John Henry and Susan Beers House
John H. Jr. (b. 1873), Florence (b.1875), Grace (b. 1877),
Ethel H. Bliss (b.1880), Ruth (b. 1883), Charles (b.1887)
Gladys House Williams (b.1890)
John Henry and Susan Beers House
John H. Jr. (b. 1873), Florence (b.1875), Grace (b. 1877),
Ethel H. Bliss (b.1880), Ruth (b. 1883), Charles (b.1887)
Gladys House Williams (b.1890)
John Henry House: May 29, 1845 - 1935
Susan Adeline Beers House: Sept 14, 1850 - Sept 22, 1947
Married: Sept. 17, 1872
John H. Jr. (b. 1873)
Florence (b.1875)
Grace (b. 1877),
Ethel H. Bliss (b.1880)
Ruth (b. 1883)
Charles (b.1887)
Gladys H. Williams (b.1890)
See also: Short Bios of Children
Biographies of John Henry House and his founding and involvement with the American Farm School (Thessalanica Agricultural and Industrial Institute) of Thessaloniki, Greece can be found in the books, "A Life for the Balkans" written by Susan Beers House and Joice M.Nankivell and "Stewards of the Land" by Brenda L. Marder.
See also: Photo of John Henry House with son, grandson, and great-grandson.
Founder of American Farm School in Saloniki, 90, Was Honored by Greece.
64 YEARS IN THE BALKANS
Spent Life Teaching Peasants Modern Agriculture - Son Carries on His Work.
Wireless to THE NEW TORK TIMES
ATHENS, April 19.- Dr. John Henry House. missionary and founder of the American Farm School at Saloniki, died there this morning. Dr. House was known throughout the Near East for his various philanthropic and cultural activities.
With Dr. House at his death were his widow and one of his daughters. Miss Ruth House, who has been engaged in work at the American Farm School or several years. He was 90 years old.
Six other children survive: Jonn Henry House Jr., architect, of this city: Miss Grace Bigelow House of South Carolina, Miss Florence House of Teachers College, Columbia University: Mrs. Benjamin B. Bliss of this city, Charles House, who is a visitor here from Saloniki, where he heads the American Farm School, and Mrs. Edward Williams 3d of Woodstock, Vt.
In 1872, the year after he left the Union Theological Seminary. Dr. House went to the Balkans as a Congregational missionary. with him went his bride, the former Adeline Susan Beers of New York. They traveled widely in a region then largely under Turkish influence and Dr. House came to the conclusion that the reason the Balkan peasants, who made up 80 per cent of the population, were always so ready to go to war was that their peacetime lives were almost unendurably poverty-stricken through their ignorance of scientific agriculture.
He decided to make his life work the instruction of these people In the science of "dry farming" in the agricultural methods which we have used on the sagebrush plains of the West. The usual supporters of missionary labors did not take to his plan and thirty years went by be fore he was able to buy a tract of fifty-two acres of desert land near Saloniki, the Thessalonica o! St. Paul. In 1903 he opened the Thessalonica Agricultural and Industrial Institute, or, as it is now generally known, the American Farm School.
The school began with ten orphan boys in a two-room adobe cottage. In 1934 the enrollment was 134 boys. The Greek Government found the graduates so valuable to the country that an act of Parliament in 1930 provided for annual scholarship of $150 each for 100 boys to be trained for four years each. Both Dr. House and his son, Charles L. House, who succeeded him as bead of the school on his retirement In 1910, have been decorated with the Grecian Gold Cross of the Chevalier of the Order of the Saviour.
On May 22, 1933, Dr. House celebrated his ninetieth birthday at the school. He received nine bound volumes of greeting cards, each containing ninety greetings from friends in all parts of the world: and $5,000 was presented to the school in bis name, the sum being made up of gifts in multiples of from 20 cents to $90.
Dr. and Mrs. House have spent sixty-four years in the Balkans. He was a professor and a director of the American College and Theological institute at Samokov, Bulgaria, 1874-01; editor of the Bulgarian paper Zornits, at Constantinople, 1801-02: and from 1894 to 1931 was engaged in evangelistic and educational work in Saloniki.
A native of Painesville. Ohio, a son of John and Jane Electa Moseley House, he received his A. B. In 1868 from Adelbert, College, now Western Reserve University, which made him a Doctor of Divinity In 1884, a Doctor of Laws In 1920. He belonged to the Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Delta Phi fraternities.
The school Dr. House founded is only a few miles from the site of the home of Philip of Macedon, where Aristotle taught Alexander the Great.
In 1902, when Miss Ellen M. Stone was kidnapped by Macedonian bandits. Dr. House spent nine weeks in the mountains making contact with her captors, and finally obtained her release.
John Henry House, Jr. was born July 24, 1873, in Eski, Zaghra, Turkey. His family called him Jack. He graduated from MIT in Massachusetts and was an architect. He was a Major in the U.S.Army during WW I and served in France with the 523rd Engineers. He was also a fine artist as was his wife and several examples of their work are still owned by the family. Julia Tenney Emerson House (1876-1961) graduated from the Boston School of Fine Arts. She also studied Art in Paris, France. They were married on January 10, 1902. They had 3 children, John Carlton (1903 - 1998), Elizabeth Newman (1906 - 1954), and Arthur Emerson (1911 - 1979). Jack served as an officer in the army during WW I. They lived in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, where he died May 18, 1936.
Florence Elizabeth House was born in Samakov, Bulgaria, May 13, 1875. Traveled extensively in Europe prior to coming to be educated in America. Besides living in Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece, she toured England, France, Germany, and Austria. She went to Teacher's College in New York in 1896, graduating in 1899. She then returned to Greece doing private school work until 1901. She returned to the United States and taught elementary school in Englewood, New Jersey. In 1913 she became Supervisor of Elementary Fine & Industrial Arts in Englewood. She attended the school of Phil. And Arts at Columbia University in 1909 and earned her BS from Teachers College at Columbia University in 1915. She then taught as an assistant instructor, instructor, and lecturer in Fine and Industrial Art Education at Teachers College at Columbia University. She retired in 1940, but stayed on as a part time lecturer and instructor. It was her friendship with Eva Lutz Butler that brought together her niece, Jacqueline Williams and Eva's son, Sewall Butler, who married in 1943. Florence never married. On her retirement she moved back to Orient, Long Island, NY, where her family had always maintained a home. She died November 3, 1957. She is buried in Orient.
Grace Bigelow House was born in Samakov, European Turkey (later Bulgaria), July 25, 1877. Partly educated at the Mission School for Girls in Constantinople, she came to Columbia University and after graduation worked for a time at Hampton Institute. In 1904 she became Vice Principal of Penn School, an educational and social service center at St. Helena Island, an outgrowth of the capture of the sea islands, in 1862, it was part of the Port Royal project to educate and train freed slaves. Drawing on her father's work in Macedonia, she encouraged manual arts and practical training in carpentry and agriculture. She wrote poetry - including the school song for the American Farm School in Greece and for Penn School. At her death on January 11, 1965, South Carolina State College paid tribute to her leadership in an experimental teacher training program run at Penn School. Grace never married and she too moved back to Orient, Long Island. She is buried in Orient..
Ethel Adeline House was born December 10, 1880 in Samakov, Bulgaria. She graduated from Lake Erie College and worked in the education field also. She married Benjamin Barrows Bliss on September 17, 1914 in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY. They had three children, Robert (1915 - 1999), Richard (1920 - 1990), Susanne (1922 - 1985) She died Jan 3, 1946 in New York City, NY.
Ruth Eleanor House was born May 7, 1883. She had a BA from Lake Erie College and an MA from Columbia University and was a teacher at the American Farm School (Thessalanica Agricultural and Industrial Institute) from 1906. She kept house for her parents while they were alive. She lived in New York City and Orient and then in Vermont to be near her sister Gladys after Florence and Grace died. Ruth never married. She died on May 22, 1968 in Newbury, VT, and is buried in Orient.
Charles Lucius House was born October 23, 1887 in Samakov, Bulgaria. He graduated from Princeton University in 1909. He married Ann Kellogg in 1923 and returned to Greece to become the Director of American Farm School in Saloniki, Greece. He and Ann were interned by the Germans in Germany during WW II. He and Ann were released in 1944. There is a post card written by Gladys to her daughter Jacqueline saying that Uncle Charlie & Aunt Ann were on the ship "Gripsholm" and would be docking in March of 1944. He retired from the American Farm School in 1957. He died in September 1961 in Orient where he maintained a home, and is buried in Orient. Ann lived to be 100 years old and died in May 1989 in Hightstown, NJ.
Gladys Edwards House was born August 2, 1890 in Samakov, Bulgaria. She was educated in Wirttenburg Germany, at the Whittier School in Massachusetts, and graduated from Wilson College. She could speak Greek, Bulgarian, German, French and English. She was called Turk by her classmates at Whittier because of her background. She married Edward H. WIlliams, III and had four children. (See Edward Williams III page). She maintained a tea and gift shop called the Blink Bonny in Woodstock, VT, where they lived. She died July 11, 1976 in NH and is buried in Woodstock.
Parson John House (1564 - 1630)
In the summer of 1983 while on sabbatical leave in Britain it was possible to learn a few things about our ancestor, Parson John House. Two important items were his place and date of birth, and his probable first parish.
-- Edward H. Williams IVRev. John House was born at Cossington, Leicestershire, some 95 miles northwest of London, in 1564. After study at Cambridge University he was licensed to serve St. James, Egerton 1597, about 17 miles from Canterbury.
He is also said to have been at Ashford, a few miles southeast and ended his years in Eastwell, a few miles east. He was presented to his last parish by Sir Moyle Finch, Lord of the adjacent manor on April 29th, 1603, and died in this pleasant hamlet in 1630 being buried September 9th. His widow's name was Alice, and may have been a second wife.
St. James, Egerton. September 2001. (photos by decendant L Nathan Butler)
The Vicars list shows John House, B.A. as the vicar from 1592 to 1603.
We descend from a younger son Samuel, a seafarer and shipbuilder. Our first record of him is that he sailed from England and landed near Scituate around 1630. Samual married a well-to-do bride from Lavenham, whose father was in cloth-making. Her name was Elizabeth Hammond. Samuel and Elizabeth lived in Barnstable, Cambridge and Scituate Mass. He died there 12 September 1661.
Their son Samuel, Jr. born 1638, married Rebecca Nichols, whose father started one of America's oldest shipyards, and Sam carried on with it after Thomas Nichols died. [an older son] Joseph House, born 1637 married Deborah Combes and moved upstream a little, to Hanover, Mass. They were the parents of the first of a long line of John Houses.
John, Sr. was born 1709 and his wife Rebecca Buker whom he married January 9, 1739/40. She out-lived him and made her home with Lt. John, Jr., a Revolutionary war veteran who for his service had lands in Chesterfield, MA. He died there July 4, 1831, aged 90. His wife is identified as Jane Collier "of Hull" in the Chesterfield, Mass. history of 1962 (pp. 199-202)
John 3d, a blacksmith and farmer, born Hanover, MA 1741, pioneered to the Western Reserve in Ohio with his wife Lydia Rhodes.
John 4th, also a blacksmith and farmer, born Westfield, MA, was barely in his teens when the family moved west by Conestoga wagon. He married Jane Electa Mosely, also from Westfield. They lived in Painesville, Ohio. Their son was Rev. John Henry House, D.D. the missionary to Turkey. He married Susan Adeline Beers, daughter of Rev. Henry Newell Beers and Adeline Bigelow. Among their children was Gladys House Williams, born in Samolkov, Bulgaria, wife of Edward H. Williams, 3rd, and mother of E. H. Williams, IV, Jean A. Williams, G. Jacqueline Williams Butler, and C. Richard Williams
Rev. John House = Alice | Samuel House = Eliz. Hammond Thomas Nichols |---------------------------------| | Joseph House = Deborah Combes Samuel Jr = Rebecca Nichols | John House = Rebecca Buker | John Jr. = Jane Collier | John 3rd = Lydia Rhodes | John 4th = Jane Electa Mosely | John Henry House = Susan Adeline Beers | Gladys House = E.H.Williams III | ------------------------------------------------------ | | | | Edward IV Jean A. Jacqueline C. Richard Williams Butler[ Information about Jane Collier was brought to my attention by Wade Collier who is working on the Collier Family genealogy. Including genealogy of the descendants of Thomas and Susannah Collier, who arrived in Hingham, Mass. in 1635. ]
