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James Turner Barclay
James Turner Barclay (born May 22, 1807, in King William County, Virginia, † October 20, 1874 in Wheeler, Alabama) was an American missionary and explorer of Ottoman Palestine.
James Turner Barclay was one of four children of Robert Barclay and Sarah Coleman Turner, and grandson of Thomas Barclay, first US consul to France and, later, consul to Morocco. In 1809, James' father, Robert Barclay, drowned in the Rappahannock River, and the widow married John Harris, a wealthy cotton merchant and owner of large estates in Albemarle County.
He enabled his stepson James Turner Barclay to study medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, which he completed in 1828 with a PhD. In 1830 he married Julia Ann Sowers. The couple settled in Charlottesville, where James Turner Barclay ran a pharmacy and devoted himself to drug development.
After Thomas Jefferson's death in 1826, Barclay purchased Jefferson's Monticello country estate in 1831, and carried out much criticized changes there in order to start a sericulture. As early as 1836, for financial reasons, he was forced to sell the country estate to Uriah Levy.
Barclay had turned to Presbyterianism since his marriage. He became increasingly religious, joined the Disciples of Christ Church and its splinter group, the American Christian Missionary Society, which emerged from Presbyterianism, and became a preacher of this church in Scottsville in 1849. The rapidly growing Disciples of Christ Church sent Barclay to Jerusalem as their first foreign missionary in the winter of 1851, at the age of 44, where he stayed and worked as a medical and evangelistic missionary until the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854. During Barclay's first year in Jerusalem, he treated more than 2,000 malaria cases. Upon his return to the United States, he began making earnest efforts to publish his book.
By 1858, Barclay had returned with his family to Jerusalem, which stint lasted another three years, when he returned to the United States in 1861. In 1861, at the eve of the US Civil War, he published a series of articles for the Disciples' journal, The Millennial Harbinger, entitled "The Welfare of the World Bound Up with the Destiny of Israel," in which he began to encourage the immigration of Jews to the Holy Land.
Barclay saw the immigration of Jews to Ottoman Palestine as a sign of the end times and wanted to participate in salvation history by winning these religious Jews over to Christianity (millenarianism). To his disappointment, he met with rejection and was only able to baptize a few people. As a means of making a livelihood he worked as a physician, treating primarily malaria cases. While in Jerusalem, he conducted various geographical and archaeological studies, and also supported Edward Robinson in his research.
One of his patients was Nazir Effendi, a Turkish architect who was doing repair work on the Dome of the Rock. Barclay was given the opportunity to roam around the Haram esh-Sharif as his assistant, making drawings and measurements. Financial reasons led to the abandonment of the first Palestine mission.
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James Turner Barclay
James Turner Barclay (born May 22, 1807, in King William County, Virginia, † October 20, 1874 in Wheeler, Alabama) was an American missionary and explorer of Ottoman Palestine.
James Turner Barclay was one of four children of Robert Barclay and Sarah Coleman Turner, and grandson of Thomas Barclay, first US consul to France and, later, consul to Morocco. In 1809, James' father, Robert Barclay, drowned in the Rappahannock River, and the widow married John Harris, a wealthy cotton merchant and owner of large estates in Albemarle County.
He enabled his stepson James Turner Barclay to study medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, which he completed in 1828 with a PhD. In 1830 he married Julia Ann Sowers. The couple settled in Charlottesville, where James Turner Barclay ran a pharmacy and devoted himself to drug development.
After Thomas Jefferson's death in 1826, Barclay purchased Jefferson's Monticello country estate in 1831, and carried out much criticized changes there in order to start a sericulture. As early as 1836, for financial reasons, he was forced to sell the country estate to Uriah Levy.
Barclay had turned to Presbyterianism since his marriage. He became increasingly religious, joined the Disciples of Christ Church and its splinter group, the American Christian Missionary Society, which emerged from Presbyterianism, and became a preacher of this church in Scottsville in 1849. The rapidly growing Disciples of Christ Church sent Barclay to Jerusalem as their first foreign missionary in the winter of 1851, at the age of 44, where he stayed and worked as a medical and evangelistic missionary until the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854. During Barclay's first year in Jerusalem, he treated more than 2,000 malaria cases. Upon his return to the United States, he began making earnest efforts to publish his book.
By 1858, Barclay had returned with his family to Jerusalem, which stint lasted another three years, when he returned to the United States in 1861. In 1861, at the eve of the US Civil War, he published a series of articles for the Disciples' journal, The Millennial Harbinger, entitled "The Welfare of the World Bound Up with the Destiny of Israel," in which he began to encourage the immigration of Jews to the Holy Land.
Barclay saw the immigration of Jews to Ottoman Palestine as a sign of the end times and wanted to participate in salvation history by winning these religious Jews over to Christianity (millenarianism). To his disappointment, he met with rejection and was only able to baptize a few people. As a means of making a livelihood he worked as a physician, treating primarily malaria cases. While in Jerusalem, he conducted various geographical and archaeological studies, and also supported Edward Robinson in his research.
One of his patients was Nazir Effendi, a Turkish architect who was doing repair work on the Dome of the Rock. Barclay was given the opportunity to roam around the Haram esh-Sharif as his assistant, making drawings and measurements. Financial reasons led to the abandonment of the first Palestine mission.