Francis Dunlap Gamewell
Encyclopedia
Francis Dunlap Gamewell (b. Aug 31, 1857, Camden, SC; d. Aug 14, 1950, Clifton Springs, NY) was a Methodist missionary
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

 in China. He was the Chief of the Fortifications Committee in the Siege of the Legations
Siege of Beijing Legation Quarter
The Siege of the International Legations occurred during the Boxer Rebellion in the Chinese city of Beijing . Nine hundred military personnel and civilians, largely from Europe, Japan, and the United States, and about 2,800 Chinese Christians took refuge in the Beijing Legation Quarter and survived...

 during the Boxer Rebellion
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also called the Boxer Uprising by some historians or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in northern China, was a proto-nationalist movement by the "Righteous Harmony Society" , or "Righteous Fists of Harmony" or "Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists" , in China between...

 in 1900 and was one of the heroes of the siege.

Early life

Frank Gamewell was the son of an inventor and he inherited the aptitude of his father for tinkering and building. During the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 the family moved from Camden to New Jersey. Gamewell aspired to become a civil engineer and studied at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Stephen Van Rensselaer established the Rensselaer School on November 5, 1824 with a letter to the Rev. Dr. Samuel Blatchford, in which van Rensselaer asked Blatchford to serve as the first president. Within the letter he set down several orders of business. He appointed Amos Eaton as the school's...

 and Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

. Due to illness he was unable to complete his studies, but instead attained a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Dickinson College
Dickinson College
Dickinson College is a private, residential liberal arts college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Originally established as a Grammar School in 1773, Dickinson was chartered September 9, 1783, five days after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, making it the first college to be founded in the newly...

. After graduation he joined the American Methodist Episcopal Mission
American Methodist Episcopal Mission
American Methodist Episcopal Mission was an American Methodist missionary society that was involved in sending workers to countries such as China during the late Qing Dynasty.-American Methodist Episcopal Mission in China:...

 and was assigned to Beijing, China – called Peking at that time – as a missionary and the principal of a boys’ school.

He arrived in Beijing in October 1881 and in June 1982 he married Mary Porter, also a Methodist missionary. She was 33 years old with 11 years experience in China. He was 24. The couple never had any children. In 1884, he was reassigned to Chongqing
Chongqing
Chongqing is a major city in Southwest China and one of the five national central cities of China. Administratively, it is one of the PRC's four direct-controlled municipalities , and the only such municipality in inland China.The municipality was created on 14 March 1997, succeeding the...

 as superintendent of the West China Mission. In 1886 a mob attacked the missionary compound, destroyed most of the buildings, and held the missionaries hostage for 16 days. The Gamewell’s and other missionaries finally escaped, returned to the China coast, and subsequently the United States. During his stay in the US, Gamewell received a doctorate degree from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

. In 1889 the couple returned to Beijing and Gamewell became a physics professor at Yenching University
Yenching University
Yenching University was a university in Beijing, China. It integrated three Christian colleges in the city in 1919. Yenching is an alternative name of Beijing - derived from its status as capital of Yan state, one of the seven Warring States from 5th century BC to 3rd century BC.The university...

. Over the next several years he supervised construction of churches and other buildings on the Methodist compound, the largest of many missionary compounds in Beijing

The Boxer Rebellion

In early 1900 an anti-foreign, anti-Christian peasant movement spread northward from Shandong
Shandong
' is a Province located on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese...

 Province taking over control of much of the countryside, burning churches and killing Chinese Christians. The Boxers, as the participants in the movement were called, had substantial support within the Qing dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....

 government and from the Empress Dowager Cixi
Empress Dowager Cixi
Empress Dowager Cixi1 , of the Manchu Yehenara clan, was a powerful and charismatic figure who became the de facto ruler of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China for 47 years from 1861 to her death in 1908....

 in Beijing.

The Gamewells were planning to leave Beijing by train on June 5, 1900 enroute to a furlough
Furlough
In the United States a furlough is a temporary unpaid leave of some employees due to special needs of a company, which may be due to economic conditions at the specific employer or in the economy as a whole...

 in the United States. But the train did not arrive that day or on subsequent days. The Boxers had cut the railroad line to the port of Tianjin
Tianjin
' is a metropolis in northern China and one of the five national central cities of the People's Republic of China. It is governed as a direct-controlled municipality, one of four such designations, and is, thus, under direct administration of the central government...

. The Gamewells were isolated in Beijing with more than 70 other American missionaries. Conditions inside the walls of the city itself became increasingly unsafe for foreigners as Boxers entered the city and menaced foreign establishments. On June 8, all the Protestant American missionaries in Beijing decided to gather in the Methodist compound at which Gamewell was the senior missionary. The Methodist compound was the largest and most defensible of the missionary establishments. It was also near the Legation Quarter where several hundred foreign diplomats and businessmen lived and worked.

The Semi-Siege

The period between June 8 and June 20 is called the “semi-siege” as foreigners in Peking came increasingly under attack by the Boxers. Gamewell organized the defenses for American and British missionaries and several hundred Chinese Christians in the Methodist compound. He asked for and received 20 Marines
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...

 from American Minister (Ambassador) Edwin H. Conger
Edwin H. Conger
Edwin Hurd Conger was an Civil War soldier, lawyer, banker, Iowa congressman, and United States diplomat. As the United States' minister to China during the Boxer Rebellion, Conger, his family, and other western diplomatic legations were under siege in Beijing until rescued by the China Relief...

 to assist him in the defense. The Church was converted into a fortress…”the altar was fenced around with a barricade of boxes of condensed milk, biscuit tins, baskets of household silver, etc” . The missionaries organized themselves into committees. Chinese Christians were conscripted to dig trenches and build stone and barbed wire barricades. It was good training for the siege to come. While the missionaries were fortifying their compound the Boxers were raging through Peking destroying foreign establishments and executing Chinese Christians. Trigger-happy foreign soldiers in the Legation Quarter exacerbated the situation by firing on Chinese demonstrators and mobs and killing many people.

The Siege of the Legations

On June 19, the already ominous situation in Beijing took a turn for the worse when the Chinese government ordered all foreigners to leave the city within 24 hours. Fearing they would be massacred if they left the Legation Quarter, the foreigners decided to defy the order. The next morning the German Minister Baron Clemens von Ketteler was murdered in the streets. Conger ordered all the American missionaries to take refuge in the Legation Quarter and that afternoon they and their Chinese converts abandoned the Methodist Compound and walked to the British Legation where all the foreigners in Beijing were offered sanctuary. The Chinese converts were housed elsewhere in the Legation Quarter. When all had gathered there were about 900 foreigners in all, one half being civilians and the other half soldiers from eight different countries, and about 2,800 Chinese Christians.

The next morning, amidst the chaos of hundreds of people milling around the British Legation, the British Minister Claude Maxwell MacDonald
Claude Maxwell MacDonald
Colonel Sir Claude Maxwell MacDonald GCMG GCVO KCB PC was a British diplomat, best known for his service in China and Japan.-Biography:...

appointed Frank Gamewell as Chief of Staff of the Committee for Fortifications. He gave Gamewell absolute authority to organize the fortification of the British Legation against an anticipated attack by Boxers and the Chinese Army. Gamewell took to the job with alacrity. A British author described him, “G[amewell] is the man of the hour … Already the British Legation, which at the commencement of the siege was utterly undefended by any entrenchments or sandbags, is rapidly being hustled into order by the masterful hand of this missionary … the hard worked man always finds time for everything. It is a wonder.” The members of Gamewell’s fortification committee, missionaries all, were called “the fighting parsons.”

Gamewell wanted thousands of sandbags and American missionary women scoured the Legation Quarter for sewing machines and cloth. Curtains, silks, satins, damasks, and expensive cloth of every kind was cut and sewed by missionary women into bags, filled with dirt, and placed on Gamewell’s barricades. Gamewell spent his days “superintending the filling of sand-bags, the tearing down of houses adjoining our walls that might serve as cover for the enemy, the building of barricades and strengthening of walls from the timbers and bricks so obtained, [and] making loopholes at the proper places for firing through.

Gamewell’s fortifications were needed. Chinese attacks on the Legation Quarter began on June 22 and would continue throughout the 55 days of the siege. He insisted on powerful barricades. At one strong point he had a barricade built eight feet thick, consisting of brick and rubble and earth and capable of withstanding cannon fire.
Gamewell had a new challenge on July 13 when two underground mines exploded beneath the French Legation killing several French soldiers. Gamewell set about digging counter mine trenches ten to twelve feet deep to surround the British Legation. And in preparation for the last extremity he had bombproof shelters built, trenches six feet deep and covered with timbers and two to four feet of sandbags and earth.
Gamewell’s fortifications proved effective. Not a single civilian was killed in the British Legation (although several were killed defending the Legation Quarter) and the siege became less of a battle than a stalemate with only sporadic Chinese attacks. Gamewell was still strengthening his fortifications when an allied expeditionary force raised the siege and rescued the foreigners and Chinese Christians within the Legation Quarter on August 14, 1900.

After the Siege

On August 21, 1900, the Gamewells and other missionaries departed Beijing to return to the United States. Gamewell’s wife, Mary, suffered from anemia and needed medical treatment. Gamewell had with him a letter from Minister Conger which said: “Dear Mr. Gamewell … to your intelligence and untiring effort, more than to any other man, do we owe our preservation.”

Later life

Gamewell was feted in the United States as a hero of the Boxer Rebellion with honorary degrees from Columbia and Syracuse. He was appointed by the Methodist Church as Field Secretary and later Executive Secretary of the Open Door Commission. His wife, Mary, died in 1906. He married again to Mary Ninde (1858–1947) and the couple returned to China as missionaries in 1909. He served 15 years in the position of Secretary of Education of the Methodist Church in China and 12 years as the General Secretary of the China Christian Education Association. He retired to the United States.

Assessment

Frank Gamewell was described during the Siege as “the mildest of men … a stooping figure, very quiet, and rarely speaks.” All the numerous eye-witness accounts of the Boxer Rebellion describe him favorably. He exemplifies what was called "American ingenuity," willing to get his hands dirty—as many were not—in achieving a vital task. He was a master builder and organizer and a quiet but obviously effective leader. He appears never to have had any great success in the missionary endeavor of converting Chinese to Christianity, but rather focused on education, especially science education.
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