![]() ![]() ![]() Where the “Charles Jones” came from has many, but no certain, answers. Solemnly, the preacher baptized him ‘Charles Jones Soon.’” Then he stood and placed his hands on Charlie’s carefully pomaded black hair. The following Sunday, according to Seagrave, “Dressed in his usual double-breasted Prince Albert frock coat, a conspicuous wig on his bald pate, Reverend Ricaud spread a handkerchief on the step before the altar and knelt in prayer. According to Sterling Seagrave, author of The Soong Dynasty, “The whole congregation was riveted by the spectacle of a Celestial bowing at their altar.”Īfterward, Soong told the enthusiastic congregation that he “had found the Savior” and wanted to go back to China as a missionary. Roger Moore, a devout Methodist, who took Soong to Wilmington’s Methodist churches for services.Īt the Fifth Street Church, during the first week in November 1880, Soong heard the powerful preaching of its pastor, Thomas Ricaud, and responded to the altar call at the end of the service. In Wilmington, Gabrielson introduced Soong to Civil War veteran Col. When Gabrielson was transferred to Wilmington to be the captain of the Schuyler Colfax, another Revenue Service ship, Soong followed. But the ship’s captain, Eric Gabrielson, took a liking to him and made him a cabin boy. Treasury Revenue Service (forerunner of the Coast Guard) ship Albert Gallatin. In 1878, after spending time in Indonesia, he traveled to Boston to work at a relative’s shop. Sometime between 18, Charlie Soong was born on Hainan, an island off the southeast coast of China. I learned about that tale a few years ago with lots of help from retired New Hanover County librarian Beverly Tetterton and church historian Sue Hammonds. How Charlie Soong made his way back from Wilmington to China is a story almost as interesting as how he came from China to Wilmington and the Fifth Street Methodist Church. Madam Chiang lived on until 2003, when she died at age 105.Īnother Soong sister, Ching-ling, became Madam Sun Yat-sen, wife of the revolutionary leader recognized as a hero by both Communists and Nationalists. One of them, May-ling, we know as Madam Chiang Kai-shek, wife of the leader of the Nationalist Chinese, Chiang Kai-shek, who after being forced from the mainland in 1949 ruled Taiwan until his death in 1975. Soong is better known as the father of the Soong Sisters. The Celestial, as Americans then referred to Chinese people, became known as Charlie Soong, one of China’s wealthiest and most powerful business and political insiders. ![]() A Chinese convert will be one of the subjects of the solemn right, being probably the first ‘Celestial’ that has ever submitted to the ordinance of Baptism in North Carolina. ![]() On November 7, 1880, a notice in the local Wilmington Star announced an event that led to the creation of a family dynasty that changed the course of Chinese history: “Fifth Street Methodist Church: This morning the ordinance of Baptism will be administered at this church. The small monument, a reflection of its times, tells only a small part of the saga of Charlie Soong and his family. One of his six children, Madam Chiang Kai-shek, whose Christian influence is world-wide, is the wife of China’s devout generalissimo and president. The small granite monument reads: “Charlie Jones Soong, father of the famous Soong family of modern China, was converted to Christianity in the old Fifth Street Methodist Church, which stood on this site. Most people hardly notice a small monument as they walk along Fifth Avenue in Wilmington, North Carolina, and pass by the modestly lovely building of Fifth Avenue Methodist Church.īut if they stopped for just a moment, they would be connected to a little-known but fantastic tale of how an experience of a teenaged Chinese boy on that church site influenced the history of China. ![]()
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