The Reverend Thomas Alexander

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The Reverend Thomas Theron Alexander (1850 – 1902) was born and raised on a small farm at Mount Horeb in the rolling hills of East Tennessee. Beginning in 1877, he served twenty-five years as one of the first Presbyterian missionaries in Japan. When he died, a samurai-turned-Christian said of him, “He died for Japan.”

The Reverend Thomas Theron Alexander

The Rev. Alexander (ca. 1877)

The Rev. Thomas Theron Alexander

(ca. 1901)

In May 1877, Tom married the former Emma Brown.

Five months later, the young couple said a tearful farewell to their families and embarked on a one-month journey by rail and steamship to Japan, only recently opened to the West after centuries of seclusion.

Emma Brown Alexander (ca. 1877)

On the morning of October 24, 1877, Emma’s family gathered in the front yard of her childhood home, where she and Tom prepared to bid farewell. The young couple was about to embark on the journey of their lives to a newly opened Japan. Emma’s family clung to her and with many tears and kisses reluctantly let her go.

“At the gate stood her father, leaning on his crutch and weeping. He bade us goodbye as cheerfully as he could, but said he never expected to see our faces again in this world.”

- From the diary of T.T. Alexander -

Brown family home in Maryville, Tennessee

Tom and Emma had seven children – six

girls and one boy. Their firstborn, Ella,

died of a burst appendix at fourteen. Her

parents never fully recovered from her

death. Their second child, Emma, studied

to be a missionary like her father. She died

at twenty-four in Tokyo, just fifteen months

after her father’s death. Both girls are buried in Japan.

Tom with Ella and Emma (ca. 1882)

Heart failure forced the devoted missionary to depart Japan in 1902. His doctor thought Hawaii’s mild climate might benefit him, but Tom died in Honolulu, with daughter Emma at his side. “I cried as I have never cried before in my life,” wrote his grief-stricken daughter. Tom’s ashes were sent to Maryville, Tennessee, where he was buried in Magnolia Cemetery. He was just fifty-two when he died. His alma mater, Maryville College, flew flags at half mast for their alumnus, the first graduate to serve in the foreign mission field.