Page 18 - Holyland Magazine - 2010 Edition

Dapper, white-haired Reed Holmes has
had a love affair with these American Jaffa
settlers since the mid-1970s, when he first
visited Jaffa on one of the frequent trips to
Israel that he organized – “friendship tours,”
as he calls them. But Reed made his first
acquaintance with the Jaffa Christians many
years before that, and thousands of miles
away, in the picturesque fishing village of
Jonesport, Maine. “That’s when I met
Thressa Rogers Kelley. She was 88 and
she told me of her days as a teenager in
the Jaffa American Colony. It was the first
time I had heard about the colony from the
perspective of a young person, and I began
to understand that this was not only about
tragedy, but much more.”
Adding to his special interest in the subject
was the fact that later, while working on
The Forerunners, his book about the
colony, he came across the name
Wentworth on the Nellie Chapin passenger
list; this person, he eventually realized, was
one of his own ancestors.
“Tragedy” is all that most people know
about the Jaffa American Colony. Three
sweltering months were spent in shacks on
the Jaffa shore, waiting for the Ottoman
authorities to let them take possession of
the breezy hilltop lots that Adams had
bought with the funds the community had
entrusted to him. Many died in the first
months. When they finally did settle in,
their first harvest was almost totally lost.
Internal strife ate away at their confidence
in Adams, a former Shakespearean actor,
The American settlers in Jaffa brought new steel
plows, replacing wooden implements like these, on in Jerusalem, where he built a magnificent
display in the museum.
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well-known for his oratory
powers, charisma, and
apparently unsuccessful fight
against an addiction to
alcohol.
But Adams had a vision,
explains Holmes, and it
proved to be far ahead of its
time. Holmes leafs through
the pages of The Forerunners
and begins to read from the
petition the community sent
to William Seward, then U.S.
secretary of state, appealing
to him to ask the Ottoman
authorities to permit them to
settle in Jaffa. They firmly believed, they
wrote, in the “great fertility and immense
resources of that partially desolate land
if it will be brought under cultivation.
Our object is not to go to Palestine as
missionaries or politicians, but as peaceful developed, worthy complements to the
sojourners. We wish to introduce all the
improvements of the age in science,
agriculture, and mechanisms.”
Despite the dissipation of the colony as a
whole, the 20 Americans who stayed on
and thrived proceeded to do just that. Rolla
Floyd, for example, laid the foundations
for modern tourism with his Maine spring
wagon, which provided the first regular
carriage transport between Jaffa and
Jerusalem. Another member of the group,
Herbert Clark, who lost his father and two
of his brothers on that steamy Jaffa beach,
grew up to become the U.S. vice consul
stone mansion outside the Jaffa Gate.
The mansion, with its distinctive red and
white stone exterior stands out above one
of Jerusalem’s newest shopping attractions,
the Alrov (Mamilla) pedestrian mall near
the Jaffa Gate.
However, not all of the American Colony’s
buildings were as lucky as Clark’s Jerusalem
mansion. Many of their wooden houses in
Jaffa were bulldozed before the area was
declared a historic site. Others received a
plaster coating at the hands of the German
Christian Templers who purchased the
buildings from the departing Americans.
After purchasing the building at 10
Auerbach in 2002 and beginning
renovations, the Holmses spied, among
the rotting rafters, a piece of wood with
English letters on it. On closer inspection,
In the Maine Friendship House Museum, a piece of
lumber from the original home and other objects of
daily life on display.
it turned out to be the initials MTW –
standing for Mark T. Wentworth, Reed’s
own ancestor. It was known that the group
had marked each parcel of pre-cut lumber
with the name of the owner for which that
house (or parcel) was designated. The
location of Wentworth’s home could only
be guessed at prior to this providential find.
Another original M.T. Wentworth board is
now on display in the Maine Friendship
House museum.
It’s easy to see that Reed and Jean Holmes
take pride in putting together another piece
of this American historical puzzle. Their
work has had a ripple effect on the entire
neighborhood. Some homes are being
restored and others are being preserved or
renewal of the nearby Neve Tzedek quarter,
one of Tel Aviv-Jaffa’s tourism hubs. Thanks
to municipal investment, the area is now
lit with the golden glow of period-style
lampposts, and has park benches and newly
planted trees.
Among the visitors to the house are not
only Christian tour groups and Israeli
schoolchildren, but actual American Colony
descendants, including two great-
granddaughters of Captain Ackley Norton
and several Wentworth descendants. The
Holmeses would love to see as many
American visitors as possible in their little
piece of Maine in Jaffa, doing exactly what
this energetic couple does every day: in
Jean’s words, “acknowledging history.”
The Maine Friendship House features a gallery and
museum, where you can also purchase Reed Holmes’
book on the colony, The Forerunners. It is open on
Fridays from 12 to 3 and Saturdays from 2 to 4, or
by reservation. In Israel, call 03-681-9225. For more
information: www.jaffacolony.com