This transcription is of a taped meeting of the Alexander-Crawford Historical Society on May 18, 1982. The speaker was Reed Holmes, author of several books. As with the previous condensations names and other words that could not be transcribed exactly are in italics. Comments, explanations, and additional names are in parentheses, and direct quotes from the tape are in quotation marks. A man's voice was the first on the tape. "Tonight I feel honored and fortunate to be able to introduce our speaker. Mr. Reed Holmes is a world traveler and an author. As Jane said, he has traveled from Missouri to be here tonight with us, but another thing which will endear him to you is the fact that he has strong ties in Jonesport, Maine and hopes to be back there before long. He has written several books. . . . The title of tonight's presentation is ‘Jonesport to Jaffa in 1866, Scandal or Success.. I'm pleased to introduce Mr. Reed Holmes." A condensation of Mr. Holmes' talk follows. "The Forerunners" is the story of George Jones Adams and the 156 people that went with him in 1866 to Jaffa. Most of them were from Jonesport, Indian River and Addison. Some were from New Hampshire, some from other parts of Maine. Why would a group of people from Maine go to what was considered by everyone at that time a land of desolation with no promise left in it. What happened that caused that group of people to fail in their endeavor, or did they? That's still the question. They went to assist in the return of the Jews to their land of promise, Israel. They felt themselves to be part of the fulfillment of prophecy. Mr. Holmes first ran across the story in 1942 when he spent the winter in Jonesport. It seemed that some people didn't want the story told, that there was something about it which was not very complimentary to their ancestors. There were still people living in the Jonesport area who had made that trip in 1866. There were three members of one family who had been children on that journey. One of them was born over there in 1866. Another was twelve years old when they went and the third one was about six. Mr. Holmes spoke first with the eldest, Tressa Kelly. She had a candy store on the main street in Jonespor, and was about 88 years of age. The central figure, no matter who was telling the story - "whether it was Leonard Wilson who was the best story teller in town as they say - I suppose Lawrence Norton is now, but Leonard Wilson was then" - the major character was a man by the name of G. J. Adams. They called him, G. J. "There was one fellow by the name of Tim Drisko who had always tried to tell the rest of the neighbors that he was a charlatan, that he was - he was duping them. And he tried every which way he could including one story which put him off in a field in back of Ball's Hill and he met the devil back there. And the devil said, ‘I got you.' He said, ‘ I'll give you three chances. You name something that I can't do and I'll let you go free.' So he said after some thought, ‘Move Moose Peak Light back up on top of Ball's Hill.' And the devil said, ‘That's easy.' And just like that the lighthouse was up on Ball's Hill. And, he said, ‘You've got two more chances.' And, the second one, he said, ‘Well, would you drain all the water out of the reach clear out to where the lighthouse was. Just drain that whole thing.' And, the devil said, ‘That's easy.' And the first thing he knew there were fish flopping on the bottom of what was ocean, and Tim was getting worried. And, then he had an inspiration. He said, ‘Mr. Devil, you show me a bigger liar than G. J. Adams.' And, the devil said, ‘You're free. You're free.' And, Tim was telling this in the midst of a church meeting, a prayer meeting, no less. Trying to get the people to understand what was going on. He was supported by George Drisko, the editor- journalist at the paper over here in Machias. He was supported by a number of others, but still people were going to go with this G. J. Adams, George Jones Adams." Who was G. J. Adams? Some people said his eyes were set so close together he could look down the neck of a Johnson's Liniment bottle without squinting. George Drisko didn't like G. J. Adams. He published the following description of G. J. in the "Machias Union." "G. J. Adams is of medium size, black curly hair, sharp dark eyes, intellectual forehead, Roman nose, lips that shut tight as a clamshell, showing great earnest if not absolute obstinacy. His countenance is Jewish and he claims to have a little Irish blood in his veins. He has an exceedingly glib tongue, and his quotations from the Holy Writ are always on hand. He appears to be some years older than Adam, hale and hearty and ready for any emergency." A Mr. Bradbury described Mrs. Adams. "Mrs. Adams is quite fat, very fair and has seen some 45 summers. Her face is oval. Her neck is short, bust, full as a prima donna's. Her eyes, dark blue and sharp. Her voice, pleasing. Her tongue exceedingly voluble and her command of language great. When not excited or angered by opposition, her conversation in intelligent, lady-like, and quite agreeable. But, oppose her peculiar doctrines and you stir up a hornet's nest at once. Her appearance is not so lady-like, and her tongue runs like a pepper-mill." G. J. Adams was born in New Jersey in 1811. He was one of the Adams family who was very prominent in the development of the United States. Very little is known about his early life, but there is reasonable certainty that he was indulged by a doting widowed mother who probably fed his ego as she struggled to feed his body. He had at least one sister, Mercy, and possibly one other who became a Mrs. Stevens of Newark, New Jersey. I mention Mercy because some of you may be familiar with the Garden Theater and the name Tom Lynn. Tom Lynn and George Adams were friends, and Tom Lynn married George Adams' sister, Mercy. G. J. Adams grew less than other boys his age, and made up for it by being feisty and quick to anger. He learned early that an adversary could be subdued by words as well as by fists. As a young man, when his integrity was under attack, he fought with sarcasm and invective. Soon after he had completed his apprenticeship as a tailor he responded to the evangelism of Wesleyan revivalists, and was soon charming the multitudes as a Methodist preacher. He spoke in rented halls and theaters in the largest cities in the country, filling them to capacity. He had a flair for dramatics that helped him with his preaching. He really wanted to be an actor. A theatrical producer in Boston by the name of Purdy heard Adams preach and was impressed by the way he could spiel off the scriptures by heart, and move the audience from tears to laughter and back to tears again. Purdy needed a drawing card for Shakespear's Richard the Third and he approached Adams and Adams was delighted. He did very well, until the cast wanted to go out and celebrate. Adams couldn't handle liquor, and he became roaring drunk. There is no doubt that he was an early alcoholic. They could not get him away from the bottle once he got onto it. And, so the play became very, very interesting. They kicked him out after nine days. His wife finally sobered him up. He went back to tailoring, which is what he had been apprenticed as. Then the Mormons came to town. More from curiosity than anything else, he went to hear what they had to say and he was spell bound by their stories. He was baptized. He was ordained and was soon preaching. He said "I try to preach from three to five times each week and work with my own hands to support my wife and my son besides." Joseph Smith, the Mormon leader, was very much disturbed about his feeling that the Jews would shortly go back to Palestine from all over the world. He wanted a man named Orson Hyde to go over there to see what the situation was, and to dedicate land on the Mount of Olives for the return of the Jews. Orson Hyde went to New York City which was then George Adams' home, and George Adams was completely enthralled by the story that Orson Hyde told him. When Orson Hyde left New York to go to Jerusalem, he took George Adams with him. George Adams didn't go the full way. He went as far as England, and the Mormon Church administrators in England decided they wanted to keep this spell binder. And so he stayed there and Orson Hyde went on to Jerusalem. Eventually Adams came back. Today there is memorial garden on the Mount of Olives in honor of Orson Hyde's visit. Then Joseph Smith was killed by an assassin, and Orson Hyde went west with Brigham Young. Joseph Smith's assassination was the end of the world for Adams, and G. J. did what he had done before. He got roaring drunk. And for almost 20 years, he went back and forth between preaching and acting, and always having a fuss with the local editors. That was especially true with Springfield, Massachusetts. They very nearly ran him out of town. Sam Bowles was the editor of the Springfield Republican. G. J. seemed to be making a go of it but he got so fed up with Sam Bowles that he got drunk again. But, this time after he sobered up, he really went on the wagon. This was in 1861 and he decided to fashion his own church which he called the Church of the Messiah. He went to Maine. There he founded the headquarters of his Church of the Messiah. He moved down the coast preaching until he got to Indian River and Jonesport and Addison. Nobody responded to his preaching like the people there and within a few months he had congregations all over the place, and especially in those three towns. He started a newspaper, and in that paper, The Sordid Truth, he started telling them about the return of the Jews to Palestine, that the Messiah would shortly come, and that the whole thing needed somebody there to help. And in 1865, Abe McKenzie, the leading merchant and postmaster of Indian River, and G. J. Adams went to Palestine to scout out land, just like Joshua and Caleb did when they were sent by Moses. They even called themselves Joshua and Caleb. They came back, and where everybody else was saying this was a land of desolation with no opportunity at all, they said there was all kinds of opportunity. They said it would be the beginning and they would be at the foundation of this, and would apply the leverage that will help to bring the Jewish people back to reestablish Israel. That's what they proceeded to try to do. By the next year they had a ship and supplies ready, and in August of 1866, they boarded the Nellie Chapin which was built at Addison Point. They put prefab houses on board the Nellie Chapin and lumber from Whitneyville, and set sail to Jaffa. The Sultan of Turkey wouldn't allow them to purchase the land right off, so they were forced to camp on the beach. Mr. Holmes showed a photograph of the group camped on the beach in September of 1866, showing G. J. Adams under an umbrella speaking to the group. The picture showed a horse that they brought with them, and a yawl boat from Indian River, and some of the doors that would go on their houses. They finally built their community five minutes walk inland. They built over twenty houses and established a remarkable agricultural settlement. They farmed the area around to the north and to the east of Jaffa. They introduced potatoes, and flowers like hollyhocks. G. J. Adams was the brain in back of this, but he didn't have enough business sense. Abe McKenzie should have been there, but he was going to go the next year with another ship and another 100 people. He was lining up an export-import business so that they would take lobsters and sardines from Jonesport over to Jaffa and Jerusalem. They were building a second ship that would carry lumber for them from Whitneyville and that second ship was to be in coastal traffic along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. The colony itself failed. They ran into many difficulties including polluted water. Nineteen of the 157 people, many of them children, died within the first six months. Add homesickness. Add the fact that when these Americans came in, everybody raised their prices. These people went over with an average amount of money of approximately $500.00. Adams, himself, had invested about $5000.00 in the venture, and then borrowed another two to three thousand dollars which as things began to fail, he couldn't repay. And, his creditors began to hound him. And, he couldn't get any sympathy or help. What did he do? He got drunk every day. And, he and his wife got into a tiff that broke out into the street and his feet of clay began to show. And, most of the people came home. Over twenty of them stayed, however. A macadam road surface was being put down from Jaffa to Jerusalem in 1868. Some of the Maine people worked on that road and a Yankee, Rolla Floyd, drove the first carriage with the first pay-load from Jaffa to Jerusalem. He became the founder of modern tourism and tourism is the leading industry in Israel today. The Burns brothers built a nine story hotel. If the people had only waited a year or two, they would have been amazed, because that colony became a hotel center for thousands. And, their three story building that they left was the first hotel in that hotel center. When the railroad was built from Jerusalem to Jaffa the station was put across the street from the colony. G. J. Adams said before they left Jonesport, "One of these days where we are going to build will become the commercial center of modern Israel." What's the city that is just north of Jaffa? Tel Aviv. And on the land across the street from the colony, there's a railroad station, and the beginning of modern Tel Aviv. From 1867 until now, most of the offspring of the families who returned to America have lived under a sense of embarrassment and chagrin. They have felt that their forefathers were duped by a charlatan, but it's not so. The Jaffa colony was probably both a success and a scam. The venture of G. J. Adams and all that followed him to Jaffa cannot be counted as little people. They were indeed the forerunners of modern Israel. Fourteen of the houses that the people from Jonesport built are still there, although they are in such bad repair that nobody can live in them.