Dr. Hamlin selected the ground on which the college now stands, but the owner, Ahmed Vefik Pasha, Turkish ambassador to Paris, and a famous man in his day, declined to sell. So Dr. Hamlin had to go elsewhere, and examined twenty-two sites. As the best, he selected one above the village of Courouchesmeh, and bought it, but the Turkish notables in the vicinity protested against the erection of a Christian college in their neighbourhood, and the ground remained unoccupied until its sale a few years ago. Meantime Ahmed Vefik Pasha was in need of money, owing tc the failure of the government to provide for his heavy expenses in Paris, and he accepted the offer he had refused before. A permit to build was obtained without mud difficulty, but no sooner was work begun than the police stopped it, strange to say, upon the complaint of France and Russia, whose ambassadors objected to the influence of an American college on the banks of the Bosphorus.
But Dr. Hamlin was not to be deterred in his purpose and in September, 1863, with three professors and foui students, began work in a room of a large house, now the residence of Mr. Heizer, the American vice-consul general which was then used for Christian worship by member of the English and American colonies, and also by the missionaries of the American Board for a theological semi nary. The college remained there for eight years while Dr Hamlin was importuning the government for a permit t( build on his own ground. He became such a nuisance thai Ali Pasha exclaimed one day:
"Will this man Hamlin ever die and stop bothering nn about his everlasting college?"
About that time the late Edwin D. Morgan of New Yorl visited Constantinople and became interested in the embry onic institution. Upon his return to Washington he tolc Mr. Seward, then secretary of state, about the situation The latter sent for the Turkish minister and gave him som< very strong talk. The minister, being impressed W!^h Mr Seward's earnestness, telegraphed the Sublime Porte t( give a building permit to the American college at once **lest it prove a thorny question."
The thorn which he predicted, all unconscious of its own influence or the apprehension it created in the mind of the sultan, appeared in the Bosphorus a few weeks later in the form of that grand old man-of-war Hartford, with Admiral Farragut in command. The admiral was making a cruise around the world, without the slightest political or diplomatic responsibility, but the guilty conscience of the sultan needed no accuser.
Dr. Hamlin's son Alfred, now a professor in Columbia University, New York, was so eager to see an American flagship that he persuaded his father very reluctantly to waste the time, as he then believed, to go on board; and, upon paying his respects to the admiral, he explained who he was and what he was trying to do in Constantinople, and his difficulty about getting a building permit from the Turkish government. Dr. Seropain, an Armenian physician, who understood the situation, was present at the interview, and, knowing that the admiral was to dine with the grand vizier that evening, suggested that he ask his host the simple question:
"Why do you refuse the American college permission to put up its buildings?"
"Please do not say anything more," said Dr. Seropain, "and do not make any comments upon the answer you receive."
A few days later an imperial irade was received authorizing the erection of the necessary buildings for the college. Dr. Hamlin was almost paralyzed, but he soon learned that the Turkish government, putting one thing and another together, imagined that the Hartford had been sent over to enforce the demands of our government in behalf of the
American college, and accepted the situation before it became serious.
The corner stone of the first building was laid on the Fourth of July, 1869, and on the Fourth of July, 1871, it was formally inaugurated in an address by William H. Seward, then on his journey around the world.
Mr. Robert continued to support the institution until his death, when he bequeathed it one fifth of his entire estate, making his benefactions altogether nearly a half million dollars. Since his death the college has had many generous benefactors, and the late John S. Kennedy, who had given a good deal of money before, left it a legacy of nearly $2,000,000 in his will.