Missionaries in Suncheon

An earlier incarnation of Jungang Church, est. 1907, in Maegok-dong. The photo was stolen from here.


I've rushed this entry a bit, and wasn't as thorough as possible in a few spots, because I wanted to get something out before I go out of town for most of the rest of January. I've been sitting on this post for over a month, and I'll have to do a little more digging later. This also isn't meant to be exhaustive or authoritative . . . I was just curious about some stuff around town, that's all.

I first wandered through Maegok-dong in late-November, when I was looking for some information about a monument to the Yosu-Sunchon Incident that was supposed to be there. Maegok-dong is just west of Suncheon's Old Downtown, just across the Medical Rotary (의료원 R) from McDonald's and Bukbu Market. I don't know the exact boundaries of Maegok-dong, but it occupies 1.42 square kilometers and includes the medical rotary in the south, the university in the north, and in between reaches a few blocks west of Jungang-ro (중앙로). According to Naver it had a population of 10,309 in 2001, but according to the Maegok-dong website, that number decreased to 7,421 four years later. In 1931, Maegok-ri was incorporated in Suncheon-eup (eup/읍 means town), and when Suncheon-eup became Suncheon county in 1949, Maegok-ri was elevated to a dong/동, a larger administrative division.It's an interesting little neighborhood, with lots of little alleys, homes seemingly piled on top of one another, a couple of Confucian academies, a few crumbling Japanese-style homes, and several big schools. (Okay, so it's probably like a lot of other Korean neighborhoods, but I'm easily amused.) Anyway, turns out it was also one of the first places in the region to host American missionaries.



(Top) A picture of a village in Maegok-dong, circa 1913. Really remarkable. I stole it from this Naver blog, but I wanted to upload it myself in case the other blog went down. (Bottom) Old picture of Western-style buildings in Maegok-dong. The one on the left was a hospital that is no longer there. This photo, along with about a dozen others, are on dislpay in an alley across the street from Suncheon National University.

A timeline* at the Historical Museum of Korean Christian Mission (sic) (한국 기독교 선교 역사 박물관) in Suncheon says that missionaries were first dispatched to the southern region---the two Jeollas and Chungcheongnam-do---in 1893. In February, 1893---according to the timeline, anyway---Reverend William Davis Reynolds and Reverend Lewis Boyd Tate arrived in Jeonju and stayed for two weeks. Dr. Alexander D. Drew, M.D., arrived the following year and was the first medical missionary to the country. The timeline continues to mention that Reverend Reynolds and Tate toured the Jeollas in March, 1894, making trips to Gunsan, Yeosu, Suncheon, Mokpo, and other lesser-known towns and counties. In March, 1897, Reverend Eugene Bell established Yangdong Church (양동교회) in Mokpo, apparently the first church in the Honam region. In 1901 Fredrica Straeffer started teaching girls in Mokpo at what would become Jeongmyeong Girl's High School two years later. Incidentally, that school's website has a small gallery of pictures from the early 20th century here. Also in 1903 in Mokpo, the Youngheung School, known today as Yeongheung High School (영흥고등학교), was established. In commermoration of the 100th anniversary a few years back, the school put together a newsletter with a bunch of articles (in Korean) and some pictures of campus buildings through the years. It is available as a .pdf file here. There is also a gallery with 81 pages of photos of people, events, and buildings through the years, available here.

Getting back to Suncheon, the timeline is actually a little vague about initial efforts in the city. As mentioned the two early missionaries made a tour of the Jeollas and stopped in Suncheon in 1894. The next mention is in 1909, when "John F. Preston and Rev. William D. Reynolds suggested a station in Soonchun." The following year, Deacon Yoon Soo Kim (김윤수) bought ten acres of land "which was named Mai-san-deung"---매산 등, currently occupied by the three Maesan schools and the old seminary---"with the help of Mr. Eok-pyung Kim of Soonchun-Eub Church (now Soonchun Central Church)." If you happened across Suncheon Central Church (순천중앙교회) in December, you'd know that it's celebrating its "101th Christmas" (sic), and the church website confirms that the church was founded in 1907 by John F. Preston. The building that stands now was finished in 1983, but in front of the main entrance is a small statue with a plaque of J. F. Preston.


Another old picture of Central Church, the second incarnation, I believe. I don't remember where I stole this.

Reverend Preston would have a hand in founding three other local points of interest: Maesan Middle School (매산중), Maesan High School (매산고), and Maesan Girls High School (매산여고). All three are private Presbyterian schools founded in 1910 by Preston and Robert Thornwell Coit. Maesan Middle School made the news last year when a bus crash claimed the lives of 5 students on Jirisan. There are a few older Western-style buildings on the campus, although I don't know exactly when they were built, and quick searches for cornerstones turned up nothing. If you start from Jungang Church and walk past the clinic and up the hill, you will first pass the middle school, then the girls' high school, then the high school. In between the girls' high school and middle school is the site of the old seminary. On the campus of the middle school, bordered on two sides by a construction zone, is a large Western-style building presently used as the library and probably for other things, too. The girls' high school has two Western homes, one on each end of the playground. The most dominant feature on the high school campus is a large, brand new gymnasium that you can see from a few blocks away.




(Top) Large building on the campus of Maesan Middle School. (Middle) Old, one-time house at the entrance of Maesan Girls' High School. Currently the "교목실." (Bottom) Old building at the opposite end of Maesan Girls' High School.

I mentioned the clinic and museum, located right behind Central Church. The clinic (순천기독진료소) was established in 1960 by Lois F. Linton and is located on the first floor of a Western-style brick home. On the second floor is a small museum with a collection of photographs, letters, and other artificats of and from early missionaries not only to Suncheon but to other cities like Gwangju, Yeosu, Mokpo, and Jeonju. On the third floor is a cozy little apartment with furniture dating to the mid-20th century. I was pleasantly surprised by the museum, and its worth a visit if you're in the area. There isn't much English, though, and I'm sure the trip would have been much more useful could I understand more of the displays. Anyway, when you get there you'll have to first stop into the clinic and ask them to unlock the door.


The clinic and museum, behind Central Church (중앙교회).

The clinic there is one of three related tuberculosis (결핵) care facilities set up in Suncheon by American missionaries. There is also a "rest village" (요양원) a bit east, and the "Lois Village" (보양원) in Haeryong-myeon. You may be able to glean a little more information from the official site, stoptbkorea.com. A couple blocks west of the schools is a care facility called 애양재활원. I haven't been able to find any information online about this at all, and I don't know what it does or what, if any, relation it has to the other care centers in the area. There are a few Western-style buildings on the site, though, although I don't know how old or authentic they are.


A building at a care center (애양재활원) a few blocks west of the three Maesan schools.

While doing a little write-up on Missionary Wilson's House in Gwangju I came across some familiar names. For example, the Reverend Thomas Dwight Linton served as principal of the Honam Theological Seminary from 1973 to 1978. That seminary was formed when the Honam Bible School, the Suncheon Maesan Seminary, and Gwangju Night School merged in 1961, and is known today as Honam Theological University and Seminary. The HTUS campus includes a small hill, on top of which is a cemetary where many early missionaries and their family members are interred. Among those at that cemetary is Eugene Bell, who first arrived in Korea in 1895 and who established the aforementioned Yangdong Church in Mokpo in 1897. His wife died in 1901 and is buried at the Foreigner's Cemetary in Seoul. One hundred years after his arrival in Korea, the EugeneBell Foundation was established to provide medical and developmental assistance to North Korea.

It was founded by Dr. Stephen Linton, great-grandson of Eugene Bell. He has a very sloppy wikipedia page here. His brother, Dr. John Linton, is director of Severance Hospital International Health Care Center at Yonsei University, and is one of the most notable foreigners in the country, if you could even call him a foreigner at this point. There is a little interview with Dr. Linton here, from the Tour2Korea website. [Update, March 11: Thanks to The Marmot's Hole for the tip about an article in the Washington Post on Dr. Linton and his work in North Korea.]

Another group with familial ties to the original settlers that provides assistance to North Korea is Wellspring, a project out of the Western Carolina Presbytery in North Carolina. The "Ruling Elder" is James Linton, another great-grandson of Eugene Bell. The Wellspring homepage says that Mr. Linton's father founded some 165 churches in Korea.

The relative youth of these "old" buildings in Maegok-dong is something that struck me when I first learned about all those buildings on campus, and even back when I visited the Wilson House in Gwangju. These structures date to the early-20th century---the Wilson House to 1920---and are some of the oldest buildings in the region. But all the houses in my grandparents' neighborhood in Pittsburgh are older than these buildings, and I chuckled a little when I realized I was taking pictures of buildings that wouldn't attract the slightest bit of attention back home. That's the way Korea is, and because of wars, invasions, natural disasters, and neglect, it's not uncommon to have family members older than historical sites here. In fact, I'm older than the present-day Nagan-eupseong Folk Village, although there have been different versions of it for 1300 years.

* A lot of the names and dates in this post are based on the timeline. When possible I've tried to check against other online sources. I'm inclined to trust the timeline, although because the romanization and the Western names are a little inconsistent, and some known facts aren't included, we can't be sure that other information is completely accurate.