The History of the American Colony Hotel Part One - From Chicago to Jerusalem - 1871 to 1881
What is now a renowned, world-class luxury hotel began life as a Christian commune founded by one determined Chicago family - a family whose unswerving faith had borne them through unimaginable personal hardship. From the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 until their arrival in Jerusalem a decade later, follow the saga of the Spafford family and their community of faithful as they lay the groundwork for one of Jerusalem's enduring landmarks.
More than 20 years earlier and a world away, a deeply pious Chicago lawyer named Horatio Spafford underwent the first of many terrible trials in a life nearly defined by them: the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 annihilated much of the city as it raged for three days, wiping out most of Spafford's real estate holdings.
While
such experiences would have felled lesser men, Spafford's firm Christian faith,
aligned with the utopian and millenarian impulses that had gained much traction
among American and European Christians in recent decades, had instilled in him
an unshakable belief in the value of public service, and he directed the
energies of his growing family towards rebuilding the shattered city and
providing for its many newly homeless residents at his house in Lake View, on
the outskirts of the city, which was spared from the fires.
After two years, feeling that his family deserved a rest, Spafford arranged for
a holiday in Europe. When a last-minute business development demanded his
attention, he sent his wife, Anna, and their four young daughters, aged two to 11,
ahead on the luxury steamship Ville du
Havre, planning on meeting them in Europe as soon as his business had been
attended to. But tragedy struck again: as the Ville du Havre steamed across the Atlantic, another ship
accidentally rammed it in the middle of the night, splitting it open and
sinking it within minutes. Out of 273 souls aboard, only 47 survived long
enough to be rescued by a passing ship. Anna Spafford was among them. Her four
daughters were not.
Upon arriving in Paris, a shattered Anna Spafford sent her husband a two-word
telegram: "Saved Alone." Horatio Spafford immediately set sail to
join his wife; as he passed through the area where the Ville du Havre went down, he penned the lyrics to the famous hymn
"It Is Well With My Soul," a declaration of unswerving faith in the
face of unimaginable misery. But the Spaffords' troubles did not end upon their
return to Chicago. Anna gave birth to a son, Horatio, their first, and a
daughter, Bertha, but in 1880, scarcely more than six years after the Ville du Havre tragedy, the Spaffords'
son died of scarlet fever at age four. Unimaginably, the Spaffords' church,
which they had helped found, then turned against them and ejected them from the
congregation. According to the rigidly puritanical tenets of the millenarian
sect to which the Staffords adhered, the tragedies that had befallen the family
could only be divine punishment for private misdeeds, and the congregation
could not abide the presence of those who were so obviously sinners.
Understandably weary of Chicago, the Spaffords cast their eyes toward the Holy
Land, where surely, they believed, the Messiah would soon arrive and sweep away
the last vestiges of a far too cruel world. In August 1881, not long after the
birth of another daughter, Grace, and accompanied by 12 others who had resigned
from the church in protest of the Spaffords' dismissal, the Spaffords arrived
in Jerusalem, and foundations of the American Colony were laid. The group
included a total of 17 people, including children.
The following video contains a series of rare images of the American Colony's history, from Horatio Spafford's original draft of It Is Well With My Soul to pictures of the Colony's members hard at work:
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The History of the American Colony Hotel Part Three - War and Reinvention - 1914 to 1967 | |
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