Herman Melville watched the Petra party leave on a French steamer for Alexandria on the afternoon of January 22, 1857. “I am the only traveler sojourning in Jaffa,” Melville thought as he passed the dark, stone, houses with their arched vaults. At thirty-seven years old, Melville was struggling, having found little success with his book, Moby Dick, when it was published five years earlier. His reputation declined inversely and proportional to his increase of depression, debt, and ill health. The trip to the Levant, more than anything, was a spiritual journey. He wanted to release the grip that cynicism, gloom, and disillusionment, had on his soul.
Port of Jaffa. (public domain)
Jaffa rose steeply from the sea and sloped inland towards the Plain of Sharon, a geography that was not easy to forget as he returned to the hotel, the sciata would not let him. Located on the only promenade in the ancient walled garrison, the lighthouse-like hostelry crowned the summit of the hill and offered exceptional views. Melville entered the narrow flight of stone steps that led into the hotel court-yard, then ascended another flight of exterior stone steps to a platform that was the roof of one room, and the entrance to two others, one of which being his[1] Gazing out the six windows of his room, he could the see the Mediterranean, and the mountains of Ephraim. The nearest spot to the north was Beirut. The nearest spot to the south was Gaza—the Philistine city the gates of which Sampson shouldered. “I am emphatically alone,” thought Melville. “I feel like Jonah.”[2]
Herman Melville. (Public Domain)
~
The following day Melville visited the Mount Hope Settlement of the Seventh Day Baptists (SDB.) Here he entered into a long conversation with Martha Saunders, an interesting woman from Rhode Island, who was not without beauty. Her husband, who was out at the moment, was named Charles Saunders. He was a “broken-down machinist” who was unsuccessful in the California Gold Rush of 1849. A feeble man by nature, made even feebler by climate, with his health now depleted, he did practically nothing. Their daughter, a sickly-looking little girl, pined for home. Martha, alone, possessed any vitality. She was learning Arabic from a Sheik and was something of a doctor to the poor. Melville sensed that she had a “heroine stamp” (a belief that was fortified when he saw her copy of Heroines of the Missionary Enterprise on the table.) Martha and Charles were sent to Jaffa in January 1854, as part of the new mission of the SDB, specifically to organize an Agricultural School for the Jews.[3] They tried it but miserably failed. The Jews would come, pretend to be touched by the message of the SDB, get their clothing, and then vanish. “They were very deceitful,” said Martha. “I am waiting the Lord’s time.”
While Charles was out, Martha and Melville talked alone for two hours, rather, Melville listened for two hours as Martha explained the “dismal story” of their “experiments” in the Holy Land. Charles returned a little later. With him was Miss Williams, an elderly English woman who was a religious teacher in the community. Together they took a walk through the orange groves of the Mount Hope Settlement. Minor’s former assistant, John Steinbeck, was responsible for the planting and cultivation now, and was hoped that within a quarter of a century, “Palestine will again be a land of figs and vines and olives a land of beauty.”[4] The people of Mount Hope (and their recently-deceased-founder) had that “strange apostolic whim,” which possessed the character of Gabriel in Melville’s own Moby Dick.[5]
~
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century there was a widespread belief in England and Germany that the Second Coming (of Christ) was approaching. In the United States, by the 1830s, the idea of the Millennium, a thousand-year reign of Jesus and his followers, had gained traction. A religious revival spread across the young country (particularly the burned-over-district.) A charismatic figure emerged at this time, an American preacher named William Miller, who prophesied that Christ would return to Earth in 1844. This prophecy (presumably) failed to materialize.
William Miller. (Public domain)
At this time (1845) a prominent Jewish politician named Mordecai Noah published Discourse on the Restoration of the Jews. Noah would give lectures on the topic with the intent of raising funds for returning Jews to the Land of Israel. In response to critics who noted that the land was in the Ottoman Empire, Noah suggested that Christians solicit the Sultan for permission for the Jews to legally purchase the land. The decaying Ottoman Empire had paid little attention to malaria-ridden province of Palestine in the past. It was such a low priority in fact that it did not even have the status of an independent colony, rather, it was considered the southern part of the Damascus district.[6] Noah reminded his Christian audience that according to Scripture, the “great events connected with the millennium” would occur only after the restoration of the Jews. The substance of Noah’s talk was not substantially outside the realm of Jewish discourse of the time, but he differed in his call for political sponsorship.[7]
A conviction emerged that one of the signs of Christ’s return would be the return of the Jews to the land of Palestine, where they would convert en masse to Christianity. This is where we find a woman from Philadelphia named Clorinda Minor. A former Millerite, Minor was devastated (emotionally and spiritually) when the prediction proved fell flat. After a period of inner turmoil, she emerged with a renewed belief in the prophecy, and the understanding that certain requisites for Christ’s return remained unfulfilled, namely that conditions in Palestine needed to be addressed. Fifty years before the first Zionist Congress, Minor vowed for a reclamation of the Holy Land. To do this, she intended to establish a farming colony, and terraform the land.
In 1849 Clorinda and her teenage son, C.A. Minor, sailed for the Levant. When they arrived, Minor met a hotelier named John Meshullam, a Jew who “accepted Jesus as his Savior.” The two soon collaborated on a shared spiritual mission. With a better understanding of the needs for the Jews in Palestine, Minor returned to America to raise funds and recruit volunteers for her Palestinian settlement. Minor returned to Palestine in 1852 with “a small band of Sabbath-observing Christians not linked to any organized sect [denomination,]” and a large supply of seeds and agricultural tools. She resumed her collaboration with Meshullam at Artas, where her community “erected their large tent, twenty-two feet in diameter and eleven feet high, for a tabernacle and Sabbath worship,” and joined Meshullam in observing Shabbat. (This act endeared the group somewhat to the community of local Jews.) After a falling out with Meshullam in early 1853, Minor and her American friends went to Jaffa. Here they rented a tract of land near a farming community of 70 Jewish families led by Rabbi Judah Halevi. This was the beginning of Minor’s Mount Hope Settlement, the first American colony to be established in Palestine.[8]
Rabbi Halevi acquired an orchard that he leased to the Mount Hope Settlement, intending to profit from their experience by training 30 Jews in his Jaffa community in agricultural development.[9] Minor appealed to the Jewish-American press their support in assisting of their fellow Jews in the Holy Land, but donations were not forthcoming. In 1855, the British Jewish Philanthropist, Moses Montefiore, arrived in Palestine. The purpose of his visit was to buy land and to establish enterprises that would increase productivity among the Jews of Palestine who, at the time, were largely dependent on the charitable contributions over their overseas brethren. With some trepidation, Montefiore decided to buy Rabbi Halevi’s orchard. Minor retained her position as manager of the orchard. (Ironically, the head gardener of the orchard was Peter David, who was formerly Peter Klasen, of Danzig, a Christian convert to Judaism.)[10] The orchard was relatively successful, and presumably favored by the Ottoman government. The Sultan directed the Governor of Jaffa to send three soldiers every night to protect the operation.[11]
Minor died in November 1855 and was buried in Mount Hope Settlement.[12] She would be credited for her role in promoting the cultivation of citrus fruits in Jaffa, and for introducing modern agricultural practices into Palestine, helping “motivate Jews to consider farming in Palestine as a realizable enterprise.”[13] Her gravestone was stated:
Mrs. C.S. Minor from Philadelphia, U.S.A.
Industrial Missionary to the Jews.
Died November 6, 1855, aged Forty-six Years.
“She hath done what she could.”[14]
Melville returned to his hotel later that day and paused for a moment to study the little glass cylinder that was masoned in the right lintel of the door. Inside the vial was a parchment roll, on which the name that God revealed to Abraham (Shaddai,) was written in Hebrew. Mr. Platner, the Jewish Innkeeper, told him it was a charm.[15] “It is a Jewish custom to remind those who entered the house of the presence of God,” said the hotelier. “We place it on the lintel of every door—but Frenchmen, who do not read the Bible, sometimes mocked at it. This led to angry discussions.”[16]
Despite his best efforts, he could not sleep that night. The sound of the surf and the wind was tremendous. He stared at the ceiling, looking at the main beam that crossed room. It was evidently taken from a wreck, the trenail holes all but proving it. “Jaffa is certainly antediluvian,” he thought, “a port before the Flood.”[17] The following morning, as soon as enough sunlight filled his room, he passed the early hours reading Dumas’s The Queen’s Necklace, deriving particular pleasure from the words of Cagliostro:
The diamond was passed round the table, and returned to Cagliostro, who, putting it quietly on his finger again, said, “Ah, I see well you are all incredulous; this fatal incredulity I have had to contend against all my life. Philippe de Valois would not listen to me when I told him to leave open a retreat to Edward; Cleopatra would not believe me when I warned her that Antony would be beaten; the Trojans would not credit me when I said to them, with reference to the wooden horse, ‘Cassandra is inspired; listen to Cassandra.”[18]
Later that evening, after dinner, Melville accompanied Charles Saunders to the home of his neighbor, Walter Dickson, from Groton, Massachusetts, who lived about an hour from Jaffa Gate, on the Plain of Sharon, in view of mountains of Ephraim.
Jaffa Gate. (c/o Library of Congress)[19]
The complex had a traditional stone enclosure eight-feet tall surrounding twelve acres under cultivation. (Mulberry trees, oranges, pomegranates, wheat, barley, tomatoes, etc.)
Walter, his sixty-year-old host, wore a blue Yankee coat, a Shaker waistcoat, and sported a “long Oriental beard.” At the house he ushered them into a comfortless—barnyardesque apartment and introduced Melville to his wife Sarah, “a respectable looking elderly woman.” Walter seemed a man of “Puritanic energy,” who was “inoculated with this preposterous Jew mania,” and “resolved to carry his Quixotism through to the end.” Sarah did not seem to like it, but submitted, nonetheless. “The whole thing is half-melancholy, half-farcical,” Melville thought, “like all the rest of the world.” They took a seat in some utilitarian chairs and talked more about the colony.
“Have you settled here permanently, Mr. Dickson?” asked Melville.
“Permanently settled on the soil of Zion, Sir,” said Walter with dogged emphasis.
“The walking is a little muddy, ain’t it?” Sarah said to Saunders. She dreaded the thought of Walter going on about his hobby, and wanted to change the subject.
“Have you any Jews working with you?” Melville asked Walter.
“No—Can’t afford to have them,” Walter replied. “Do my own work, with my son. Besides, the Jews are lazy and don’t like work.”
“The idea of making farmers of the Jews is vain,” Melville thought. “In the first place, Judea is a desert with few exceptions. In the second place, the Jews hate farming. All who cultivate the soil in Palestine are Arabs. The Jews dare not live outside walled towns or villages for fear of the malicious persecution of the Arabs—Besides, the number of Jews in Palestine is comparatively small. And how are the hosts of them scattered in other lands to be brought here? Only by a miracle!”
“And do you not think that a hindrance to making farmers of them?” Melville asked.
“That’s it. The Gentile Christians must teach them better. The fact is the fullness of Time has come. The Gentile Christians must prepare the way.
“Sir,” Sarah asked Melville, “is there in America a good deal of talk about Mr. Dickson’s efforts here?”
“Do they believe in the restoration of the Jew?” Walter implored.
“I can’t really answer that,” said Melville.
“I suppose most people believe the prophesies to that effect in a figurative sense—don’t they?” Sarah asked.
“Not unlikely,” Melville replied. “Might as well attempt to convert bricks into bride-cake as the Orientals into Christians,” he privately thought. “It is against the will of God that the East should be Christianized.”[20]
The talk then turned to family, and of the two Dickson daughters, Mary, and Almira, who married two Germans. They were “fated to beget a progeny of hybrid vagabonds,” thought Melville. He was wrong, though. One couple would meet a horrific nearly one year to the day. The other would have a grandchild, John Steinbeck, who, like Melville, would one day be a celebrated American author.
~
Melville would return to America in 1857, the experience he had in Palestine informing a considerable portion of his epic poem, Clarel.[21] But what of Mount Hope? The settlement, a pre-cursor to the Zionist project, would end in disaster in 1858. When thinking about it, one is reminded of the last line of Moby Dick, when Ishmael, drifting alone on a coffin at sea, is spotted by a ship which shares the name of a Biblical matriarch. The Rachel, “in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.”[22] There is something sadly poetic, if not tragically prophetic, in these lines. That is an epilogue. What follows is a prologue to a century of tension in Palestinian settlement projects.
~
The Steinbeck brothers, John and Fred, were born in Hamburg, in the Rhine province of Prussia in the 1820s.[23] The brothers belonged to a church that believed in the restoration of Israel, and the Second Coming of the Messiah. The parishioners arrived at the conclusion that funds should be raised to send two deputies to Palestine, so they might ascertain if it were possible to dwell there with their families. Unfortunately most of the brethren who were interested in the project were farmers and mechanics, who had suffered much in owing to the Revolution of 1848, and failure of crops.[24] As not to cause delay, and to determine “if it were practicable to live in peace among the Arabs, and gain bread sufficient for our families,” the Steinbecks concluded at once to go Palestine, leaving Prussia in November 1849 with a party of ten people (five men, two women, and three children.)[25] They arrived in Jerusalem in February 1850.[26]
John, an expert cabinet maker, manufactured souvenirs from olive wood, which he sold to the tourists to the Holy Land.[27] Fred, being a practical farmer, engaged in agricultural operations.[28]
In the spring of 1852 Fred moved to Jaffa where he turned his attention more particularly to the raising of cattle.[29] A year later (1853) while paying a visit to Fred, John met with the American residents of the Mount Hope Settlement and finding agricultural mission for the benefit of the poor Jews sympathetic to his own, decided to join their cause. Fred, likewise, joined. Then came a few more families from Germany who joined in this colonizing scheme, “giving to the enterprise a German-American flavor.”[30] (Another drought occurred in Germany, driving the hardest hit people to the pews. This, perhaps, anticipating the “Templar” movement which would form in 1854, and also settle in Jaffa.)[31]
In December 1853, Walter Dickson and his family arrived at the Mount Hope Settlement to engage in their share of the benevolent cause.[32] There was his wife, Sarah, and four children, Almira (22,) Mary (20,) Henry (16,) and Caroline (6).[33]
They arrived at a difficult time in global politics. The Crimean War broke out in 1853 between Russia and the Ottoman Empire and Russia.[34] The local Muslim population, regarding all Christian foreigners as a singular species, siphoned their rage into various outlets which targeted the colonists (and the perceived European powers they represented.) Though the Islamic world was inching toward a European conception of nation state at the time, by and large, it possessed a system of governmental self-understanding that would be too cumbersome to summarize. What can be said is that there was a system of graduated loyalties, and the Ottoman Sultan was broadly understood to be the Caliph of all Sunni Muslims. Put another way, it was a holy war, and Europeans, in their eyes, were the perpetrators.[35]
To deter the local population from further aggression against the colonists, and to make a show of strength, the American warship Levant was sent to Palestine in 1854 under the command of Captain Carl C. Turner. The officers met with the consular representatives in Jaffa and Jerusalem and the people of Mount Hope. Captain Turner gave the settlers firearms from his armory so they might defend themselves should the situation arise.
John, Charles, and Almira Steinbeck.[36]
The trouble seemed to have been abated. In November 1854, Fred and Mary were married, and they purchased a farm about 1 mile from Mount Hope. It was said they lived on friendly terms with the Arabs. On June 1, 1856, John married Almira, though it was “not easily be accomplished under the existing conditions of that day and place.” Almira had to be brought from Jaffa thirty miles to Jerusalem, where the services of a Protestant clergyman could be obtained.
From the time of Minor’s death in 1855 until the closure of the settlement, only three families remained there. John continued Minor’s work and lived in with Almira on land purchased by William Ballard and Dr. W.M. Engles for the benefit of the poor Jews.[37] It was half a mile from the home of Walter, Sarah, Henry, and Caroline. Fred, Mary, and their two babies who lived in a small hut, within Walter’s enclosure, but about 20 yards distant from his house.
~
A year after the wedding of John and Almira saw the Indian Uprising of 1857, which would ultimately see the creation of the British Raj. Once again, the Islamic world was positioned as an enemy of Europe/Christendom. Most of the Anglophone world saw the uprising of 1857 subcontinent though it were a Jihad waged by global Islam against global Christianity.[38]
The followers of Saiyid Ahmad Bareilvi, whom the British called Wahabis, were said to have played a decisive role in organising the 1857 uprising.[39] The jihad (holy war) waged by Bareilvi and his followers, however, was only a militant manifestation of a growing movement aimed at “cleansing Islam” in India of perceived heterodox practices. Though the movement was identified by British as one in the same as the Wahabis of the Arabian peninsula, and referred to the belligerents as jihadis, Bareilvi’s followers preferred to be called Ahle Hadis (men of Prophet’s tradition.)[40] Bareilvi was a follower of the more tolerant Hanafi school of jurisprudence (and initiate of the Naqshbandi Sufi.) The founder of Wahhabism, the eighteenth-century scholar, Abd al-Wahhab, belonged to the puritanical Hanbali school of Islamic thought (anti-Shia, anti-Sufi, etc.) His philosophy was much indebted to the fourteenth-century jurist, Ibn Taymiyya, an idealogue who popularized the notion of militant jihad.[41] Just as the Muslims made little distinction during the Crimean War between Christians, neither did the Christians. Tensions ran high in Palestine.
~
One morning in October 1857, while Fred was at work in the field, and Mary and Carrie were alone in the house with the babies. Two Arabs rode up to the door. One of the men was dressed like a soldier, and the other like a Bedouin. They demanded fire for their pipes.
“Carrie,” said Mary, “go to mother and get some fire for these men.”
After her sister left, the man dressed as a soldier dismounted from his horse and menacingly approached Mary. He slowly smoothed down her hair with his hand, as well as taking other liberties. He then began speaking Arabic (which Mary understood,) using inappropriate expressions, and making ending a direct request to have sex with her. Mary, alarmed, pushed the man away, and ran out of the door.
“Father!” yelled Mary, “Get Fred!”
The man gave her a sticky grin. “If you hear horsemen in the night don’t be alarmed.”
Both men then rode off.
The men soon rode off, but as this was an unusual occurrence, Mary watched them from a hill near her house. She was surprised to see them enter the garden house of their neighbor, Hussein Abou-Aita. Mary watched for a long time, but she never saw the men reappear.
Later that night the men returned in order to attack Fred. During the ensuing struggle, the intruders noticed the chimney stack on Walter’s roof.
“That’s my brother, John,” said Fred, gleaning their concern. “He’s standing there with a rifle in his hand.”
It was a lie, but the men took off. The gravity of the incident prompted Fried and his family to move into the main building with Walter and his family.
The following day Mary told John of the encounter. John subsequently paid a visit to Abou-Aita
“Do you know the identity of the horsemen from yesterday?” asked John.
“Yes,” replied Abou-Aita. “I do know them—they are people of the neighborhood.” He refused to divulge their names, nor to provide any specific information concerning them.
Similar incidents along these lines occurred for several weeks, culminating in a night of terror for the missionaries.
Mount Hope landscape c. 1850s (c/o King Library)
About ten o’clock, on the night of January 11, 1858, the dogs outside Walter’s home began to bark. Fred went outside and opened the gate and saw a man running away. Fred went inside to get Walter, and the two went out together. They were the only two men in the house. John was conducting business in Jerusalem, and Henry was staying with Almina for her protection.
The trespassers shouted over the wall.
“We are looking for a cow we lost.”
“There is no cow here,” said Fred.
The men went away.
Fred went to bed.
Walter took a ladder and set it up carefully against the wall. He then went up to see how many men were on the other side. Five men were in the group.
Walter fired off a gun with powder so that they might know they had firearms. This was the customary practice when an alarm was made by the dogs.
Walter went back inside the house and retired to bed, but a few moments later the dogs began barking again with fury.
“Steinbeck!” shouted someone at the gate.
Fred rose and went to the gate.
“We went to the shepherd, Abdullah,” said the men. “He says that the cow is in your yard. We want to come in and look for the cow.”
“Go and get Abdullah,” Fred replied.
They talked a long time, but Fred eventually left them and came back inside the house. He took off his clothes and got back into bed. Ten minutes later the voices were heard again. Once more Fred got dressed and went outside.
“Open the gate, Steinbeck. We will break it down if not.”
He went back inside and began loading the revolver that Captain Turner gave him. “They are going to break down the gate,” he explained to Mary.
CRASH!
“They have broken the gate!” cried Walter.
Fred and Walter both went out.
“Do not fire, father,” Fred told Walter.
Walter handed Fred the gun.
Together they advanced to the broken gate until an unknown assailant fired a gun, hitting Fred in the lower abdomen and groin with a whole charge of 24 buckshot. From the blaze of the fire, he could not have been more than six feet away from the muzzle of the gun.
“Here, take the gun!” Fred told Walter, who was standing behind him.
Walter fired at random, as he could not see anyone.
Gathering his leaking strength, Fred crawled back into the house, where, reeking with sticky blood, he collapsed exhausted on the floor. “Mary,” he told his wife, “I have got a ball.”
Walter returned to the house by a circuitous route and quickly fastened the door as the intruders rushed to the entrance.
“I feel faint,” said Fred, in great agony. Mary unbuttoned Fred’s pantaloons and saw where the wound was. She supported her husband’s head and bathed it with spirits. Sarah, meanwhile, endeavored in vain to stop the blood which was flowing profusely from the wound.
Walter, still supporting the door with all his strength, glanced at little Carrie who was huddled in the bed Mary’s two babies. He then looked at Fred. “Try and bear your pain with as little ado as possible,” said Walter. “Your groaning may give them an idea of our weakness.”
The door gave way, and Walter was flung to the side. Five intruders entered at once, the leader carrying a seven-foot club, two-and-a-half inches thick. The others brandished blades and pistols. Walter stood facing the men, but it was of no use. He was struck down with great force. One of the assailants grabbed Walter by his hair and flung his head to the side. Then, drawing a sword, he attempted to sever it from the body. Mary intervened, allowing Walter enough time to parry the blow with his hand (which was severely wounded.)
The assailant raised his sword again.
“No! Please!” cried Carrie. “Please, spare him!”
The attacker stared at Carrie for a moment. Though it was clear that the men were “much annoyed at the crying of the children,” they offered them no violence.
Walter fell with a groan, insensible and bloody.
Sarah rushed to support her husband, raising him, and seating him by Fred.
“Father in heaven,” said Fred, “forgive me all my sins, and help me to bear this pain.”
Mary embraced her dying husband. He gave her a final kiss. His lips were icy cold.
The men went to the stove and lifted the pipe in search of gold. They broke open the clock, mistaking the shining brass pendulum for gold. The others went into the other room and found locked trunks.
“You,” they said, pointing at Mary. “Open!”
“No,” said Mary. “If you bring the trunks to me, I will unlock them.”
They did, and Mary unlocked them. She then went back and sat down by Fred.
“Show us the other rooms,” said the leader to Mary.
“No,” said Mary.
He seized her arm to drag her outside.
Mary caught hold of her father, and he held on tight until the assailants struck Walter with a gun, breaking their grip.
“If we had thousands, would we not give them to you?” pleaded Mary. “Is not life dearer than money?” She put up a struggle, seizing the bedstead. One of the men struck her with the stock of the gun to release her hold. Mary continued her resistance, tipping over the bed, where Carrie and the babies were huddled. Another man struck her in the back. Three men dragged her over Fred’s corpse as they took her outside.
Another man dragged Sarah into the adjoining room. Carrie gave the babies to Walter and ran after her mother to see what the man was doing. The intruder tore away Sarah’s nightgown and violated her. All of which young Carrie witnessed.
Outside Mary was pulled some distance from the door. The first man threw her down on the ground. Mary struggled, but the make took out his pistol and held it to her breast until she yielded. The first man violated her. Before she had time to get up, another man came and violated her, and bit into her cheek. The third man followed suit. When they finished, they returned to the house. Mary got up and followed them, crawling over to Fred’s body once inside, desperately searching for a pulse.
“Your husband?” asked one of the men, mockingly. “Why is he sleeping on the floor?” He then struck her in the hip with a hammer and tried to remove her wedding ring. When he could not remove it, the man then took hold of her, and pulled her into the other room, and struck her on the head. All but one man left the room. Like the other three men outside, he threw Mary down, and aggressively violated her.
In the morning the assailants went away with their spoils. Carrie and the Steinbeck children were paralyzed with fright. Mary and Sarah were brutalized and shamed in the most unimaginable of ways. Fred’s bloody body was hidden beneath the table. Walter, in a state of shock, went to their nearest neighbor and asked him to stay with the family, while he went to notify Henry. Walter then went to the city to notify the American Vice Consul as well as ask Saunders to go to Jerusalem and notify John of the tragedy.[42]
The attack was ascribed to an “outbreak of Mahommedan fanaticism,” and the entire community was obviously beyond repair. The Dickson agricultural enterprise was broken up, and the survivors returned to America shortly thereafter. The Turkish Government made a small reparation for the family, but not at all commensurate with the crime. The murderers were never convicted.[43] It was a precursor to the brutal massacre of twenty-one Christians at Jeddah the following year, and a shape of things to come for settlers in Palestine.[44]
Remains of Mount Hope Settlement. (Public Domain)
[1] Melville, Henry. Journal Of A Visit To Europe And The Levant 1856 -1857. Princeton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey. (1959): 132, n132.
[2] Ibid: 4, 129,131
[3] Kreiger, Barbara. Divine Expectations: An American Woman in 19th-century Palestine. Ohio University Press. Athens, Ohio. (1999): 127.
[4] “Foreign Intelligence.” The American Israelite. (Cincinnati, Ohio) July 18, 1856.
[5] Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. The St. Botolph Society. Boston, Massachusetts. (1892): 297.
[6] Tal, Alon. “Enduring Technological Optimism: Zionism’s Environmental Ethic and Its Influence on Israel’s Environmental History.” Environmental History. Vol. XIII, No. 2 (April 2008): 275-305.
[7] Kreiger, Barbara. Divine Expectations: An American Woman in 19th-century Palestine. Ohio University Press. Athens, Ohio. (1999): 1-7.
[8] Elofer, Richard. “Minor, Clorinda Strong (1809–1855).” Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. September 26, 2020. Accessed September 07, 2023. https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=99SX.
[9] Kreiger, Barbara. Divine Expectations: An American Woman in 19th-century Palestine. Ohio University Press. Athens, Ohio. (1999):
[10] Frankl, Ludwig August. The Jews in the East: Vol. I. Hurst And Blackett. London, England. (1859): 344.
[11] “Foreign Intelligence.” The American Israelite. (Cincinnati, Ohio) July 18, 1856.
[12] Kreiger, Barbara. Divine Expectations: An American Woman in 19th-century Palestine. Ohio University Press. Athens, Ohio. (1999): 142.
[13] Elofer, Richard. “Minor, Clorinda Strong (1809–1855).” Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. September 26, 2020. Accessed September 07, 2023. https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=99SX.
[14] Perry, Yaron. “John Steinbeck’s Roots in Nineteenth-Century Palestine.” Steinbeck Studies. Vol. XV, No. 1 (Spring 2004): 46-72.
[15] Frankl, Ludwig August. The Jews in the East: Vol. I. Hurst And Blackett. London, England. (1859): 344.
[16] Melville, Henry. Journal Of A Visit To Europe And The Levant 1856 -1857. Princeton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey. (1959): 132, n132.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Dumas, Alexander. The Queen’s Necklace. Estes And Lauriat. Boston, Massachusetts. (1895): 22-23.
[19] Jaffa Gate. Jerusalem, 1900. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017651192/.
[20] Melville, Henry. Journal Of A Visit To Europe And The Levant 1856 -1857. Princeton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey. (1959): 130, 158-159.
[21] Wells, Henry W. “Herman Melville’s Clarel.” College English. Vol. IV, No. 8 (May 1943): 478-483.
[22] Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. The St. Botolph Society. Boston, Massachusetts. (1892): 533.
[23] “Golden Wedding Celebration.” The Californian. (Salinas, California) June 1, 1906.
[24] Hamerow, Theodore S. “History and the German Revolution of 1848.” The American Historical Review. Vol. LX, No. 1 (October 1954): 27–44.
[25] Perry, Yaron. “John Steinbeck’s Roots in Nineteenth-Century Palestine.” Steinbeck Studies. Vol. XV, No. 1 (Spring 2004): 46-72.
[26] “Interesting News From Egypt.” The Daily Exchange. (Baltimore, Maryland) March 30, 1858.
[27] “Golden Wedding Celebration.” The Californian. (Salinas, California) June 1, 1906.
[28] “Interesting News From Egypt.” The Daily Exchange. (Baltimore, Maryland) March 30, 1858.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Chamberlain, George Walter. “A New England Crusade.” The New England Magazine. Vol. XXXVI, No. 2 (April 1907): 195-207.
[31] 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.
[32] “Interesting News From Egypt.” The Daily Exchange. (Baltimore, Maryland) March 30, 1858; “Golden Wedding Celebration.” The Californian. (Salinas, California) June 1, 1906.
[33] New England Historical Genealogical Society; Boston, Massachusetts; Massachusetts Vitals to 1850; Perry, Yaron. “John Steinbeck’s Roots in Nineteenth-Century Palestine.” Steinbeck Studies. Vol. XV, No. 1 (Spring 2004): 46-72.
[34] Badem, Candan. The Ottoman Crimean War (1853-1856.) Brill. Leiden, Netherlands. (2010): 76.
[35] Joffé, E. G. H. “Arab Nationalism and Palestine.” Journal of Peace Research. Vol. XX, No. 2 (June 1983): 157-170.
[36] Perry, Yaron. “John Steinbeck’s Roots in Nineteenth-Century Palestine.” Steinbeck Studies. Vol. XV, No. 1 (Spring 2004): 46-72.
[37] “Interesting News From Egypt.” The Daily Exchange. (Baltimore, Maryland) March 30, 1858; “Golden Wedding Celebration.” The Californian. (Salinas, California) June 1, 1906.
[38] Malik, S.D. “‘Mutiny’ And The Muslim World: A British View-Point.” Islamic Studies. Vol. V, No. 3 (September 1966): 283-304.
[39] Khan, Iqtidar Alam. “The Wahabis in the 1857 Revolt: A Brief Reappraisal of Their Role.” Social Scientist. Vol. XLI, No. 5/6 (May-June 2013): 15-23.
[40] Ibid.
[41] Allen, Charles. “The Hidden Roots of Wahhabism in British India.” World Policy Journal. Vol. XXII, No. 2 (Summer 2005): 87-93.
[42] Kreiger, Barbara. Divine Expectations: An American Woman in 19th-century Palestine. Ohio University Press. Athens, Ohio. (1999): 156-158.
[43] Green, Samuel Abbott. Groton Historical Series. Vol. II. Groton, Massachusetts. (1890): 240.
[44] Malik, S.D. “‘Mutiny’ And The Muslim World: A British View-Point.” Islamic Studies. Vol. V, No. 3 (September 1966): 283-304.
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