Henry Dodge Appenzeller

Life

Henry Dodge Appenzeller was born in Seoul on November 6, 1889, the son of the Methodist missionary Henry Appenzeller and Ella Dodge Appenzeller. In Korea he was also known as "Apyeonseolla II" (a Korean rendering of "Appenzeller II"), and his name appears in Korean under several variant spellings. His elder sister, Alice Rebecca Appenzeller, was an educational missionary who helped build up Ewha Haktang.

He left Korea in 1900 to study in the United States and is known to have attended Princeton University. In 1902 his father died in a ship collision while traveling to a Bible translation meeting. Researchers believe this event prompted him to pursue missionary work in Korea. He returned to Korea as a missionary in 1917, and in September 1918 he married Ruth Noble at the First Methodist Church in Seoul.

After serving about twenty years as principal of Pai Chai Haktang, he was forcibly expelled by the Japanese colonial authorities. He then took charge of the First Church in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he assisted Korean immigrants. After Korea's liberation in 1945, he returned to Korea as a special adviser to the United States Army Military Government. During the Korean War he directed relief work as the Korea director of Church World Service. He died in New York on December 1, 1953; overwork is reported to have contributed to his death. His remains were buried in the Yanghwajin Foreign Missionary Cemetery in Seoul.

Ministry and Accomplishments

• Leadership of Pai Chai Haktang: As the fifth principal of Pai Chai Haktang, the school his father had founded, he led the institution from 1920 until about 1939. He reorganized the school's administration despite Japanese restrictions and interference. When Pai Chai students took part in the June 10th Movement and the Gwangju Student Independence Movement, he is credited with working to protect the school and its students.
• School facilities and symbols: Around 1932–1933, when a new auditorium was built, he acquired a concert grand piano for it. In 2011 this piano was designated a National Registered Cultural Heritage item under the name "Pai Chai Haktang Piano." He is also said to have borrowed the melody and cheers of a Princeton University fight song, from his alma mater, when the Pai Chai school song was composed.
• Christian education: He held that the fundamental purpose of education was to nurture people of Christian faith. Accordingly, he paid particular attention to religious meetings and Bible study. He worked to uphold the spirit of Pai Chai's motto, "Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister" (Matthew 20:26).
• Memoir: In October 1951, in Busan, where he had taken refuge during the war, he wrote the memoir Three Koreas I Have Known. In it he organized his recollections into three periods: the Korea of his childhood, Korea under Japanese rule, and liberated Korea. The Pai Chai Haktang History Museum made the text public in 2025.

Influence on the Korean Church

Because he carried on the Methodist educational mission that his father had begun in the early years of the mission, he is regarded in the history of Korean Methodism as a leading example of a two-generation, father-and-son missionary legacy. Under his leadership, Pai Chai, as a Christian school during the Japanese colonial period, trained leaders for many sectors of society. During the Korean War he took part in refugee relief as head of a church-affiliated relief agency, and he is therefore also mentioned in discussions of the relief work associated with the Korean War and the church.

Assessment

Recent studies describe him as a figure who filled multiple roles: educational missionary, pastor, relief worker, and adviser to the U.S. Army Military Government. They also note that he emphasized service and unseen values over worldly success. However, he has been studied far less than his father, and critical assessments or alternative perspectives on his work—particularly his period as an adviser to the military government—have not yet been widely compiled.