Item 0006 - Letter, August 1870

Thomas Bond Wood was born on March 17, 1844, in Lafayette, Indiana.

He was a Methodist missionary, educator, and social reformer. He graduated from Indiana Asbury, later DePauw University, (M.A., 1866) and Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut (M.A., 1867). During his studies, he taught German and natural science at Wesleyan Academy, Wilbraham, Massachusetts (1864–1867). The New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal church ordained him deacon in 1867 and elder in 1868. He transferred to the North-West Indiana Conference, where he served as president of Valparaiso College (1867–1869) before he was appointed a missionary to Argentina in 1877. At Rosario de Santa Fe, Argentina, Wood initially served the English-speaking congregation but within a year conducted services in Spanish, German, and Portuguese. In 1873, he was appointed as U.S. Consul in Rosario, serving until 1878. In 1875, he qualified to practice law in Argentina. From 1877 to 1881, he served in Montevideo, Uruguay, where he founded the first Spanish Protestant religious newspaper, El Evangelista, in 1877. In 1884, he became director of a Protestant day school in Uruguay and then returned to Argentina, where he was president of the Buenos Aires Theological Seminary (1889–1891). He translated the Book of Luke into the language of the Incas. Wood organized a Latin American chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and founded a chapter of the Good Templars. He also introduced Methodism in Panama, initiated the Y.M.C.A. and the University Club for Americans there and promoted education for the natives of the Canal Zone. After a nervous breakdown, he returned to the U.S. in 1913 and retired in 1915.

In 1867, he married Ellen Dow (1840–1926). He died on December 18, 1922, in Tacoma, Washington.