|
In Israel, James
Turner Barclay is known as the man who discovered Barclay’s Gate,
one of the ancient gates to the Temple Mount (see page 36). True
archaeology buffs know that he also discovered Zedekiah’s Cave, the
vast cavern near the Damascus Gate that has fascinated Freemasons,
treasure hunters, and thrill seekers (see ERETZ 108, page 48). In
the U.S., however, Barclay is known for completely different
accomplishments. He is famous for serving as the first missionary to
the Holy Land of the Disciples of Christ and infamous for buying
Monticello from U.S. president Thomas Jefferson’s descendants and
destroying the beautiful mountaintop home that Jefferson had built.
Barclay was born in
1807 in Virginia, a scion of a prominent Quaker family. His
grandfather, Thomas Barclay, had been a close friend of both
Jefferson and the first U.S. president, George Washington. His
father Robert died when he was a child and his mother, Sarah Coleman
Turner, remarried. Her second husband was a wealthy tobacco planter
who sent Barclay to the University of Virginia and the University of
Pennsylvania, where he earned an M.D. in 1828. A few years later he
married Julia Sowers, also of Virginia. The couple lived in
Charlottesville, where he operated a pharmacy. However, operating a
pharmacy did not particularly interest Barclay. He soon decided to
purchase Monticello from Jefferson’s daughter Martha Jefferson
Randolph and grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph, who had been
struggling to maintain it ever since Jefferson died in 1826 .
In his 2002 book,
Saving Monticello: The Levy Family’s Epic Quest to Rescue the House
that Jefferson Built, Marc Leepson wrote: “James T. Barclay was a
learned, if eccentric, many-faceted man whose four and a half years
as the owner of Jefferson’s mansion have not been positively
portrayed. He has been characterized as a Jefferson-hating eccentric
who bargained ruthlessly with the land-rich, cash-poor Randolphs. At
Monticello he set up what has been described as a crackpot scheme to
grow silkworms. To that end, it is said, he cut down Jefferson’s
carefully cultivated trees. Barclay also let the house go to ruin,
then went bankrupt and sold Monticello after being struck with
fundamentalist Christian missionary fever and spiriting his family
off to the Holy Land.”
Leepson then gives
an evenhanded account of Barclay’s reign at Monticello. He noted
that “Uriah Levy’s biographers, Donovan Fitzpatrick and Saul Saphire,
were particularly harsh on Barclay. He ‘had no interest in
preserving Monticello as a shrine to Thomas Jefferson,’ they said.
Barclay ‘wanted the property for a fanciful experiment – a grandiose
plan to grow mulberry trees and start a silkworm business. He dug up
the flower gardens and cut down most of the fine trees on the lawn –
the poplar, linden, and copper beeches on which Jefferson had
expended so much money and care – and replaced them with mulberry
trees. So began the despoliation of the most beautiful house in
America.’”
He also noted, “The
Barclay family has a much different version of James Turner
Barclay’s life and times at Monticello. Accounts of his life written
by one of his grandsons, Julian Thomas Barclay, in 1904 and by
Decima Campbell Barclay, a daughter-in-law, around 1900 based on the
reminiscences of his widow portray him in a completely different
light. The family claims he was an ardent admirer of Jefferson who
took great care of Monticello.”
Whatever the case
maybe, when Barclay was in the process of selling Monticello to
Uriah Levy a few years later, “Martha Randolph referred to James
Turner Barclay as a ‘mad man’” and blamed him for Monticello’s
deterioration, Leepson wrote.
After selling
Monticello, Barclay had intended to travel to China to serve as a
missionary. The sudden death of his brother led him to cancel the
trip and settle in Scottsville, a town near Monticello where his
mother resided. In Scottsville, Barclay became involved with the
Disciples of Christ, a Presbyterian group led by Alexander Campbell.
The group, which had grown quickly in the U.S. and spread to Europe
and Australia, wanted to bring its message to a wider audience.
Barclay, who had become the first minister of the Disciples of
Christ Church in Scottsville, hadn’t given up on his dreams to serve
as a missionary. After his mother’s death, Campbell appointed
Barclay to be the Disciples of Christ’s first missionary and sent
him and his family to Jerusalem from 1851-1854.
In Jerusalem,
Barclay soon found he was one of a horde of Westerners trying to
convert the residents of Jerusalem. His attempts were not
particularly successful. Instead, Barclay dedicated himself to
exploring Jerusalem. At one point, he was appointed the assistant to
a Turkish architect who was doing repair work on the Dome of the
Rock. This allowed him to wander around and photograph the Temple
Mount, which non-Moslems normally could not enter.
After returning to
the U.S., Barclay produced a 600-page opus, The City of the Great
King. The book told about his discovery of Barclay’s Gate and
presented some controversial theories on Jerusalem. The book’s
illustrations are based on Barclay’s photographs. He may also have
used pictures taken by his friend James Graham.
While Barclay was
in the U.S., president Franklin Pierce sent him to Philadelphia to
help the mint there develop methods to prevent counterfeiting. After
completing that mission successfully in 1857, Barclay returned to
Jerusalem, where he continued his missionary work for eight years.
He resigned when the Civil War began, not wishing to be a tax on his
brotherhood in a time of war.
One of the few
converts that Barclay influenced was Mendel Diness, a Jew who had
been born in Odessa in 1827 and moved to Jerusalem in 1848. He
became a photographer in Jerusalem, creating one of the most
remarkable photographic records from that period. He also apparently
lost such faith in Judaism that he converted to Christianity twice.
His family and the Jewish community were so scandalized that he went
to America, where he became an itinerant preacher known as
Mendenhall John Dennis.
According to
Leepson, “After he returned Barclay wrote City of the Great King,
which was published in 1858. The engraving on the first page shows a
stern, solid looking man with a pronounced widow’s peak and an
Abraham Lincoln beard. In 1858, he took his family to Jerusalem for
a second round of missionary work, returning to the United States in
1865 to teach natural sciences at Bethany College in West Virginia,
the Disciples of Christ School. In 1868, Barclay resigned and moved
to Alabama where he spent the rest of his life preaching. He died at
age sixty-seven in 1874.” |
