Euphrates College
Coordinates: 38 ° 42 ' N , 39 ° 15' E
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The Euphrates College ( Armenian Եփրատ Գոլէճ , Turkish Fırat Koleji ) or Armenienkolleg ( English Armenia College ) was a co-educational institution for higher education in Harput in the Ottoman Empire . The school was founded in 1852 by US missionaries and operated primarily for the Armenian community in the region.
history
In 1852 the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) established a theological seminary in Harput to train clergymen for the Armenian Evangelical Church ; In 1859 it was expanded to become the American Harput Missionary College. To meet the demand for education in English, the school offer was expanded in 1878 and the college renamed Armenia College . After only ten years, the Ottoman authorities pressed for the school name to be changed so that it was now called the Euphrates College. The government of the United States provided US $ 140,000 for the construction of the college, and in 1875 the local residents of Vilâyet Mamuretül-Aziz donated $ 40,000. The college had a hospital and orphanage, as well as a theological seminary and a high school for boys and girls.
During the massacres of the Armenians in 1894–1896 , Muslim- Kurdish neighbors pillaged and plundered the Armenian villages on the Harput plain. The city of Harput was also affected by these attacks in the same month, so that eight of the twelve buildings on the campus of the Euphrates College were burned down.
During the Armenian genocide in 1915, several of the senior faculty members were arrested, tortured and executed. The premises of the college were occupied by the Ottoman military and first used as a training camp, then as a military hospital.
After the founding of the Republic of Turkey under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk , the Euphrates College was finally closed; nothing of its buildings has survived.
President
- Dr. Crosby Wheeler (1878-1893)
- Dr. James Levi Barton (1893-1894)
- Dr. Caleb Frank Gates (1894-1903)
- Rev. Henry H. Riggs (1903-1910)
Faculty
swell
Individual evidence
- ^ Henry H. Riggs, "Days of Tragedy in Armenia: Personal Experiences in Harpoot, 1915-1917," 1997, Michigan.