Divie Bethune McCartee

Divie Bethune McCartee (1820 – July 17 1900) was a Protestant missionary in China and Japan, appointed by the American Presbyterian Missions as a medical missionary in 1843.

He was in Ningbo in 1844 working in medicine and evangelism. In 1845 he organized the first Protestant church on Chinese soil. It was there that he married fellow missionary, Juana M. Knight in 1853. She was the first single Presbyterian woman to travel to China. The McCartees adopted the orphaned daughter of the pastor and she became the first Chinese woman doctor educated abroad. They went to Shanghai and while there McCartee acted in place of an American Consul until a regular consular service was set up in 1857. In 1861 he met with leaders of the Taiping Rebellion and negotiated the protection of American citizens and Chinese Christians. From 1861-1862 he was the first Protestant missionary in Japan. His tract translated into Japanese was the first Protestant literature in Japan. In 1865 the McCartees moved back to Ningbo. In 1872 they were transferred to the Shanghai mission. McCartee later resigned and joined the Shanghai consular staff as interpreter and assessor in the Mixed Court. In 1899 He returned to the U.S.A. as an invalid.