church history. He traveled to the Middle East (then "Greater Syria") in the middle 1800s to visit holy sites, and gave lectures on his experiences, at least one of which was published in the New York Times.

As a part of the 1872 Iwakura Mission Bacon was given guardianship of Yamakawa Sutematsu, a Japanese girl sent to the United States to be educated. She became particularly close with the youngest daughter in the household, Alice Mabel Bacon,