The New York Methodist Mission Society's Superintendent, Virgil C. Hart, arrived in Kiukiang in 1866 and bought a piece of property just east of the city wall. This is where the city's first Methodist Church and western hospital was built, with the hospital renamed the #1 Hospital, and the oldest/continuous operating hospital in Jiangxi Province. In 1896 Drs. Mary Stone (Shi Meiyu) and Ida Kahn (Kahn Cheng) arrived back in Jiujiang, being China's first two native female western-educated doctors; having graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School. They were provided with funds collected by Dr. I. N. Danforth (from Chicago residents), to build the Elizabeth Skelton Danforth Hospital and administered entirely by the native Chinese. This was later renamed Jiujiang Women's and Children's Hospital, and the nursing education by Drs. Stone and Kahn would later be the impetus for the founding of Jiujiang University and Jiujiang Medical School.