Saddic Family: Generations 1-5

Without accurate records, it is difficult to date the first generation, but we believe George Saddic was born in 1849. If we assume about 25 years between generations, that would place Sorrour and Sears at approximately 1775.

Click on the image to enlarge.

Origins of Little Lebanon in South Philadelphia

Michael G. Farrow, Ph.D.

April 1, 2010

Origins of Immigration

During the time of the Ottomans, the inhabitants of Lebanon agitated, more and more, for some sort of autonomy to run their own affairs. As the Ottoman Empire weakened over its 500 year span, it finally allowed the Lebanese some autonomy in the late 18^th century and more during the early to mid 19^th century. 

The inhabitants, with this autonomy, however, were more restricted in their movement throughout the Empire, being confined now, to the area of the autonomy, i.e., Lebanon. Hence, trading and other means of earning a livelihood became increasingly difficult. There was no religious persecution in the Ottoman Empire like that found in Europe during that time as long as the religious groups paid their taxes and obeyed the laws. But, by the 1870s, the poverty caused by the restriction of movement (the inability to move elsewhere to gain employment or to sell goods or to gain an education), coupled with the exposure the people had to Western ways and thought via the missionaries of the American Protestant College (later, the American University of Beirut, AUB) and their temporary work at the U.S. Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, produced a desire to emigrate to the US (and elsewhere, viz., Brazil, Australia, Canada, and the East Coast of Africa) to make money and then go back home and live a much better life. Unlike other immigrants to America, they were not fleeing religious persecution, nor were they leaving, intending to stay in the USA. (4)

What those immigrants left behind  was a quiet, relatively peaceful life of small villages in an area of Lebanon known for over 1500 years as the Holy Valley (Qadisha Valley; Qadisha is an Aramaic word meaning “holy”) because of its many churches, monasteries, and hermit caves. The valley is drained by the River Ali, which lies at the bottom of a deep gorge, and whose origins are high in the famous cedars of Lebanon.

  

They left a simple village way of life where the men would get up at dawn to fetch kindling in the forests and the woman would begin the preparation of making kibbee, the national dish (similar to a meatloaf) in which the soaked bulgar wheat had to be pulverized in a mortar and pestle. The constant pounding from the many households echoed throughout the village. When they embarked to the New World, they embarked from the Port of Beirut or the port of Tripoli in Northern Lebanon.

Some came via Italy, others via France or England. Prior to the establishment of Ellis Island in 1892, immigrants could land in any US port. In Philadelphia, immigrants landed at the Lazaretto, a dock and station located in Tinicum, PA, south of the city. The Lazaretto was first developed as the Philadelphia Quarantine Hospital in response to the devastating yellow fever of 1893, but in the latter 19^th century, served as the quarantine station for arriving immigrants. The building dates from 1799. A photo of the Lazaretto in 1890, among its last years as a functioning US entry point shows the well tended walkway and lattice work.

In Philadelphia the immigrants beheld a bustling city full of commerce and strange ways. They arrived even before the great tower of Philadelphia’s city hall was completed in 1900.

We can also assume that, like other groups of Lebanese immigrants, the first one from a particular Village sent word and monies back extolling the city in the US where he worked, and others joined him, eventually forming a bonding unit of like peoples who would support each other until each became independent (4). Over time, however, it became apparent to these early immigrants, that making money and trips back and forth to Lebanon, was not what they ultimately wanted. They changed their mind and decided to settle in the US and began bringing over their spouses or marrying within their established community in the US. A few, in those early days, however, went outside of their community seeking marriage, while others did bring their Lebanese spouses from the “old country”.

Settling in Philadelphia 1865-1900

The Lebanese immigrants to Philadelphia tended to settle close to each other in that portion of the city known as South Philadelphia or Moyamensing area (known for the 1839 prison built in the neighborhood). This portion of South Philadelphia was first established in the 1850s for immigrants of the Irish potato famine. Many of the row homes were built in this neighborhood at the time. The Irish were supplanted by the Italians and South Philadelphia became a very large Italian immigrant portion of the city, stretching over many, many city blocks, from the Delaware River and First Street to beyond 15^th street and from Fitzwater south to the Navy Yard and Oregon Avenue. Little Lebanon, about 6 square blocks, was established within this larger framework.

It has also been suggested that, as the immigrants settled in New York City, and quickly occupied all the “peddler” sites, they sought out other cities where their competition would not be so great. Some Lebanese went North to Boston, or Geneva, NY, but others followed the Pennsylvania Railroad and went South to Philadelphia and further followed the rail line towards Detroit, via Altoona, Johnstown, Greensburg, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Akron, Toledo, and Detroit.     

             

Two Protestant Missionaries and the World's Fair

Ours and many other Christian Orthodox Lebanese families began immigrating to the US in the late 19th century. No one knows for sure what prompted the move, but perhaps it was because of the Bicentennial Exposition of 1876 in which word got back to Lebanon that money could be made in Philadelphia. 

Khalil Salloum, was one of the earliest Orthodox immigrants to Philadelphia. His granddaughter, Aileen Sallom Freeman, wrote in her book Jessup (Fosi,Ltd, Paupack, PA 2007 ISBN 978-0-9644199-9-5) (7)  how her grandfather, met the Protestant missionaries, Henry and Samuel Jessup in Lebanon. The Jessup brothers built schools in Lebanon from the 1840s and helped establish the Syrian Protestant School in Beirut, now known as the American University of Beirut. During the 1860s they began establishing schools throughout Lebanon and in particular, established a school in Kousba in 1871 at the request of 40 of the inhabitants. 

  

Through these missionaries, Khallil Yacoub Sallom became acquainted with George Boker, the Minister Resident to the Ottoman Empire who, in great part, was responsible for the Turkish Pavilion at the Philadelphia Cenntennial Exposition of 1876. According to family correspondence, Khalil Salloum wrote, in 1906, that for 30 years (i.e. since 1876), he had travelled back and forth from Lebanon to the US every 6 years, in order to sell Lebanese olive oil, laces and linens in the USA. This would place him in the United States, e.g, Philadelphia, as early as 1876. 

Khalil became an agent of Thomas Cook and Sons, Travel Agents, and by the 1880s, began to accompany small groups of friends and neighbors to the US. In 1887, Khalil Yacoub Salloum received his American Citizenship. Since the Salloums were from the very small village of Kfar Saroun (Farsaroun), which was adjacent to the Village of Kousba, and since he married a woman from the larger Village of Kousba, Barbara Gosen, it is not surprising that virtually all of the Orthodox immigrants to Philadelphia were from the Village of Kousba.  

Here are some interesting family facts that will be expanded on in later posts:

• The Sallom family, Khalil Yacoob Sallom, his wife, Barbara Gosen Sallom, and his older children, Abdulla, Mary, Catherine  settled on South Broad Street in Philadelphia.
• Khalil’s son, Abdulla became a physician as did his daughter, Mary. 
• Mary was the first woman graduate physician of the Woman’s College of Pennsylvania. 
• Her mother, Barbara Gosen Sallom had a sister, Sarah Gosen, who married George Saddic from Kousba. The Gosens were also from Kousba. Although there is no written documentation, it would be possible that the sisters conferred and it was decided that Sarah would follow her sister Barbara to Philadelphia. According to family oral tradition, 
• Sarah’s husband, George Saddic came to the US sometime after the 1889. 
• An Ellis Island document shows a “George Saadeck”, age 45, on a ship passenger list for 1895.

Since the early immigrants came and went back frequently, we cannot be sure if this was George Saddic's  initial voyage. He did, however, settle in Philadelphia with the other immigrants from Kousba but, according to family lore, went to work in Johnstown, PA, to help in the rebuilding of the city after the disastrous flood of 1889. He was asked to stay in the Johnstown by one of its Lebanese inhabitants, a Mr. Salem from Amyoun, Lebanon (a village not far from Kosuba). He, however, decided to go back to Philadelphia. After a short time, he returned to Lebanon and married Sarah Gosen from his village. 

In 1906, George and Sarah settled back in Philadelphia with their children: Haleem, Rhoda, Helen, and Najeeba.  Their fifth child, Toufeet (Theodore), was born in here.   

Connecting the dots to Adam and Eve... Well Almost

Decadency of the Inhabitants of Kousba

The descendants of Adam and Eve up to the Habeeb family were taken from the book, first published in Arabic by Isa Ma’loof of Zahle, Lebanon and translated into English and expanded by George Maloof of Texas (1992).

ADAM ---&---EVE

|

Seth

Enos

Canaan

Mahalaleel

Jared

Enoch

Methuselah

Lamech

NOAH

SHEM

Arphaxad of Chaldea

Salah

Eber

Joktan

Ya’reb, first King in Yemen

Yash-Jeb

‘Abd-ash-shams

Kahlan

Al Azad

Maazen

Tha’laba

Amre al Qays

Al Haareth

Aamer

Amru

Jafna, first Ghassani King in Syria

Abu Bajeela

‘Adi

‘Abd al Min’em

Madlej

Elias

George

Abraham

Moses

Isa

Elias (father of the Saliba Branch)

(missing link)

Hashim Abi Habeeb

Original Settler

Hashim Abi-Habeeb who was the original founder of Kousba from the Habeeb family, had seven sons. Three of the seven left the Village of Kousba. One went to Beirut, Lebanon, where his family is still known by the Habeeb name. Another went to Berj Sofita (Tower of Sofita), an area in Syria adjacent to the northern boundary with Lebanon where his family name still is carried on. The third son died leaving no child.

Habeeb Family Tree beginning in 1540, with Hashim Abi-Habeeb (base of trunk) and including his four sons who remained in Kousba (the four major branches) Farah, Faris, Obeid, and Antonius. The leaves on the tree contain the names of the 1977 generation living at the time the tree was painted. As is the custom in Lebanon, only males are listed on the tree. Females are considered as part of their husband’s family.

Our Homeland - Kousba

HISTORY OF KOUSBA EL-KOURA, LEBANON

Documented by: Michael G. Farrow, Ph.D.
April 25, 2009




View of Kousba El-Koura, Lebanon with the bell tower of SS Sergius and Bacchus, the main Greek Orthodox Church, in the center and the olive orchards in the foreground.


Kousba was founded in the year 1540 AD with the site of the settlement chosen by two families of the Banu-Ghassan (Tribe of Ghassan), the Habeeb and the Moses (Moosa) families. This Arabic tribe originated in the Yeman and migrated northward into southern Syria about the time of the bursting of the Marib dam in Yeman around 300-400 AD. They settled in the Houran area in southern Syria and came to dominate the area, being a tribute kingdom of the Roman Emperor in Constantinople, until the time of the conquest of that part of Syria by the armies of Mohammed about 634 AD. They were the first Arabic tribe to adopt Christianity, adopting the Syrian Orthodox faith, and at one point, became monotheists as were most of the Orthodox population of Syria. They remained in this territory, with some of their tribe families adopting Islam. The Islamic conquest was followed by the Ottoman Turkish conquest of Syria in 1516.

For whatever reason, perhaps due to their exposure to the Sultan’s troops in the barren areas of Syria or as Alexander Maloof reports in his book The Ghassani Legacy, citing Ad Dwayhi, the year 1519 was one of inflation. Many of the tribe sold their flocks due to the the increased value of the livestock. These tribal families began to migrate, some to Lebanon and others to Syria, Jordan, and even Greece. The Habeeb family migrated to central Lebanon, to the mountains for safety. Lebanon derived its name from the Arabic word for yogurt, “Leban” because its mountain peaks were always covered with snow and it reminded the inhabitants of yogurt.


Here in Lebanon, the Habeeb family moved to an area known as the Keserwan (northeast of Beirut, in Mt. Lebanon area) and remained there for about 21 years. From there they moved to an uninhabited area in the county (in Arabic, county = Qadaa’) of Lebanon known as the “Koura”, a Greek word meaning “the place”. This area was north of Keserwan, about 10 miles southeast of the coastal city of Tripoli. Perhaps they migrated there because the Koura was being settled by Orthodox Christians exclusively. In fact, the persecutions of Sultan Sulieman after the Ottoman conquest of Crete in 1645, drove Greek Orthodox Christians to settle in the Koura. This may be how the county received its name. To this day, there are Orthodox customs in Kousba that are not found elsewhere in Lebanon but are, indeed, found in Greece. In addition, the genetic features of people from the Koura resemble those, in many cases, of Greece rather than the rest of Lebanon (particularly the facial features: eyes and rounded noses). Perhaps there was a significant Greek influx followed by intermarriage. Once in the Koura, however, the Habeebs settled at a vacant spot near the Roman ruins of Naous, and called it Kousba, an Aramaic word meaning silver and/or money (Other meanings say that Kousba is derived from the Aramaic word meaning hidden because of its wonderful location among the pine trees (which still grow on the ridge above Kousba); yet others say it is derived from the Arabic word meaning winner). The patron saint of the Ghassanid tribe, from whence these families came, was St. Sergius (“Sarkis” in Arabic and Greek). And so they built a church after their patron and his companion Roman Soldier, Bacchus which stands today in the center of the village, as the main church of the Village. Among the families of the Habeebs are the Azars, Ayoubs, Antonius, Deeb, Farah, Israel, Obeid, and Saba families.

About 100 years after the migration of the Habeeb family, another family, the Ghuson family, also from the Ghassanid tribe, settled in Kousba with their fellow tribesmen. These families can trace their ancestry through the chiefs of the Tribe of Ghassan back to Noah’s son Shem, and on back to Adam and Eve. The Saddic family entered Kousba at a later, undetermined, date. It is not documented, to the knowledge of this author, whether or not the Saddic family may also descend from a branch of the Ghassanid tribe.

Over the centuries, this area proved a safe haven for Christians, both Maronite and Orthodox, due to its rugged terrain with high mountains and very deep valleys, making it almost impossible for an invading army to attack without being first seen well in advance.

History of Our Family

The earliest recorded members of our family were members of the tribe of Ghassan (Arabic: الغساسنة‎) (al-Ghasāsinah, also Banū Ghassān). The Banu Ghassan were a South Arabian tribe which tradition has living in Ma’rib, the capital city of the Sabaean kingdom (in the west of present day Yemen) prior to the 3rd center AD.

Ma’rib was home to a great dam, built by the Sabaeans to capture water from the seasonal monsoon rains, which could then be used to irrigate their crops.  However, at some point in the 3^rd century AD, Ma’rib fell victim to inordinately heavy monsoon rains, occasioning
“…the memorable event immortalized in Islamic literature as ‘the bursting of the great dam’ of Ma’rib.”[1]

With the bursting of the dam, the tribe of Ghassan fled the flooding city of Ma’rib.  The group headed north, eventually settling in the Hawrān region, in what is now the southwest corner of Syria extending into the northwestern corner of modern day Jordan .  Hauran, also Hawran or Houran, (Arabic: حوران‎, Ḥaurān) is a volcanic plateau. The volcanic soils of Hauran made it one of the most fertile regions in Syria.

It was there that the Ghassan’s began an era of their own.[2] Hawrān had been divided between the Nabataeans and Romans until 106 AD, after which it was united under Roman rule and, not long after, its peoples introduced to the Christian religion. (cite Britannica). Tradition tells us that in Hawran, the Ghassanids intermarried with the early Christian Hellenized Romans and Greeks who were living in this region. It is assumed that the Ghassan tribe adopted the religion of Christianity after they reached their new home in the Hawran around the 3^rd Century AD. The tribe became very influential in the region.

[1] Philip K. Hitti, History of the Arabs, revised 10th ed. (1937; repr., New York: Palgrave MacMillian, 2002), 64.
[2] Ibid, 65.

[2] Yasmine Zahran, Ghassan Resurrected (London: Stacey International, 2006), ix.

In 1453, the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet (Mehmet the Conqueror), conquered İstanbul and the Byzantine Empire fell. This was the end of the Middle Ages. The Ottomans soon formed an empire that would continue to exist on three continents until the 19th century. During the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent (1520-1566), the Ottomans had a developed a well functioning state organization, powerful army and was in excellent financial condition. The borders of the Empire extended from the Crimea in the north to Yemen and Sudan in the south, and from Iran and the Caspian Sea in the east to Vienna in the northwest and Spain in the southwest.

Many of the Christians were persecuted in this time of Ottoman expansion. Records show that during the early 1500’s many families of the Ghassan tribe moved to Lebanon others went to Ramallah in Palestine, as well as other places in Jordan and Syria. These families include among many others: Azar, Abdullah, Abboud, Antoon, Boutros, Farah, Habeeb, Maloof, Saddic. Our direct ancestors went to the village of Kousba, in the Koura district of Lebanon.  The first recorded history of our families arriving in Kousba was in 1540.

Koura means “The Place ” in Syriac and Greek. The town of Kousba, in the Koura region had been a place of hiding from Christian persecution for many years. Kousba itself means “hidden” in Syriac.

This area was know to those early Greek Orthodox families because of The Hammatoura Monastery. The monastery had been built around caves carved high in the side of a steep cliff  by monks in the 13^th century.  Access to the monastery is still only by foot up a steep winding path. At the base of the cliff is the Kadisha River. Kadisha means “Holy” in Aramaic.