William Francis Lynch:

The United States Expedition to the Holy Land

By John Joseph Hutchins

Introduction

People have been making pilgrimages to the Holy Land for thousands of years. Marco Polo went to Jerusalem in the late 13^th century, Evliya Celebi made two trips to explore the Holy Land in the mid and late 17^th Century, and Englishman Alexander William Kinglake visited Palestine in 1835. Beginning in the nineteenth century, many famous Americans such as Mark Twain, Ross Browne, William Cullen Bryant, and Herman Melville made pilgrimages to the Holy Land for a variety of reasons. Some went to fulfill a sense of adventure in a rugged land. Others were drawn by the idea of walking on ground previously traveled by biblical figures such as Abraham, King David of the Jews, and Jesus of Nazareth. Still others were monetarily motivated with the idea of publishing newspaper accounts of their journeys or even entire travel books.^[1] William Francis Lynch made an expedition to the Holy Land in 1848 and while the reason was complex in nature, it actually is as old as the “Age of Discovery” itself. His trip was motivated by the combination of a unique mid-nineteenth century form of the “Three Gs”: God, Gold, and Glory.

God, Gold, Glory

William Francis Lynch was “an earnest Christian and lover of adventure.”[2] He was a very religious man as evidenced by the overwhelming use of figures, passages, and accounts from the bible, alone with Christianity in his own writing. In 1851 Lynch had the book NAVAL LIFE; OR, OBSERVATIONS AFLOAT AND ON SHORE published. This book gives an excellent account of his early career in the navy. Among the points that are easily identifiable to the reader is Lynches concern for the many non Christian nations he visited. During a visit to Rio de Janeiro, Lynch comments about the contrast in status between the economic classes of Brazil and the low expectations of their slaves:

The unbeliever may ascribe to chance this great disparity of condition; but the Christian, with the eye of faith, recognizes the hand, and in submissive piety, bows to the dispensations of Providence. He feels, he knows, for the records of a Saviour’s life confirm it, that each state has it’s trials and its solace; that the slave less favored, is less accountable, and that it is the high rank and the gifted in intellect, from whom the most will be exacted.^[3]

The extent of Lynch’s religious fervor is seen throughout his book entitled Narrative of the United States’ Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea, published in 1852. Lynch and his party set out aboard the U.S. store-ship “Supply” from the Brooklyn Naval Yard on Friday, November 26, 1847 to explore this region of the Holy Land. As the “Supply” headed out into the harbor towards the “Narrows”, Lynch states that we “…braced our yards to the fresh and favouring breeze, and bade, as God in His mercy might decree, a temporary or a final adieu to our native land.”^[4] Friday was believed to be an unlucky day for seamen to set sail on a journey. Yet Lynch notices the setting sun as beautiful and glorious, “…flattening, widening, and becoming more ruddy and glowing as it descended, sunk at last, like a globe of ruby in a sea of flame.”^[5] He saw this as a sign of good favor upon the trip from God:

I took this as an auspicious omen, although we sailed on Friday, the dreaded day of seamen. Why superstition should select this day as an unlucky one, I cannot conceive. On the sixth day, Friday, God created man and blessed him; and on Friday, the Redeemer died for man’s salvation…As a harbinger of good, therefore, and not of evil, I hailed our departure upon this favored day.^[6]

Lynch and his party spent four months traveling to the Holy Land. After leaving New York Harbor, the "Supply" made its way to the Azores, to Cape St. Vincente in south-western Portugal, to Cape Trafalgar, to Gibraltar, to Port Mahon on the Island of Minorca and on to Smyrna. From Smyrna, the crew went on to Constantinople. They then sailed on to Beirut, Syria. After off-loading supplies at Acre, Lynch with 13 sailors and officers disembarked for their exploratory expedition. They used camels to pull trailers carrying special made metal boats named the Fanny Mason and the Fanny Skinner. They would use these boats during their exploration of the River Jordan and Dead Sea.

On Wednesday, April the fifth, Lynch’s party came around a hill to find the ruins of Khan el Dielil. Across the plain to the south was the castle of Sefurichor or the Dio Cesarea of the Romans. Lynch begins to truly show the importance of God in his life as he writes of this place:

There is a tradition among the Arabs, that Moses married and lived here twenty years. Thence south-east, over a hill, lay Nazareth, but three hours distant from us. How we grieved that our duties prevented us from visiting a place which, with Bethlehem and Calvary, the scenes of the birth, the residence, and the death of the Redeemer, are of most intense interest to the Christian! To the left, almost due east, one hour distant, lay Cana of Galilee.^[7]

Who has not, in thought, accompanied the Saviour to that marriage-feast, and thanked him from his heart, that he should have gladdened with his presence the fleeting festivities of sinful man, and that his first miracle should have been, to all succeeding generations, a lesson of filial love!^[8]

On Tuesday April the eighteenth, Lynch’s exploring party came to the River Jabok (Zerka). This was one of many passages in which Lynch showed his biblical understanding and knowledge as he explained the importance of this spot:

It was here that Jacob wrestled with the angle, at whose touch the sinew of his thigh shrunk up. In commemoration of that event, the Jews, to this day, carefully exclude that sinew from animals they kill for food.^[9]

On Wednesday April the twenty-sixth, as Lynch and his party were exploring the Dead Sea, they were “astonished” to see “…a lofty, round pillar, standing apparently detached from the general mass, at the head of a deep, narrow, and abrupt chasm.”^[10] They pulled for shore and went up to examine this pillar. What they found was a “…pillar to be of solid salt, capped with carbonate of lime, cylindrical in front and pyramidal behind.”^[11] According to many scholars and Holy Land historians, one of Lynch’s primary goals in this expedition was to prove the biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah.^[12] Lynch states:

Seetzen saw this salt mountain in 1806, and says that he never before beheld one so torn and riven; but neither Costigan nor Molyneaux, who were in boats, came farther south on the sea than the peninsula. With regard to this part, therefore, which most probably covers the guilty cities,- “We are the first That ever Burst Into this silent sea.”[13]

Lynch mentions the fact that his guides and local inhabitants had told him about the pillar of salt of which he claims to be skeptical:

The Arabs had told us in vague terms that there was to be found a pillar somewhere upon the shores of the sea; but their statements in all other respects had proved so unsatisfactory, that we could place no reliance upon them.[14]

Yet to Lynch, this discovery could only be the biblical “pillar of salt” mentioned in Genesis 19. 24 - 26:

Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from The LORD out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.^[15]

While meeting with the governor of Acre, Lynch began a conversation which led to a friendship with an Arab nobleman named Sherif Hazza of Mecca, the thirty-third lineal descendent of the Prophet Muhammad. Through this conversation, a much clearer reason for his desire to explore the Holy Land is obvious:

I further added that, with us, I knew he believed in the writings of Moses; and that, with solutions of scientific questions, we hoped to convince the incredulous that Moses was a true prophet.^[16]

Even Lynch’s book, Commerce in the Holy Land is filled with biblical passages and references. This continues a pattern of writing through which Lynch plainly, without question, displays the importance of God and Christianity in his life. In the introduction, Lynch mentions passages from Genesis, chapters 11 – 12 that “…the whole land of “Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of “that land is good, there is bdellium and the onyx “stone.””^[17] Lynch later states that “For the sake of higher ends, it seems to be the purpose of the Almighty, to make Palestine a mart of all nations, and by bringing the forces of the Gentiles to Jerusalem, to send the blessing of Abraham over the earth.”^[18]

Any doubt as to the importance of not only religion, but most importantly Christ in Lynch’s life is challenged by the following statement:

…the Sea of Galilee, basking in the sunlight! Like a mirror it lay embosomed in its rounded and beautiful, but treeless hills. How dear to the Christian are the memories of that lake! The lake of the New Testament! Blessed beyond the nature of its element, it has borne the Son of God upon its surface.^[19]

While there are numerous passages and references to God, religion, and Christianity throughout the writings of Lynch, these few selected references show the depth and influence that Christianity meant to him. It was his belief that “Providence” or God’s will was the guiding force for his life as well as mankind. And while he acknowledged other religions and their beliefs, he did feel that it was the duty of God fearing Christians to convert these peoples through civilizing such backward nations and cultures. One actual manner in which he felt conversions would take place is rather surprising:

In all probability, the Jew is destined to be the first agent in the civilization of the Arab, and the Jewish villages scattered throughout Arabia, may yet initiate the trade which will effect the desired change.^[20]

But regardless of the manner in which Lynch saw the Arabs being “saved” by Christianity or even the Jews, he truly felt that the Arab, Turkish, and all other Muslim races and cultures needed to be changed. Lynch began forming a view of the Muslim religion during his stay in Constantinople awaiting permission and a pass or firman to travel the Holy Land:

If a stranger could be justified in forming an opinion on so grave a subject, founded on the observation of a few weeks, he might be led to conclude, from the universal apathy prevailing around him, that the religion of Muhammed is now in about the same condition as was the Polytheism of Pagan Rome, immediately prior to the introduction of Christianity.^[21]

Lynch also formed a harsh view of how religions, other than Christianity, treat their women. Although he seems to have been well schooled in the Muslim traditions in regard to the role women played in their society, it still seems to have shocked him when he actually saw it first hand:

In this country, from the hovel to the palace, woman is in a state of domestic servitude. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the degradation of the female sex here, in India, and among all barbarous nations. The fact is clearly established, that everywhere, in all nations and among every people, beyond the pale of Christianity, woman is deplorably debased. Christianity has ever expressed the deepest solicitude for the female sex; for the inordinate authority of man over woman, or the undue subjection of the female to the male, tends to the debasement of the morals of each…Woman, whose influence over the heart of man is irresistible, whenever she is debased, revisits her corruption upon man; and thus this pervading influence of the sexes over each other, by a species of mutual contamination, moves from generation to generation in one vicious circle, from which they can only be delivered by the supernatural and refining influence of Christianity.

But in spite of negative Lynch sees in these “barbarous nations”, he still feels that Arabs can be successful Christians. To this possibility he actually shows a warm spot in his heart for them:

At midnight, again heard the bell of the convent of Mar Saba. It was a solace to know that, in a place wild and solitary in itself, yet not remote from us, there were fellow Christians raising their voices in supplication to the Great and Good Being, before whom, in different forms, but with undivided faith, we bow ourselves in worship.^[22]

However, a nineteenth century bias comes out as Lynch compares the Arabs to Native American Indians:

We have often thought that we detected a resemblance, in many respects, between the Arabs and our North American Indians; but we were like those who, at a superficial glance, pronounce a portrait to be an exact similitude of the original, which, on a close inspection, exhibits such traits of difference, that they are astonished at their first impression. The nomadic mode of life, the color of the skin, the prominent check-bones, and the black hair and eyes, present a similarity of appearance which, at first, misleads the observer. By slow degrees, however, traits of character are developed, and peculiarities of manner exhibited, which proclaim a marked and striking difference.^[23]

Lynch goes on to sum up the differences he sees between the North American Indians and the Arabs:

But the greatest distinction of all is, that while the North American savage, except in war or the chase, evinces no forethought whatever, the Arabian is cautious to the extreme of timidity. The one is reckless, the other calculating. The one, when roused, is implacable; the other barters forgiveness of the deepest injuries for a new wife, or her equivalent in money. The Arab, therefore, to the best of my judgment, is as far inferior to the North American Indian as an insatiate love of gold is more ignoble than a spirit of revenge…In the American (Indian) everything proclaims

the savage who has not yet arrived at a state of civilization, in the Arab, everything indicates the civilized man who has returned to the savage state.^[24]

For the most part, Lynch is very negative about the Arabs and the Muslim

religion. Yet for all the negative Lynch sees in the Arabs, he also has a contradictory view as he sees immense hope for these people:

Besides the immense acquisitions of their ancestors by conquest in Asia, they subdued Egypt, and the most fertile provinces of Spain, as well as southern, the northeastern, and northwestern shores of the Mediterranean, and nearly converted that sea into an Arabian lake. The descendants of such a race are worthy of an effort to redeem them, and it is, probably, because they have no settled abode, that they have not been visited by the missionary.^[25]

As final proof as to the importance God played in Lynch’s desire to explore the River Jordan and the Dead Sea , his own words from chapter two of Narrative of the United States’ Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea sum it up best:

…and my previous desire to visit the land of the Iliad, of Alexander and of Caesar, became merged in an insatiate yearning to look upon the country which was the cradle of the human race, and the theatre of the accomplishment of that race’s mysterious destiny; the soil hallowed by the footsteps, fertilized by the blood, and consecrated by the tomb, of the Saviour.^[26]

It is plain to see that God held a special place in William Francis Lynch’s life and that this relationship was a driving force behind his desire to visit, explore, and walk on the holy ground of Palestine. But for as much as Lynch desired to visit the Holy Land, he needed a better reason to convince the United States’ government than just his own God given desire.

A nineteenth century form of seeking “Gold”, or more precisely wealth, was the second motivation behind Lynch’s expedition to the Holy Land. There had to be a good and reasonable expectation of profit or other benefits in order for the United States’ Congress to justify spending taxpayer money in financing a trip like this. The very real possibility of opening up new markets and trade, the potential of discovering untapped natural resources and raw materials, and the possibility of U.S. expansion into the region, may have been enough to convince congress that an exploration expedition into Palestine was worth taking a chance.

In the introduction to his book Commerce and the Holy Land, Lynch makes several statements about the possibility of an abundance of gold in the area. “One thing he has not dwelt upon in the text, which may, to many, be the most attractive feature – the great probability of an abundance of gold lying in the projected route across Arabia.”^[27] Lynch goes even further in discussing gold in the Holy Land:

Rosenmiilar, in his Biblical Botany, states that the ancient Hebrews obtained their gold chiefly from Arabia, and Strabo, quoting Artemidoras, says that a river of Arabia carries gold sand in its stream, and that gold, requiring little purification, is found in small pieces, the smallest of the size of a grain of wheat, the middling as big as a meddler, and the largest like a nut. And Diodorus Siculus declares, that there is found in Arabia pure, native gold, of the size of a chestnut and of a brilliant luster; and speaking of the river alluded to, he says, it conveys gold sand in such abundance, that the silt thrown up on the banks is quite radiant with it.^[28]

It is obvious from these passages that Lynch either truly believed that there was an abundance of gold to be found in the Holy Land, or he was merely putting the possibility of huge gold resources as a way to attract further interest in this area. Regardless of what his intention was, the fact remains that any talk of vast gold resources was surely to bring a great amount of interest in additional exploration and “pilgrimages” to the Holy Land.

Of even greater interest to Lynch than the possibility of gold in the Holy Land was the potential that commerce held:

Without commence, neither science, nor art, nor civilization, nor religion could have spread beyond the boundaries of the places of their birth. But, instead of each hemisphere living in ignorance of the existence of the other, their prospects and their hopes are now intimately blended, and maritime commerce, the offspring of navigation, by increasing the prosperity, has cemented the interests of nations.^[29]

In Commerce and the Holy Land, pages 8 – 37, Lynch writes a splendid history of commerce from “…the very dawn of history…the first commercial adventure upon record, as we read in Genesis…”^[30] to his present time in 1860. Lynch blends God and commerce together to the point where the reader sees them as coexistent and needing each other.

It must be remembered that this was a time before the great canals of Suez and Panama were constructed. Shipping was the main form of commercial transportation and the huge continents of the world required ships to take a long excursion of both time and distance that was required to sail around them. But Lynch saw Palestine and the entire Holy Land as the center and key to worldwide commerce:

It has been well said that it is a land so remarkably situated, that it forms a bridge between two continents, and a gateway to a third. Were the population and wealth of Europe, Asia, and Africa condensed to a single point, Palestine would be the centre of their common gravity and with amazing facilities of modern intercourse and the prodigious extent of modern commerce, who can estimate the commercial grandeur to which a country mat attain, planted, as it were, on the apex of the old world, with its three continents spread out beneath it, having the Red Sea and the

Persian Gulf on one side, to bring it the golden treasures and the spicy harvests of the East, and the Mediterranean floating in on the other, the skill and knowledge and enterprise of the West?^[31]

As Lynch continues in his next paragraph, he again shows his commitment to both God and commerce in his life.

For the sake of higher ends, it seems to be the purpose of the Almighty, to make Palestine a mart of all nations, and by bringing the forces of the Gentiles to Jerusalem, to send the blessing of Abraham over all the earth.

Beyond doubt this is to be, and in the 18^th and closing verses of Isaiah, we seem to be specifically called upon to promote it. We there read of a great maritime power spreading wide its wings, existing somewhere in the Far West from Palestine. This power, accustomed to send messengers by sea is to become interested in behalf of the Jews, and to render them its assistance.^[32]

It is at this point that Lynch sees America’s usefulness and purpose in promoting commerce. He sees America as being called by a higher power, namely God, to be the unifying force that brings the Holy Land together for one purpose. This purpose is the development of trade with the millions of Chinese and potential customers of India and Persia. With the Holy Land situated as the “centre … with amazing facilities of modern intercourse and the prodigious extent of modern commerce…,”^[33] there is a need for fast merchant ships. To this end, Lynch sees America’s opportunity:

We should not only aim to secure marts for our products, but to become, as with our faster-sailing and more energetically-commanded merchant ships we are well fitted to become, the carriers of Europe. As far back as 1836, the Encyclopedia of Geography stated that the trade in Mocha coffee, about 5,000,000 lbs, which, for a long time, was engrossed by the English, had been “monopolized by the active rivalry of the Americans, who, although they paid a higher price for the commodity, bring it to Europe thirty per cent cheaper.”^[34]

With the Holy Land so obvious as the center of commerce, Lynch asked why England selected the port of Kurrachee, a seaport and district of British India in the Sind province of Bombay, to be her “entrepot” of commerce to the East. He felt the logical path would be to disembark at Grane (Kuwait) and then cross Arabia to either Jaffa or El-Arish. This direct line would put them closer to delivery at London or even New York. Lynch speculates an answer to this question that helps show why he was interested in exploring the Holy Land:

Because we know so little of the country between the Mediterranean and the Persia Gulf. Because we have to long looked to sailing vessels to convey their freights around the stormy capes of two continents, with the idea that to break their cargos would be expensive, forgetting that large cargos enrich the termini of a route, while the intermediate space remains impoverished.^[35]

It is obvious that Lynch saw the Holy Land as an undeveloped commercial bonanza. With the correct push and direction, this “cradle of civilization” could be the highway of commerce between the industrial nations, those nations supplying so many of the raw materials, and the nations buying the finished products. Within this, he sees the mission of the United States as not only keeping the development of the Holy Land focused in the right direction, but also to supply the merchant might through commercial shipping and naval protection that makes his idea feasible.

The late 1840s in America were characterized by national expansion. As early as 1803, with the purchase of the Louisiana territory from France, the seeds of expansion can be seen. In 1819, Spain’s minister Luis de Onis characterized the Americans as “arrogant and audacious” people who saw themselves as “superior to all the nations of Europe.”[36] Indeed, after the United States defeated Mexico in the Mexican-American War, the idea of “manifest destiny” drove the nation to expand. The term “manifest destiny” was coined by newspaperman and democratic leader John L. O’Sullivan in the summer of 1845.^[37] Those who pushed for American expansion said that it was “God’s will” for “the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by the Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.”^[38] Manifest destiny can really be divided into two distinct parts: national manifest destiny and international manifest destiny which would happen when America actually when beyond its immediate borders to acquire land.^[39]

The year 1848 was a key moment for manifest destiny. The revolutions that took place during this time period in Europe helped Americans sense that they held a special purpose in the world. France actually adopted a centralized constitution that was partly based on America’s constitution. It seemed to many Americans that democracy and the republican ideals were sweeping across Europe. And there was even consideration of annexing Ireland and Sicily into the United States as revolutionists in those countries requested.^[40] Although neither country was made a part of the United States, just the consideration showed the attitude America had toward expansion. This happened to be the year that Lynch explored the Holy Land.

Expansion through manifest destiny was a form of nineteenth century “Glory” for the United States and part of the third motive of Lynch’s trip to the Holy Land. America was actively involved in expansion and colonization overseas during the time period from the Mexican-American War until the Civil War began. Expansion of the United States, with the American flag flying over many parts of the world, would be glorious to such a young, upstate nation. In the book Naval Life; or, Observations Afloat and on Shore, The Midshipman, Lynch writes “From Sierra Leone we sailed down the coast to our own colony of Liberia, then just founded, where we landed Dr. Ayres, the first agent sent out by the American Colonization Society.”^[41] Just five years after Lynch made his Holy Land expedition, Commodore Matthew C. Perry would open feudal Japan to American commerce by the gunpoint of an American flotilla of warships.^[42]

Lynch seemed to believe that either physical or economic expansion was a way to display American glory. With the use of commerce, America could control the Holy Land region economically. Lynch also believed that an appropriate show of American force, either small or large scale, would surely demonstrate national strength and might. Lynch demonstrated this show of force before a meeting that he had scheduled with the Sultan in Constantinople on February 26. When the “chamberlain in waiting” objected to his sword , Lynch showed his stubborn and prideful side as he refused to put it aside. He said it “was part of my uniform, and that I could not dispense with it.”[43] Lynch eventually succeeded and had the meeting with his sword. This stubborn side to Lynch would prove valuable throughout the expedition and showed those around him his true character.

At the town of Akka, Lynch decided he had to see the consul and governor. When the governor coveted a bribe, Lynch disappointed him:

Assuming a high stand, I told him that we were there not as common travelers, but sent by a great country, and with the sanction of his own government:-that I called upon him to provide us with the means of transportation, for which we would pay liberally, but not extravagantly.[44]

The governor urged Lynch to abandon the trip because it was so dangerous. To this Lynch stated that they would not back down. And when the governor stated that the “Bedawin of the Ghor would eat us up,” Lynch replied “…that they would find us difficult digestion.”[45] Later Lynch talked to the sheikh who was present in the meeting with the governor. During the conversation, Lynch showed him his sword and revolver “with pistol barrels attached near the hilt.” After looking them over, he stated that they were the “devils invention.” To this Lynch remarked:

…that we were fifteen in number, and besides several of those swords and revolvers, had one large gun (a blunderbuss), a rifle, fourteen carbines with bayonets, and twelve bowie-knife pistols, and asked him if he did not think we could descend the Jordan. His reply was, “You will if anybody can.””[46]

It was bold acts and statements like this that showed all who came into contact of the expedition, the strong will of the Americans. Lynch used this brassiness to showcase American power without actually having to use that power.

Another method of showing American glory was the flying of the American flag proudly over this foreign nation of Palestine. On Friday, March 31, Lynch notes that “For the first time, perhaps, without the consular precincts, the American flag has been raised in Palestine. May it be the harbinger of regeneration to a now hapless people!”[47]

Still another manner in which Lynch demonstrated to rival nations of America’s glory was in his ability to do things that nobody had ever been able to do before. An example of this was the actual circumnavigation of the River Jordan and the Dead Sea. Others had tried and failed. But Lynch’s expedition in the metal boats the “Fanny Mason” and the “Fanny Skinner”, with American flag proudly waving, successfully made the dangerous trip. The boats, on wheel-carriages, even made it over the rocky, rugged road that first seemed impossible. Lynch states that this is the same road where:

Wheel-carriages had never crossed it before. In their invasion of Syria, the French transported their guns and gun-carriages (taken apart) on the backs of camels, over the lofty ridges, and mounted them again upon the plain.[48]

Lynch also seems to have desired a personal sense of glory for his own actions in leading this mission to the Holy Land. It was this personal type of glory that seemed to have passed him by. Lynch had served with some of the greatest naval officers of the nineteenth century. Among those he served with are Matthew C. Perry who, as a Commodore, opened up Japan to Western ideas and trade. Another was his good friend and fellow Virginian Matthew Maury to whom he dedicated his book: Naval Life; or, Observations Afloat and on Shore, The Midshipman. It was Maury who discovered where the strong and steady westerly gales were to be found by using ships’ logs to chart trade winds and ocean currents.[49] These two men were very active in the United States Navy and both were making big names of themselves. But Lynch floundered at the rank of Captain from 1829 through his trip to the Holy Land.

Lynch watched his friends and colleagues move ahead of him in rank, prestige, and honor. Lynch and Matthew Fontaine Maury served as fellow officers aboard the U.S.S. Brandywine. But as Maury progressively advanced in rank through the years, Lynch would still be a naval Lieutenant at the time of the expedition. This appears to have become a driving force in his life, a need to keep up with Maury and to make a name for himself. With the support of Maury who by then was the director of the Naval Observatory, Lynch received Secretary Mason’s approval to explore the Dead Sea and its nearby territory. Being a well versed and able writer, Lynch “asked permission to publish a narrative or diary, of course embracing much, necessarily elicited by visiting such interesting scenes that would be unfit for an official paper.”[50] That Lynch would ask to write a book is not surprising. But the haste and speed in which he not only asked permission, but also wrote the book is questionable. He states that “As soon as possible after our return, I handed in my official report, and, at the same time, .asked permission to publish a narrative…”[51] He then states:

Feeling that what may be said on the subject had better be rendered imperfectly by myself than by another, I have necessarily hurried; and the reader will decide whether the narrative which follows was elaborately prepared, or written “currente calamo.”[52]

This leads to the obvious question: Why the great haste to write and publish this book? There were errors in the original publication and “a new and corrected edition” was soon published. Inquisitive minds can only assume that Lynch was concerned that someone else would write an account of this expedition. That would likely take away from his chance and desire to make a name for himself. He needed some way to get his naval career moving ahead, earning promotions. This expedition to the Holy Land, along with his book was the perfect remedy. It should come as no surprise that Lynch was promoted to the rank of commander in 1849, less than a year after his successful trip. This was also the year that his book: Narrative of the United States’ Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea was published.

Conclusion

William Francis Lynch went to the Holy Land for no one single reason. It was a combination of reasons and factors that influenced and led Lynch to think of, apply for, and ultimately make his successful expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea. It was a unique combination of “God, Gold, and Glory” that enabled his “yearnings of twenty years” to be gratified. Twice before he “contemplated making the desired visit.”[53] This desired visit was to the Holy Land, to “the soil hallowed by the footsteps, fertilized by the blood, and consecrated by the tomb, of the saviour.”[54] In Lynch’s own words, God was a major factor in why he chose the Holy Land.

The very real possibility of finding gold, alluded to as being “…pure, native gold, of the size of a chestnut and of a brilliant luster…”[55], helps show how gold played a part in this trip. But even more important was Lynch’s belief and desire that commerce, led by the United States and its merchant fleets would bring great wealth to the nation. This was the form of “Gold” that drove Lynch and was a major factor in his request of making this trip.

The glory of raising the American flag over Palestine, of showing off American might, and of leading Americans as they perform feats no other nation had yet to accomplish was a determining factor in why Lynch choose the Holy Land. Yet a bigger factor was his own personal glory. The chance to write a book that detailed the glory of his successful adventure in a “Holy” wilderness also played a major role in why he chose to go to the Holy Land. And the ability to again move up in status and rank in the Navy was another major factor in why he went to the Holy Land.

Others have questioned why Lynch made this trip. Historian David Finnie makes the assertion that Lynch was an old fashioned pioneer. Finnie wrote about Lynch and stated:

… Like the missionaries, he was a Godly man steeped in fundamentalist doctrine and Old Testament lore. His excessive zeal for showing (literally) the flag was shared by many another American. His self-appointed mission to be explorer of the Jordan and Dead Sea combined pioneering spirit with religious sentiment….What Lynch did could hardly have been attempted or accomplished by a man of any other nationality of his time. Unlike the French, the Russians, or the English, the motives of his government in authorizing the expedition were utterly unpolitical. Lynch simply got a bee in his bonnet, persuaded the Navy to back him, did what he set out to do without fuss, wrote it all up (in a rather ponderous way) and vanished from the scene. William Francis Lynch was pure pioneer.[56]

Author John S. Jenkins suggests that Lynch made his trip to the Holy Land solely for scientific and exploratory reasons. He feels that the only information worthy of print was:

The important results, and the actual information, obtained by the Dead Sea Expedition, may be reduced within a very narrow compass; and the account of it seemed to me appropriately to terminate with the breaking up of the Encampment on the shores of the lake.[57]

But why would the United States government and the Department of the Navy approve this trip during a time of finical cutbacks? Why the Holy Land and not a different area of more strategic value? In the book American Palestine, it is suggested that America “had not yet developed crucial commercial or strategic interests in the region” and it was the “flush of victory against Mexico in 1847” that led to this expedition getting sponsored despite no strategic value.[58] While manifest destiny makes sense in supporting the assumption that Lynch made this trip for Glory, the fact that there was no strategic value in Palestine would suggest that there must have been at least one other reason that this land was chosen.

It could be argued that Lynch made this trip for a purely religious motive. But while that was a very real motive, it can not explain why the United States government would approve the trip. Did the American taxpayers sponsor this trip just to satisfy a religious need of Lynch? Very few people have focused directly on commerce as the reason that Lynch made this trip. And yet this is understandable since the United States did not yet have crucial commercial interests in the region. Yet Lynch’s book Commerce and the Holy Land clearly shows just how important he felt that the Holy Land was to the future development of worldwide economies and that of the United States.

It is clear that not one major factor could have led to the desire, approval, and successful completion of this trip. But by understanding the time period of the trip, it is easy to see how a combination of “God, Gold, and Glory” motivated and inspired the triumphant “United States’ Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea.”