. Fay Mills, except for one item in folder 1-6. His dissertation, which was awarded by Syracuse University in 1964, was entitled, “B. Fay Mills: Revivalist, Reformer, and Advocate of Free Religion.” Virtually every scrap of information that Nelson’s persistent search was able to dig up was included in the dissertation.

Nelson contacted a number of people who he hoped would be able to provide him with information, either because of their own firsthand knowledge of Mills, or as scholars of church history, or as people who could provide contact information for people with information. First and foremost was Mill’s daughter, Mary Miller.

Nelson’s correspondence did turn up people who knew Mills or had heard him or people who had secondhand knowledge of Mills from people who knew him. These include his daughter, Mary Mills Miller. Folder 1-6 contains two years of handwritten letters from Miller, as well as well as a chart of family information and a copy transcript of a 1911 letter her father write her on her 17th birthday, as well as a questionnaire she filled out for the Unitarian Historical Society about her father and her family. Her letters are mainly answers to questions Nelson asked her along with other details about her father and family that she remembered, such as Booker T. Washington once being a dinner guest and the fact that Mills campaigned for Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. A few memories of Mills’ grandson, Richard Mills is in folder 1-3.

Other eyewitness or secondhand accounts of Mills can be found in the letters of Henry Barraclough, Myra Schofield Poe and R. A. Torrey Jr. (folder 1-2) as well as Fred Barton, Preston Bradley, Lois Campbell (Mill’s daughter -in-law), Cyrus Cook, William McDermott, Vera Pugh, Morrison J. Thomas in folder 1-3. Manly Hall in folder 1-4, although he never met Mills, writes about traditions around him at the Los Angeles Fellowship he founded. Responses to Nelson’s inquiries about Mill’s education record to Phillip’s Academy, Carleton College, Lake Forest College, and the College of Wooster are in folder 1-3 and 1-4. Folders 1-2, 1-3, and 1-4 also have the responses to numerous other letters Nelson wrote to archives, churches, and other people and institutions that might have some scrap of information about Mills. Among the response is one in folder 1-2 from famed church historian Timothy L. Smith. The same folder contains a letter from the archivist of the Dwight L. Moody papers at Moody Bible Institute about Moody and Mills. He included a copy of a letter from Moody to Mills. Unfortunately, this photocopy, like most photocopies of documents in this collection is badly faded and very difficult to read. In most cases, the Archives staff had made a photocopy of the photocopy, adjusted to make the best possible reading. Both copies are kept together.

Nelson also collected documents by and about Mills. Most of these are in folders 1-1 and 1-9. They include some of sermons from his days as a Unitarian minister and, newspaper clippings and transcripts of newspaper clippings about his meetings, and his obituaries. Folder 1-1 also has a clipping of an 1889 sermon of T. L. Talmadge from the Brooklyn Tabernacle. Perhaps the most interesting item in folder 1-1 is a reprint of three articles by Mills that appeared in the magazine The Advance in June and July 1917 entitled, “Why I Return to the Church.” In it he describes in spiritual and historical terms how he came to abandon his evangelistic work because of his loss of faith and how he came to return tofaith. Also, Nelson’s research notes in folder 1-8 contain Nelson’s handwritten summaries of some of Mill’s sermons and a photocopy of a questionnaire ca. 1905 about his life and ministry that Mill’s filled out for the Los Angeles Public Library. Folder 1-3 has a booklet by Mary Russel Mills, B. Fay Mill’s wife, written for the Los Angeles Fellowship in 1914 on the fine art of living.

One item in the collection did not come from Nelson’s papers. It was included by the archivist because of its relationship to Mills. It is two pages of a multi-page letter missing its opening page or pages. It was probably written in 1897 or 1898 and records the situation at an unnamed station (possibly Umzumbe) of the American Board Zulu Mission in Natal, Africa. The letter is included because the last paragraph has the writer’s reaction to the news that Mills had abandoned the orthodox Chrisitan faith.

Folder 1-5 contains the correspondence between Nelson and the Billy Graham Center Archives about his papers.