Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The (Great) Tower of Babel, 1563. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. Some examples of objects in the collection of the seminary in Andover are listed in an 1833 volume, Memoirs of American Missionaries, Formerly Connected with the Society of Inquiry in the Andover Theological Seminary Embracing a History of the Society. One object in particular caught my eye: it was described as a brick, more than a foot square, and about three inches in thickness, supposed to have come from the Tower of Babel. As the catalog has it: "It was dug from one of the mounds on the Euphrates, by a European gentleman traveling in the East. This gentleman presented it to the Rev. Mr. Bardwell, who deposited it in the Museum." [1]
I am guessing this depositor was Horatio Bardwell (1788-1866), A.T.S. class of 1814. He and his wife had been missionaries in Bombay. They were part of the second group to be sent overseas in 1815, following those who went with Gordon Hall, Adoniram Judson, et al, three years earlier. That wife had been the former Rachel Furbush (b. 1786) of Andover -- “a very talented and devoted young lady of the West Parish, where her father had a large farm," according to P.A.'s sister school's newspaper, the Abbot Courant, in a story published long after both Bardwells had died. [2] They had not stayed long in missionary service. They returned to the U.S. in 1821, due to Rachel's poor health, after which the Rev. Dr. Bardwell was appointed a traveling agent (fundraiser) for A.B.C.F.M. He lived at 20 Abbott Street in Andover in a large house built for him and Rachel and the family in the 1832-1834 period, After Gordon Hall’s death in 1826, Bardwell had been urged to return to the mission but he declined. [3] instead he compiled Memoir of Rev. Gordon Hall, first published in 1834 in in Andover by Flagg, Gould and Newman.
As for the Tower of Babel brick, it certainly makes one want to murmur, "And if you believe that, I have a bridge. . ." Anticipating doubt, even way back in 1833, the Society of Inquiry wrote: "In evidence of its genuineness, it may be observed, that it is stamped with what [British linguist] Sir William Jones calls the ‘arrow-headed Persian.’ “ [4] If the brick's whereabouts were known today, I suppose someone could conduct scientific testing to determine its age, but who on God's earth would be able to somehow prove that the Tower of Babel even existed, much less that this was a brick from that structure? Faith is a curious thing.
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1. Society of Inquiry, Memoirs of American Missionaries, Formerly Connected with the Society of Inquiry in the Andover Theological Seminary Embracing a History of the Society, etc. (Boston: Peirce and Parker, 1833), 361.
2. Abbot Courant, Vol. XVI, No. 1, January 1890.
3.Horatio Bardwell, Memoir of Rev. Gordon Hall, A.M.: One of the First Missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, at Bombay (Andover: Flagg, Gould and Newman, 1834), v.
4. Society of Inquiry, 361.
I am guessing this depositor was Horatio Bardwell (1788-1866), A.T.S. class of 1814. He and his wife had been missionaries in Bombay. They were part of the second group to be sent overseas in 1815, following those who went with Gordon Hall, Adoniram Judson, et al, three years earlier. That wife had been the former Rachel Furbush (b. 1786) of Andover -- “a very talented and devoted young lady of the West Parish, where her father had a large farm," according to P.A.'s sister school's newspaper, the Abbot Courant, in a story published long after both Bardwells had died. [2] They had not stayed long in missionary service. They returned to the U.S. in 1821, due to Rachel's poor health, after which the Rev. Dr. Bardwell was appointed a traveling agent (fundraiser) for A.B.C.F.M. He lived at 20 Abbott Street in Andover in a large house built for him and Rachel and the family in the 1832-1834 period, After Gordon Hall’s death in 1826, Bardwell had been urged to return to the mission but he declined. [3] instead he compiled Memoir of Rev. Gordon Hall, first published in 1834 in in Andover by Flagg, Gould and Newman.
As for the Tower of Babel brick, it certainly makes one want to murmur, "And if you believe that, I have a bridge. . ." Anticipating doubt, even way back in 1833, the Society of Inquiry wrote: "In evidence of its genuineness, it may be observed, that it is stamped with what [British linguist] Sir William Jones calls the ‘arrow-headed Persian.’ “ [4] If the brick's whereabouts were known today, I suppose someone could conduct scientific testing to determine its age, but who on God's earth would be able to somehow prove that the Tower of Babel even existed, much less that this was a brick from that structure? Faith is a curious thing.
__________
1. Society of Inquiry, Memoirs of American Missionaries, Formerly Connected with the Society of Inquiry in the Andover Theological Seminary Embracing a History of the Society, etc. (Boston: Peirce and Parker, 1833), 361.
2. Abbot Courant, Vol. XVI, No. 1, January 1890.
3.Horatio Bardwell, Memoir of Rev. Gordon Hall, A.M.: One of the First Missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, at Bombay (Andover: Flagg, Gould and Newman, 1834), v.
4. Society of Inquiry, 361.
From Robert Gordon Latham's The Natural History of the Varieties of Man (London: John Van Voorst, 1850), 522.
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