Search This Blog

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Rough Draft - Partial - For Comments

Urgently in Favorable Season

Russell and his associates reacted to Barbour’s assaults by seeking to persuade and unify the small groups that had been sympathetic to The Herald of the Morning. Paton traveled extensively while Russell remained in Allegheny preparing for the release of Zion’s Watch Tower, but as soon as the new magazine was up and running Russell arranged preaching tours of his own.

The first issue of The Watch Tower included the announcement of a new hymnal, Songs of the Bride, edited by William I. Mann, and an advertisement for Russell’s booklet, Object and Manner of Our Lord’s Return. The lack of other publications meant that their new magazine was their primary voice.

The basis for their unity was a broad agreement on the nature and time of Christ’s return and a semblance of agreement on the Ransom. Differences in viewpoints would reveal that their unity on Ransom doctrine was more of a united opposition to Barbour’s views than an actual theological agreement. Russell was aware of some differences and inserted an announcement on the first page of Zion’s Watch Tower disclaiming responsibility for the views expressed by contributors: “In no case will the Editor be responsible for all sentiments expressed by correspondents, nor is he to be understood as indorsing every expression in articles selected from other periodicals.”[1]

In the second issue, Russell noted that he had sent out six thousand copies of the July and August issues and invited subscriptions. He noted that he couldn’t continue sending free copies because:



First, it is expensive, and second, we have no desire to waste truth by sending where it is not desired and would not be appreciated. We would like therefore to hear from all who want the paper regularly before the tenth day of August, that we may know what number of copies to publish for September.

The price is very low in order to suit the purses of the majority of the interested ones, among whom are “not many rich,” (for “God hath chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, heirs of the kingdom.”) and unless a good large list of subscribers are had, fifty cents will fall far short of paying for printing, &c.

Do not suppose these remarks to be an appeal for money. No, “Zion’s Watch Tower” has, we believe Jehovah for its backer, and while this is the case it will never beg nor petition men for support. When He who says: “All the gold and silver of the mountains are mine,” fails to provide necessary funds, we will understand it to be time to suspend the publication.

Do not put off until to-morrow what you can do to-day. If you want the September No. take your pen at once. Remember that the paper is as free to you if too poor to send the fifty cents as though you could afford it and paid for it, but we cannot know your circumstances --You must write also.[2]

Recently anti-Russell polemicists have insisted that Russell stole The Herald of the Morning subscription list from Barbour. While the names on that list were probably included among the six thousand to whom The Watch Tower was sent, seeing Russell as a thief is ludicrous. Though Barbour later denied it, Russell was part owner of The Herald. There is no clearer indication of this than the statement found in the earlier issues that The Herald was published jointly by Russell and Barbour. On researcher suggests that the Russell’s very close friend George Storrs may have made the names on his subscription list available.[3] While this may seem likely, Russell never explains how the list was developed.

With the second issue, Russell explained that the magazine’s sub-title, Herald of Christ’s Presence, explained their message. Christ was present and had been since 1874 and they were in the Harvest Age: “We think we have good solid reasons -- not imaginations -- not dreams nor visions, but Bible evidences (known to the majority of our readers) that we are now “in the days of the Son;” that “the day of the Lord” has come, and Jesus, a spiritual body, is present, harvesting the Gospel age.”[4]

Russell’s long-time friend George Washington Stetson died on October 9, 1879, after a prolonged illness. Stetson’s dying request was that Russell give the funeral oration, and, though other ministers participated, Russell was the principal speaker. An unintended consequence was enlarging the sphere of those who heard his message. Because none of the churches were large enough, the funeral services were held at Normal Hall on the grounds of what was then Edinboro State Teachers College: “About twelve hundred persons attended the funeral services, thus giving evidence of the high esteem in which our brother was held,” Russell wrote.[5] By comparison, the Second Adventist congregation at Edinboro numbered about one hundred in 1873.[6]


The funeral brought Russell to the attention of Second Adventists. A brief notice appeared in The World’s Crisis of October 11, 1879, saying that “words of comfort were spoken by Bro. C.T. Russell, of Pittsburgh, Pa.” This reminded readers that Russell was still actively preaching his message.

Albert Delmont Jones left Russell’s employ in November 1879 to expand his preaching activity and to pursue business interests elsewhere. An announcement to that effect appears in that month’s Watch Tower:

We lose this month one of our special contributors. Bro. A. D. Jones felt a strong desire for some time to give more of his time to preaching the glad tidings. He started out this month, going wherever the Lord may open the way. God will bless him in his endeavor to bless others. May he be used to the glory of our Lord.
Our brother has other [business] calls upon whatever spare time he may have, and asks to be excused as a regular correspondent; so what is the people’s gain is the Watch Tower’s loss. We hope, however, for occasional brief articles from his pen.[7]
The same issue contained a request of spare copies of the October 1879 magazine. Russell sought about fifty copies to fill a shortage caused by new subscriptions. Also found in the November issue was the statement that “Almost all the brethren whose names appear on our list as regular contributors, the editor, and three others who do not write for Zion’s Watch Tower, but who are in sympathy and accord with its teachings, are preaching the good news wherever the Lord of the Harvest opens the way.”[8] Requests for preaching services could be made directly to the Watch Tower office or to the individual speakers.

Reader response to the request for extra copies of the October issue encouraged him. Many of the copies received were heavily marked and well studied. Russell was pleased with this:


Very many of the papers returned were liberally underscored etc., and gave evidence of interest and careful and prayerful reading which was very interesting and pleasant for the editor to notice. Although not laboring for the “praise of men” nor “seeking praise one of another;” yet every such indication of your interest in the work we have so deeply at heart, gives us fresh strength and joy.

The kind words received from many of you during the past six months have been duly appreciated also. Although we have not been able to answer you, they have afforded your editor pleasure and comfort, and that was doubtless your object. We seldom publish letters, of correspondents, because firstly, we have no room to spare, and secondly, they generally contain personal allusion to the writers too complimentary to admit of publication.

Russell quoted from two letters. The first explained how deeply they treasured The Watch Tower. The writer, a sister V. N. J. from Springfield, Massachusetts, said, “I read them over and over, lend them, but never give them away for they are as choice to me as gold dust. As I read, I mark and comment for my own benefit.” The second correspondent recounted that a friend had given her copies to read, and she had subscribed. This represents the most typical form of Watch Tower evangelism in the era. Interestingly, the last writer said, “As I am 83 years old and unable to canvas I have secured the services of a young lady to do so for me.”[9]

Paton proposed a preaching tour in the Midwest. He scheduled a two month trip through parts of Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, strongholds of the Second Adventist movement.[10] The trip was delayed while Paton prepared a book stating their commonly held beliefs. When announcing the delay, Russell explained that the planned work would “be a careful exposition of our views regarding fulfilled prophecy; our hopes of present and future; as well as the scriptural evidences of the presence of the Son of Man, and that we are now in “the day of the Lord,” &c.”[11]

In March 1880, Russell again offered the last few hundred copies of Object and Manner of Our Lord’s Return. They were made available at sixty cents a dozen, thirty cents for six, or free to those who couldn’t afford them and would “use them judiciously.” And another small announcement was included saying that “Invitations to hold meetings may be addressed either to the editor (mentioning whom you wish to have), or direct to the brethren.”[12]

Seeking Unity Among Scattered Believers

Russell proposed a major preaching tour eastward from Pittsburgh. He wanted it to effect unity among scattered believers. In many places subscribers were “totally unacquainted with each other” and thus lost “the sympathy and comfort which our Father designed should come to them by ‘The assembling of themselves together as the manner of some is.’” Russell hoped that “The proposed meetings … might conduce to personal acquaintance.”[13]

His itinerary was fixed in time to announce it in the June Watch Tower. [14] Included were Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where Henry Elias Hoke, Sr. hosted the meetings. Hoke is profiled in an earlier chapter. No report of this meeting survives, but there we enduring interest in Chambersburg, and the group would receive a subsequent visit by Benjamin W. Keith in 1882.[15] Reading, Pennsylvania, was next on the itinerary. Meetings were hosted by a J. B. Kine, about whom nothing is known.

[develop]

Amos Hunt hosted the meeting at Lynn, Massachusetts. Almost nothing is known about him. He was a shoemaker and worked in a factory at Lynn, not surprisingly since Lynn was a center of American shoe manufacturing. He was born in New Brunswick, Canada, about 1836 to Roswell Hunt and his wife the former Fanny Stiles, and was the only boy among their six children. He and his wife Lizzie later moved to Anoka, Minnesota, where he contracted “consumption.” He traveled to California for his health, dying in a San Francisco hospital from the tuberculosis on June 22, 1889. When he first met Russell and his degree of interest are unknown.[16]

Lynn was by the standards of the day a large city with a population of about twenty-five thousand. [17] There was long standing Adventist interest in Lynn, though in 1891 there was only one small Second Adventist church there.[18]

The meeting at Lynn was probably typical of them all. What sparse record remains gives us with some insight into Russell’s manner of shepherding the congregations. The meetings were long, almost continuous, part sermon and partly give and take. Questions were entertained, and their import analyzed. Some of the discussion at Lynn focused on “the number of the beast.” Russell was asked what it was, and he confessed that he was dissatisfied with the available answers. Writing about a year later, he said:


I spoke on the subject of this same chapter to the name-less little company of “this way,” in Lynn, Mass., and concluded my remarks by telling them that I had never seen a satisfactory explanation of the 666. And, though I thought I had given a correct analysis of the symbols of the chapter, yet I could not claim it to be wisdom, since I could not interpret the number. I suggested, however, that if oursbe the correct understanding of the time in which we are living—the “harvest” of the age--and if our general application of these symbols be correct, the number should soon be understood. I urged examination on the subject by all, for the Lord is sometimes pleased to give wisdom through the weakest of his children. “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast ordained praise.”[19]

About three months later Russell received a letter from “one of the thinking brethren of that place, saying that he thought he had the key.” Russell accepted the explanation offered and it made its way into print. The suggestion was that the number denoted giving support to religious organizations, and that the beast was the Catholic Church, and its image was the Evangelical Alliance. This fit with Russell’s belief that they were “called out,” separated, fine wheat-like Christians without any organization but Christ’s:

Among those who thus openly mark themselves in their forehead (by their creeds) are Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians and others. But others give a seeming support (mark in their hand) to the general principal by organizing under various sectarian names. After these are blended in the IMAGE, (and no one would be admitted to membership in the Evangelical Alliance, unless he be a member of some such sect), they all are collectively known as the “Protestant Churches,” ….

If we for instance were to organize, though we protest more than all others against the errors of Rome, and also against the errors of the Image and second BEAST, yet be would not be reckoned one of the “Protestant churches,” because we would not be recognized as orthodox--They would not count our organization a church.

Should you inquire for our meetings and ask--Is that a protestant church which meets here? The answer would come--Oh, no; they are not Evangelical. They have
no creed to mark them, so that the Alliance can decide whether they are an Evangelical Protestant Church or not.

At least one individual was converted to Watch Tower theology by the meetings held at Lynn. Her conversion was recounted in a dramatic fashion by Samuel I. Hickey, a former clergyman, and for a period a Watch Tower evangelist. Writing to Russell in1889, he recounted the story of an unnamed woman:

While in Boston I was told of a sister at Winchester, about seven miles from Boston and I went to see her. Some eleven years ago she was a lawless Roman Catholic rum-seller there. Her conversion (a most remarkable one) occurred in the prison, where she was confined for repeated violation of the liquor laws. When she was released, she poured to waste all of her liquors and renounced the Roman Catholic Religion. As she lived in the midst of an Irish Catholic community, her persecutions were terrible. Her children were hooted, pelted with stones, and abused in every conceivable manner. She was cursed and slandered before her face and behind her back.

They even soaped the stairs of her dwelling to cause her to fall and maim or kill herself. The priest visited her, and when he found that she was firm in her determination to serve Christ rather than the devil, he cursed her and persuaded her husband to abandon her and declared that she should never have a Catholic dollar, and said they would drive her from her home. They broke the window panes in her house, and for two years she was obliged to keep them stuffed with rags, etc., being too poor to afford to replace the glass. She united with the Baptist church and was most zealous in her missionary efforts to bring others into that “communion.” She soon ceased to have her hunger satisfied with the husks of the less popish branch of Babylon and longed for more truth, for she saw and deplored the same spirit in Protestantism as in Romanism. About nine years ago, hungering and thirsting for the Word of Life, she heard that there were a series of meetings held at Lynn. You were the preacher and she was so well fed that she eagerly inquired, where she could continue to hear you. A friend told her that she could hear you through Z.W.T. every month. Ever since that God has fed her through your paper. When she was rejected by every body, that spoke peace to her heart. All was written in such a sweet spirit. The very pages seemed illumined by the spirit of God. She cannot write at all and can not read writing. [*]

… When her boy lay dead in her house, a crowd collected opposite and cried that they wished it was the old devil that was dead, instead of the young one, or she along with it. Well, the next day after that she got the Tower. For all the sorrow she had had, it brought great joy, and she felt lifted up. She could not describe the gladness God sent her through it. The Lord anointed her eyes, and she came out of the Baptist church, and her persecutions at the hands of the Protestant religionists were harder to bear than those of the Roman Catholics--a refined cruelty. She attempted to reason with them out of the Scriptures, but was called an ignorant Irish woman and was rebuked for her insolence in presuming to teach them who had been studying the Scriptures all their lifetime. But she knew she had the truth, and counted it all joy--even her severest trials--for they brought her nearer to God, and taught her dependence upon Him. She was overjoyed at the thought that at last you should know of her and of the joy you had been the means of imparting to her.[20]

[Develop: Preaching tours 1880-1881]

Day Dawn, Or Gospel in Type and Prophecy

Paton’s book was the first connected statement of belief since the publication of Barbour’s Three Worlds, or Plan of Redemption.

In 1890 Paton recalled the circumstances behind the book’s preparation:

In the Autumn of 1879, Bro. A.D. Jones, then of Pittsburgh, urged me to write the substance of my lectures and have them published in book form. He said, ‘We need such a book, to give the people who hear these lectures the evidience in permanent form, as well as to reach many who have not the opportunity of hearing; and I am convinced that you are the one to write it. Have you not thought of writing such a book?’
I confessed that I had thought of it, having realized the need of it in my work, and having often been moved in spirit to write these things, but had never ventured even to speak of it, because, for certain reasons, it seemed impracticable.

‘Are the reasons of a financial nature? He asked.

I admitted that such was the case; that being dependant on the fruit of my labor for the support of myself and family, I had no means to invest in publishing.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I am willing to publish such a book, paying all the expense, if you will write it.’

It seemed to be of the Lord, and after further deliberation, I decided to make the effort. I left off traveling, except to fill my regular Sunday appointments, and devoted myself five days in each week to writing for the book, and in about seven weeks, Day Dawn was ready for the press. Then followed the care of proof-reading while it
was being printed.[21]
Russell backed the publication financially, though Albert Jones was publisher. Later, Paton would insist that he did not know of Russell’s financial backing. “I never knew of any such arrangement,” he would write. “It never occurred to me that Bro. Jones needed any such help.” Before the biographical research presented in this work, Paton’s statement seemed disingenuous. Jones was a clerk in one of the J. L. Russell & Son stores. At most he was a store manager. He supported a wife and a daughter. It seemed unlikely that anyone would suppose that the money came from Jones’s pocket. Knowing that Jones came from a moneyed family and that he had significant business prospects of his own changes this picture. Paton had every reason to suppose that Jones raised the money on his own.

Though Russell advertised Day Dawn through the pages of Zion’s Watch Tower, and it was sold by Watch Tower speakers, it did not sell extremely well. Paton still had remainder copies of the first edition in 1890.

The first pre-publication announcement has already been noted. By the end of March 1880, Russell had the table of contents at hand, and wrote a brief notice encouraging advance orders:

We are pleased to know that it will soon be ready--probably about May 1st. The table of contents before us, show it to contain 28 chapters … on subjects of deepest interest to all of us. It will we doubt not supply a long felt want, viz: A book containing a connected and well expressed account, of our understanding of the prophecies their import and teaching as well as their harmony with the other teachings of God’s word. …

We cannot but be benefited and strengthened by going over the Time arguments which establish our whereabouts on the stream of time. Our foundations are so strong, the evidences so many and so weighty, that when fully comprehended, it is easier to believe than to doubt, the presence of the heavenly Bridegroom. It will strengthen and build you up in your most holy faith, we hope. Again it is a pleasure to have a book to hand to your neighbor and friend written in a simple but scholarly manner. (Though we have not seen the MSS. we have reason to expect all of this from our brother’s pen.) Bro. Paton of Almont, Mich., one of our regular contributors is the author. Bro. A. D. Jones, Pittsburgh, Pa., also a correspondent is the publisher.[22]

The first copies reached Russell in time for a notice in the June 1880 Watch Tower. He was pleased:

It is a more exhaustive and elaborate work than we had at first expected; more so by far than anything ever presented on the above topics, from our standpoint. It contains 334 pages in clear and distinct type. To give an idea of its size, we would say that it contains about three times as much matter as the “Three Worlds,” a book familiar to most of our readers, now out of print.

From the first hasty examination we should say it is a work which will do an inestimable amount of good, and to many, will be an instructor second only to the Word of God. It is written in a plain, unassuming manner, seeming to indicate that the writer had learned that “great I and little you” are no part of the Good News. Both the I and you are as far as possible dropped from notice, and the subject is made so beautifully plain and clear, that many, we believe, will bless God for having been permitted to read it.[23]


Russell encouraged every Watch Tower reader to buy a copy, offering it for fee to those who could not afford it.

Finding any sort of public review is almost impossible. The lone print comment on the book that I have thus far uncovered appears in The Kingdom and The Restoration, an anonymous book published in London in 1882. The author, writing only as “A Student of Prophecy,” believed the two witnesses of Revelation to be individuals. His belief drew forth strictures on the contrary claim made by Paton in Day Dawn and by J. P. Weethee in the March 22, 1882, issue of Restitution:

Notwithstanding the strong evidence, throughout the account of the two witnesses, of their individuality, some think it is all figurative. One writer, J. H. Paton, in his work called, “The Day Dawn,” explains the two witnesses to represent the two estaments, the Old and the New … Now if we are at liberty to interpret the word after this fashion, it seems to us that we may prove any thing we like from the word. Figures and symbols we know are sometimes used, and used very frequently in this book – The Revelation – But they are always used to represent something. And there is always consistency between figures or symbols, and the things they represent, and what is said. But what consistency is there here on the principle of these writers?[24]
A private comment made by the poet and writer David Gray to his brother made it into print some few years later with the publication of Letters, Poems and Selected Prose Writings of David Gray. Gray, not the more famous David Gray who died in 1861 but a lesser known writer who died in 1882, had a religious background that included Campbellism, and an association with John Thomas. Ultimately he believed Thomas had “got hold of some technicalities” and
was “pushing things far beyond where the spirit of revelation will sustain him.” Sometime in the early half of 1881, his brother sent his a copy of Paton’s book. In a letter to his brother dated May 18, 1881, he wrote: “I have devoted all the few spare hours I have had since you kindly sent me Mr. Patton’s [sic] book to its perusal, and have been greatly interested in it. He certainly has a great deal of truth, some of which is new to me and very valuable. But I fear he goes farther in some things than the Word, fairly read, will sustain him.”

The letter as printed is truncated, and we do not learn the particulars of Gray”s objections, but he continues: “It fact, we must always be entirely ready to stop and unload the most attractive theory when we collide with a plain statement of the Word. Our theories may easily be wrong; but the Word cannot be. Let us hold ourselves perfectly subject to it, even though that leave us to wait in great confusion and ignorance. More light will come, if our hearts be right before God.”

In a follow up letter dated August 24, 1881, Gray wrote: “I have chanced to learn a little, lately, of those people in Pittsburgh (“Zion’s Watch Tower”) with whom Mr. Patton [sic] seems to be in sympathy. I think I saw one of their tracts in your possession. I have read a little of Mr. Russell’s writing, myself – perhaps the same tract I saw you have. It is very significant that, here and there through the country, we are seeing a breaking away of earnest, hungry souls from the corruptions of the professing church. There is a movement of similar kind just now in Chicago[†] … But alas! I find the Pittsburgh Watchmen of Zion do not always seem to be content
simply with what is written. They want to know more than is revealed, and draw on their imaginations to make up the deficiency. At least that is what I am bound to think of much of their teaching (and Mr. Patton”s) as to the destiny of the unsaved dead, and various “orders” and classes of saved, and some other subjects. But, with this, they have much of the inspiring truth which has been brought out among our so-called “Plymouth” friends, and this activity of inquiry is surely better than the spiritual death we find inside churches”[25]

Day Dawn targeted those already associated with the Barbourite movement and interested “Second Adventists.” Yet, the book did a certain amount of missionary work outside that narrow group. An individual identified only as N. L. P. of Petersville, Kentucky, wrote to Paton, saying: “The first time that I saw the Lord’s will and plan clearly as revealed in the Bible was by the aid of Day Dawn published by Bro. Jones …. I had been brought up a Missionary Baptist, and among the good Methodists, sects who rely mostly on church creeds and traditions of elders, giving their hearers but a confused idea of the Scriptures.”

Ultimately Day Dawn would prove an unsatisfactory instrument. Despite repeated advertisement in The Watch Tower, the public did not take to the book. This seems to be the fault of its author and publisher. Neither of them seems to have invested the time or money necessary to get it before the public except by loaning it or selling it at small evangelical gatherings. The only advertising they relied on was that provided freely by Zion’s Watch Tower. Though in 1890

Russell would suggest that it was long out of print, in actual fact there were remainders still in Paton’s possession.

Bible Students Tracts and an Expanding Ministry

Very little other than The Watch Tower was initially offered to adherents and interested persons. A few remaining copies of Object and Manner of Our Lord’s Return were made available. The song book prepared by W. I. Mann was sent out. By January 1880 Russell was offering several Bible translations cheaply to Watch Tower readers. Included in the list were Emphatic Diaglott, in two bindings, The American Bible Union New Testament, and Tischendorf”s New Testament. At least by 1883, and maybe as early as the initial offering in 1880, a message entitled “The Emphatic Diaglott: A Friendly Criticism” signed “Editor of Zion’s Watch Tower” was pasted into each copy sold through the magazine, the main point of which was to highlight the translator’s bias in certain areas:

Like all things made and done by imperfect mortals, we think this valuable work not without its faults. It would seem to us that the authors must have held the view that Jesus had no pre-human existence, and that there is no personal devil, i.e., that when devil is said—evil principle—is meant; also that Jesus is still a man and flesh.

In commending this work to you as a whole so highly as we have done, we deem it
but a duty to draw your attention to a very slight bias which we think pervades the work in the directions named.

Day Dawn, while it addressed the need for a clear statement of their theology, did not fill the need for simple, direct and brief missionary tracts. Russell received “numerous and urgent calls for Watch Tower Tracts on various topics.” He suspended traveling for part of October 1880 to prepare them. “They will be cheap tracts for gratuitous distribution and will be furnished at a very low price to those agreeing to distribute them, or free to those so desiring them,” he explained.[26]

There was some sort of delay producing the proposed tracts, and Russell expressed his disappointment in a brief announcement in the December 1880 issue. He advised readers to expect them within a month: “We advise that you make a list of all Christian people whom you may have any hope of interesting, and send them the tracts in rotation, as numbered, so that they will get hold of the subjects in a connected manner. Make out your lists at once.”[27] When issued they appear to have been small thirty-two page tracts.[28]

The first of the tract supplements, entitled Why Will There Be a Second Advent, was duly released with the January 1881 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower.[29] It was a reprint with slight revisions of an earlier Watch Tower article of the same title. Russell outlined his plans for circulation in the announcement:

With this number we send Tract No. 1. We have arranged for quite a number of them, and you may expect one or two a month for several months. They will all be free, on condition that you order no more than you will wisely use.

We will not send more than 25 at one time. You can re-order when they are gone. This is a way in which all can “both labor and suffer reproach,” as well as give the “glad tidings” to some who have ears to hear and hearts to appreciate; “The love of God, which passeth all understanding,” revealed to us in His word. We suggest that each tract be carefully read by you before you give it to others.[30]

Supplement number two was issued with the February magazine. Russell reminded his readers that they should read it carefully before circulating it. He explained that the tract supplements were “specially designed for thinking Christians, and would be, to the natural man, foolishness.”[31] None of the tracts were designed to convert unbelievers to Christianity. They
believed they were in the Gospel Harvest when the Wheat and Weeds of Jesus’parable would be separated. They were calling to the wheat-like Christians.

The titles of tracts two and three are unknown to me. An educated guess based on the later content of the small book Food for Thinking Christians leads me to suppose the titles were How Will Christ Come? and The Day of Judgment. These are only articles of correct length, and their subject matter follows logically after tract one.

[Formation of Watch Tower Society and Wanted 1000 preachers]

Russell and his associates saw the need to organize the work and, secondarily, finance it through public donations. He turned to his father and to William Henry Conley. Conley was a long-time associate.

Conley was born June 11, 1840, in Pittsburgh to George Washington Conley and Matilda Balsley. His father died about 1852, when Conley was twelve years old, and Conley went to work in a woolen mill in Alleghany.[32] In 1855 he was apprenticed to an uncle, a printer in Blairsville, Ohio. In 1857, he moved with his uncle to Plymouth, Ohio, where he met Sara Shaffer (also spelled Shafer), two years his junior and a transplanted Pennsylvanian. They married in 1860.

Significantly, Conley associated with the Lutheran Church in Plymouth, Ohio. There is little documentation for Conley’s life in Ohio, but it is into this time that one can fit his first acquaintance with George Nathaniel Henry Peters, later the author of the massive three volume work, Theocratic Kingdom. Peter’s obituary as found in The Lutheran Observer of October 22, 1909, notes his service to the Plymouth, Ohio, church.[33] Another source shows him serving as pastor in Plymouth during the years of Conley’s residence.[34] While it is possible that Russell met Peters through another, it is likely that he met him through Conley. It is also extremely likely that Conley’s interest in the Lord’s return and last-times events derived from his association with Peters. Though sympathetic toward Adventism, Peters saw himself as a pre-millennialist rather than Adventist and would not have led Conley into Adventism.[35] However, he was already committed to his great study of Christ’s return and rule, having started the research about 1854.[36] His preaching at Plymouth must have been colored by his study.

There are three William Conleys listed among Civil War soldiers from Ohio, but none of the biographical notices of William H. Conley list Civil War service. At or toward the end of the war the Conley’s moved back to Pittsburgh where he joined a commission house, a brokerage firm. Later he became a bookkeeper for James M. Riter whose company, established in 1861, worked in sheet metal and copper. The business seems to have been prosperous though not large. Riter supplied major portions of the iron work for the Escanaba furnace in 1872.[37]

Riter died in 1873 Conley “took a half-interest in the business with Thomas B. Riter, the firm name being changed to Riter & Conley; he attended to the financial and office work while Mr. Riter attended to the outside and mechanical part.” Eventually Riter & Conley “became the most extensive of its kind in the world.” [38] That Conley focused on a major business venture that year is a strong indicator that he did not take the predictions of Jonas Wendell, Nelson Barbour and others seriously. Others who were swayed though not enough to form a positive conviction also engaged in business, and his partnership with T. B. Riter is not surety what he didn’t find the movement interesting, even somewhat persuasive.

The exact date and circumstance of Russell and Conley’s first acquaintance are unknown. It appears that by 1875 they had known each other for some time, and the Conley had come to

respect and trust Russell. Testifying during his divorce proceedings, Russell claimed that he was offered the presidency of a newly formed Bank. This gives us a clue as to the latest date for their meeting. If one presumes that the bank was the Third National Bank of Allegheny, the first offices of which were just up Federal Street from the Russell’s main store and in which William Conley had an interest, then one can say that Conley knew Russell well before its founding on March 16, 1875.

[develop]

Tract Supplement Number four, Why Evil Was Permitted was mailed with the May 1881 issue of The Watch Tower with the explanation that “It is a subject much thought of by all, and more than one child has asked, “Why did God make the Devil?” It is a subject which should command some attention from all thinking Christians.” Tract four was a reprint, with some revisions, of an article of the same name found in the [date] issue. Supplement number five was a reprint of the earlier article entitled “Narrow Way to Life.”

This tract we hope will be acceptable to you all. We hope that its general distribution will be productive of good results and that it may be used of the Lord as an eye salve to many to enable them to see “the exceeding riches of His grace in His loving indness toward us.” And for you, brethren, we pray that the viewing of the narrow way to life, may bless you, and that “The Father of Glory may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him (that) the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; ye may know, what is the hope of his calling; and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the Saints; and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us.” Eph. 1:17.

We have quantities of this tract, and will try to supply all your demands. Order all you can use, and use all that you order.[39]

Tract number five was entitled The Narrow Way to Life, and was with slight revision the same as the article of the same title appearing in the DATE Watch Tower. Russell saw this matter as of primary importance and as a major advance forward in understanding Bible truth. When Russell reviewed his progress in understanding what he saw as key Bible doctrines, he included the thoughts in the article “The Narrow Way to Life”:

Next “The Narrow Way to Life” opened up before us and we saw that the life here
referred to, is immortal life--or the perfection of life; and this brought to our attention the fact that God has many different orders of beings, all of whom, when in harmony with Him are perfect, though each is perfect on his own plane of being, as for instance, perfect angels are one order and perfect men (when restored to perfection) are another order. These orders, one on the human plane and the other on the spiritual, would each be supplied with life forever from the great fountain-- God--and thus supplied enjoy ever-lasting life. But this showed us that the great prize for which we are running, is not merely continued existence, but if we are over-comers the promise is immortal life (or life in ourselves) a quality or perfection of life, said to be possessed only by Father and Son and promised only to "the little flock" who walk the narrow way—

"The way our Leader trod." "And few there be that find it." As scripture began to narrow down to the overcomers, as those upon whom the prize, for which we are running should be bestowed it had the effect on many of stirring up to greater activity that "no man take our crown" --a feeling akin to that of Paul when he said: "If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection," (the first resurrection which includes Jesus our head and all the members of His body who "live and reign with Him a thousand years"--only over-comers are to reign). Therefore we seek to walk separate from the world.[40]
This was not the first time he included “The Narrow Way to Life” among the major advancements in Bible understanding. In 1883 he wrote:

Then came--"The narrow way to Life," and we saw as never before the meaning of
Life--Immortality—and the narrowness of the way which leads to it. It is narrow; there is no room to lug along worldly hopes and ambitions; it is steep and rugged, and every step is a denial and sacrifice of the rights and comforts of the human nature. The steps in this narrow way are not merely conflicts with sin. No, that may be done anywhere by the justified only, as well as by the sanctified, and all who enter this "narrow way" have already been justified from all sin in Gods sight by the ransom price given by Jesus. On the contrary, the steps are of sacrifice: sacrificing those things to which as men they have a right.

As the steps are very difficult ones, which few would ever find, and fewer yet would care to walk in if they did find them, so it is but reasonable to infer that the prize at its further end is of wondrous value. The prize is Life --not merely existence, but Life in the superlative degree--i.e., independent of all conditions, as God has "life in himself," and not dependent on surrounding circumstances and elements. Life in this degree belongs not to angelic or human nature, but to the Divine nature only. And the fact that the narrow way which few find, leads to this Life, proves that on it is the class who seek for "glory, honor and immortality," and to whom are given "exceeding great and precious promises, that by these they might become partakers of the Divine nature." (`2 Pet. 1:4`.) With joy we saw too, that though few find this "narrow way," and few would gain that prize of life—immortality --yet these few were to be the instruments of God in the restitution of human existence to the WORLD, which, if used in harmony with Gods will, may be everlasting existence.[41]


Tract number six was by Albert Delmont Jones. Its title has been lost, but a record of controversy that followed its publication persists. Jones had already expressed positive views that 1881 would see a prophetic crisis, and he was drifting off into areas that Russell and others would see as un-Christian and unstable. Jones tract produced a strongly negative reaction, and Russell felt compelled to offer explanations through Zion’s Watch Tower:

We have a number of inquiries relative to tract No. 6, (written by Bro. A. D.
Jones) asking whether the editor’s views are in harmony with those expressed
in that tract. To which we answer that it is quite possible for different persons to have somewhat different ideas regarding the manner of the unfolding future, though they be entirely agreed with reference to the work of the past, present and future. We are for instance, not much in sympathy with the idea that the “Perihelion of the planets” is to bring “a carnival of death,” and for this reason have refrained from mentioning the harrowing details furnished by astrologists as the probable result. It may be that such a dreadful scourging is to come upon the world so soon, but from our understanding of prophecy we expect that the carnival of moral pestilence,
spiritual famine, and death will come first, upon the nominal church--the sort of “pestilence” and “arrows” referred to in Psa. 91 from which nothing will shield but the “truth.” (vs. 4.)

But while we do not expect such literal plagues, we do not venture to gainsay the astrologers and their predictions; it is possible that both astrology and scripture may be correct concerning the coming events, but our confidence and sole reliance is on the latter. To compare notes we suggest that Scripture indicates that the nominal church is to be given over to tribulation and be shown no favor from October of this year; and every thing seems ripe for just such a thing: On the other hand the astrologers began as far back as 1871 to predict what would occur in 1880 and 1881. But though the largest planet Jupiter has already reached the point of perihelion (more than nine months ago) and though Jupiter and Saturn were in conjunction six months ago, yet there is nothing except unusual rain storms thus far to justify the awful pictures drawn.[42]
Any sympathy Russell had for astrological predictions would disappear. Given his anti-Spiritualist writings, finding this much sympathy expressed is surprising. Jones was swayed by contemporary astrologers because they reflected his own views of what 1881 would bring. He borrowed heavily from them. It would be a surprise if he did not read C. A. Grimmer’s The Voice of the Stars: or the Coming Perihelia with Attendant Plagues, Storms, and Fires from 1880 to 1887, Supported by Historical Facts, published first in1879 and reprinted several times in America. Grimmer predicted that the period “from 1880 to 1887 will be one universal carnival of death.” (Page 7 in the edition I consulted.) He may have also read L. D. Broughton’s The Elements of Astrology. Broughton and others suggested that the perihelion of the major planets due near 1880 and extending to 1886 would see major disasters. He predicted “great plagues … in all their intensity.” He foresaw “droughts, epidemics, pestilence and famine” but thought the effects would be less in more civilized countries.[43] The predictions of astrologers fit exactly into Jones’ view of impending events.

The last of the Supplements was a Chart of the Ages issued with the July/August 1881 magazine. It was reproduced the next month in Food for Thinking Christians:

We present to each of our readers with this issue, a “Chart of the Ages,” (unfortunately printed June, instead of July supplement) with the suggestion
that you hang it in some convenient place where it will be often in your sight; that its diagram of the narrow way to life, may be a constant and helpful reminder to you of the way our Leader trod; that thereby you may be enabled to make your calling and election sure.

We hope too, that you will so place it, that it will be an object of interest to all who may visit you, and that you will so familiarize yourself with it as to be able to explain its teachings to them; thus each reader will be a preacher of the “narrow way to life” -- to Glory, Honor and Immortality, so soon to close; and also of the plan of God for
the world’s salvation, which is only just beginning. May God make you able ministers of his word.

The Chart should have your careful attention and study for at least one month: for this reason, and to allow needed time for other parts of the service, this paper and chart supplement will constitute the July and August issue. Therefore you may expect nothing more until September.

---

Food for Thinking Christians

Financing the Work


Russell and others poured their personal fortunes into keeping Zion’s Watch Tower afloat. In late 1881 he attempted to make the paper free to all, something the Postal regulations would disallow. Explaining his reasons, he said, “The subscription price was made so low in endeavoring to make it burdenless upon the majority of our readers who cannot well afford to spend more, that it did not pay expenses. (The paper from the first has only paid about two-thirds of its expenses--not to mention the additional cost of Supplements during the last six months.)”[44]

A major source of the money was a donation of Florida land that seems to have come from Russell and his father. A special supplement offering the land for sale was issued with the November 1884 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower. By December, eight of the plots had been sold. There were forty plots on the list “of ten acres each, on Pinellas Peninsula, Hillsboro Co., Florida, donated to this Society’s funds and offered for sale at ten dollars per acre cash; or two years” time to settlers.” The supplement seems not to exist in any library or collection, but some detail is preserved in short announcements. The land seems to have been in the Disston and Pinellas areas.[45]

Additional plots were offered for sale late in 1885:

Some who engaged plots of the land donated to “Z.W.T. Tract Society” at Pinellas
(see Supplement), finding that circumstances do not favor their going, have donated the installments paid to the Fund and returned the land for sale. Besides this, another Brother interested in the truth, has donated to the Society near the other donated lands four ten-acre plots.

Thus it comes that we have about twelve plots now for sale. Of these four have small ponds, and would require some ditching, and can therefore be had at half price.[46]

[*] He means she could read print only, and that she could neither read nor write cursive, a not uncommon problem in that era.

[†] He refers to a small group centered on the magazine Our Rest and Signs of the Times, published in Chicago. Eventually that group and those associated with The World’s Hope would loosely affiliate. (See the article Larger Hope appearing in Manford’s New Monthly Magazine, June 1890, page 372.) Barbour and Thomas Wilson, the editor of Our Rest, knew each other. Barbour recommended a booklet published by Our Rest. They parted ways acrimoniously. An alternate title for the magazine was Our Rest: Devoted to the Subject of Christ's Second Coming and the Preparation of the Church for That Event.
H. V. Reed was associate editor in 1875. His role in all of this is unclear. Reed was later associated with Restitution magazine. (See F. W. Scott: Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois: 1814-1879, Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield, 1910, page 124.)
C. H. Jones was the publisher of Our Rest; he is known to have published other Second Adventist works. Later Wilson was publisher and editor. Wilson looked to 1881 in ways similar to Barbour and Russell. He promoted pyramidology and had some Anglo - Israelite beliefs. (See Reviews, The International Standard, July 1885, page 281.) Thomas Wilson was Benjamin Wilson’s nephew.—Paul M. Hatch: Benjamin F. Wilson and The Emphatic Diaglott, an article first published in Restitution Herald and republished in The Herald of Christ's Kingdom, July/August, 1964.
[1] See example on page one of the August 1879 issue.
[2] Do You Want “Zion’s Watch Tower”? Zion’s Watch Tower, August 1879, page 2.
[3] Email dated October 24, 2008 from A. Whitby to B. W. Schulz
[4] Russell, C. T.: How Will Christ Come? Zion’s Watch Tower, August 1879, pages 2-3.
[5] Bro. G. W. Stetson, Zion’s Watch Tower, November 1879, page 2. The claim made by one later opponent of Russell and The Watchtower that Russell overstated attendance is patently false. The basis of that claim is that the Advent Christian Church was too small to hold anywhere near 1200 people. The funeral wasn’t held in the church.
[6] Letter from Jonas Wendell to Miles Grant as printed in The World’s Crisis, April 23, 1873.
[7] Loss and Gain, Zion’s Watch Tower, December 1879, page 7 (omitted from the reprints).
[8] Request of extra October issues: A Request, Zion’s Watch Tower, December 1879, page 7 (omitted from the reprints). Announcement of preaching services: Preaching, page 8.
[9] Thank You, Zion’s Watch Tower, January 1880, page 6. (Omitted from the reprints).
[10] Preaching, Zion’s Watch Tower, January 1880, page 8. (Omitted from the reprints).
[11] Bro. Paton’s Trip West, Zion’s Watch Tower, February 1880, page 8. This announcement is not included in the later reprints.
[12] An Offer to You, Zion’s Watch Tower, March 1880, page 7; Preaching Notice, page 8.
[13] Write at Once, Zion’s Watch Tower, May 1880, page 2.
[14] The Editor’s Eastern Trip, Zion’s Watch Tower, June 1880, page 8.
[15] View From the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, April 1882, page 1.
[16] 1880 Census and Mary Stiles Guild: The Styles Family in America, Joel Munsell’s Sons, Albany, New York, 1892, page 203.
[17] Easton, George: Travels in America, George S. Marr & Son, Glasgow, 1871, page 36.
[18] Start, Edwin H.: The City of Lynn, The New England Magazine, June 1891, page 517.
[19] “The Name of the Beast, Or the Number of his Name”, Zion’s Watch Tower, February 1882, page 9.
[20] Letter from S. I. Hickey to C. T. Russell reprinted in the article The Power of Truth, Zion’s Watch Tower, February 1889, pages 7-8.
[21] Paton, J. H.: The Editor’s Experience as a Publisher – Supplement to The World’s Hope, World’s Hope, February 1, 1890.
[22] “Day Dawn” or the Gospel in Type and Prophecy, Zion’s Watch Tower, April 1880, page 8.
[23] “The Day Dawn, or the Gospel in Type and Prophecy,” Zion’s Watch Tower, June 1880, page 8.
[24] A Student of Prophecy: The Kingdom and the Restoration; or, A Scriptural View of the Second Coming of Christ, Elliot Stock, London, 1882, page 145.
[25] Gray, James: Letters, Poems and Selected Prose Writings of David Gray, The Courier Company, Buffalo, New York, 1888, pages 166-168.
[26] Not Until November, Zion’s Watch Tower, October 1880, page 7.
[27] The New Tracts, Zion’s Watch Tower, December 1880, page 8.
[28] The format is noted in The Tract Work, Zion’s Watch Tower, October/November 1881, page 5.
[29] Russell, C. T.: Lay up for Yourselves Treasures, Zion’s Watch Tower, February 1881, page 2.
[30] Tract Supplement No. 1, Zion’s Watch Tower, January 1881, page 8
[31] Supplement No. 2, Zion’s Watch Tower, February 1881, page 8.
[32] See the entry: Conley, William Henry, The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Supplement 1 James T. White & Company, New York, 1910, page 73. There is another George W. Conley resident in Allegheny County who died January 13, 1851. This individual was married to Margaret Lowry.
[33] The obituary is reprinted in the preface to the Kregal Press edition of Theocratic Kingdom.
[34] Engle, William H.: Pennsylvania Genealogies: Scotch-Irish and German, Lane S. Hart, Harrisburg, 1886, page 459.
[35] See Peter’s comments in Theocratic Kingdom, volume 3, page 268.
[36] Wilson, James Grant and John Fiske: Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume 4, D. Appleton and Company, New York, Revised Edition, 1900, page 741, says that Peters’ Theocratic Kingdom was “a work of thirty years’ labor.” From this we can derive the date for the start of his research.
[37] Appendix to Swineford's History of the Lake Superior Iron District, Being a Review of its Mines and Furnaces for 1872, Mining Journal Office, Marquette, 1872, page 68. Date Riter established firm: George H. Thurston: Pittsburgh and Allegheny in the Centennial Year, A.A. Anderson & Son, Pittsburgh, 1876, page 183. Riter is listed as a coppersmith in the 1860 Pittsburgh directory.
[38] Conley, William Henry, The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Supplement 1 James T. White & Company, New York, 1910, page 73.
[39] Tract Supplement No. 5, Zion’s Watch Tower, May 1881, page 8.
[40] “Cast not Away Therefore Your Confidence,” Zion’s Watch Tower, February 1881, page 5.
[41] View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, August 1883, page 2.
[42] Concerning Tracts, Zion’s Watch Tower, July/August 1881, page 8.
[43] Boughton, L. D.: The Elements of Astrology, Published by the Author, New York, no date. See unnumbered pages at the end of the volume. A second edition was published in 1898, and still contains this matter in an appendix entitled The Opinion of the Press.
[44] Our New Year, Zion’s Watch Tower, July/August 1881, page 1.
[45] Florida Lands, Zion’s Watch Tower, January 1885, page 8; Z.W.T. Tract Society’s Florida Land, March 1885, page 4.
[46] Z.W.T.T. Society’s Florida Lands, Zion’s Watch Tower, September 1885, page 8.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Revisions and Additions to Previously Posted Chapter

THIS POST DELETED

Joshua Tavender







Tavender associated with Russell from 1878 to his death in the 1890s. He finds some mention in Zion's Watch Tower, but because it is only as "Brother Tavender" no real research has been done. He was a wealthy soap maker.
Extracted from current research project:
Joshua Tavender first comes to our attention in the June 15, 1878, issue of Herald of the Morning where he is included in a list of correspondents sending money to The Herald. The next notice of him is in the May 1886 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower where he is listed by last name only as one of the principals attending the memorial and evangelism conference held in Allegheny that year. With several others, he was a principal speaker on Sunday, April 18, 1886. Each related briefly how he “found the work to progress in their hands and the methods they found most successful in their efforts to ‘preach the Gospel to the meek.’”[i]
The only biographical notice of Tavender that I could locate is an obituary found in The Utica, New York, Weekly Herald of October 15, 1895:
Joshua Tavender was born in Mantecute, Somerset, England, Jan. 6, 1822. He was educated in the common schools at that place and was an apt and intelligent student. In 1849, in England, he married Miss Harriet Maynard, who was a sister of the late Mrs. John Thorn of this city. During the same year Mr. and Mrs. Tavender came to America and settled in Utica. For a number of years they lived on Columbia street, but later purchased the property (at) No. 5 Kellogg avenue.

Mr. Tavender immediately after coming to this city entered the employ of Thorn & Maynard, soap and candle manufacturers on Water street. Later, with William Heath, he purchased the establishment of Messrs. Kirk & Co., engaged in the same business on the north side of Whitesboro street … which was subsequently conducted for years under the firm name of Heath & Tavender. Finally he purchased Mr. Heath’s interest and took into partnership his son.

The Tavenders marketed their soap under the brand-name “Pride of America Soap.” In 1893 it sold for seven bars for twenty-three cents.[ii]
They seem to have been a very religious family. During the Civil War Harriet Tavender was noted for her support of the poor and for her generosity to various causes. Her obituary says she “was a charter member of the women’s Christian association and was one of the most active workers. Many poor families in West Utica have been aided thro (sic) her instrumentality. During the civil war Mrs. Travender was very active in providing supplies for the soldiers on the field of battle. (She) was an exemplary Christian, and her church duties were never neglected. Ever since the organization of Highland Chapel she had attended services in that church. For many years she conducted a Sunday school at her home. At the beginning of the school she had 15 members. Attendance increased until just previous to the organization of Highland Chapel she had about 60 scholars. Mrs. Tavender was one of the organizers of Paxton Hall Sunday School. Her life was a very useful one.”[iii]
Harriet Tavender may not have shared her husband’s beliefs. The Highland Chapel’s first pastor was Charles W. E. Chapin, a Presbyterian clergyman.[iv] This isn’t certain, since many associated with Zion’s Watch Tower in that era attended local churches, but the evidence tends to persuade one that she did not share his views.
Joshua Tavender was equally religious. His obituary says:

His strict integrity won for him hosts of friends in business and professional circles. He was a very pure-minded man and was a firm believer in the Christian religion. For many years he he was a member and for several years a deacon in the Tabernacle Baptist church. His life was ordered by the golden rule. When Faxton Hall Mission Sunday school was in existence, Mr. Tavender served as a teacher and was very deeply interested in the work.

Faxton Hall was established by Theodore S. Faxton “the education of the children of factory operatives by day and night.”[v] He was deeply involved in the Prohibition Party, and was offered various positions in the Oneida county organization but declined them.
His obituary touches on his relationship to Russell:
Of late years, Mr. Tavender was a faithful Bible student and was deeply interested in the study of the sins of the times as indicating the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Bible. He was a great friend of Charles T. Russell, the author of “Millennial Dawn,” who was also interested in “the pan of the ages.” Mr. Tavender visited Mr. Russell at his home on Pennsylvania several times.

Tavender receives little notice in Zion’s Watch Tower. Probably this is due to his quiet evangelism. He caused no controversy, but steadily recommended the Bible’s message as he understood it. He contributed no articles. Additional notices of him all center on his evangelism. The March 1889 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower contains a letter from a Mrs. J.H.P, identified later as Mrs. J. H. Patterson, which mentions his person to person evangelism. Tavender recommended the second volume of Millennial Dawn to her. She wrote to Russell saying: “Mr. Tavender called about two weeks ago and said so much about the book, that I sent right away for a copy and have read it through, some parts twice.”[vi] Another letter from Mrs. Patterson appears in the September 1890 issue mentioning Tavender’s commendation of a Watch Tower article on the Ransom doctrine.[vii] This is the last mention Joshua Tavender receives in The Watch Tower.
Tavender’s attendance at the “annual convention” of the Watch Tower Society in Pittsburgh in 1890 is noted in The Utica, New York, Daily Press of April 2, 1890. He died in his sleep in October 1895.
[i] Russell, C. T.: View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, May 1886, page 1
[ii] See the advertisement in the September 27, 1893 Syracuse, New York, Evening Herald.
[iii] Mrs. Harriet M. Tavender, The Utica, New York, Weekly Herald, January 8, 1895.
[iv] Robinson, Edgar Sutton: The Ministerial Directory of the Ministers in “The Presbyterian Church in the United States” (Southern), and in “The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America” (Northern, The Ministerial Directory Company, Oxford Ohio, Volume 1, 1898, page 206.
[v] Wager, Daniel. Our County and Its People, Part II: Biography, The Boston History Company, Boston, 1896, pages 40-42.
[vi] Mrs. JHP (Mrs. J. H. Patterson ): Extracts From Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, March 1889, page 8.
[vii] Mrs. J. H. Patterson: Extracts From Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, September 1890, page 8.






Sunday, October 19, 2008

Incomplete Rough Draft - For Comments

This chapter is about 20 percent done. I'm presenting it as is for comments and thoughts.

This post deleted.

Friday, October 17, 2008

J. C. Sunderlin


I am trying to contact the party who purchased this letter by J. C. Sunderlin to his wife via Live Autioneers. Anyone able to help?


Friday, October 10, 2008

Review of Plan of the Ages

Review from Atlantic Monthly, March 1888 (capitalization retained)

Millennial Dawn, vol. i.; the Plan of the Ages. (Zion’s Watch Tower, Pittsburgh)

The reader will pause long before the chart which prefaces this wonderful volume, and then, if he likes, can read three hundred and fifty pages of small print, which aim to present the plan of God, as derived from the Bible, with special reference to present labor problems. It is a dreary piece of work.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Zion's Day Star



This image is courtesy of C. Gross who ownes the original. It's a advertisement for Zion's Day Star that Jones pasted into the inside of copies of Day Dawn sold by him.




Monday, October 6, 2008

Finding Documentation


I've posted photos of books and booklets before. This time I thought I'd show you another kind of documentation. This is a photo of a summary of Civil War service for William C. McMillan, one of the first directors of the Watch Tower Society when incorporated. It was prepared for the GAR, of which he was a member. It is in his own handwriting with his signature on the top line.




Sunday, September 28, 2008

Help Topics

I no longer need von Zech's Erklarung, Supplement to Zion's Watch Tower, December 1885, thanks to a very nice sister who mailed me a copy.

I urgently need F. W. Grant's booklet in reply to Food for Thinking Christians. I can't locate it anywhere. The details are in an earlier post.

In 1881, W. R. Covert, a Church of God Elder, challenged Russell to a debate through a letter to the editor of The Pittsburgh Dispatch. The parties couldn’t reach agreement, and in typical Church of God and Disciples fashion, he declared victory in another letter to The Dispatch.

I need help locating these articles. I have no access to The Dispatch. There are copies on microfilm, I’m told. Perhaps there is someone in Pennsylvania who is curious enough to look these up and share them?

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Revisions to A. D. Jones Biography - Update!

Albert Delmont Jones
Albert Delmont Jones[i] is the most frustrating to research of all of the principal contributors to Zion’s Watch Tower. Almost nothing is known of his life. The 1880 Census gives his age as 26, making him about two years younger than Russell. His birth place is listed as Pennsylvania, and his residence was in Pittsburgh’s 32nd Ward, Precinct two. He is listed as a married “store keeper” with a one year old daughter.
Jones was Russell’s employee, and it was through this connection that Jones began attending the Allegheny Congregation and reading The Herald of the Morning. Russell converted Jones about 1878: “I was much encouraged by the accession [sic] of Mr. A. D. Jones, then a clerk in my employ in Pittsburgh--a young man of activity and promise, who soon developed into an active and appreciated co-laborer in the harvest work”[ii]
Jones name appears as a monetary contributor in a few issues of The Herald of the Morning. When the Atonement controversy erupted in 1878, he wrote to Barbour trying to persuade him to abandon his new views.[iii] Jones came to brief prominence after Zion’s Watch Tower was started and would contribute articles to it. In 1881 he started a new magazine with Russell’s blessings.
Jones moved to New York to pursue business interests and be closer to some of the larger groups of Zion’s Watch Tower readers. By 1885 he was connected with the Hoosac Tunnel and Saratoga Railroad and is listed as one of the directors.[iv]
One gets the impression that A. D. Jones was less than stable. Certainly Russell showed considerable restraint in 1890 when explaining his relationship with Jones, focusing only on doctrinal differences. The most Russell said about Jones’ deflection was, “Mr. Jones ran well for a time, but ambition or something eventually worked utter shipwreck of his faith, and left us a painful illustration of the wisdom of the Apostle's words: ‘My brethren, be not many of you teachers, knowing that we shall have the severer judgment.’” [v]
Jones appropriated money for personal use that came from bonds used by Russell to back a loan to J. Blakeley Creighton who was the son of the famous admiral of the same name. The case reached the New York Supreme Court in 1891, and the record reports that the bonds were “made and endorsed to replace bonds and stock delivered to Charles T. Russell, of Pittsburgh, upon what was represented to be a loan of that sum of money obtained from him for a company in which the defendant was the owner of both stock and mortgage bonds. The notes were delivered to A. D. Jones, the treasurer of the company, to be used for that object. But he used no more than $6,000 in amount in that matter. The residue he misappropriated and used for his own benefit.”[vi]
The total amount of the bonds was $16,500.00. I can find no record of a criminal case against Jones or a record of what use he made of the money. An article in The New York Times adds very little:
Among the decisions handed down by the General Term of the Supreme Court yesterday were three in favor of J. Blakeley Creighton, who killed himself Wednesday night. Suits had been brought against Creighton, growing out of his unfortunate business transactions, by Archibald C. Haynes and Thomas Vernon, to recover $8000, representing promissory notes made and indorsed by Creighton and delivered to A. D. Jones to be delivered by him to Charles T. Russell of Pittsburgh, to replace bonds and stock delivered to Russell upon what was represented to be a loan for about $16,000. …

It appears that Jones did not use more than $6,000 of the promissory notes for the purpose for which they were delivered to him but misappropriated the remainder. [vii]

In 1914 Jones is back in Pittsburgh and listed as a notary public.[viii] Jones wrote at least one pamphlet on protectionist issues. It is undated but published about 1888. The title is Protection in America: A Speech by A. Delmont Jones, an Independent Protectionist. The full story of Russell and A. D. Jones’ separation is best told later.
[i] His middle name is given in: W. S. Gibbons, editor: New York State Reporter, Albany, New York, 1890, Volume 33, page 822.
[ii] Russell, C. T.: Harvest Gatherings and Siftings, Zion’s Watch Tower, May 1890, page 4.
[iii] A snippet of his letter is quoted by Barbour: Questions and Answers, The Herald of the Morning, June 1879, page 102.
[iv] Second Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners of the State of New York, Albany, 1885, Volume 2, Page 259.
[v] Russell, C. T.: Harvest Gatherings and Siftings, Zion’s Watch Tower, May 1890, page 4.
[vi] Archibald C. Haynes, Respondent v. J. Blakeley Creighton, Appellant, Reports of Cases Heard and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Marcus T. Hun, Reporter, Volume 65, 1891, (1904 edition), page 141.
[vii] In the Dead Man’s Favor, The New York Times, October 25, 1890.
[viii] Annual Report of the State Treasurer of the Finances of the Commonwealth for the Fiscal Year ending November 30, 1913, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1914, page 247.

Revisions to Sunderlin Biography - Update!

John Corbin Sunderlin
He was born June 20, 1835, at Fort Ann, New York. His original name was John Corbin Vorce, but his mother died when he was three months old, and his name was changed when he was adopted when he was nine. He married Harriet A. Penny August 19, 1855. They had five children. In 1856, Sunderlin abandoned farming and “mechanical pursuits” for photography.[i] He became an itinerate photographer with a studio in a horse-drawn wagon, and made his own photographic plates.[ii] He died of pneumonia April 23, 1911, in Blairstown, New Jersey.[iii]
He enlisted in the Fifth Vermont Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War, reaching the rank of Sergeant.[iv] His obituary found in The Blairstown, New Jersey, Press, says: “He served in the United States army during three years of the Civil War, was present in eight hard-fought battles and a number of skirmishes, was shot through he body at the battle of Fredericksburg, and after partially recovering from his wound and the typhus fever at Georgetown Hospital, he was mustered out and, like so many other men in like conditions, was left largely to himself to find a place in the business world from which he had been excluded by the call to arms.”
After the war he settled in Fort Edward, New York. He was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and the Odd Fellows. He joined the Masonic Order too, and is listed as a member in a Masonic membership list. He was a member of the New York State Prohibition Party.[v]
After the war he returned to photography and pursued that profession “until 1870 when he was ordained by the Methodist church and preached in a number of important charges in the Troy conference.”[vi] The sole reference to his ministerial training is in a family history, and all it says is that he “was educated for the ministry, ordained at Plattsburgh, N.Y., and held pastorates at Kingsbury and Schroon Lake, N.Y., and Arlington, Vt.”[vii] When he began active association with Russell, Sunderlin resigned his Methodist ministry and restarted his photography business.
Sunderlin’s name appears in the list of money receipts printed in the February 1879 issue of The Herald of the Morning. His first notice in Zion’s Watch Tower is a letter appearing in the October 1880 issue. The June 1881 issue of The Watch Tower noted that “Bro. Sunderlin … has been in the [preaching] work for three months.”[viii] This fits with a statement in the Blairstown Press obituary:
Finding, after preaching for a number of years, that his views were not those of the denomination with which he was connected, always faithful to principle, he left the Methodist denomination and became a free lance; although always loyal to the great doctrine of salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ. About the year 1880 he relinquished the work of the ministry and resumed his occupation of photography.

Sunderlin moved from Fort Edward to Flemington, New Jersey. In 1902, he purchased a studio in Blairstown, New Jersey, and spent the last years of his life in that city.[ix] His work received favorable review from The American Journal of Photography in 1893 and from Wilson’s Photographic Magazine in 1899. Wilson’s called him “one of the veterans of the craft” and said that he “has upheld the honor of the craft by good work.”[x]
[i] Obituary: J. C. Sunderlin: The Blairstown, New Jersey, Press, April 26, 1911.
[ii] The Southern Literary Messenger, Volume 3, 1941, page 104.
[iii] Obituaries: The New York Times, April 26, 1911.
[iv] General Orders of the War Department Embracing the Years 1861, 1862, and 1863, Volume 2, Derby and Miller, New York, 1864, page 432,
[v] Most of this biography comes form Bascom, Robert O.: The Fort Edward Book, Containing Some Historical Sketches with Illustrations and Family Records. James D. Keating, Fort Edward, New York 1903, page 266. His membership in the Free and Accepted Masons is verified by Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of the Free and Accepted Masons of the State of New York, May 1912, J. J. Little & Ives, New York, 1912, page 169. Activity in GAR noted also in The Trenton, New Jersey, Times, March 14, 1904.
[vi] Obituary, The Blairstown Press, April 26, 1911.
[vii] Vorce, Charles M.: A Genealogical and Historical Record of the Vorce Family in America, with Notes on Some Allied Families, Cleveland, Ohio, 1901, page 63.
[viii] Russell, C. T.: To the Readers of The Watch Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, June 1881, reprints page 239.
[ix] Items of Interest, St. Louis and Canadian Photographer, January 1902, page 40.
[x] American Journal of Photography, 1893:53; Wilson's Photographic Magazine, 1899:124.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

John C. Sunderlin

John Corbin Sunderlin died in Blairstown, New Jersey, April 23, 1911. His death date notice is in The New York Times, April 26, 1911.

Does anyone have his photo?

Thursday, September 18, 2008

In All the Earth

Rough draft Chapter 5A. Cite as B. W. Schulz and R. M. de Vienne: Development of Eccesia Among Readers of Zion's Watch Tower: 1879-1887, as retrieved from TruthHistory.Blogspot.com on [insert date]

5. In All the Earth

The United Kingdom was the target of the first concentrated missionary activity by Zion’s Watch Tower. It is impossible to gage interest in Britain before the publication of Food for Thinking Christians. Previous to its publication the only letters appearing in Zion’s’ Watch Tower were doctrinal, and few names and few or no locations were noted.

There had been some notice of the work in The Rainbow. A British clergyman, Elias H. Tucket had been a Barbourite and written two articles for Rainbow. There may have been some residual interest from that. Later the magazine reviewed The Three Words, though somewhat negatively. If that book saw any circulation in Britain, it was very small. There is also come indication that Paton mailed material to his relatives in Scotland, but this seems to have born almost no fruitage.

Russell asked John Corbin Sunderlin and J. J. Bender to travel to the United Kingdom to publish Food for Thinking Christians and to direct a massive circulation campaign. Sunderlin had prior experience as an itinerate photographer and may have been chosen on that basis. Less is known of J. J. Bender. Historians including Watch Tower writers have never profiled him.

There seem to have been two Pittsburgh residents using the name J. J. Bender. One was Jonathan J. Bender, a Homeopathic Physician. He was Treasurer of the Homeopathic Medical Society of the Cumberland Valley and was a Free Mason.[i] The other J. J. Bender, assuming they aren’t the same individual, was a publisher and book collector. He seems the most likely candidate as Russell’s representative in Britain. This J. J. Bender had published The Standard Class-Book for Sunday-School Teacher’s Minutes in 1871, which was favorably reviewed by The Sunday School Journal that year.[ii] In May 1886, He and a partner purchased The Bookmart, a magazine devoted to book and autograph collecting published in Pittsburgh.[iii]

Sunderlin and Bender were in Britain by July 11, 1881, when Sunderlin registered with Gillig’s American Exchange in London, “a familiar and popular resort with Americans in the English metropolis.”[iv] He would receive their mail and make currency exchanges at Gillig’s.

It appears that the British edition of Food for Thinking Christians saw publication before the American edition of September 1881, but this is uncertain. Sunderlin returned to America probably in late October 1881, suffering from what was called “over-exertion incident to the arrangements for the distribution of ‘Food’ in Great Britain and Ireland.”[v] This left Bender with sole responsibility for completing the work. He sent a report to Russell dated from Edinburgh, Scotland, October 1, 1881:

I write in haste a few words. Arrived in Glasgow on Wednesday, and spent the day in hunting up some party, but could find none. Advertised in paper my wants and left for Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen, to extreme north, intending to distribute at each place. I succeeded without delay and returned in the night to Glasgow, having 18 replies to my advertisement. The first I called upon I made a contract with, and came here again to hear from London, but received no letter.

I telegraphed to learn how things were getting along, and enclosed find a favorable reply. So far—

100,000 pamphlets for London,
30,000 pamphlets for Glasgow,
20,000 pamphlets for Edinburgh
10,000 pamphlets for Dundee,
5,000 pamphlets for Aberdeen.

I will now go to Carlisle and New Castle next, which will be distributing on my way down as near right geographically as I can to Liverpool, Manchester, Hull, Leeds, etc. Think I can get through all well.

I had time to call on Mr. Robert Young, critical translator of the Bible and author of “Young's Analytical Hebrew and Greek Concordance,” and I asked his opinion of the text in 2 John 7, in regard to the Coming of Christ in the flesh, and he says that there is no doubt about the passage referring only to Christ's first Coming. I mentioned the quibble regarding the Rochester phase of it, and he said: “O no, no, it means only the first Coming.”

Am enjoying good health, of which you may inform any inquiring friends and trust you are enjoying the same. Working in hope that the labor bestowed will fall upon good ground, and produce many fold to the glory of God.[vi]

The advertisements Bender mentions were for people to distribute the booklet. In London nearly five hundred boys were employed as distributors with other cities employing numbers in proportion to their size.[vii]
Before he totally succumbed to exhaustion Sunderlin sent from London some reflections on Christian duty: “Do you say or think: ‘I fear this race will be the ruination of all my worldly prospects?’ Of course it will so far as having any pleasure in them is concerned. You will be a very foolish man to divide your energies now, or thoughts either. … But do you say: ‘Why, there's my reputation right there in the dust.’ Poor fellow! How sorry I am you noticed it; but it's only the reputation you once had. Don't you know that none of those who are noted racers on this course have any reputation? The greatest racer who ever stepped on it ‘made himself of no reputation.’ But do you say: ‘This awful run will be the death of me?’ Yes; of course it will; but you are a poor culprit under sentence of death any way, and if you undertake to save your life you will lose it, but run yourself to death and you'll have a life that is life everlasting, and more -- immortal. Don't be foolish now. Press on.”[viii]
One of the first to take notice of Food for Thinking Christians was the spiritualist journal The Psychological Review. The December 1881, issue contained a mixture of criticism and approval:
An American religious paper, published in Pittsburgh, Pa., rejoicing in the cognomen of “Zion’s Watch Tower,” has recently issued a free supplement in the form of a book of 160 pp., of which I am informed upwards of a quarter of a million copies have been printed for gratuitous distribution. Some of these have found their way to England, and one to myself. … It contains dissertations on various theological and other topics, amongst them Spiritualism, supported in the main by numerous textual quotations from the Bible. Now while desiring to recognize and appreciate the general temperate tone taken by the writer of the book in question, I contend that there is no more delusive and ensnaring source of erroneous and false deductions than the dangerous habit of Bible text quotation. You can prove anything and nothing by it, and the writer under consideration has fallen into this error when treating Modern Spiritualism.

He found certain agreements with Russell’s treatment of Christ’s spiritual body but in the main took exception to his treatment of Spiritualism, writing: “I must join issue when he comes to deal with Spiritualism. The claim put forward is that ‘what is at the present time called Spiritualism, is a counterfeit of the true as taught in the Bible.’” Still, the editor felt that “the general tone of the book is so moderate that I am induced to take up the gauntlet, believing that ignorance of the truer and higher aspects of Spiritualism is the basis of the condemnation, and new light on the subject will not be rejected without effect.”[ix]
Even less welcoming was the reaction of the English clergy. A very bitter and denunciatory comment appeared in the February 1882, issue of The Prophetic New and Israel’s Watchman. Though the article does not name Food for Thinking Christians, it is evident that it is meant. N. S. Godfrey, at one time the Incumbent of Worley, Leeds, and a prolific pamphleteer on the subject of spiritualism, preached a sermon against “a pamphlet which has been very widely distributed amongst the congregations of the various religious denominations in the borough.” He sent a report of his sermon to Prophetic News:
His advice was, and he repeated it, “Burn it.” He had now looked through it and examined it. At first sight it seemed to read fairly well, and to contain many of the views which were known as those of the Plymouth Brethren. But, after careful examination, he had no hesitation in pronouncing it to be the most damnable book he had read in his life. It was Spiritualism in the most refined subtlety of its Satanic character … the teaching of demons or spirits and wicked men and women …. He pointed out the free use of the Scripture and the Satanic perversion of its meaning and application which they found all the way through the book, giving it a colouring of good, although they only need to read half a dozen lines to see how full of mischief it was. …

Having read a number of lengthy extracts from the book, Mr. Godfrey said there was enough mischief in it to require a hundred sermons to dispose of. There was no difficulty about it to those who knew the Word of God. Again, pointing out the subtlety with which it was put together, and the Scriptures quoted, he announced that on an early occasion he proposed to answer the question, How was it that Holy Scripture seemed to have so many meanings?[x]

The October 1882 issue that was sent to over ninety thousand Sunday School teachers and Food for Thinking Christians reached James Leslie, once a fairly influential Toronto resident but then living in Eglinton, Ontario, Canada.[xi] He forwarded the special issue to the editor of The Rainbow in England with the comment:
There seems among the believers in the second coming and reign of Christ upon the earth, a strong tendency to return to what appears to be the simplicity of believers in the Apostolic age. I send you a number of one of their papers published in Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S., giving indication of this, but embracing some views not clearly taught in the Scriptures. They believe that Christ has come in one sense, and that the dead in Christ are being immortalized now. Yet this does not harmonize with the teaching of Paul in this first epistle to the Thessalonians, for to precede those events the “shout, the voice of the Archangel, and the trump of God” will be heard. Such is the zeal of these brethren that they are sending 90,000 of the paper I send you, “Zion’s Watch Tower, and Herald of Christ’s Presence,” to that number of superintendents of Sunday schools in the United States. The same parties have issued and circulated about a million or more of a good-sized pamphlet entitled “Food for Thinking Christians,” on both sides of the Atlantic.[xii]

Nottingham
Still, some of the British clergy did show interest. A letter from a minister in Nottingham appears in the June 1882 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower. It contained a request for a dozen copies of Food and a like number of Tabernacle Teachings. “Eternity alone will reveal the good these books are doing,” the clergyman wrote, “and several of my friends here are hungering for more information upon these great themes. I lend my Watch Tower every month, and look eagerly for each new one. May God continue to bless the work.”[xiii]
Other interest from Nottingham was revealed in letters published in Zion’s Watch Tower. A letter dated November 8, 1881, seems to be from another clergyman. Though the writer, whose name is omitted from the letter as printed, said he found a few minor points in which he differed from Russell, he requested more copies:
I can never feel sufficiently thankful that out of the thousands of copies of your book, “Food for Thinking Christians” distributed in this town--a copy fell into my hands: apparently it was the merest accident; but really I regard it as a direct providence. It has thrown light upon subjects which have perplexed me for years; and has made me feel more than ever, what a glorious book the Bible is, how worthy of our profoundest study. At the same time, I came from the study of your book with the conviction that a very large proportion of the Theology of our Churches and Schools, is the merest scraps of human notions, and that our huge systems of Theology upon the study of which, some of us have spent so many laborious years--only to be the worse confused and perplexed--are infinitely more the work of mistaken men, than the inspiration of the all-wise God.

However, I may differ from the book in a few minor details, I found the main argument to be resistless, commending itself to both my head and my heart. Again let me thank you on my own behalf, for the good I have received.

I find at the close of it, you make an offer to send copies to any who have reason to believe they can make a good use of them. In my church and congregation, there is a number of intelligent persons who are interested in the second coming, and who would be only too glad to read your book, I could distribute 60 or 70 copies with advantage, you say, “ask and ye shall receive”--I have faith in your generosity.[xiv]

Russell sent not only more tracts but a copy of Day Dawn and of Tabernacle Teachings along with issues of Zion’s Watch Tower. The clergyman remains unnamed, but he wrote thanking Russell:
I thank you most sincerely for what I have received from you this last few days. The “Day Dawn,” reached me … and what I have already seen of it, has both pleased and instructed me. Like its fellow – “Food for Thinking Christians,” it needs much careful thought; but I am sure it will amply repay it. … I received the “Watch Tower” and “Tabernacle supplement,” and I am looking for more blessing through the perusal of this valuable paper, as each month brings me something fresh.

Tears came to my eyes this morning, as I read the letters of your correspondents who had received so much help and comfort from the December number. To me also it was indeed a “feast of fat things.” … I feel as though I must read my Bible all over again, for the difference between Ransom and Pardon, pointed out in your closing article, had never struck me, though obvious enough when you put it before your readers. I wonder if it will ever be my lot to come over to some of your meetings. I very much long to see this happy type of Apostolic Christianity Revived --for such I think it must be--in the persons of its professors and preachers. The books and papers I regard as a blessing sent to my house; and which will bring forth fruit in my own soul, and I trust in my people also.[xv]

Another Nottingham letter praised Food for Thinking Christians and praised it highly: “I am indeed grateful to you for the manner in which you have explained several of the most difficult points in theology. God … must have opened your eyes to see these wonders of His divine plan, and I am thankful that I have lived to see this day. I may say that I fully indorse a great deal of the new teaching, and shall adopt it for the future. I pray God to abundantly bless you for your great philanthropic resolve to bless the world by giving away these pamphlets.”[xvi]
One of the Nottingham correspondents wrote again in September 1883, saying that “the work here is progressing amongst my own congregation, and also amongst outsiders. … The work makes no great show at present, but it is advancing in many minds. I have little trouble with those people who have been accustomed to go straight to God’s Book and abide by that …. To let go old prejudice is comparatively easy to a mind made receptive by the Spirit of God. I have endeavored to act wisely, and not to ride roughshod over old views, as that might have aroused opposition and have defeated my object, which is to ‘lead into the light.’ Acting upon this method, I think I am finding my reward in a more ready reception of the truth than one might have expected.”[xvii]
Despite early interest and hopeful comments from readers, interest in Nottingham grew slowly. A report from 1914 shows only fifty-five attending the Lord’s Supper.[xviii] Nevertheless, Nottingham produced one of the first zealous workers, Aaron P. Riley, a teacher connected with the recently opened Buttler’s Hill School in Nottingham.[xix] He was a fairly young man, born in 1856 according to the 1881 British Census and twenty-five that year.
It is tempting to connect some of the other letters to him, but the first that is definitely from him appears in the September 1885 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower. It’s apparent from his letter than he spread the message found in Food for Thinking Christians by word of mouth, by loaning Food and other tracts, and by preaching to what ever group would have him. His reputation served him well, and though he disconnected himself from his previous religious associations, they were unwilling to see him go. His father was an unemployed coal miner, and Aaron was probably the main support for the household. He had an older brother in the Methodist ministry.
It is probable, though not certain, that Riley’s first contact with Russell was through a letter dated April 5, 1882. His name isn’t attached to the letter as printed, but the circumstances are similar. The writer of the April 5th letter says: “I have a brother, a D. D. in the Methodist Church, and have been always told I was called to preach the blessed glad tidings, but I never have felt satisfied with orthodoxy, although I have been a member for twenty-five years. I threw out the doctrine of natural immortality five years ago, the Trinity three years ago, and with the Em Diaglott and Bible with other helps have been feeling after the truth.”[xx]
A letter printed in the September 1885 issue of The Watch Tower is not identified with his name, but in the next month’s issue Russell referred to it, saying it was from “our dear brother Riley.” His letter, sent from a village not far from Nottingham, reveals some of the difficulties encountered by those who sought to separate themselves from their past religious associations:
Since I last wrote to you, my brother who was in the Methodist ministry, has come out of her," not being able to hold the traditions and dogmas of the deceived elders. He will not accept all my views, but is very much more in favor of Zion’s Watch Tower, "Food" and "Tabernacle" teachings than he was some time ago.

My position is a most peculiar one. I have had my name taken off the books and refuse to subscribe towards the connectional funds, but the people with whom I have labored so long are not willing that I should leave them. They know my views, in some measure at any rate, and are willing for me to teach them, saying we are Christians, brethren in Christ, and on that ground we claim your fellowship; we don't care what you believe; we know you are a Christian and that is enough for us. It is the fellowship we desire not the name.

They are a most loving little band of people, and you may rest assured that the grains of truth let fall and those scattered, are not lost. If I am doing wrongly I only want the Lord of the vineyard to show me and give me something to do somewhere else. I cannot live without working for the Master, but it seems very slow work.

I have to preach for these people next Wednesday, and intend taking "The Lord's Coming" (discourse) from the Tower, with additions. May the Lord of the harvest separate the wheat. I have had some severe conversations with one of the ministers here which only confirms my faith in God's word and the Watch Tower’s interpretation; it is by such things we are made strong.

I do long for the manifestation of the Son of God, though I am by no means certain of being amongst specially favored ones. I was only a very nominal Christian until after 1881. I am totally unworthy and unfit for such a glorious high calling, but I know my joy will be full if I'm only a meek inheritor of the earth.

It is a great trial for the members to be separate. I don't know how others feel, but I do long for the fellowship, face to face with another who holds Zion’s Watch Tower's teachings as fully as myself; but organizations are not to be desired, therefore, we must wait patiently and if the Lord will, I'll praise him in company with the other brethren in his kingdom.

I would not part with my Towers for their weight in gold. I am reading all carefully through again and making notes. May the Lord bless you ever more and more abundantly.

Another letter from Riley found its way into print after the publication of Millennial Dawn was announced. He sent money for “as many copies” as it would pay for, apparently sending British money in payment, but expressed some disappointment in the results of his missionary effort: “I am sorry I cannot report any marked improvement in the work here, but every number of the Tower encourages us to go on quietly doing what we can, leaving results, though we are thankful for some evidences of good being done. If men will not come right out, they confess we are right.”[xxi]
Aaron Riley continued his active support at least until 1895, writing periodically to Russell. He is mentioned for the last time in the January 1, 1895, issue of Zion’s Watch Tower. Russell explained that Riley had been supplying libraries with sets of the Millennial Dawn series. In a letter to Russell, Riley mentions actively seeking subscribers for their magazine. He was ill and trying to work around it. He had a history of illness, mentioning a stay in a "convalescent home” in a letter to Russell ten years previously. He seems to have died shortly thereafter.[xxii]
London
By April 1882 interest was great enough that Russell extended a call for preachers in England: “We have many inquiries from England, relative to preaching—if there are among those interested in these things there, some who can declare them publicly, they have a great and grand field. Let us hear from you. Some one or two should be in London.”[xxiii] If there was an immediate response, I cannot find it.
A ‘brother from London’ wrote to Russell in late 1882 suggesting that the ideas from Food for Thinking Christians were affecting the sermons and thought of British clergy. He visited Spurgeon’s tabernacle and came away with these impressions:
It was on an occasion in which his audience was supposed to be entirely of strangers, and we were very gently led to suppose that possibly if we were not brought to the light in this age, there might be a chance in another, but that after all it is better to be converted at once so as to make sure of it. This man has vastly changed in regard to what he preaches since I have known him. He has evidently read the book “Food” and is breaking it gently. It may be bias, though I think not, but I fancy that the “Food” must have been read in many thinking quarters, because I very distinctly recognize in many of the leaders of pulpit thought, the spirit of the work. I believe that the fruit is ripening.[xxiv]

Other interaction with Spurgeon’s temple was reported. One cannot say with certainty if it was through the same individual since neither letter was printed with a signature, but in May 1882 a British correspondent wrote:
I have held up the thoughts given in your works of “Tabernacle” and “Food” to some of Spurgeon's people, and they were unable to gainsay me. It does seem to be too good to be true, but nothing is too hard for God, and I confess I see a harmony between the infinite Creator and created (fallen) man, given in the Bible as brought out by the light from your exposition that I never have seen before. It satisfies my understanding and my longing spirit. Can I with fair speaking ability be exalted by our dear Lord to the high honor of telling or preaching the glad tidings, which are to all people, that Jesus anointed tasted death for every man, and all may look and live? Whatever tracts and instructions you have in the divine mysteries of truth will you have the kindness to forward by return mail, as I may be required to leave London by the 1st of May, and please instruct me how and what to preach so as to accomplish the blessed work God wishes done.[xxv]

Among the many requests for additional tracts was one that said, “Will you please send two or three copies of the Tabernacle and its Teachings, for which we shall wait, with great desire, to be fed with more food from our Master's table. Will you please send also another copy of Food, because the one that we have is getting so much worn, that we have to paste some of it together. If we had many copies of it we could judiciously give them away. We pray that the Lord will bless you more abundantly. Though strangers in the flesh, we can say we are one in the bonds of the Lord Jesus.”[xxvi] This letter is especially interesting because it reveals an inclination among readers to circulate the tracts. Much of the work in the British field would be accomplished by “clubbing” subscriptions and loaning publications.
Among the first permanent associations built off receipt of Watch Tower pamphlets was a small group in Islington, London. The brief history in the 1973 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses says:
Tom Hart of Islington, London, wrote for and received three pamphlets. He also received Zion’s Watch Tower regularly for nine months, all without charge—a new experience in the religious field. From then on he became a regular subscriber. He was struck by the theme that ran through each issue, namely, “Get out of her, my people”—a Scriptural call to leave Christendom’s religious groups and follow Bible teaching. He and a fellow railwayman, Johnathan Ling, began studying together. This led to Hart’s formally resigning from the chapel in 1884, soon to be followed by Ling and a dozen others who began to meet together. This appears to be the first record of regular meetings of this sort in Britain. Many who shared in such meetings also showed a willingness to engage in the work of spreading enlightenment to others.

Thom Hart was born in Calcutta, India, in 1853. At the time of the 1881 Census he had moved his family from the Islington address to 5 Lavinia Grove, Middlesex, London. He was “a carman” for one of the railroads. In another place he is called “a railroad shunter.”[xxvii] He and his wife had three children, two sons and one daughter, all under the age of four. I can find no helpful information about Johnathan Ling.
That the group organized by Tom Hart was the first in the U.K. is mistaken, but a small group was meeting in London by March 1884. It may have been Tom Hart who wrote a letter appearing in the March issue of Zion’s Watch Tower. Whoever the writer was, he expressed his continuing appreciation of the Watch Tower. He always prayed for its safe arrival and was thankful that he had not missed one issue in two years. “I am able to report a little progress for the last twelve months,” he wrote. “Our meeting is the most liberal that I know of; brethren who are expelled from other meetings for change of belief find refuge amongst us. I have gained the attention of two young men who live near me, and they visit me two or three evenings a week, to enquire ‘what is truth?’ One comes oftener than the other and makes more progress. He goes and spreads the good news as a steward of the manifold grace of God. These two enclose subscriptions with me for the Tower.”
The same letter reported continuing opposition to message in Food for Thinking Christians: “Some time ago I heard read in my presence in a most solemn manner 2d Pet. 2:1, in condemnation of ‘Food for Thinking Christians.’ If I had not seen the tower explanation of the ‘image of the beast’ I should have been frightened out of my wits.”[xxviii]
Another letter from London dated January 1885 shows those interested using every opportunity to share their beliefs:
I had the pleasure of finding a man preaching in the Park, who had been a member of a chapel 8 years, and had left it and despaired of finding a church what it ought to be. He was preaching against the hypocrisy of the Church of England, and the oppression of the poor. … He was so delighted after about two hour’s conversation, you would think he had had a fortune left him. He preached tower views the following Sunday, read parts of Food for thinking Christians to them, showed them the plan of the ages, and quite interested the people generally. “The Christian Evidence Society,” sent out to oppose him, but they had no good news for the people, and as he had, they were anxious to hear it. He was about emigrating to Australia, so we did not have his company more than three weeks. He told the people how he would spread the ‘glad tidings’ in Australia and borrow a barn or shed to keep the rays of the sun off himself and his hearers. As soon as he is settled there he will write to you and order the watch tower. … We have interested another in the tower, who is now in Liverpool. He has ordered and received it. We have some profitable times, about a dozen of us, but have not yet begun to preach or lecture to the public, although our hall will hold about three hundred.[xxix]

A letter dated June 29, 1885, seems to come from the same correspondent. The letter thanks the Russells for the literature sent and recounted both the spiritual benefit received and his practice of loaning it out. He asked for more. His practice of approaching individuals or small groups somewhat estranged from the established church continued. He told of this encounter:
At one place, having found a quiet earnest body of believers on a retired street--belonging to no particular sect, I offered to lay before them all that I myself had learned. They received me cordially, and requested me three times to meet them, once at a general assembly. Having made a large wall copy from your Chart of the Ages I hung it up on the wall and sat amidst those earnest thirsty people to tell them the good news, inviting them to question me afterwards, which they did; some very sharply, and as if to trip me; but let the Lord receive all praise! It was given me to answer quietly, and one of the most arrogant of my opponents came up afterwards wrung my hand and thanked me begging I would return again. But the Salvation Army, it seems had begun to influence these Christians so that my teachings offering to go further than it’s teachings made them afraid, I think, to give ear beyond the time I was with them. I left a copy of “Food” which they promised to meet together and study with the Scriptures; but curiously enough so soon as I had left for London --the book was lost. However, many men and women have become interested in the teachings, to whom I distributed the sample towers. My work lies chiefly at the present time among detached individuals; and in writing to the absent. Only one, truly enlightened, lives near me, a police constable, who is too poor to send the money he would, to you, having a large family. He longs for a Diaglott of his own: I have lent him mine occasionally. Before long I could buy him one I think, and if so, will send the money to you; but can you supply him with regular towers and some of the books? He has a wide means of working; at present, he has my papers to read and that is all.[xxx]

Another letter in this series appeared in the October 1885 issue of The Watch Tower. Meetings were more regular, but small. Interest was increasing:
Our little Bible class does not grow very large, but we are not building on numbers. We find we get some very precious seasons with about four, and I think up to the present our best meetings have been the smallest; and during the week when two or three meet for a few minutes we often part with some new thought or reminder of the grandeur of the plan or character of God, and go forth with renewed energy to serve him. I find the experience vastly different from my previous experience in the nominal church, then doubting and fearing with a very indefinite idea of what was future both for the servants of God and those who did not serve him.[xxxi]

By 1887 another small group developed in London. A man signed in The Watch Tower as “Fred S. D____” wrote that he had “been … reading and praying with friends over the truths contained in the book entitled ‘Food for thinking Christians.’” He felt guided to the book by “our loving Father.” He explained that he had the book for about five years and “never thought of reading or becoming in any way, interested in it … but blessed be God! He has caused us (a few young men and women) to thirst and hunger after righteousness, and also implanted within us a desire to ‘come out and be separate,’ and to fully consecrate ourselves to Him who has redeemed us: and also to know of the things of God that we may be the better able to serve Him.” He asked for more literature.[xxxii]
Birmingham
Zion’s Watch Tower first noted interest in Birmingham in March 1883 with a letter from a correspondent there. The letter reveals that at least one person was street tracting in Birmingham: “The book was put into my hands last winter as I passed up a main thoroughfare in the above town, on my way home from work.” The writer recalled setting Food for Thinking Christians aside to pursue what they then thought was more interesting reading, but had returned to it. He found it lucid, easy to understand and convincing, and asked for literature to circulate among his friends.[xxxiii]
Another letter from Birmingham appeared in the August 1883 issue. The writer referred to prejudice against the material because it came from the United States, apparently connecting it to issues remaining from the American Civil War. Nevertheless, they found the message in Food for Thinking Christians to be consoling and instructive. The writer said “the good news appears to be most acceptable to ‘Dissenters,’ and still more so to those who are sectarians in name only, but to the ‘Orthodox’ ones it is most objectionable. ... A great stumbling block to many is the fact that we have no sectarian badge, and while seeing but little truth in many so fettered, they cannot realize any in those who are absolutely free.”[xxxiv]
Glasgow
A. O. Hudson, editor of Bible Study Monthly a British Bible Student publication, says that the first organized meetings were in Glasgow starting in 1883. He presents no other details.[xxxv] It appears that Hudson is correct or nearly so. A letter dated 1884 from an unnamed Glasgow correspondent reported that “the brethren and sisters in Glasgow” met in their house to celebrate “the Passover,” meaning the Lord’s Memorial Supper.[xxxvi] Also, a “brother in Christ” reported meeting with four sisters and six brothers in Glasgow. Their meetings seem to have very irregular. He reported only two meetings within the month previous to his letter, but he stated their intention to meet for the Memorial meal.[xxxvii] In a follow-up letter he reported an attendance of twelve, though he observed that “One brother remarked there were thirteen present, Jesus being in the midst of us.”[xxxviii]
Edinburgh
One of the first letters to Zion’s Watch Tower was from Edinburgh sent by a missionary and divinity student “in the last session” of his course. He expressed a desire to preach on the themes found In Food for Thinking Christians and asked for additional copies, and some copies of the booklet Tabernacle Teachings.[xxxix]
Other Cities
The message reached Halifax at least by 1885. A letter found in the July 1885 issue said its writer was greatly interested by Food for Thinking Christians. He wrote that “It has greatly instructed and interested me, and led me into a new region of biblical teaching, presenting many aspects of truth altogether overlooked, the importance and scripturalness of which appear to me most clear and well founded. I have a strong desire to receive further teaching in the same direction.” He requested a copy of Tabernacle Teachings.[xl]
A letter headed simply Yorkshire came from someone “working in an empty house” who found a copy of Food for Thinking Christians minus its title page. He was persuaded by reading the lose pages and found Russell’s address. He asked for more literature.[xli]
Organizing
In most localities organization was spontaneous. People shared the tracts, discussed them with others, and, finding some agreement, met together. This left individuals and small groups disconnected from fellow believers.
As early as July 1882, there was a call for organization. An individual from Sunderland, England, asked: “Could you not arrange some plan by which we, who rejoice in the same blessed truths, might have the opportunity of at least corresponding with each other, on this side of the Atlantic? You see there may be others only a short distance from me who, like myself, are yearning to find some with whom they may hold sweet communion on our blessed hope.” In the same issue of Zion’s Watch Tower was a letter from Sunderland noting that some where meeting together regularly: “we have now a Bible-class every Monday at 7 P.M. ‘The Food’ we keep circulating in ‘good ground,’ so far as human judgment can discern; and it is delightful to hear their expressions of surprise and gladness at our kindness in thinking of them. One brother here tells me he lent the ‘Food’ and ‘Tabernacle’ to one of their ministers, and the subjects have laid hold of him.”[xlii]
Russell was not immediately forthcoming with an organizational plan and made no printed reply to the request for one. We can safely suppose that he provided the correspondent who felt isolated with the address of the regular meeting in Sunderland.
Similar expressions came from elsewhere in the United Kingdom. A letter sent from Glasgow dated February, 16, 1885, probably stands for the feelings of many: “The monthly visits of the tower are so highly prized by me that I would feel the want of them very much. They are my only comfort now, being cut off from all the sects called churches.”[xliii] As remarked before, meeting sprang up spontaneously in Glasgow, prompted in part by a need for fellowship with those of like faith.
In October 1885 Russell reflected on the interest from the British field and found it disappointing. He tended to measure success against cost, figuring that each of the three hundred British subscribers had cost about forty dollars in expenses, not counting the cost of voluntary labor in the work. Perhaps measuring success in this way was natural for a businessman, but he quickly reconsidered. “These were discouraging thoughts,” he wrote, “and then we though of the great cost—of the Master’s sacrifice—of what the expense of our salvation had been; not in silver or gold, but the precious blood of Christ.”[xliv]
Russell’s statement brought a number of responses from readers in Scotland and England. They pointed out that “interest there is probably much beyond our appreciation or the number of names on our list; because there it is quite customary among the middle classes for several persons to take papers in partnership and read by turn.”[xlv]
The financial situation in Britain that lent itself to clubbing magazine subscriptions helped form a de facto organization at least on a neighborhood basis. Conversations and meetings would be the natural result of discussing a shared subscription.
When Bender and Sunderlin were in the United Kingdom, the plan was to circulate Food for Thinking Christians in Ireland too. The March 1882 issue of The Watch Tower, already quoted, suggests they did. There is no surviving record. Any work in Ireland in the 1880’s produced little result. By 1904 there was a small group in Dublin and another in Belfast. The 1988 Yearbook history suggests they were the result of Russell’s visit to Ireland in 1891. This seems unrealistic. Any growth probably derived from previous interest, particularly among Irish Protestants.
[i] Barratt, Noris and Julius Sachs: Freemasonry in Pennsylvania: 1727-1907, Philadelphia, 1919, Volume 3, page 423. Transactions of the Homeopathic Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania: 1866-1867, Taylor & Hickman, West Chester, 1867, page 13.
[ii] The Sunday School Journal 1871:47.
[iii] See the notice of sale in the June 1886 issue, page 28.
[iv] Americans in London, The New York Times, July 12, 1881. Quotation is from the article “Current Literature,” The Literary World, March 6, 1886, page 86.
[v] View from the Watch Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, March 1882, reprints page 325.
[vi] From Brother J. J. Bender, Zion’s Watch Tower, October/November 1881, page 6.
[vii] Russell, C. T.: In the Vineyard, Zion’s Watch Tower, October/November 1881, page 5.
[viii] Sunderlin, J. C.: Words from Brother Sunderlin, Zion’s Watch Tower, October/November 1881, page 6.
[ix] Notes and Comments: Spiritualism and the Religious Press, The Psychological Review, December 1881, pages 234-237.
[x] Godfrey, N. S.: Latter-Day Spiritualism, The Prophetic News and Israel’s Watchman, February 1882, page 60.
[xi] The only reference to James Leslie I can find is in History of Toronto and County of York Ontario, C. Blackett Robinson, Toronto, 1885, Volume 1, page 295. It says that “the Toronto Mechanics’ Institute was established in January, 1831, at a meeting of influential citizens called by Mr. James Leslie, now of Eglinton.” The Mechanics’ Institute library formed the basis for the Toronto Library system.
[xii] Leslie, James: Denominational Creeds, The Rainbow: A Magazine of Christian Literature, February 1883, pages 90-91.
[xiii] Letter headed Nottingham, England, April 13, 1882, Zion’s Watch Tower, June 1882, reprints pages 356-357.
[xiv] View from the Watch Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, December 1881, page 2.
[xv] Letter headed Nottingham, Eng., Feb. 24th, 1882, Zion’s Watch Tower,May 1882, page 2.
[xvi] Letter headed “Nottingham, England,” Zion’s Watch Tower, March 1882, page 1.
[xvii] Letter headed “Nottingham, England,” Zion’s Watch Tower, September 1883, page 1.
[xviii] The Memorial Celebration, Zion’s Watch Tower, May 1, 1914, page 143.
[xix] See The Practical Teacher: A Monthly Educational Journal, February 1882, page 596.
[xx] View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, May 1882, reprints page 346.
[xxi] Extracts from Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, September 1886, page 2.
[xxii] Extracts from Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, December 1885, page 2 and Encouraging Words from Faithful Workers, Zion’s Watch Tower, January 1, 1895, page 24.
[xxiii] View from the Watch Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, Aril 1882, page 1.
[xxiv] View from the Watch Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, December 1882, page 1.
[xxv] View from the Watch Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, May 1882, page 1.
[xxvi] Extracts from Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, August 1884, page 1.
[xxvii] 2000 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Watchtower Society, New York, 2000, page 69.
[xxviii] Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, March 1884, page 1. This letter is omitted from the reprints.
[xxix] Extracts from Interesting Letters,
[xxx] Extracts from Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, July 1885, page 2.
[xxxi] Extracts from Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, October 1885, page 2.
[xxxii] Extracts from Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, August 1887, page 2.
[xxxiii] View from the Watch Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, March 1883, pages 1-2.
[xxxiv] Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, August 1883, page 2.
[xxxv] Hudson, A. O.: Letters from Readers Re: January/February Diamond Anniversary Issue, The Herald of Christ’s Kingdom, May-June 1994.
[xxxvi] Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, June 1884, page 2.
[xxxvii] Extracts from Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, April 1885, page 2.
[xxxviii] Extracts from Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, May 1885, page 2.
[xxxix] View from the Watch Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, February 1882, page 2.
[xl] Extracts from Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, July 1885, page 2.
[xli] Extracts from Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, October 1885, page 2.
[xlii] View from the Watch Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, July 1882, pages 1-2.
[xliii] Extracts from Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, April 1885, page 2.
[xliv] View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, October 1885, reprints page 785.
[xlv] View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, December 1885, page 1.

William Conley

I am researching the fragmentation that occurred among Watch Tower readers in the 1880s. William Conley is one of the people who will find a place in this chapter. I've found some surprising things. Here are the first few paragraphs of the section that considers him. Any comments that address documentation issues would be helpful. [footnotes have been omited.]

William Henry Conley’s association with Russell was short-lived but significant. Conley was born June 11, 1840, in Pittsburgh to George Washington Conley and Matilda Balsley. His father died about 1852, when Conley was twelve years old, and Conley went to work in a woolen mill in Alleghany.[i] In 1855 he was apprenticed to an uncle, a printer in Blairsville, Ohio. In 1857, he moved with his uncle to Plymouth, Ohio, where he met Sara Shaffer (also spelled Shafer), two years his junior and a transplanted Pennsylvanian. They married in 1860.

Significantly, Conley associated with the Lutheran Church in Plymouth, Ohio. There is little documentation for Conley’s life in Ohio, but it is into this time that one can fit his first acquaintance with George N. H. Peters, later the author of the massive three volume Theocratic Kingdom. Peter’s obituary as found in The Lutheran Observer of October 22, 1909, notes his service to the Plymouth, Ohio, church.[ii] Another source shows him serving as pastor in Plymouth during the years of Conley’s residence.[iii] While it is possible that Russell met Peters through another, it is likely that he met him through Conley. It is also extremely likely that Conley’s interest in the Lord’s return and last-times events derived from his association with Peters.

There are three William Conleys listed among Civil War soldiers from Ohio, but none of the biographical notices of William H. Conley list Civil War service. At or toward the end of the war the Conley’s moved back to Pittsburgh where he joined a commission house, a brokerage firm. Later he became a bookkeeper for James M. Riter whose company, established in 1861, worked in sheet metal and copper. The business seems to have been prosperous though not large. Riter supplied major portions of the iron work for the Escanaba furnace in 1872.[iv]

Riter died in 1873 Conley “took a half-interest in the business with Thomas B. Riter, the firm name being changed to Riter & Conley; he attended to the financial and office work while Mr. Riter attended to the outside and mechanical part.” Eventually Riter & Conley “became the most extensive of its kind in the world.” [v] That Conley focused on a major business venture that year is a strong indicator that he did not take the predictions of Jonas Wendell, Nelson Barbour and others seriously.

Monday, September 15, 2008

William Brookman

I get repeated "hits" from someone searching for a photo of William Brookman. The photo is in the earlier posts section. As far as I know, it is the only photo of him still existing. If you wish further information post your question, and I'll try to answer it.

Barbour as a Medical Electrician - 1863


Thursday, July 31, 2008

Article on Barbour


Rachael de Vienne and I have written an article about Nelson Barbour. It appears in the Spring 2008 issue of Journal From the Radical Reformation, a historical journal published by Atlanta Bible College and available through their web site.


Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Help Needed. Seeking Documentation.

I urgently need a clear photocopy of: F. W. Grant: "Food for Thinking Christians:" A Review of a Tract So Called, no date but c. 1882. Published by Loizeaux Brothers .