Mohammed Ali Bhamrahad, Peddler

When Mohammed was born (August 1, 1892), the countries we know today didn't exist. During the Ottoman rule "Syria" was the name of a region that was otherwise known as the Levant. The word "Syria" did not depict any separate entity/state but a geographical area the same way we use today the words "Western Europe", or "Far East". Lebanon was in the region of Syria but it was a semi-autonomous mutasarrifiyya (like a country) which was established in 1860. The leader of Lebanon was chosen by European nations and it was off-limits for the Turkish army.

When France took over the (Syrian) region, there were actually 6 countries: the state of Aleppo, state of Damascus, Jabal el druze, Alexandretta, Allawite state and Greater Lebanon. Some of the five other regions were annexed by Lebanon.

Toward the end of the mandate, Alexandretta got annexed by Turkey, Lebanon gained full independence, and the other four were merged together into a new country that adopted the name "Syria".

Lebanon has always been a de facto separate entity since the 1500s even if many historic maps don't show it; France simply decided to put it on paper and make it official.
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Mohammed Allay Bomrad was born near Beirut (?) in Damascus, Syria in 1892. He arrived in the Edinburg, North Dakota area in 1915, using that town as his mailing address while he traveled around Walsh, Pembina and Cavalier counties, selling his wares and working on farms during the busy seasons.

As a country peddler, he first made his route with a sack on his back selling notions, toiletries, dress goods, medicines, jewelry and other essentials.

In 1917, he bought his first horse. In 1922, his "one hoss shay" was replaced with a wagon when he bought a second horse, making a team - Bud and Biada, which he treated with utmost care. When talked sharply to them, he would say: "I'm talking Irish."

He wasn't "fussy" about where he slept - hay stacks, hay lofts - but later, when he was better known, he would find lodging and a bite to eat at some farm homes. For a number of years, he frequently stayed at the Sigurdson home west of Gardar.

Although he was thrifty, he was known for his kindness and generosity. During the flu epidemic of 1918, he spent weeks helping farmers who were victims of the "flu bug," never mentioning pay. He loaned money, trusted his customers when they were unable to pay. He sent much money to relatives in Syria and retained his Islamic faith by reading publications. He made regular trips to Vang on election days to mark his "X" as he had received his citizenship papers in Cavalier County. He stated it was a privilege for an American to vote.

"The Syrian Muslim, Mohammed Ali Bhamrahad...He lived among the Icelanders in America his entire life. He was
quite a legend and a very sweet man." - Janet Muldoon.  [Photo taken west of Mountain, ND and up the hill on the
Pembina Escarpment, also known as Schroeder Hill, on the Swanson farm, rural Cavalier County, North Dakota]

Although he had enjoyed good health, he had been the victim of several accidents, runaways and once losing all his wares when his horses stepped off a bridge crossing a flooded area.

While all his material possessions could be contained in his wagon, he stated his wealth was immeasurable. His unfailing health permitted him to be amid the beauties of nature, the joy of music and most of all - the hundreds of friends he had acquired while living in this country.

Eventually he retired to Canada where he expected to enter a nursing home among relatives. He passed away in February 1989 at age 97.

Walhalla Chautauqua

Among the most beautiful summer resorts is Walhalla, "The Garden of the Gods." Here nature has been particularly lavish in spreading her charms. Here every summer the Chautauqua Assemblies are held in the far-famed Mager Grove, which is almost encircled in the embrace of the Pembina River.

Chautauqua Auditorium in Walhalla, ND (circa 1920).

The delightful shade of the tall stately trees, the running spring water, and the carpet of green, makes this an ideal place for rest and recreation. Here visitors find bathing facilities, either in deep water or along a shallow beach, where even the smallest children are perfectly safe. A motor boat makes regular trips up the river to accommodate those who enjoy boating through the ever-changing charms of the beautiful Pembina. An abundance of row boats are also kept, and these are rented at nominal rental to visitors.

William Jennings Bryan spoke here on July 4th, 1918.

Within easy distance are many interesting spots—the State Park, which is cared for by the state appropriation, is only a scant quarter mile from the Chautauqua grounds. A half mile in another direction brings one to the Cemeteries with the Martyrs' grave and monument. The monument was erected in memorial of three missionaries who were murdered by the Sioux Indians in 1852. Visitors often make side trips to the Mennonite village, six miles to the north into Canada, and to old Fish Tray, eight miles to the west, where the magnificent Canyon of Pembina, a mile wide and five hundred feet deep, leaves a picture impressed on the mind that time can never efface. The Walhalla Chautauqua draws a large patronage from Canada, as well as from the state. Many of the visitors bring their own tents and cooking facilities. As the Chautauqua is in session for several weeks, a most enjoyable time is assured.

- North Dakota of Today (1919)

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The Rev. Allen O. Birchenough, pastor of the Pembina and Jolliette, ND [Methodist] churches, preached at the Walhalla Chautauqua on Sunday, July 2, to an audience estimated at 2,000. His sermon is receiving high praise.

- Northwestern Christian Advocate, Volume 64 (1916)

The Perils of Rev. Appleby

Rev. Appleby circa 1890
Photographer: W. H. Stalee 
[Minnesota Historical Society]

From the records left behind, it's clear that life could be difficult in the late 1800's on the frontiers, including here in Minnesota.  Even for pioneers of the Christian churches.  As with any group, there were good and bad 'men of the cloth'.

St. Vincent was fortunate to have one of the good ones.  After working with Ojibwa groups in the region, he was assigned to our parish.

During his time in St. Vincent, there were many practical difficulties he had to contend with...

St. Vincent's Mission, which is in charge of the Rev. H.M.V. Appleby, is the most northern in the United States.  It covers one county in Minnesota, one in Dakota, and has three outside stations involving journeys of thirty-four and forty-six miles respectively.  The difficulties met with by one traversing the region reminds one of the perils of St. Paul.  "Our work is most fatiguing, both in winter and summer;" observes the missionary, "Three times in my experience has my horse sunk through the ice and both myself and he been nearly lost.  At different times I have been lost all night, and once my horse rolled down the embankment at the end of a bridge, plunging us both into the river, though without injury.  Five times I have been nearly lost in open boat and canoe."  

Yet, notwithstanding all this, the personal inconvenience is greatly outweighed by the warm welcome, earnest inquiries after the Truth, and the deep regrets at having been so long deprived of the Church's service.  Two new churches are needed immediately in northern Dakota, pressing debts of $1,300.00 burden the mission in Minnesota, and for all the sum of $3,000.00 is needed by Bishop Whipple and the Rev. Appleby, in order that this important work be not abandoned. - Report on Minnesota, May 29, 1886 [The Churchman, Volume 53]

His impact was felt for years after he left, and is reflected in this article...

The Venerable Archdeacon  Appleby¹ assisted at the service, and his well remembered face, and soft English voice, that, for so many years, was, each succeeding Sabbath, listened to from the pulpit, will never be forgotten by his old parishioners.  Here it was that he and his Christian lady reared their interesting family; he knows every one of us, and his worth is known after he has left us. - Excerpt from article concerning Christ Church Harvest Festival, held December 4, 1891 [St. Vincent New Era²]

¹ - Thomas Henry Montague Villiers Appleby, Episcopal clergyman, b. in Regent's Park, Eng., Oct 28, 1843; was educated as a physician and priest in England; came to America in 1866; was rector in St. Vincent, Minn., 1881-1888; was appointed archdeacon of Minnesota in 1888, and of North Dakota in 1898; and general superintendent of Indian missions 1900, residing in Duluth...

While serving in St. Vincent's Christ Church, he also served in the capacity of Kittson County probate judge...

² - William Deacon, who owned and published the St. Vincent New Era until 1913 (after which the DeFrance family took over...), died in 1920 at age 83. Mr. Deacon was many things to St. Vincent, as well as being great grandfather to Margaret "Toots" Ryan, my grandmother's neighbor and good friend - Sources include The Fourth Estate [August 21, 1920]; Ryan Family page [Red River Valley website]

Early Church Ministries: Catholic

The Sisters of the Propagation of the Faith began working in Pembina, in the mid 19th century...

1856 - These sisters, seven in number, conduct an English, French, and Indian school, and by their knowledge of the languages used by different tribes they are particularly qualified for the instruction of persons of their own sex and of children. They have one hundred pupils in their schools. They receive boarders at the rate of $30.00 for six months. These sisters intend, as soon as circumstances permit, to extend their charitable labors to the sick.

1859 - This new order of sisters has been established especially for the instruction of children amongst the numerous half-breeds and the Indian tribes in the northern part of the diocese, as soon as their means will permit. They have now charge of St. Francis Xavier's Academy at Pembina, on the Red River of the North, Dacotah Territory.

From: A history of the Catholic church within the limits of the United States: from the first attempted colonization to the present time, Volume 4, by John Gilmary Shea

Even into the 1870's, St. Vincent Catholics were being ministered to by priests coming from St. Boniface...

In September, 1818, William Edge arrived at Pembina from Fort Garry to help construct a school as part of the St. Francis Xavier Mission. A log cabin was built adjacent to the first log church and served as the schoolhouse for many years...

From: The Challenge of the Prairie: Life and Times of Red River Pioneers by Hiram M. Drache

Church in a Saloon

Presbyterian Church, Pembina, N.D.
(Circa 1900-1909) - Photo Courtesy:
State Historical Society of North Dakota

Before there was a Presbyterian Church in Pembina, a Presbyterian minister held services in what many would consider a highly unusual place - a local saloon.  However, I think Jesus would approve - he always did like going to where the regular people hung out...

Christ Church Revisited

At this point, Christ Church was still considered a Mission...

In 1971, attempts were made to preserve Christ Church, the Episcopal church in St. Vincent. 

QUESTION:  If Christ Church was bought, restored, and donated to the St. Vincent Historical Society, how did it get back into private hands, the situation it is in today?  Some possible answers follow the article below, which documents the 1971 preservation efforts...

Pembina Methodist Church(es)

Built in early 1900's, burned down in 1937
I was checking out the State Archives of North Dakota's Digital Horizons online archives the other day, and came across these two photos of two churches in Pembina. The first one is the first Methodist church built in Pembina in the early 1900's.

Grace Episcopal Church, built 1886 - later repurposed as
Pembina Pioneer Memorial United Methodist Church

The second one was originally built as Grace Episcopal Church, and later re-purposed as a Methodist church. In 1994, Myrtle Hart of Pembina submitted the paperwork that successfully got the church listed on the National Registry of Historic Places.

From the submitted form comes this invaluable history of the church...

Brethren Revisited

I grew up around the Brethren and have written about them before. I knew them as the Plymouth Brethren, but I recently learned they actually go by Exclusive Brethren. For the most part, they are good people. They may not be like you or I, but they are good people. Like many from my area, I lived with them, went to school with them, played with them, shopped with them. Really not that unusual for any of us. Some in my own family were Brethren themselves in the past, I have learned. Others worked and broke bread with them.

I also have known some who left the Brethren, and each one had their own reasons. Their leaving took great courage because it meant cutting all ties to their families. It wasn't until I came across the group called PEEBS (which if I remember correctly is an acronym standing for People Escaping Exclusive Brethren) that I fully realized the magnitude of their actions and the consequences thereof. Each individual's story is unique of course, but they all have certain things in common.

WikiPEEBia is a website that...

...endeavors to investigate and report the Truth behind the Exclusive Brethren, a group of so-called Christians, and by so doing, help break the chains and break down the barriers that prevent us from seeing our families, friends and loved ones, trapped in what many are calling a bona fide Cult.

Our mission is to educate the media and help those who have left and those who wish to leave a vicious regime that is causing increasing concern world-wide.

Unbeknownst to me (and I'm sure most non-Brethren) - until now - was that at one time, the head of the entire Brethren (world-wide) was from our own neck-of-the-woods, a man by the name of James Symington.

According to PEEBS:

James H Symington - (1914-1987)

James Harvey Symington (JHS) was born to Lyle and Ida (Hughes) Symington on the 28th of August, 1913. He was a Neche, North Dakota, (USA) farmer. He was one of 11 children and was a grandson of Harvey and Louisa Hughes, who hosted the first brethren meeting in North Dakota in a building on their farm.

The family farm was on the wind-swept prairie two and a half miles from Neche. Young James rode a horse to and from town each day to complete a high school education. His theological foundation derived solely from his own studies of the bible and the ministry published by the brethren. He had no other post-secondary education.

Mr. Symington became leader of the brethren as a consequence of a number of fortuitous circumstances. James Taylor Junior died suddenly while the aftermath of the Aberdeen incident was still rippling through the brethren community. Many prominent brothers had been withdrawn from. Several had been summarily ejected in the parking lot of the Nostrand Avenue meeting room in New York by Mr. Taylor. Other prominent figures were variously out of favor. The two Hales brothers, John and Bruce, had recently been withdrawn from. It is not clear whether they had been restored before Mr. Taylor died. In the meantime, JHS had come unequivocally to the support of JT Jr, accepting Mr. Taylor's accounts of the incident without question. 

His loyalty was rewarded more quickly than he could possibly have expected. Mr. Symington's tenure as leader of the brethren was longer than any other twentieth century leader save James Taylor Senior.

It is said among the brethren that JT Jr "cast his cloak" upon JHS before he died, alluding to an Old Testament story of the selection of a successor by a dying prophet.

The Symington ministry is contained in a set of light brown volumes.

JHS developed the idea that the principal leader should approve all significant decisions. He exercised enormous control, approving weddings, permitting or not permitting people to re-locate, and determining who should be "shut up" or withdrawn from. Note that these decisions were ostensibly made locally, but local leaders were encouraged to seek approval from Mr. Symington. The Neche telephone exchange was expanded because of the volume of telephone calls to Mr. Symington.

JHS prophesied that computers "used for gain" were evil. (The phrase "used for gain" is apparently the loophole whereby the current leadership is allowed to use computers to operate the organization's publishing business.) While JT Jr had tolerated post-secondary education, JHS strongly discouraged it. Towards the end of his life, he actively suppressed any discussion that found value in higher education.

Mr. Symington invented the idea that grown family members should be more dependent on their local brethren than on their families. When a person visited a city where a sibling happened to live, such as while attending special meetings or for some other approved reason, they were often denied the simple pleasure of staying overnight in the sibling's home. Any such visit had to be approved by Mr. Symington and approval depended on the political fortunes of the requestor. Although there is no scriptural basis for this practice, Mr. Symington felt that there were parallels in the treatment of Moabites by the children of Israel and over time, the brethren began to refer to their out-of-town relatives as their Moabites.

One of the principle tenets of brethren doctrine is the belief that these are the "last days". While JT Jr and John Hales each predicted that the Lord would return during their lifetimes, JHS appears to have been a bit less bold. One correspondent recalls hearing him say in 1980 that he did not believe babies born that year would see five years.

JHS assigned meetings to divisions and sub-divisions. All meetings in a division became part of an "interchange".

JHS turned the fellowship into a cash machine, receiving an estimated US$1.5 million per year in brethren contributions. Non-brethren in Neche reported monthly invasions of busloads of brethren who would come to Neche from all over the world to hear the latest Symington ministry. At one point the Internal Revenue Service sent auditors to Neche to investigate possible tax evasion, but no charges were brought.

James Symington died in 1987. At his death he was blind from adult-onset diabetes. He was buried in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the closest meeting to Rochester, Minnesota, where he was being treated at the Mayo Clinic at the time of his death. The brethren had acquired a kidney dialysis machine for him. After his death it was donated to the hospital in nearby Cavalier, North Dakota.

Trivia: Garrison Keillor was raised in the Plymouth Brethren church in Minnesota; an interesting article about that, has Garrison sharing about his faith...