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Thursday, September 24, 2009

Bits ... and some help, please ...

This is the photo mentioned below. This is the best quality I have. Can anyone do better?

Bits of things have come our way, some the result of our own research and some from interested blog readers. As with most fragments of history, they raise some questions.

The 1919 Convention Report says that Russell store was called “The Old Quaker Shop.” I can’t verify that from any of the Pittsburgh Directories. Fahnestock’s Directory for 1850 simply lists J. L. Russell as in the dry goods business on Federal Street in Allegheny. It does not name the store. The only name for their clothing business I can find is J. L. Russell & Son. Obviously this is not the original name. We would like to verify from another source that the original name of the Russell’s store was “The Old Quaker Shop.” Anyone?

In 1865 J. L. Russell is living on Wylie Street and is listed as a salesman. Did he go out of business for a period? Anyone know?

Joseph L. Russell was exempted from Civil War service because of some sort of disability. The Rebellion Record of Allegheny County has him in the exemption lists, where his exemption is noted as “d. c.” or “disability certificate.” Anyone know more?

I wonder what it took to obtain a disability certificate. We’ll make that a bit of research.

Can anyone send me a clear scan of the photo of Russell and his brother that’s in the special issue of Zion’s Watch Tower for 1912? I have a very poor scan of that. It’s not usable. Can anyone do better?


5 comments:

JimSpace said...

Hi Bruce,
Do you know the page number of the 1919 Convention Report that has the name of their store?
I have the 1912 Watchtowers in scanned PDF. On page 4947 there is a picture of the three-year-old Charles, but no brother (in "A Pastor in the Making").

B. W. Schulz said...

Hi Jim,

The comment is on page five of the 1919 convention report.

Anonymous said...

The original January 1, 1912 Watchtower has the picture of the two little boys, Charles T Russell and his older brother Thomas, born 1850, died September 1855. Charles would be three and a half years old when Thomas died. For some reason the reprints cropped the picture to only show CTR.

B. W. Schulz said...

The photo on this post comes from the 1912 Watch Tower. I need a better version, one that's clearer.

JimSpace said...

There is a larger, clearer picture of Charles in _The Laodicean Messenger Third Ed._, The Bible Students Bookstore, Chicago, 1923 facing page 36, seen in _The Pastor Russell Anthology_ CD-ROM by Research Applications International. I have the later.