[Joseon Images] The forgotten buried in foreign land

The U.S.S. Trenton in the mid-1880s / Public domain/Wikipedia

By Robert Neff

Scattered across the Korean Peninsula are a handful of foreign cemeteries. One of the oldest is at Jemulpo (now Incheon) and, although it has been moved several times, it still provides an interesting but fleeting peek into the past.

The tombstone of Francis J. Shearman, Incheon Foreigners' Cemetery, May 2018 / Robert Neff Collection

The first U.S. sailor known to have died and been buried at the Jemulpo Foreign Cemetery is Francis J. Shearman, a 20-year-old sailor aboard the USS Enterprise.

He died on Dec. 6, 1883, while his ship was in port but we know very little about the circumstances surrounding his death.

The hand-written casualty account only lists him as dying. He was obviously well-liked as his shipmates erected a beautiful stone in his memory. The elements and politics have not been kind to this sacred monument but the inscription is still legible: "There's a sweet little Cherub that sits up aloft to keep watch o'er the fate of poor Jack. Sleep well."

Nearby is another ornate tombstone ― from its design one immediately knows it honors a sailor. Charles H. Gray, a 45-year-old Bostonian serving aboard the USS Juniata, died suddenly of paralysis on Aug. 19, 1888.

Charles H. Gray, Incheon Foreigners' Cemetery, May 2018 / Robert Neff Collection

A hometown newspaper reported: "Over his grave his shipmates, among whom he was very popular, erected a handsome tablet and placed about the whole a fence." The fence is long gone as well as any record of him in the known correspondences of Americans residing in Jemulpo at the time.

The USS Baltimore lost two crewmen in the summer of 1894 ― yeoman Reuben A. Fuller and boilermaker James Kelly.

They share a nice stone but, given its starkness and lack of personal information, we can surmise that the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5 probably prevented the Baltimore's crew from placing the stone immediately and it was done later by another ship's crew who had no true connection to the men.

We know nothing about them ― including how they died. The normally dependable pens of gossip in Seoul seemingly ran dry when it came to these two.

Reuben A. Fuller and James Kelly of the USS Baltimore, Incheon Foreigners' Cemetery / Robert Neff Collection

Joseph Timmons, a marine aboard the USS Marion, died at 38 at Jemulpo on Nov. 5, 1885, and is remembered with a stone that lies prone in the grass. Without the stone, even his name would have likely been forgotten.

Some have no stones to mark their passing but they did leave a written past. Ensign Frank Welch Bowden was "born and raised in Palestine, Texas," and was described by his mentor as being a "really able, thoughtful and ambitious" young man with great promise.

In 1875, at the age of 17, he was selected as a naval cadet and upon graduation in 1880 had a couple of postings ― one in the Mediterranean Sea and the other with the Bureau of Navigation in Washington, D.C. In 1883, he was assigned to the USS Trenton which transported the Korean delegation (under Min Yong-ik) to the United States back to Korea.

Bowden's letters home are filled with excitement. Visiting temples in India and Sri Lanka, exploring the lush wilderness where elephants were at home and "a few tigers, snakes, and such like being thrown in to break the monotony."

Marine Joseph Timmons, Incheon Foreigners' Cemetery, May 2018 / Robert Neff Collection

Perhaps even more hair-raising was his account of a sailor who was cleaning the side of the ship as it sailed. The support he was sitting on broke and he fell into the ocean. He started to swim for a nearby buoy and just as he was about to reach it he disappeared suddenly beneath the water's surface and never resurfaced. They believed a shark got him.

Bowden's descriptions of the Koreans aboard the ship are somewhat biased. When the Koreans left for the United States, their "very little knowledge of American history consisted in knowing that there was at one time in America a man named Washington, and from what little they had heard of him, they admired him very much." Ensign George C. Foulk, who escorted the Korean delegation around the United States and was accompanying them to Korea (he would later serve as the American charge d'affaires in Seoul), "helped them to increase their stock of information very much."

Foulk regaled them with stories of the revolutionary war ― which "they listened to with wonder, and were copious in their praise of Washington" ― and taught them about the histories of various countries, from the ancient past to the present. In Bowden's opinion the Korean listeners had become "well-informed men." He went on to add, "Of all the countries, their own, perhaps, excepted, they like America best."

When the ship arrived at Jemulpo, Bowden, like most of the crew, was not allowed much opportunity to visit the port and so his descriptions of Korea lack much depth.

"Some buildings have been erected in the last few years that look something like houses. There is scarcely anything [in Jemulpo] that can be called a house. The [Korean] abodes consist of a few square feet of ground, covered with a kind of grass. These places are usually about ten feet square and four or five feet high. In some cases a hole is dug in the earth and this hole covered over with grass. In the interior of the country the houses are said to be better and the towns larger. There is a superstition among the [Koreans] that they can not prosper on the sea coast."

Bowden was looking forward to visiting China but, unfortunately, he would never have the opportunity. On June 24, just prior to the ship's departure for Nagasaki, he suddenly contracted black (hemorrhagic) measles and died.

"His death was a very sad one," Foulk wrote in a letter to his family. "He was with me in the Library of the Navy Department while I was there, and I therefore knew him particularly well. That he died here was all the sadder, because he was almost decided to resign just before the Trenton left New York, to study law with his brother. He was an earnest, good officer, quiet and well liked. He was very fat, and when the measles fever set in, he could not perspire, the pores having closed up. So he died suddenly of blood poisoning."

General view of Jemulpo Foreigners' Cemetery, May 2018 / Robert Neff Collection

Bowden was buried in the cemetery but without a stone. Fourteen months later, the crew from the USS Marion disinterred his body and took it with them to Nagasaki. What became of it is unclear.

It is said no one truly dies if there are loved ones to remember them. Gravestones and old correspondences help to keep their memories alive but, unfortunately, as time passes and interest wanes, we all truly die.

Robert Neff is a historian and columnist for The Korea Times. He can be reached at robertneff04@gmail.com.