Henry A. Janvier (1861-1952) was an engineer with the Ferracute Machine Company of Bridgeton, New Jersey, where he had begun work in 1877 as a sixteen-year-old apprentice. Sometime in 1896, Ferracute signed a contract with the Chinese government to build three mints there, two at Wuchang in Hopei Province and one in Chengtu in Szechwan. Janvier served as chief engineer for the project. This collection includes Janvier's letters to his family, in which he describes his 1897 trip to China.