William Junkin

Life

Junkin was born in Virginia. His grandfather is said to have been a minister and his father a judge. In 1891, while he was studying at Union Theological Seminary, he reportedly resolved to become a missionary to Joseon after hearing addresses by the missionary Horace Underwood and by Yun Chi-ho. In 1892 he married Mary Leyburn, and he went to Joseon as one of the first seven missionaries sent by the Presbyterian Church in the United States (the Southern Presbyterian Church). These seven are often called the "Seven Pioneers." His companions included William Reynolds, Lewis Tate, Mattie Tate, and Linnie Davis.

In the mid-1890s he went to Gunsan with the medical missionary Alexander Drew and began mission work there. The Gunsan mission station became fully operational around 1896. He lost three sons to endemic disease, and his own health was frail. Concerned for his health, the Southern Presbyterian mission transferred him to Jeonju. There he took charge of Jeonju Seomun Church and founded an orphanage, among other work. He contracted pneumonia around Christmas 1907 and died on January 2, 1908, at the age of forty-three.

Ministry and Accomplishments

• Church planting: He is credited with founding several churches in the Gunsan area, including Guam Church and Gaebok Church. In the early years his home served as a place of worship.
• Education: In the early 1900s he founded Yeongmyeong School, a school for boys, in Gunsan. Sources differ on the founding year, giving either 1902 or 1903. A school for girls (later Mary Baldwin Girls' School) also opened in Gunsan around the same time.
• Writing: He published an article introducing the Donghak movement in the February 1895 issue of the English-language journal The Korean Repository, helping missionaries in Joseon understand Donghak.

Influence on the Korean Church

Within the church he is often called "the father of the Honam mission." Yeongmyeong School, which he founded, led the Gunsan independence demonstration of March 5, 1919. This demonstration is regarded as the first March First Movement protest south of the Han River and is also mentioned in histories of the March First Movement and Christianity. Kijeon School in Jeonju is described as having been named in his memory. After his death, his wife, Mary Leyburn, raised funds to install a bell and bell tower at Jeonju Seomun Church in 1908.

According to a well-known story, he asked to be buried in Gungmeol (present-day Guam-dong, Gunsan), saying, "I am a Jeon of Gungmeol." Accounts of his burial differ among sources. Today his gravestone stands in the missionary cemetery in Jeonju, reportedly alongside the gravestones of his three sons. Monuments marking the first mission site of Junkin and Drew have been erected near the old customs house in Gunsan and on Mount Sudeok.

Assessment

Junkin's contributions to church, education, and social welfare as a pioneer of the Southern Presbyterian mission in Honam are highly regarded within the church. However, much of the source material about him comes from his memorial society and from church media, and as a result details such as the founding year of his school and the date of his arrival in Gunsan vary among sources. The memorial society claims that he taught at Pyongyang Theological Seminary and trained early pastors such as Kil Sun-joo. It also claims that he was the first to introduce the bicycle and baseball to Korea and that he led revival movements in the Honam region. These claims, however, have not been sufficiently verified by independent scholarly sources.