"... We spent the first part of the night in walking about the camp. The scene was very picturesque. Spread abroad over the plain lay men, women, and children, of almost every nation under heaven; of all languages, every variety of costume, and of all colors, from the black of Africa to the white of Poland. All denominations of this sectarian world were there—Muhammedans, Druses, Maronites, Catholics, Greeks, Armenians, Copts, Syrians, Jews, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and infidels, in one vast congregation ..." - from page 353 here
On the English side of my family I have a relative who was born in Beirut. His father had been born in pre-1948 Palestine but fled to Lebanon soon after. He was never able to return to his original home, in the new state of Israel. In later decades the family relocated from Lebanon to London, as refugees.
During his time in Lebanon, he attained a degree from what is today known as the American University of Beirut, but that's not its original name. It was renamed that in 1920, having been founded in 1866 as the Syrian Protestant College.
(As an aside – 1920 is a significant year for American-Arab relations; the Arab Kingdom of Syria was born on 8 March 1920. This was way before the United States had any ambitions to be a 'superpower' and the Syrian National Congress of that year is an essential backdrop. The USA was well regarded by the Arabs of the region, being seen as a more 'honest broker' than the imperialist European powers of Britain and France - as outlined by the King-Crane Commission of 1919. This book - How The West Stole Democracy from the Arabs - published by the President Woodrow Wilson Center, is probably worth a look).
• SCOTCH-IRISH ORIGINS
One of the founders of the Syrian Protestant College was Rev William McClure Thomson, an American Presbyterian born in Springdale, near Cincinnati, Ohio.
Ohio doesn't get much attention but its early settlement was heavily Scotch-Irish, and after the founding of the Scotch-Irish Society of America in 1889, the first two editions of its famous annual Proceedings were printed in Cincinnati, and in 1893 their Fifth Congress was held in Springfield, Ohio. The then Governor, William McKinley, was one of the keynote speakers - he would become 25th President of the United States from 1897-1901.
Springdale, originally called Springfield, was an early Presbyterian congregation in the state, founded in 1801 from other earlier local congregations which had been established in 1790. Its historic cemetery was originally part of a farm owned by a James McCormick (see PDF here). Springdale Presbyterian Church closed its doors for good in 2020, with its final service delivered online by Zoom.
William's father, Rev John Thomson (1772-1859) was minister of Springdale Presbyterian Church, he had been born in Pennsylvania. John's father, name unknown, "had been a ruling elder in a Presbyterian Church in Ireland, and trained his family well, carefully instilling into their minds the truths of our holy religion." Some more Thomson family info is online here.
• CINCINNATI TO SYRIA
William McClure Thomson lived and worked in Beirut from 1833, serving the indigenous Christian community there. Back then the whole region was known as Syria, long before 20th century politics and modern states and borders (a zoomable version of the 1850 map above is online here). He experienced much war and conflict in his time there, both internal civil action, and also external international action - his Wikipedia page here summarises some of that. The 1860 Syrian Civil War is a dreadful conflict. Much of that will appear relevant to today's reader given recent events in the region.
• THE LAND AND THE BOOK (1859)
He became famous in the 'west' through his travelogue The Land and The Book, which was first published in 1859, seven years before the College was founded. It was lavishly illustrated by his Beirut-born son, William Hanna Thomson (Wikipedia here) and through repeated reprints and new editions was a bestseller - one source says that it "sold more copies than any book in the United States with the sole exception of the Bible".
"... The sites and scenes described in the work were visited many times during the author’s long residence in the country; and the results, so far as they bear on Biblical illustration, appear in the current narrative. The conversations are held by the way-side, on horseback, in the open country, or in the tent, and the reader is at liberty to regard himself as the author’s travelling companion, in full sympathy with the purpose and aim of this pilgrimage through the Holy Land ..."
• The Land and The Book (1882 edition) is online here.
• ULSTER PRESBYTERIANS IN SYRIA
Another source definitely worth looking at is The Giant Cities of Bashan and Syria's Holy Places by Ulster Presbyterian minister Josias Leslie Porter, who worked as a missionary in Damascus from 1849-1859. With that timeframe he definitely would have known William McClure Thomson. Published in 1867, The Giant Cities of Bashan and Syria's Holy Places was another travelogue, and was funded by Lord Dufferin. In some remote places Porter found ruined buildings which were so huge he thought that they must have been built by giants:
"... Moses makes special mention of the strong cities of Bashan, and speaks of their high walls and gates. He tells us, too, in the same connection, that Bashan was called the land of the giants (or Rephaim, Deut. iii. 13), leaving us to conclude that the cities were built by giants. Now the houses of Kerioth and other towns in Bashan appear to be just such dwellings as a race of giants would build ..."
Its appendix, (online here), by County Tyrone born Rev Smylie Robson who was also in Damascus at the time, is a detailed first-hand account of the June & July 1860 three-day massacre of 1200 Christians in the city, and 6000 in the region.
One of those murdered was another Ulster Presbyterian minister, Rev William Graham, a licentiate of the Belfast Presbytery - one newspaper said he had been "butchered in the open street in broad day by a fanatical mob" (the Belfast News-Letter of 4 September 1860 had a lengthy article entitled 'The Last Hours of the Rev Mr Graham of Damascus'). The description from Dr Michaiel Meshakah / Mikhail Mishaqa is horrific - his Wikipedia page is here.
• A poem about the killing of Rev William Graham, by Belfast Presbyterian publisher William McComb, is in the Sam Henry Collection, online here
• Porter's 1855 two volume set Five Years in Damascus is online here.
• His 1868 Handbook for Travelers in Syria and Palestine is online here.
Today, the 1886 Springdale Presbyterian Church building still stands, and is now the Asamblea Cristiana Sala Evangelica Cincinnati, presumably for the local Hispanic community. A perfect example of John 3:16 in action - "For God so loved the world..."
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