William Scott Ament (Chinese Names: 梅子明 and 梅威良 Mei Wei Liang;http://www.errchina.com/pdf/5_From_Morrison_to_Stuart.pdf ; 14 September 1851 – 6 January 1909 in San Francisco) was a missionary to China for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) from 1877, and was known as the "Father of Christian Endeavor in China."Porter, 353. Ament became prominent as a result of his activism during the Boxer Uprising and controversial in its aftermath because of the personal attacks on him by American writer Mark Twain for his collection of punitive indemnities from northern Chinese villages."The Rev. Dr. William S. Ament", The New York Times (8 January 1909).
Biographical details William Scott Ament was born of Dutch and French Huguenot ancestry on 14 September 1851 in Owosso, Michigan, the eldest son of Winfield Scott Ament ( – 1865),"Egbert Family History. Section F: Related Families: Pierre Perrine Family"; http://freepages.family.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~emty/Section_F_Pierre_Perrine_Family.html; Shiawassee, MI 1850 Federal Census, INDEX File 1 of 5, http://ftp.us-census.org/pub/usgenweb/census/mi/shiawassee/1850/indx-a-c.txt. Retrieved 2 April 2009. an ironworker, and Emily Hammond Ament (born 3 May 1818; married 4 September 1848; died April 1908 in Oberlin, Ohio),Shiawassee County, Michigan Dibean Marriage Index; http://files.usgwarchives.net/mi/shiawassee/vitals/marriages/dbn-nov-a-am-2006.txt and the younger brother of Claribel Ament Leggat (born in Owosso, Michigan; died 1881 in Butte, Montana).Claribel was married to John Leggat (1832–1902), an investor in mining, and mother of Alexander J. Leggat (1876–1961), a mining engineer in Butte, Montana. She died giving birth to her daughter, also named Claribel Ament Leggat; http://montanahistorywiki.pbwiki.com/Mining-in-Montana. Retrieved 2 April 2009; Porter, 14; Florence Bentz Penfield, The Genealogy of the Descendants of Samuel Penfield (Harris Press, ca. 1964): 157; ; Porter, 68; "Alexander Leggat Collection, 1864–1964"; https://www.lib.montana.edu/collect/spcoll/findaid/0781.html. Retrieved 2 April 2009.
Spiritual background At the age of twelve, Will Ament became a member of the Congregational church (now the Owosso First Congregational Church United Church of Christ) at Owosso, Michigan, which had been organised on 18 January 1853."A Brief History" (22 May 2008); http://www.fccucc.com/index.php?Itemid=62&id=47&option=com_content&view=article. Retrieved 1 April 2009. About the time of his father's death, when he was 14, Ament had a deeper spiritual experience as a result of a religious revival in his home church.Porter, 21. While studying at Oberlin Academy, Ament underwent "a new and deep spiritual impulse" and transferred his church membership to the Second Congregational Church at Oberlin, Ohio.Porter, 22; "Members of Charles G. Finney's Congregational Church formed the Second Congregational Church in Oberlin in 1860. They met in the College Chapel until the Second Congregational Church was completed in 1870. The building could hold 1605 people. In 1920, the First and Second Congregational Churches were reunited. The steeple was removed in 1929 and the building served as Wright Zoology Laboratory until 1959, when it was razed. The Conservatory of Music now occupies the site." http://omp.ohiolink.edu/OMP/NewDetails?oid=585595&fieldname=place&results=9&sort=thedate&searchstatus=1&hits=55&searchmark=0&searchstring=Oberlin+(Ohio)&searchtype=kw&format=cat&count=30. Retrieved 1 April 2009. According to Porter, "From that time on he was hearty, aggressive and fearless in meeting those who opposed Christianity, and made the service of Christ the chief thing of life."Porter, 22.
Education Ament attended the Owosso High School, and upon graduation enrolled in the Oberlin Academy in Oberlin, Ohio, a preparatory school, in the fall of 1867.SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY General Catalogue of Oberlin College 1833–1908: Including an Account of the Principal Events in the History of the College, with Illustrations of the College Buildings. (Oberlin, OH: Oberlin College, 1 April 1909):19. Two years later he enrolled at Oberlin College. Ament was "the second boy to go from here [Owosso] to college and the first to graduate." While at Oberlin College, Ament was influenced by the example of Oberlin's recently retired president, revivalist Charles Grandison Finney. Ament had to work his way through college. While studying at Oberlin College, Ament became the supervisor (principal) of the Richfield Central high school at Richfield, OhioPorter, 28; Akron Beacon Journal (29 November 1873):4 (column 3); http://ascpl.lib.oh.us/internetresources/sc/ABJSub/1873.pdf . Retrieved 1 April 2009. (since the early 1950s, Revere High School).
After graduation from Oberlin College in 1873,"Peking Congregationalists", The New York Times (7 July 1900): 6 Ament attended the Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan, New York for three years from 1873.Prentiss, George Lewis, The Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York : historical and biographical sketches of its first fifty years (New York : Anson D.F. Randolph, 1889):110.;https://archive.org/download/uniontheological00prenrich/uniontheological00prenrich.pdf. Retrieved 2 April 2009; In Memoriam William Scott Ament, 1851–1909: Memorial Addresses, Tungchou, 1909, 47pp. David Shavit, The United States in Asia, 6–7. While at Union Seminary, Ament taught at nights, and later was a tutor to the son of a rich man.Porter, 29. On Sundays, he taught a class of boys in the mission school on the corner of Elizabeth and Broome Streets.Porter, 29–30. In 1876 Ament transferred to Andover Theological Seminary, where he graduated in the early summer of 1877 with a Bachelor of Divinity (B.D.) degree.In Memoriam William Scott Ament, 1851–1909: Memorial Addresses, Tungchou, 1909, 47pp.
Call to missionary service As Ament's education advanced, his heart settled itself upon China as his field of service.Mission Studies: Woman's Work in Foreign Lands 29–30 (Woman's Board of Missions of the Interior of the Congregational Church, 1911): 253. While studying at Andover, Ament formally applied to the ABCFM for appointment to foreign missionary service under their auspices on 4 November 1876.
Marriage and ordination (1877) On 23 August 1877, Ament married Mary Alice Penfield (born 4 July 1856 in Oberlin, Ohio; died April 1928 in Columbus, Ohio), an 1875 Bachelor of Arts graduate in literature of Oberlin College,Oberlin Catalogue:757; https://archive.org/download/generalcatalogue00oberrich/generalcatalogue00oberrich.pdf and the daughter of Professor Charles Henry Penfield (born 7 January 1826 at Alden, New York; died 11 May 1891 at Cleveland, Ohio), who had taught Greek and Latin at Oberlin College (1846–1870),Oberlin Catalogue (1909):168; https://archive.org/download/generalcatalogue00oberrich/generalcatalogue00oberrich.pdf and his first wife, Margaret Gertrude Wyett (born 14 December 1824 in London, England; married 25 April 1850; died 15 April 1861 at Oberlin, Ohio);http://www.penfield.fm/genealogy/wc01/wc01_143.html. Retrieved 2 April 2009; Oberlin Catalogue (1909):184; https://archive.org/download/generalcatalogue00oberrich/generalcatalogue00oberrich.pdf; Porter, 34; Archie Crouch, Christianity in China, 646; Florence Bentz Penfield, The Genealogy of the Descendants of Samuel Penfield: With a Supplement of Dr. Levi Buckingham Line, and the Gridley, Dwight, Burlingham, Dewey, and Pyncheon Collateral Lines (Harris Press, 1963):157; http://www.penfield.fm/genealogy/wc01/wc01_144.html; Dictionary of American Biography 1:241; Thornton Bigelow Penfield and Sarah Ingraham Penfield, Letters from Jamaica: 1858–1866, ed. Charles G. Gosselink (Silver Bay, NY: Boat House Books, 2005):16, 30.
Ament was ordained as a missionary in the Owosso Congregational church on 5 September 1877 under the direction of pastor Rev. Lucius O. Lee, who eventually resigned in 1880 to go to Turkey, and who later became President of the Central Turkey Theological Seminary at Maraş, Turkey.Porter, 11, 34."A Brief History", 22 May 2008; The New York Times (20 April 1909):2; https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1909/04/20/101035026.pdf. Retrieved 2 April 2009; "FAMINE IS ACUTE IN MASSACRE ZONE", The New York Times (6 May 1909): 6; https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1909/05/06/101879762.pdf. Retrieved 2 April 2009.
Ministry (1877–1909)
First missionary term in China (1877–1885) The Aments departed for China from Oakland, California on 17 October 1877 on the steamer China. After an eleven-week journey, they eventually arrived in Peking (now Beijing), China.Porter, 36, 39.
Paotingfu (1878–1880) Ament served as a Congregational missionary at the North China Mission in Paotingfu (now Baoding), the then capital of Zhili province, China, (about 137 kilometres south of Beijing) from 1877 to 1880.Porter, 37. At that time there were about 100,000 residents, of whom 22,000 were beggars. Severe famine in the region resulted in their focus on famine relief.POrter, 40–41.
While serving in Paotingfu, the Aments had their first child, Margaret (born November 1879), who died just after her birth.
Peking (1880–1885) Due to Mary's continued illness, the Aments transferred to Beijing in 1880, where they served until late 1885. Additionally, Ament was the editor of the North China News,Twain, p.1031, n. 458.7 and The North China Church Times.Lodwick, Chinese Recorder, 7.
During their first term in Beijing, the Aments had another two children: Philip Wyett Ament (born 21 October 1882; died 27 June 1883 in Beijing); and Emily Hammond Ament (born 24 August 1884 in China).
Christian Endeavour Unions of China Ament became one of the founders and president of The Young People's Society of Christian Endeavour, known as the Christian Endeavour Unions of China (CEC).Martha Emily Parmelee Rose, The Western Reserve of Ohio and Some of Its Pioneers, Places and Women's Clubs. National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection (Library of Congress) (Euclid Print. Co., 1914): 132. Ament believed passionately in the importance of Christian Endeavour: "Without doubt Christian Endeavor will have a large share in bringing the new life to awakened China."William Scott Ament, quoted in The Christian Endeavor Manual: A Text-book on the History, Theory, Principles, and Practice of the Society, with Complete Bibliography and Several Appendixes, page 222, by Francis Edward Clark. United Society of Christian Endeavor, 1903. In 1900 Ament was elected President of the North China Christian Endeavor Union.Porter, 180.
First furlough: ministry in Ohio (1885–1888) Due to the severe illness of Ament's mother, Emily Hammond Ament, Ament accepted the call to pastor a 250 member Congregational church in Medina, Ohio (about 30 kilometres from Cleveland, Ohio) so that he could care for her. During his three years there, he built up a strong church.Woman's Board of Missions of the Interior, Mission Studies: Woman's Work in Foreign Lands 29–30 (1911–1912):253. Published by Woman's Board of Missions of the Interior of the Congregational Church, 1911; Porter, 90. While in Ohio, Ament became the president of the Ohio Christian Endeavor Union,William Shaw, The Evolution of an Endeavorer: An Autobiography. (Christian Endeavor World, 1924):228.
In 1887 the Aments had their fourth (and final) child, William Sheffield Ament (born 25 July 1887 in Medina, Ohio; died 1951), their only child to survive childhood. Will, Jr. would become a professor of English at Scripps College, Claremont, California,http://www.scrippscollege.edu/academics/academic-awards.php and the co-author of Oxcart to Airplane (Powell, 1929), "the only general history of California transportation."James J. Rawls and Richard J. Orsi, A Golden State: Mining and Economic Development in Gold Rush California (California History Sesquicentennial Series, 2) (University of California Press, 1999):269.