New spotlight finds once-famed Bucks explorer

More than a century ago, a Doylestown man crossed the globe and became the first person to walk the entire Great Wall of China.

This week, crews from Chinese television embarked on a reverse journey. They brought their cameras to William Edgar Geil's childhood home and the 30-room estate where he once lived, flipped through thousands of his photographs, and filmed the cemetery where he is buried.

Their six-part documentary will detail the nearly 3,000-year history of the wall. The last episode will be devoted to Geil.

Though nearly forgotten today, the explorer had an incomparable impact on the wall's legacy. In 1908, he became the first to traverse the 13,171-mile wall. His book The Great Wall of China earned him fleeting fame.

"Today, the Great Wall does not belong to China. It belongs to the world," said Zhang Wei of Beijing, an associate producer for the China Central Television network, known as CCTV.

She spoke Thursday morning as she and others on the crew ended their four-day visit to Bucks County to gather footage and documents about Geil.

Born in Doylestown in 1865, he ventured across equatorial Africa and down the Yangtze River, and saw all the capitals of China's then-18 provinces. He documented his travels with writing and photography, publishing 10 books.

Geil's writings and speaking skill - he was also an evangelist - spread the story of the wall and of Chinese culture to the Western world, said Stuart Abramson, president of the Doylestown Historical Society, who hosted the film crew.

"He is more well-known in China than he is in his hometown," he said.

Despite his worldwide travels, Geil stayed true to his local roots until his death in 1925.

He was raised in a rowhouse three blocks south of the historical society current headquarters on South Main Street, and married Lucy Constance Emerson, a relative of Ralph Waldo Emerson. They lived in an estate in the south of Doylestown called the Barrens, which the family sold in 1960.

Recollections of the "peaceful meadow brooks of Doylestown" appear in the second chapter of his book about East Asia.

The documentary crew needed to travel to Geil's hometown to capture his life, Qi Shaouhua, the film director, said through a translator.

Thanks to a recent donation, the Historical Society now holds the most comprehensive Geil collection, with artifacts that were believed lost for more than 80 years.

The crew combed through the vast archive, now housed in a carriage house on society property. There, they held the flag Geil is seen waving in his 1908 photographs on the Great Wall.

After exploring the "lovely" town, Zhang said, the crew was ready to share Geil's story with a possible audience of 300 million. The crew also is headed to the West Coast, with hopes for a full-length Imax film.

Zhang said she was surprised to learn that so few people knew of Geil in his hometown. But, she said, after the documentary airs, "a lot of Chinese people will know where Doylestown is."