Albert Shelton (Albert Leroy Shelton; June 9, 1875-1922)
Dictionary Definition:
A natively Hoosier Christian missionary in Tibetan areas of Szechuan and in Khams, he and his wife opened a mission in Batang in 1908. He was perhaps the first American to stay for any length of time in Tibet. Many of the Tibetan artworks he acquired are now in the collection of the Newark Museum. His wife, Flora Beal Shelton, wrote several books.
His kidnapping and death by bandits in Yunnan was reported in the NY Times, Sunday, March 5, 1922. There it says he had hoped to gain the Dalai Lama's permission to build a hospital in Batang (actually, he did obtain this permission, and was planning to go to Lhasa to meet the Dalai Lama and start a hospital there), but was killed by bandits. He was later succeeded at his mission post by Marion H. Duncan.
Floyd L. Carr, Albert L. Shelton: Martyr Missionary of Tibet (Missionary Heroes Course), Baptist Board of Education, Department of Missionary Education (1929), in 19 pages.
J.B. Hundley, Shelton and the Crimson Trail, Powell & White (Cincinnati 1924). This is a play based on his life.
Valrae Reynolds, The Journey to Tibet of Albert L. Shelton, 1904-1922, Lungta, vol. 11 (Winter 1998) 20-24.
Albert L. Shelton, Life among the People of Eastern Tibet, National Geographic, vol. 40, no. 3 (September 1921), pp. 293-326.
Albert L. Shelton, Pioneering in Tibet: A Personal Record of Life and Experience in Mission Fields, F.H. Revell Company (New York 1921).
Albert L. Shelton, Tibetan Folk Tales, United Christian Missionary Society (St. Louis 1925).
Douglas A. Wissing, Pioneer in Tibet: The Life and Perils of Dr. Albert Shelton, Palgrave Macmillan (New York 2004). Reviewed by Alexander Gardner in Tibet Journal, vol. 30, no. 3 (2005), pp. 107-110.
