In 1896, emigrant convert to Christianity founded what became Benicia High School
By Jim Lessenger
REVEREND SAMUEL WEYLER WAS A RUSSIAN-BORN GERMAN JEW WHO IN 1896 became the minister of the Benicia Congregational Church. This is his story.
Born in Kreslau, Russia on July 3, 1863, Weyler was the son of poor and Orthodox Jewish parents. According to later accounts, when 4 years old he attended Talmudic school, where he learned Hebrew. By the time he was 5 he had memorized Leviticus in Hebrew, and at 8 he was taught to read the rabbinical commentaries.
As an Orthodox Jew, Weyler celebrated his Bar Mitzvah at 13 and began to carefully observe the ceremonies of Judaism. The historian Rev. Louis Meyer — part of a 19th-century movement to proselytize Jews and convert them to Christianity — wrote in 1904 of Weyler at that age, “He was a Pharisee, blindly believing and following the teaching of rabbis and parents.”
In his early teens Weyler became a clerk in a local store. Previously, he knew nothing of the principles of Christianity — but, as he would later say, his experience with the Russian Orthodox Church and the persecution of the Jews by the Church and the Russian imperial government soured him on Christianity. Looking for work, his older brother Rudolf journeyed to the small town of Kischineff, in southern Russia, where he became acquainted with Pastor Faltin, an Orthodox priest who had been on a mission to convert Jews in the area.
Rudolf converted and made a public profession of his faith in Christ. Samuel Weyler confronted his brother, and Rudolf, in turn, invited Samuel to investigate Christianity and the life of Jesus. Samuel refused to do so. Subsequently, Rudolf left Russia for the Asylum for Jewish Inquirers and Converts in Neckargroeningen, Wurtemberg, Germany. In 1878 he immigrated to the U.S.
Weyler continued working as a clerk until the end of 1880. At that time the Russian government and the Orthodox Church were engaged in a campaign of pogroms to persecute and eliminate Jews from the country. Leaving his family, Weyler traveled on foot to Germany where he hoped to find work and refuge among other German Jews. Unsuccessful, he made his way to the port of La Havre, France, obtained a Swiss passport and immigrated to the U.S. He arrived in New York City aboard the steamship France and passed through the immigration station at Ellis Island on July 13, 1882. Upon arrival in America, Weyler contacted Rudolf but was told that his brother was in no position to help.
In America, Weyler became a peddler and traveled through the Carolinas, Georgia, Mississippi and Missouri. He imitated the speech of others in an effort to improve his English, and though he continued to observe Judaism, he gradually drifted away as he encountered Protestant churches where he could sit, observe and emulate the speech and songs that he heard. According to Rev. Meyer, Weyler was astonished at the difference between the Protestant churches he attended during his journeys and the Orthodox Church that had persecuted him in Russia.
For two years Weyler made a circuit selling wares from a cart. In Missouri he became ill and was taken in by a Christian family; when he requested something to read he was given a Bible. He read it. Soon after, in 1884, he was baptized a Christian in the local Congregational Church.
After his baptism, Samuel Weyler wrote Rudolf informing him of his conversion. By this time Rudolf had entered the Chicago Theological Seminary and suggested to Samuel that he continue his education to become a minister. Samuel matriculated at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., in 1885. Money quickly became a problem, but Weyler is said to have refused financial help. He was given a room to stay in by one of his professors, T. R. Willard, dean of the Knox faculty, and he was hired to do various jobs such as cataloging the Trowbridge Library. Weyler graduated Knox College in 1888 with a bachelor’s degree and matriculated at the Yale Theological Seminary that fall.
While at Yale, he took steps to become a citizen of the United States. He sailed through divinity school in three years and graduated in 1891. Then he went west.
Weyler traveled first to Pueblo, Colo., as a missionary. Around this time he wrote two publications that sealed his reputation as a scholar. The first, published in 1891, was a long paragraph of biblical commentary titled, “Jesus and the Pharisees.” In it, Weyler’s Talmudic education is evident.
While still in Pueblo, Weyler completed “Paul’s Rabbinic Education,” published the following year in the prestigious Andover Review. Building again on his Talmudic training and the biblical and historical education he received at Knox and Yale, Weyler produced a highly organized and carefully worded argument that Paul was, above all, a highly educated Talmudic scholar and rabbi. Paul’s actions and letters, Weyler argued, should be judged from that point of view.
Weyler was ordained as a minister of the Congregational Church in Denver on March 1, 1892. Soon after he traveled to Buffalo, Wyo, where his commission at the Union Congregational Church started March 1, 1893. He had a congregation of 31 members and a wage of $450 a year.
New to town, he soon stepped into a maelstrom that later became known as the Johnson County War.
The community was not hospitable to ministers. The first minister was dismissed at the end of six months because some of the church members objected to being “preached at in public.” The second minister left town hastily after being hanged in effigy for preaching a sermon against gambling. During the church’s first eight years, seven ministers came and went, and there were long spells during which the church was without one. Then came the Johnson County War, a battle between settlers and established large stock owners. Tensions building up to the war nearly wrecked the Buffalo church, and in 1890 half the membership withdrew and another minister was forced out.
In 1892, Samuel Weyler, described as a “swarthy German Jew,” came into town. According to an anonymous report by one of his contemporaries,
“He was not a man of pre-possessing appearance, but as soon as he began to speak, either in public or private, his hearers forgot all about his small stature and dark complexion. Mr. Weyler did a great deal for this community and for the Congregational Church, having a happy facility of being able to pour oil on troubled waters. He was a great preacher and worthy of a much larger salary and field than this place could offer.”
In 1884 the Buffalo church had 33 members. Miss Mary S. Watkins was the clerk. Weyler traveled to neighboring Big Horn, Wyo., to give sermons. He also set up a new Sunday school, later writing about it in “A New Sunday-School Lesson System,” published in Outlook in 1893. Weyler concentrated on the Bible by breaking up the curriculum into history, literature and doctrine. His organizational skills were immediately recognized and the following year he was appointed moderator of the General Association of Wyoming of the Congregational Church.
In 1896, Weyler answered the call to become the new minister of the Benicia Congregational church. It was a chance for him to escape the bitter winter storms of Wyoming and the equally bitter aftermath of the Johnson County War. It was also a chance to be near San Francisco, the center of culture, industry and religious thought in the West. Benicia church records document that Weyler arrived in the early spring of 1896. The following January, Miss Mary S. Watkins and her older sister-in-law Harriett Watkins also arrived from Wyoming. The two women moved into the parsonage to help Rev. Weyler, who was obviously ill.
Weyler walked into a dire financial situation at the Congregational Church. A careful analysis of records over the 150-year history of the church shows that it was in financial peril for most of its existence. During Weyler’s term an $800 loan came due and the church had no equity. The problem was solved by borrowing $800 from Miss Watkins.
In the summer of 1896, Weyler founded a classical academy that would become Benicia High School. In addition to his services as a minister to the congregation, he taught the academy five days a week. Soon after his arrival, he registered to vote for the first time.
In great demand as a speaker, Weyler capitalized on his unique role as a Jewish Christian minister to give lectures on subjects such as “Judaism and Christianity.” Undoubtedly, these lectures increased his income as well. One advertisement said, “Rev. Samuel Weyler, a Christian Hebrew, will address the men’s rally at the YMCA tomorrow.” He also participated in debates and discussion groups.
Fortunately for Benicia and Weyler, the town was a stop on the frequent and reliable ship service between San Francisco and central California cities of Stockton and Sacramento. Weyler was able to leave rural, frontier Benicia and travel to the city for conferences and meetings on a regular basis. He attended the weekly luncheon of the Congregational Ministers Association and spoke regularly before the Methodists and other denominations.
Among the other speakers making the circuit was Rabbi Jacob Voorsanger of the Temple Emanu-El. From Holland by way of New York, Voorsanger was a self-trained cleric who was so effective that his lack of formal education was overlooked by the superiors on the West Coast.
In February 1895, Voorsanger gave a speech in which he claimed that a Jew who converted to Christianity had lost his character among his own people. He also obliquely claimed that Protestant churches were putting $30,000 per person into the conversion of Jews — heady stuff from a rabbi who had earlier in the year spoken before Presbyterians and impressed them by proclaiming ecumenicalism.
In a speech before the San Francisco Methodist ministerial meeting, Weyler responded that he was the Jew the rabbi had denounced. Weyler was quoted in The Call as saying,
“Rabbi Voorsanger says that each converted Jew has cost the Christian missions $30,000. I am a converted Jew and I never caused any mission 30 cents. On the contrary, Christianity has cost me considerably. I repeatedly refused aid from educational societies during my divinity course at Knox College. During my college course I supported myself by teaching.”
In a Jan. 23, 1898 annotation in the minutes of a heated financial meeting at the Benicia Congregational Church, it is remarked that “Rev. Samuel Weyler was induced to go to Saratoga, Santa Clara County … where he passed peaceably away on February 8, 1898.” He was just 35. His body was returned to Benicia and was buried by the congregation in the city cemetery. Harriet and Mary Watkins continued living in the parsonage until that summer, when they returned to Wyoming.
The Benicia New Era wrote at the time, “Our city mourns, death silences the voice of the beloved pastor.”
The Rev. Samuel Willy, a pioneering California minister, former minister of Benicia’s Congregational Church and a founder of the University of California, wrote a passionate letter to the congregation expressing condolences. He blamed Weyler’s death on overwork, though in fact he probably died of tuberculosis.
Rev. Theodore F. Burnham, pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Vallejo, California, wrote of Weyler in 1902:
“The burial service was a most pathetic scene. This true son of Israel without kindred in the land of his refuge whose aged mother still abodes in Russia, was buried amid cheers, sobs and flowers by a large assembly who felt a personal loss in his removal. He was a most industrious worker, a patient, sweet tempered Christian, a lover of the young, a wise counselor, a devoted pastor, and a scholar of no ordinary attainments. His sermons were up-building. His addresses at conferences, conventions, etc. were marked by thoroughness, thoughtfulness and modesty.”
Rev. Weyler’s brother, Abraham Rudolf Weyler, took a different path. He graduated from Harvard Divinity School and moved to New York City, where he became an anarchist. While supporting himself as a bookkeeper, he wrote dozens of articles supporting anarchism and unions and making arguments against organized religion. He reverted to Judaism, married and died on Jan. 2, 1908.
Dr. Jim Lessenger is a docent at the Benicia Historical Museum and the author, most recently, of “Commanding Officer’s Quarters of the Benicia Arsenal.”
JC Farley says
a great story! Thank you. I really enjoyed this.