Anatolia College in Merzifon

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions established the school in 1864 as a theological seminary after the American college in Bebek, Istanbul, the later Robert College, abandoned its theological training and concentrated in only general education due to growing number of young people interested in English language.

The school in Merzifon served in the beginning to educate the children of the Greek and Armenian community in Anatolia, who wanted to become pastors or preachers.

In 1886, as more and more young people wanted a general education, the program at the theological seminary in Merzifon was expanded to include a four-year liberal arts college.

By 1911 six languages were regularly taught and used in the college, and that year 282 students attended from 16 provinces of Turkey, as well as Greece, Crete, Cyprus, Egypt, and Russia.

A deep well and water system, including a Turkish bath used by hundreds every week, and a large flour mill and granaries, along with residential units, were also in place by 1915.

The evolving curriculum, originally intended to prepare graduates for further instruction, preferably at the Marsovan Seminary, was progressively redesigned to meet student demand for occupational training, emphasizing three areas: languages, the major arts and sciences taught in American colleges, and subjects relating to business and public administration as practiced in Turkey.

The Anatolia Girls School evolved as a self-contained institution with its own premises covering over four-and-a-half acres on the southern section of the mission compound, including classrooms, dormitory, gymnasium, teachers' quarters, athletic courts, and surrounding gardens.

On August 10, 1915, forces of the Turkish Ottoman Empire broke into the Anatolia College campus and seized Armenian Christian faculty and students.

"[3] That article begins:[3]The slaughter of all the Armenian Faculty members of Anatolia College, Marsovan, Northern Asia Minor, with 1,200 others, by Turkish peasants, whose pay for the work was the privilege of stripping the clothing off their victims’ bodies, was described by the Rev.

[1] George E. White, an American missionary who was a teacher from 1890 and president from 1913 until 1921 at the school in Merzifon, wrote his memories in a book Adventuring With Anatolia College, published in 1940.