Help if you can.

As of this morning we have had 73,808 visitors to this blog. That’s not a huge number considering that accounts for repeat visits and is the total count since the blog was new.

If you like this blog, tell your friends and anyone else you think might be interested. I know I’m the one saying so, but there isn’t another Watch Tower history sight that is as detailed or as well researched. We don’t turn a soda-ash and salt mine into a secret Gold Mine. We don’t make up scandal where it doesn’t exist. If we find it, we tell you either here or in whatever book we’re writing.

We don’t cry about current Watch Tower policies, belief, or practices. Mr. Schulz is a Witness. I am not. I am not unsympathetic, but I believe enough differently that I’m not an adherent. You will get the facts from us as we find them. We have no agenda but accurately told history.

We have an invitation only blog that is in abeyance as we finish volume 1 of A Separate Identity. We’ll return to it after this volume is published and we resume work on volume 2. So tell your friends. …

 

We have a huge wish list. On it are items we do not expect to find, but we keep looking. We need any issue of Rice’s Last Trump. Paton’s personal letters would be helpful. Any letter by Russell. (We have a few, but only a few.) Opposition booklets published in Russell’s lifetime. Any of the German language Watch Tower with von Zech as editor. Von Zech’s magzine. (We have one year only.) Anything related to the earliest days of Watch Tower evangelism in Europe. Most of this history is earlier than the Year Book histories suggest, but the evidence is sparce.

We need a volunteer living near the Library of Congress who can copy some items with a digital camera and make photocopies of others. Some of this is simple work and some will require turning pages in an archive.

We need a volunteer to visit the National Archives of the United States.

Other than the first year, we need any and all issues of A. P. Adams’ magazine, The Spirit of the Word.

We need at least the location of The Millenarian, a magazine or paper.

We need copies of as much of the Canadian National Archives records of the word war 1 ban. That will require someone to visit, and, at their expense, make copies and mail them to us. Or if you’ve made copies, to scan them and get them to us. This is a  huge imposition, and you’d have to be really interested. We hope there is someone that interested.

Personal letters of any Russell era Bible Student would help, even if the contents seem inconsequential. Many of our readers have no clue how important small bits are. We are led to sound, important research by small clues.

Help if you can.

I should add … 

There are a few congregational histories out there. We don’t have many of them. If you have notes or a finished manuscript detailing the history of a Watch Tower congregation, please pass it along.