In 1818 the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (established in 1810) resolved to establish a mission in the Holy Land by appointing Levi Parsons and Pliny Fisk to the task. They were motivated by messianic premillenialist view of the Jews and their role in history. Their objectives were to work with the old Eastern Churches and among Jews and Muslims. From their base in Smyrna, Parsons proceeded to Jerusalem to ascertain the prospects there, but after a few months fell ill and died in Alexandria. Fisk, with another missionary, Jonas King, travelled to Palestine and began missionary activity there, but he too died soon after, in 1925.