Robert Samuel Maclay

Robert Samuel Maclay, D.D. (; Pinyin: Mài Lìhé; Foochow Romanized: Măh Lé-huò; February 7, 1824 - August 18, 1907) was an American missionary who made pioneer contributions to the Methodist Episcopal missions in China, Japan and Korea. He served as the first president of Aoyama Gakuin University.

Life

Early life Robert Samuel Maclay was born on February 7, 1824, in Concord, Pennsylvania, one of nine children. His parents, Robert Maclay and Arabella Erwin Maclay, ran a tanning business in the local community. His father, a respected member of the Democratic Party, was raised up in the Presbyterian faith but became actively involved in the Methodist Episcopal Church, dedicating himself to spreading the Gospel, his mother an immigrant from the north of Ireland who shared her husband's religious devotion.

Maclay entered Dickinson College in the fall of 1841 and was elected into the Belles Lettres Society. On July 10, 1850, Maclay and Henrietta Caroline Sperry were married in Hong Kong by Bishop George Smith. The newly wedded couple returned on August 14 to the mission field in Fuzhou, and the next year they had their first child Eleanor Henrietta Maclay. The Maclays had five sons and three daughters in total, four of whom died at a young age.

While in China Maclay published two books: Life Among the Chinese with Characteristic Sketches and Incidents of Missionary Operations and Prospects in China (1861) and an Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Foochow Dialect that he completed with Rev. Caleb Cook Baldwin (1870).

(Original from the New York Public Library) (Original from the University of California) (Original from Harvard University)

Missionary work in Japan and Korea In 1871, Maclay returned to the United States and was appointed superintendent of the newly founded mission in Japan. Maclay arrived in Yokohama on June 12, 1873, and immediately set about learning the Japanese language and seeking converts. He became an integral part of the Wesleyan mission in Japan, helping to found and serve as first president of the Anglo-Japanese College (now the Aoyama Gakuin) in Tokyo. While serving in Japan, Maclay was asked to travel to Korea to survey the possibility of a Methodist mission there. In June, 1884, Maclay made a brief visit to Seoul, where he acquired the permission of the king to begin medical and educational mission work. He declined leadership of the mission, though, and returned to Yokohama.

Retirement Maclay retired from the mission field in 1887 and returned to San Fernando in California. He became the dean of the Maclay School of Theology (named for his brother Senator Charles Maclay), and spent the rest of his life as an educator. Maclay died on August 18, 1907, in Los Angeles, California.

Family life Maclay had been married twice. On July 10, 1850, he was married to Henrietta Caroline Sperry in Hong Kong; on June 6, 1882, he was married secondly to Sarah Ann Barr in San Francisco. There were no children out of his second marriage. His youngest son Edgar Stanton Maclay (1863–1919) was a historian. His brother Charles Maclay was a state senator of California. His nephews included Judge Robert Maclay Widney, a founder of the University of Southern California, and Dr. Joseph Widney, the second president of the University of Southern California.