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Description
“Eromanga [Erromango] - Martyrs’ Memorial Church to John Williams and Harris, Mr. and Mrs. G. Gordon and J. D. Gordon." Portrait of an unknown group of New Hebrideans [Vanuatuans] in front of the two-storey wooden church at Dillon’s Bay. The building has pointed arch windows and doors and decorative eaves. John Williams (1796-1839) was commissioned by the London Missionary Society in 1816, and active in the South Pacific. In 1839, while visiting a part of the New Hebrides where he was unknown, Williams and his fellow missionary James Harris were killed on the island of Eromanga during an attempt to bring them the Gospel. George N. Gordon (1822-1861) was a Presbyterian Canadian missionary who arrived on the island in 1857. In 1861 sandalwood traders intentionally exposed the natives to measles. Two children of one of the island's chiefs had died in Gordon’s care. Blaming him for their deaths, the chief and a group of warriors killed both George and his wife, Ellen, in 1861. His brother, James D. Gordon (1832-1871), sailed to Eromanga in 1864. In 1871 he was killed for reasons that are still unclear. Ten years later the church building was dedicated.
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