A Yankee In King David’s Court

THE NEW PILGRIM’S PROGRESS

Mark Twain c. 1867 (Source: Wiki)

In 1867 Mark Twain was among the passengers of the Quaker City. The ship was on a five-month voyage, or “pleasure excursion,” in Europe, and the “Holy Land.” His clever observations would be result in bis first major success, The Innocents Abroad (1869.) His humor made the work stand out as an unconventional travelogue. A critique of the performative religiosity of his fellow passengers, for example, was an honest look at himself and his companions. When the “pilgrims” of the Quaker City wanted to compress a three-day journey into a two-day journey in Palestine, so as not to travel on the Sabbath, Twain protested on behalf of the horses that would be forced to carry them over the terrain. “They were willing to commit a sin against the spirit of religious law, in order that they might preserve the letter of it,” Twain would remark.[1] Nor was Twain caught up in the maudlin sentimentality of his fellow travelers. “Palestine is desolate and unlovely,” Twain writes. “And why should it be otherwise? Can the curse of the Deity beautify a land? Palestine is no more of this work-day world. It is sacred to poetry and tradition—it is dream-land.” Writing of his time in the Holy Land, Twain mentions a curious episode involving a group of Mormonesque refugees who were fleeing a failed colonial enterprise. Twain writes:

At Jaffa we had taken on board some forty members of a very celebrated community. They were male and female; babies, young boys and young girls; young married people, and some who had passed a shade beyond the prime of life. I refer to the “Adams Jaffa Colony.” Others had deserted before. We left in Jaffa Mr. Adams, his wife, and fifteen unfortunates who not only had no money but did not know where to turn or whither to go. Such was the statement made to us. Our forty were miserable enough in the first place, and they lay about the decks seasick all the voyage, which about completed their misery, I take it. However, one or two young men remained upright, and by constant persecution we wormed out of them some little information. They gave it reluctantly and in a very fragmentary condition, for, having been shamefully humbugged by their prophet, they felt humiliated and unhappy. In such circumstances people do not like to talk. The colony was a complete fiasco. I have already said that such as could get away did so, from time to time. The prophet Adams—once an actor, then several other things, afterward a Mormon and a missionary, always an adventurer—remains at Jaffa with his handful of sorrowful subjects. The forty we brought away with us were chiefly destitute, though not all of them. They wished to get to Egypt. What might become of them then they did not know and probably did not care—anything to get away from hated Jaffa. They had little to hope for. Because after many appeals to the sympathies of New England, made by strangers of Boston, through the newspapers, and after the establishment of an office there for the reception of moneyed contributions for the Jaffa colonists. One Dollar was subscribed. The consul-general for Egypt showed me the newspaper paragraph which mentioned the circumstance and mentioned also the discontinuance of the effort and the closing of the office. It was evident that practical New England was not sorry to be rid of such visionaries and was not in the least inclined to hire anybody to bring them back to her. Still, to get to Egypt, was something, in the eyes of the unfortunate colonists, hopeless as the prospect seemed of ever getting further.[2]

GEORGE JONES ADAMS

The tragic fate of Mount Hope was still in the news (though overshadowed by the looming threat of Civil War) when another movement to colonize Palestine began in New England.[3] The story begins with George Washington Joshua Adams, a charismatic leader who was born in Oxford, New Jersey, in 1811. He had a skill for recitation and was well-versed in the Bible and Shakespeare. A career as a lay preacher in the Methodist church was a natural fit for the black-maned youth. In the 1830s he ventured outside the rural home of his childhood to try his hand in the competitive field of big-city evangelism. By the time he broke with Methodism, Adams’s preaching had garnered him some celebrity. When the manager of Boston’s National Theatre learned that Adams harbored dramatic aspirations, he hired the evangelist for a week-long stage engagement performing Shakespeare. The show was wildly successful, but short-lived.

George J. Adams c. 1841.[4]

In 1840, while Adams was in New York, he heard a sermon by a Mormon missionary, Heber C. Kimball. Adams subsequently joined the Church of the Latter-day Saints. Within a month he was ordained a Mormon Elder. In the spring of 1840 the Brooklyn Branch of the Mormon Church was organized with Adams as branch president.

The Millennialist impulse in the Christian West had inspired what was termed a “peaceful crusade” in the Holy Land, at this time, “[to] liberate Palestine from the Muslim infidels,” through “philanthropic activities.”[5] The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions tried to install a missionary in Palestine as early as the 1820s, but conditions were far from favorable. Missionary activity in the region saw a slight improvement in the 1830s when the Egyptian Khedive, Muhammed Ali, temporarily assumed control of Palestine. American missionary presence was not very strong, however, and England and Prussia would be the ones to establish a strong Protestant presence there. The American Board closed its mission and withdrew to Beirut.[6]

Joseph Smith.

The Mormon Prophet, Joseph Smith, saw an opportunity, and initiated the missionary project for Palestine in 1840. The missionary he chose was Orson Hyde, who had a deep conviction concerning the “return of scattered Judah to its homeland.” Hyde chose Adams as his companion, and in early 1841 the set sail on the packet ship United States. Hyde confessed his “passionate concern for the children of Israel.” Adams agreed wholeheartedly, believing they would make a good missionary team in Palestine. During the first part of the trip they spent some time in England, where Adams proved a sensation as a preacher. He was so successful at winning converts, in fact, that Church leadership decided to keep him in England, while Hyde continued to Palestine. The trek was difficult, and there was no official American presence in Jerusalem at the time (Americans in the region relied on the protection of the British consulate which opened in 1839.)[7] In October 1841, Hyde arrived at the Mount of Olives, and prepared a memorial of stones. He also composed a prayer-prophecy calling for the “imminent reestablishment of Israel.” When Adams read the prophecy, he responded with deep yearning.[8]

Adams was a good organizer and an eloquent preacher and would climb the ranks of the Mormon sacerdotal hierarchy. He returned to New York after a year-and-a-half in England and found that plans were laid for him to strengthen the church in Boston. His favorite subject at this time was the “Jews must be gathered home from their long dispersion and rebuild their city on its own heap of ruins.” At the request of Joseph Smith, Adams relocated to the planned Mormon city of Nauvoo, Illinois during the winter of 1843-44. In January 1844 Smith allegedly prepared a document designating his son, Joseph Smith III, to succeed him when the time came, and become the leader of the church. (Adams would participate in the sacred dramaturgy that anointed Joseph III for his anticipated role of prophet-president.) Smith  invited Adams to join the Council of Fifty and asked him to accompany Orson Hyde on a missionary trip to Russia. Just before Adams was to leave for Russia, however, Smith was assassinated in Nauvoo. Adams was petitioning the governor of Illinois on his behalf the day he were murdered. Devastated, Adams turned to drink. In the midst of this, a power vacuum developed within the church. Adams returned to New England, where he sided with those who wanted the Church to be led by Joseph III. This contingent was ultimately defeated by the supporters of Brigham Young. In the immediate aftermath, Adams managed to be disagreeable to the policy of no less than three competing branches of the Mormon church, and from all of which he was expelled and excommunicated. The primary reasons for his expulsion were a cocktail of charges ranging from drunkenness, embezzlement, and general immorality.[9]

For the next seventeen years, Adams was more or less directionless. In the winter of 1859-60 he was managing a small theatre in Whitehall, New York. A short while later he appeared was a Campbellite preacher in Rutland, Vermont. When this failed, Adams began lecturing on Shakespeare and the origin of Native Americans (who he claimed were the ten lost tribes of Israel.) This also failed. Adams would drink whiskey and get so “beastly drunk,” that he was led through the streets in the middle of the day completely intoxicated. (This was a particularly bad look for Caroline who lectured at the local temperance societies.) In 1862 the couple turned up in Springfield, Massachusetts, where Adams preached to the Second Adventist Society. The crowds were large and enthusiastic, but rumors of his past caught up with him, and he was expelled from the parish.  Adams then established his own church, the Church of the Messiah.

JONESPORT

Headquarters of the movement, Lebanon, Maine.[10]

The Adams family drifted to through eastern New Hampshire, until the spring of 1862, when they arrived in the small, but busy, coastal town of Jonesport, Maine. It had a population of twelve hundred people, mostly farmers, fishermen, seafarers, and laborers in the fish-cannery, and its two shipyards. There was a union church of which the Baptists, Universalists, and Methodists shared. Adams commenced his church meetings in the first district schoolhouse, and soon took the area by storm. The doctrine was simple with a focus on the Second Coming, the sufficiency of baptismal immersion, and a denial of Hell-fire. This won the church many recruits from the Universalists (and even a few from the Baptists and Methodists.) Soon Adams ordained two “bishops” and a number of “elders” into his church, in the manner of the Mormon church. In September 1862, Adams acquired a printing press in South Lebanon, and began publishing a monthly journal called The Sword of Truth and Harbinger of Peace. His friendship with Orson Hyde, the first Mormon envoy to Jerusalem, inspired Adams, and he “dreamed of replicating Hyde’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land.”[11] But his ambitions were loftier. He also wanted “the achievement of material benefits something like what the Mormons achieved in Utah.”[12] From the first issue of The Sword of Truth, Adams indicated a mission to Palestine to fulfill the ancient prophecies pertaining to “the children of Ephraim urging the children of Judah to return to Jerusalem.” For Adams, the parish of the Church of the Messiah were the children of Ephraim. (Adams borrowed from Mormonism the concept that it was his church’s responsibility to reestablish the House of Israel, as opposed to superseding as many other Christian denominations claimed.)

The Sword of Truth and Harbinger of Peace. (Hamilton College Library.)

In 1864 Adams moved the headquarters of his now thriving church to the village of Indian River, two hundred miles down East, in the coastal section of Maine near New Brunswick, Canada. Here Adams prophesied that the prerequisite of the Second Coming was the restoration of the Jews to Palestine. In the spring of that year more and more articles supporting this belief appeared in the pages of Sword of Truth. Some article were reprints from other publications which Adams used as evidence of its veracity. One such article was titled “An Englishman’s Opinions On The Restoration Of Israel,” from The Israelite, a Jewish paper published in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was, as the name suggested, about the restoration of the Jews to Palestine in the wake of the Crimean War (1853-1856,) when the Ottoman Empire, the “sick man of Europe” was showing signs of weakness. It reads:

When the of the dying man’s property takes place, the possession of Acre is absolutely essential to the salvation of British interests in the East […] If Syria be the key of Egypt, it must also, through Persia, be the key of the western gate of India; and since no army dare progress with an enemy in its rear, it will be at once seen how that part of Asiatic Turkey which is comprised within the limits of ancient Palestine, must, whatever else is, be occupied by England […] God, in His mysterious Providence, has willed that the Land of Palestine should for centuries be despoiled by rapacious hordes, and its original owners be scattered into all the corners of the earth; and equally truly are we certain that in His good time His favored people will be recalled, and once more Jerusalem become the mother of nations. It would be as impious in me to say that time has come as it would be foolish and presumptuous to make conversion to Christianity a necessity of the restoration. I shall not attempt to discuss either of these topics now, but it is certain, if they will embrace it, that a way is apparently opening for the restoration of the Jews […] I believe […] that now, if ever, would such pleading be listened to. I believe that throughout England a feeling is growing up that, if a distribution of the  Ottoman Empire is to take place, those who have been so long deprived of it should have the first claim.[13]

 

Adams claimed that he had been chosen to travel to the Holy Land to establish an American colony that would help prepare Palestine for the return of the Jews, which in turn would hasten the Second Coming. Adams and his flock were “the strangers from afar, who would build the waste places of the Holy Land,” just as the Scriptures foretold. To that end, he solicited financial contributions from his followers. “This mission is fraught with the greatest interest to the church, to the Jews, and to mankind, of any mission that has been undertaken for ages and centuries that are passed,” said Adams, with all the humility one would expect from a thespian-prophet.[14] Adams soon gained the patronage of Abraham McKenzie, an affluent city leader who was postmaster, justice of the peace, shopkeeper, and shipowner. Adams and McKenzie, portraying themselves as a new “Caleb” and “Joshua” traveled to Palestine to “spy out the land,” landing in Jaffa in August 1865.

Despite Adams’s optimism, the Sublime Porte of the Ottoman Empire frowned down upon colonization or landholding in Palestine by foreigners. Turkey, having already suffered from many alien incursions, was deeply suspicious. The Crimean War had (nominally) been fought over the protection of Christian Holy Places in Jerusalem, and the aftermath had opened the empire’s borders to outside influence.[15] Though the Sultan was compelled to sign a decree of religious freedom, he remained sensitive to threats of invasion (overt or subtle,) from Western powers, and was adamant about enacting strict measured on purchasing land. The “peaceful crusade” had now become closely connected with the economic expansion and political designs in the Levant by Western powers. It was, in a sense, a means by which they could get a foothold in Palestine. European powers would sponsor a local Christian community and “protect” its interests through special provisions extracted from the Sublime Porte. France “adopted” the local Roman Catholics, while Russia “adopted” the Orthodox Church. For Anglican Britain, which had no Christian community in Palestine to “adopt,” they had to be more creative. The British claimed the right to extend their “umbrella of protection” to the Jews and their “restoration” to Palestine. This political hermeneutics could be justified in as much as Anglican cosmology held that the ingathering of the Jews in the Holy Land, and their conversion to Christianity, was a prerequisite for the Second Coming.[16]

JAFFA

Adams and McKenzie walked along the Nablus Road which ran to the northeast through level ground. Just a five-minute walk from the Jaffa Gate their attention was drawn to a property on which there was a stone house in disrepair, a few neglected trees, and a well. In the back of the property there were orchards and fields of grain which faded into sand and the Hills of Ephraim. The only obstacle that Adams anticipated was the rule which prevented foreigners from obtaining land in their own names, but this was often circumvented by an arrangement with a Turkish subject, who would hold the land title in their name. Adams’s agent, a converted German Jew named Herman Loewenthal, assured him there were ways to circumvent the restriction, all of which he could arrange.[17]

Adams sent back reports with glowing descriptions to drum up support for the project. The climate had the ability to renew youth, claimed Adams. There were four crops a year in the fertile land. The cost of living was said to be considerably cheaper, and the natives “fairly worshipped” Americans whom the Ottoman government greatly desired as settlers, and who would be in line for high official appointments. He claimed that Jaffa was a great commercial center, and the Church of the Messiah was to have three million acres. Jaffa, where Noah built his ark, had a tremendous appeal to the good, simple, townspeople of Jonesport. As their Bible told them, Jaffa was the place where the whale had deposited Jonah onto the beach, where Hiram of Tyre delivered the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon’s Temple, where Peter raised Dorcas from the dead in the home of Simon the Tanner. Their backyard would be the spot where Samson fought the Philistines, and where King David ranged among the foothills in his youth. Would they rally around the standard of the Redeemer when He reappeared on the Mount of Olives? The answer was yes.

PALESTINE EMIGRATION ASSOCIATION

When Adams returned to Maine, he established the Palestine Emigration Association, with himself as president. For a year, Maine was busied in a frenzy of recruitment and preparation. All preparations for building houses, and the ability to proceed with the whole campaign, were predicated upon securing the plot of ground Adams agreed upon with Loewenthal who, in anticipation of their arrival, was appointed as United States vice consul in Jaffa. To guarantee the arrangements for the land, Adams procured a letter of introduction to Secretary of State William Seward from Lot Myrick Merrill, a Senator from Maine. Adams then went to Washington, D.C. in the company of a follower, Rolla Floyd, with a petition prepared for transmission to the sultan of Turkey. In Washington, they were ushered into the presence of President Andrew Johnson and Seward, the latter agreeing to send their petition to the sultan via the United States Embassy in Constantinople. Seward warned them, however, that there was no guarantee of an answer before departure.[18] After the Outrage in Jaffa in 1857, the United States took stronger measures to enhance in presence in the region, and now had a consul in Jerusalem.[19]

Rolla Floyd.[20]

Adams received encouraging news from Loewenthal. The pasha of Jerusalem granted the Church of the Messiah the right to land free of duty. (Loewenthal also purchased 20 horses, 8 cows, 2,000 bushels of seed wheat, 1,000 bushels of barley, a large quantity of lime, and other items for them.) Adams happily relayed the news to his followers.

NELLIE CHAPIN

On  August 11, 1866, the clipper barque Nellie Chapin set sail for Palestine. She carried lumber for a chapel, a schoolhouse, twenty dwellings, several horses, as well as plows, a reaper, and other agricultural implements. Each family, of course, brought their own share of household goods. The voyage, though comparatively short, was unpleasant and dispiriting. The Nellie Chapin was overcrowded, and Adams was clearly on another bender, and evidence of a dictatorial zealot had emerged. The colonists were relieved to arrive in Jaffa in early October after of forty-two days in fair weather. [21] The relief was short-lived. What nobody realized, however, was that while they were already out to sea, the Sultan had rescinded the right to the land. Evidently, he confused the number of colonizers who were en route, mistaking the 157 people as heads of families.[22]

ADAMS CITY

American and British consular officials interceded with the Pasha at Jerusalem, and the colonists were allowed to enter Palestine with their goods duty free. The colonists disembarked and camped on the beach. For the next two-and-a-half weeks the colonists rafted their lumber, and household possessions, through the Mediterranean surf onto the beach just north of Jaffa. This was a difficult endeavor, as the harbor was little more than an open roadstead, and vessels anchored some distance out. Loewenthal offered to put up the colonists in a Greek convent at Jaffa, but Adams claimed that stone houses were unhealthy, and ordered his flock to camp on the beach until they could move to their own home settlement. For six weeks the colonists lived in improvised tents and shacks. In the rear of their encampment was a graveyard containing the bodies of 200 victims of a recent died cholera outbreak. 16 of the Adams colonists would end up there in the days ahead. With the assistance of Loewenthal they eventually secured a ten-acre tract just outside the city, along the Jerusalem road. This purchase was made in the name of a Turkish subject, who, in turn, then made it over to the vice-consul. The colonists quickly settled their new holding and leased more land from a nearby Greek convent where they established a “model farm.” The following months were dedicated to erecting buildings (17 houses, a church, a school,) and sowing several acres of wheat, barley, and potatoes. This would come to be known as Adams City, or the “American Colony” (“Amelican” in Arabic.)[23] “There is something in Turkish rule that would stifle even New England thrift,” it was said,  and Adams, “lacking in the strong, mighty governing sense which enabled Brigham Young to turn his wilderness into a garden,” failed to make the colony a success.[24] But Adams did not let this be known to the outside world. When Secretary of State Seward asked Reverend W. H. Bidwell, a respectable American clergyman, to report on the Adams Colony during a tour of the Holy Land, the clergyman gave a favorable report.

Rev. W.H. Bidwell, Special Commissioner to the Adams Colony.[25]

The colony would begin its rapid collapse in the spring of 1867. Their resources were exhausted, their crops had failed, and there was no work. Back home Henry Dickson, one of the survivors of Mount Hope tragedy, was expressing his doubts as to the prospects for success for the Adams Colony.[26] A dispatch in Palestine from one American paper stated:

[Adams] was seen lying in the streets of Jaffa in a state of the most degrading, beastly drunkenness. After having slept himself sober he returned to his house, blaspheming horribly, and defying by name the remaining persons of the colony to come on the highroad and he would fight them all, one after the other. The following day he was again intoxicated and fell down upon the road against a telegraph post.

 

Lowenthal, aided by the United States consul in Jerusalem, had Adams arrested, and compelled him to make a settlement with his followers. Most of the money was already squandered, and it did very little good. By the summer of 1867, the majority of the hapless members of the Adams Colony solicited outside assistance to help them get back home. The appeal was answered by J. Augustus Johnson, United States Consul-General in Syria, who paid $1,250 for the passage of sixteen of the company (mostly women and children.) With the exception of a few devout followers of Adams, the remainder of the colonists were picked up by the Quaker City.[27] Moses S. Beach, of The New York Sun wrote a check for the money needed for their return home, and “the troubles of the Jaffa colonists were at an end.”[28]

[1] Fulton, Joe B. “Mark Twain’s Theological Travel.” The Mark Twain Annual. No. 5 (2007): 43-56.

[2] Twain, Mark. The Innocents Abroad. American Publishing Company. Hartford, Connecticut. (1901): (604-608, 613-614.

[3] Chamberlain, George Walter. “A New England Crusade.” The New England Magazine. Vol. XXXVI, No. 2 (April 1907): 195-207.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Yazbak, Mahmoud. “Templars as Proto-Zionists? The ‘German Colony’ in Late Ottoman Haifa.” Journal of Palestine Studies. Vol. XXVIII, No. 4 (Summer 1999): 40-54.

[6] Kreiger, Barbara. Divine Expectations: An American Woman in 19th-century Palestine. Ohio University Press. Athens, Ohio. (1999): 127.

[7] Kreiger, Barbara. Divine Expectations: An American Woman in 19th-century Palestine. Ohio University Press. Athens, Ohio. (1999): 127.

[8] Holmes, Reed G. “G. J. Adams and The Forerunners.” Maine History. Vol. XXI, No. 1 (July 1, 1981): 19-53.

[9] Quinn, D. Michael. The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power. Signature Books. Salt Lake City, Utah. (1994): 534.

[10] Chamberlain, George Walter. “A New England Crusade.” The New England Magazine. Vol. XXXVI, No. 2 (April 1907): 195-207.

[11] Oren, Michael. Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present. W.W. Norton & Company. New York, New York. (2007): 220-224.

[12] Young, John Russell. Around The World With General Grant: Vol. I, Pt. 2. American News Company. New York, New York. (1879): 323-324.

[13] “An Englishman’s Opinions On The Restoration Of Israel.” The Sword of Truth and Harbinger of Peace. Vol. II, No. 6 (April 15, 1864): 4-5.

[14] Adams, G.J. “To The Church Of The Messiah.” The Sword of Truth and Harbinger of Peace. Vol. II, No. 8 (June 15, 1864): 4.

[15] Mandel, Neville J. “Ottoman Policy and Restrictions on Jewish Settlement in Palestine: 1881-1908: Part I.” Middle Eastern Studies. Vol. X, No. 3 (October 1974): 312-332; Ingram, Edward. “Great Britain’s Great Game: An Introduction.” The International History Review. Vol. II, No. 2 (April 1980): 160-171; Badem, Candan. The Ottoman Crimean War (1853-1856.) Brill. Leiden, Netherlands. (2010): 76.

[16] Yazbak, Mahmoud. “Templars as Proto-Zionists? The ‘German Colony’ in Late Ottoman Haifa.” Journal of Palestine Studies. Vol. XXVIII, No. 4 (Summer 1999): 40-54.

[17] Holmes, Reed G. “G. J. Adams and The Forerunners.” Maine History. Vol. XXI, No. 1 (July 1, 1981): 19-53.

[18] Holmes, Reed G. “G. J. Adams and The Forerunners.” Maine History. Vol. XXI, No. 1 (July 1, 1981): 19-53.

[19] Kreiger, Barbara. Divine Expectations: An American Woman in 19th-century Palestine. Ohio University Press. Athens, Ohio. (1999): 127.

[20] Chamberlain, George Walter. “A New England Crusade.” The New England Magazine. Vol. XXXVI, No. 2 (April 1907): 195-207.

[21] Amann, Peter. “Prophet in Zion: The Saga of George J. Adams.” The New England Quarterly. Vol. XXXVII, No. 4 (December 1964): 477-500.

[22] Holmes, Reed G. “G. J. Adams and The Forerunners.” Maine History. Vol. XXI, No. 1 (July 1, 1981): 19-53.

[23] Oren, Michael. Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present. W.W. Norton & Company. New York, New York. (2007): 220-224.

[24] Young, John Russell. Around The World With General Grant: Vol. I, Pt. 2. American News Company. New York, New York. (1879): 323-324.

[25] Chamberlain, George Walter. “A New England Crusade.” The New England Magazine. Vol. XXXVI, No. 2 (April 1907): 195-207.

[26] J.S. of Maine. “The Jaffa Colonists.” The Ellsworth American. (Ellsworth, Maine) June 28, 1867.

[27] Davis, Harold. “The Jaffa Colonists from Downeast.” American Quarterly. Vol. III, No. 4 (Winter 1951): 344-356.

[28] “The Jaffa Colonists.” The Charleston Mercury. (Charleston, South Carolina) November 2, 1867; Twain, Mark. The Innocents Abroad. American Publishing Company. Hartford, Connecticut. (1901): (604-608, 613-614.