Warder Cresson
1798–1860 (age 62)
Biography
Warder Cresson, born in 1798, was an American diplomat who journeyed to Jerusalem as the first U.S. consul and then, drawn by the city, embraced Judaism. He labored to improve the lot of Jews in the Ottoman realm, often facing suspicion but never losing his sense of mission.
He worked tirelessly to collect support, to build schools, and to show that diplomacy could be an act of love, and now he rests on the Mount of Olives among the people he sought to uplift.