Calista H. Vinton[1] (19 April 1807 – 18 December 1864) was an American Baptist missionary who labored for 30 years in Burma (now known as Myanmar) preaching, teaching and caring amongst the Karen people.

Being a pious girl, she requested baptism as her dying wish and was carried on a chair and helped by the pastor and a deacon into a brook and baptized in March 1822.

She was received into the West Woodstock Baptist Church, and pastor Elder Grow, while administering the Lord's Supper to her, said "This is our sister's first communion, and it will probably be her last.

They chose Burma as their field of their future work and spent a year together at Hamilton studying the Karen language from Ko Chet Thaing, one of two native disciples brought along by Rev.

The British government offered "grant in aid", a sum of money equal to the amount expended by the school for educational purposes.

Vinton spent most of his time in America visiting churches to reawaken the missionary spirit, often accompanied by Myah A and Kone Lowk.

A poor lady named Mary Ann Bestor had been given a five-franc piece to buy a warm dress for the winter.

A lady from Suffield, hearing the story, said, "These are stinging nights to sleep alone: Frankie must have a bedfellow", and a five-dollar gold piece was laid by his side.

The pastor keenly appreciated the wit and read the letter from the pulpit Thirty dollars were donated to "purchase Frankie suitable clothes for the journey".

[citation needed] In 1850, the Vintons returned to Moulmein accompanied by a large contingent of missionaries, including Eugenio Kincaid and Jonathan Wade.

On his frequent visits to the then Burmese-controlled Rangoon District, he baptized many Karen converts won over from the seeds sowed by Saw Tha Byu, a disciple of Adoniram Judson.

The Karens were illiterate until their language was reduced by Jonathan Wade and Francis Mason into written form using the Burmese script.

On their return, they brought back tracts and copies of the New Testament translated by Jonathan Wade into Sgaw Karen, risking the ire of the intolerant local authorities.

They set up an emergency hospital in a vacant monastery, and soon it was overflowing with cases of smallpox, measles, whooping cough, dysentery, cholera, etc.

The pestilence was followed by famine, and the Vintons fed multitudes of both Christians and non-Christians with provisions procured on credit from friendly merchants.

The Vintons accepted the offer from Baptist Free Mission Society to act as their agent in collecting donations from friends in America and transmitting the funds.

[7] Besides teaching, conducting prayer meetings, acting as physician and nurse to her own pupils and the sick in the neighborhood, making and translating textbooks and hymns, she traveled, in the dry season, to villages in the north and west of Rangoon, preaching the gospel.

In 1854, Sister Miranda went home to visit her aged parents, and on her return to Rangoon she married Rev, Norman Harris[9] of the Karen Mission in Shwekyin, a very unhealthy place in those days.

Lord Dalhousie, the Governor General of India, made the land in Kemmendine overlooking the Rangoon River a gift to the mission.

Vinton went on an excursion to Shwekyin, to select locations to post his native preachers and came home with the jungle illness and died on 31 March.

She deputized two very able assistants, Fidelia and Eliza who were earlier trained by Sister Miranda in Karen Normal School in Moulmein.

Calista engaged in the mission work immediately teaching mathematics, vocal music and supervising the boarding school.

In 1862, Mrs. Vinton and Calista left Rangoon for Falmouth, England and visited many British friends, most of whom had retired from civil and military service in Burma.

They then sailed for New York, where Mrs. Vinton attended the Free Mission Society meeting and met R. M. Luther, who had just completed his study at Princeton Theological Seminary.

She and Luther made a trip through Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, and churches of northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin and part of Canada.