spiritual aspects
The Bahá'í's and the Peace Treaty of 1905
During the 1890s and early 1900s, Sarah Farmer firmly established Green Acre as a place dedicated to the study and promotion of peace and the harmony of religions. The Green Acre Conferences, held every summer beginning in 1894, brought together leading writers, educators, philosophers, artists and activists in many fields, including Swami Vivekananda, author Ralph Waldo Trine, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, publisher Charles Brodie Patterson, Charles Proteus Steinmetz, actor Joseph Jefferson, artist Marsden Hartley, and singers Geraldine Farrar, Emma Thursby (in Japan, image below) and Blanche Yurka. The program always carried "Peace" as one of its themes and included lectures on education, anthropology, evolution, nature, sociology, art, music, child study, psychology, the federation of the world, labor, transcendentalism and comparative religion.
The war between Japan and Russia was of great concern to the participants at the 1904 Green Acre Conference. During the closing ceremonies, as the Russo-Japanese conflict raged, the great operatic singer Emma Thursby, in Japanese costume, sang the national anthem of Japan. The audience then rose and sang the national anthem of Russia, lead by Mrs. Mary Burnham Moore, and prayed that the peoples of these two great nations might soon clasp hands in brotherly love and peace.
In 1905, hearing that the signing of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty was to take place at the Portsmouth Shipyard, Sarah Farmer sent notes to the American, Japanese and Russian Embassies, inviting the delegates to a special celebration at Green Acre. President Roosevelt and Russian Ambassador Witte wrote to Sarah Farmer thanking her for the invitation to Green Acre but declined due to schedule conflicts. The Japanese delegation accepted the invitation and visited Green Acre on August 31, 1905. Later that day, Japanese Minister Takahira, Dr. Kahn, and Miss Farmer all addressed over 300 guests on the subject of Peace.
In the picture above, Sarah (seated, holding flag) is shown with the Japanese delegates in front of Ole Bull Cottage at Green Acre. Also pictured at Green Acre on that historic day were Dr. Ali Kuli Kahn (3rd from left), Mr. and Mrs. William Hoehn (third from right and 2nd from left) and Miss Ethel Lawrence (second from right), and Mr. K. Ochiai, Japanese envoy (far right). Photo courtesy of the Portsmouth Atheneum.
Although the only witnesses in the room with Witte and Komura were Asst. Secretary Pierce, Gov. McLane, Portsmouth Mayor Marvin, Adm. Mead commander of the Shipyard, and the commanders of the Dolphin and the Mayflower (the two Navy vessels who had conveyed the diplomats to Portsmouth), Sarah received a visitor pass to be at the Yard that day.
The war between Japan and Russia was of great concern to the participants at the 1904 Green Acre Conference. During the closing ceremonies, as the Russo-Japanese conflict raged, the great operatic singer Emma Thursby, in Japanese costume, sang the national anthem of Japan. The audience then rose and sang the national anthem of Russia, lead by Mrs. Mary Burnham Moore, and prayed that the peoples of these two great nations might soon clasp hands in brotherly love and peace.
In 1905, hearing that the signing of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty was to take place at the Portsmouth Shipyard, Sarah Farmer sent notes to the American, Japanese and Russian Embassies, inviting the delegates to a special celebration at Green Acre. President Roosevelt and Russian Ambassador Witte wrote to Sarah Farmer thanking her for the invitation to Green Acre but declined due to schedule conflicts. The Japanese delegation accepted the invitation and visited Green Acre on August 31, 1905. Later that day, Japanese Minister Takahira, Dr. Kahn, and Miss Farmer all addressed over 300 guests on the subject of Peace.
In the picture above, Sarah (seated, holding flag) is shown with the Japanese delegates in front of Ole Bull Cottage at Green Acre. Also pictured at Green Acre on that historic day were Dr. Ali Kuli Kahn (3rd from left), Mr. and Mrs. William Hoehn (third from right and 2nd from left) and Miss Ethel Lawrence (second from right), and Mr. K. Ochiai, Japanese envoy (far right). Photo courtesy of the Portsmouth Atheneum.
Although the only witnesses in the room with Witte and Komura were Asst. Secretary Pierce, Gov. McLane, Portsmouth Mayor Marvin, Adm. Mead commander of the Shipyard, and the commanders of the Dolphin and the Mayflower (the two Navy vessels who had conveyed the diplomats to Portsmouth), Sarah received a visitor pass to be at the Yard that day.
TEMPLE ISRAEL - JACOB SCHIFF
New Hampshire's citizen diplomacy included the role of Russian-Jewish immigrants in Portsmouth in 1905 who founded Temple Israel that same year. To read more of this history, click here.
ST JOHN'S CHURCH/NORTH CHURCH - REV. Edward warren CLARK
Portsmouth native son Edward Warren Clark found his life's work carrying him back to Portsmouth. In 1904 Americans began a charity to support Japanese widows and orphans of the war. Its chief officer was Portsmouth native Edward Warren Clark, a retired Episcopalian priest and pastor’s son whose brother had been pastor of St. John’s in Portsmouth. Rev. Clark had met the young Komura and Takahira in 1871 when he taught western science at Kai Sei Gakko in Tokyo. Rev. Clark, now an adult and retired from the clergy, had returned to his native city in 1904 where he spoke at North Parish Congregational Church using glass slides about Japan and the Asian crisis to raise charitable funds for the support of widows and orphans created by the war. The North Church bell rings each year for Portsmouth Peace Treaty Day.
christ church - FR. HOTOVITSKY & REV. BRINE
The bell in Christ Episcopal Church (1035 Lafayette Road) in Portsmouth was rescued from the old Christ Church in downtown Portsmouth when the Church burned. A crane was brought in to lift the entire steeple with bell to the ground. The inscription on the bell puts its maker as the McShane Bell Foundry of Baltimore in 1887. Christ Church figured significantly during the Treaty summer. Rev. Charles Brine, pastor of Christ Church in 1905 invited the Russian delegation to attend Sunday services that closely paralleled their own Russian Orthodox services, and who helped organize a joint service of Thanksgiving, after the Treaty was signed, with Episcopal and Russian Orthodox celebrantS. On September 5, 1905 that Service of Thanksgiving was officiated by members of the Russian Orthodox Church in New York, including Father Alexander Hotovitsky, who was later martyred following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and canonized in the Orthodox church. In 2005, NH’s Episcopal Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson (left), presided over a re-enactment of that Service of Thanksgiving and reconsecrated the memorial tablet from the original Christ Church.
