Harrison Gray Otis Dwight

Background

Harrison Gray Otis Dwight was born on November 22, 1803 at Conway, Massachusetts, United States. He was the son of Seth and Hannah (Strong) Dwight.

Education

Soon after his birth the family moved to Utica, New York, in the schools of which town Dwight secured his early education. He attended the academies in Fairfield and Utica in preparation for college, and in 1821 entered Hamilton College, graduating in the spring of 1825. In the fall of the same year he entered Andover Theological Seminary, Massachusetts, where he took the full three years’ course in preparation for foreign missionary service.

Career

Dwight secured appointment under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and spent the ensuing fifteen months as agent of the Board traveling among the churches.

On July 13, 1829, at Great Barrington, Massachusetts, he was ordained to the ministry.

On January 21 Harrison and his wife set sail from Boston on their journey eastward to Turkey. They arrived at Malta on February 27, and leaving his wife there for a time, on March 17 Dwight took ship for Smyrna in company with Dr. Eli Smith, an American Board missionary, to gather information about the Armenians in the interior of Asia Minor with a view to the opening of mission stations. Traveling on horseback, in Turkish costumes, they made a memorable journey of 2, 400 miles, going as far as the Caucasus and northwestern Persia. They returned by way of Constantinople, arriving at Malta on July 2, 1831. The results of this important venture in missionary exploration were published by the two authors in 1833 in two volumes entitled Researches of Rev. Eli Smith and Rev. H. G. O. Dwight in Armenia.

In May of the following year (1834), Dwight with his wife and an infant son left Malta to take up permanent residence in Constantinople, at first in a suburb and then in Stamboul, the Turkish city proper.

For nearly thirty years his special office was that of “missionary to the Armenians, ” of whom there were about a hundred thousand in Constantinople.

He wrote a geography with special reference to Turkey, several tracts, and many articles in the Avedaper (Messenger), which he edited after 1854 and worked on various translations. In English, in addition to his share in the Researches, he wrote Memoir of Elisabeth R. Dwight (1840), Christianity Revived in the East (1850, reissued in London in 1854 under the title Christianity in Turkey), and prepared a catalogue of Armenian literature for the Journal of the American Oriental Society (1853). He sought and held interviews with inquirers, gave lectures on theology, preached frequently, helped in the organization of schools and churches. He made several tours of preliminary investigation for his mission, and many tours of inspection.

In the summer of 1833 he sailed around the Sea of Marmora, and in the summer of 1834 journeyed into European Turkey. He visited Nicomedia often and aided in the work there. In 1837 Mrs. Dwight and John, one of their four sons, succumbed to plague. Dwight returned the following year to America.

Dwight made a tour of all the stations which had been established by the Board in Turkish and Persian areas, and then returned to America, where he journeyed among the churches on behalf of the Turkish Mission.

Achievements

• Dwight was one of the first American students of the Armenian language. He was the chief founder of the Armenian Evangelical Church in Turkey.

Works

More photos

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  • Missionary Researches in Armenia: Including a Journey through Asia Minor, and into Georgia and Persia, with a Visit to the Nestorian and Chaldean ... (Cambridge Library Collection - Archaeology)

    (The American missionaries Eli Smith (1801-57) and Harriso...)

  • Researches of the Rev. E. Smith and Rev. H.G.O. Dwight in Armenia: Including a Journey Through Asia Minor, and Into Georgia and Persia, with a Visit ... Christians of Oormiah and Salmas, Volume 2

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Memoir of Mrs. Elizabeth B. Dwight: Including an Account of the Plague of 1837

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Christianity in Turkey: A Narrative of the Protestant Reformation in the Armenian Church

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • Christianity Revived in the East, or, A Narrative of the Work of God Among the Armenians of Turkey

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

Religion

In his fifteenth year, Dwight was “hopefully converted” in a religious revival at Utica, and became a member of the local Presbyterian church.

Connections

Dwight married Elizabeth, daughter of Joshua and Ruth Barker of North Andover. During his stay in Washington, D. C. , he met Mary Lane of Sturbridge who became his bride on April 16, 1839, and who returned with him to Constantinople in the autumn of the same year. Five children, one of whom was Henry Otis Dwight, were born of this union; four of them survived the death of their mother on November 16, 1860.

Father:

Seth Dwight

Mother:

Hannah (Strong) Dwight

Spouse:

Mary Lane

Spouse:

Elizabeth Barker

Son:

Henry Otis Dwight