they laid an ambush for two days in a nearby pass
One of the major revolutionary leaders of a band of Bulgarian rebels in the region of Pirin Macedonia, or “voivoda,” Yane Sandanski decided to kidnap the Thessaloniki Watters bridesmaid dressesinspector of the American missionaries in the Ottoman Empire, Dr. John House. He wanted to kill two birds with one kidnapping – both to get a large ransom, and to attract international attention to the plight and the liberation fight of the Macedonian Bulgarians.
American Protestant missionaries actually played a pretty big role in Bulgaria’s National Revival in the 19th century – a role absolutely unknown to Bulgarians today because the Soviet-engineered communist regime in 1944/8-1989 wiped out any school texts on the subject (or mentioned something vaguely about colonization attempts by the American imperialists.)
When Sandanski and Chernopeev went to the town of Bansko, which then was on Ottoman Turkish territory, to figure out how to lure John House there, they found out that another important missionary – Miss Ellen Stone – happened to be in town. She was transferred to Thessaloniki in 1898.
Miss Ellen Maria Stone, an American Protestant missionary, arrived to Bulgaria shortly after Bulgaria’s Liberation in 1878. In 1901, she was 55, not married, and she spoke very good Bulgarian.
Sandanski and Chernopeev, together with nine other men, were joined by another voivoda, Krastyo Asenov, with five other men. Together they laid an ambush for two days in a nearby pass, Predela. They were dressed as Turks so as to avoid the wrath of the Ottoman authorities and irregular troops upon the civilian Bulgarians once they make the hit.
On September 3, 1901, at about 5 pm, the rebels ambushed the convoy of Miss Stone who was with 12 other Protestants, taking all of them captives.
http://www.articlefield.com/102661/a-lot-has-changed-in-naperville/
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