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.