by Jerome
The 1922 Cedar
Point, Ohio, convention of the IBSA is a remembered historical event for
several reasons. But a little known one that can now be added is that a member
of CTR’s early Bible class from the mid-1870s was there, and was interviewed in
the New Era Enterprise newspaper about those early days. His name was Thomas
Hickey and in 1922 he was billed as “the only one now living who was a member
of Pastor Charles T. Russell’s first little class in Allegheny”.
The above report is found in the New Era Enterprise
for December 26, 1922, page 2. We will transcribe the account a little bit
later, but first, some background information about Thomas Hickey.
He was born on November 11, 1844, in Tredegar
in South Wales, UK. In the 1851 census returns for Tredegar, his father (unnamed)
is noted as immigrated, leaving a wife, Joanna Hickey, to support three young children
as a dressmaker.
Tredegar was a boom town in the 19th
century linked to expanding iron works with their tram road and then steam
links down the valley to the aptly-named Newport. But horrendous sanitary
conditions and cholera epidemics made it a place to leave if you could. Your
religion was probably one of several competing varieties of Baptist or
Methodist non-conformism.
According to the Wales-Pennsylvania
project, at one point one-third of the population of Pennsylvania was Welsh,
and even today there are 200,000 people of Welsh ancestry in the State. From the original Welsh Quakers moving to
Pennsylvania, there were soon floods of industrial workers from Wales - slate
quarrymen from the North, and from the South coal miners and iron workers,
whose skills would be welcomed in industrial centers like Pittsburgh. At the
time Hickey lived in Pittsburgh there was a large Welsh St David’s Society
there, which still flourishes today.
So Hickey followed a well-trodden path to reach
Pittsburgh. He was married to Gwendolyn Bowen with one child, John, when they
made the decision to leave Wales and travel to the States in the 1860s. He ultimately
had seven children, but all the others, barring one, were born in the States.
The exception was his fourth, daughter Anna, who was born around 1874 back in
Wales, so - assuming the census enumerator got it right - they must have made a
trip back to the old country.
In the 1870 census Thomas is now in
Pittsburgh as a puddler in a roll mill. (A puddler was a specialized furnace
worker, who converted pig iron into wrought iron.) In the 1880 Pittsburgh
census he is still listed as a puddler, with wife Gwennie, and the seven
children.
And between those two dates he attended
early meetings with Charles Taze Russell.
The account in full from the Enterprise
reads as follows:
(quote)
Among the thousand attending the
convention is the venerable Thomas Hickey, of Newcastle, Pa. He is the only one
now living who was a member of Pastor Charles T. Russell’s first little class
in Allegheny.
He relates that the first convention held
was in a building on Federal St., Allegheny, when less than a hundred were
present. This was about 1875. The first testimony meeting was held in 1876 in
the home of Brother Russell, when six consecrated hearts were present. This
gives an amazing contrast when compared with this great convention of over
12,000, with many, many times that number at home all over the world.
In listening to Mr Hickey relating his
experiences, it can be seen that this movement grew, not by any organized
effort, but simply and spontaneously by a gathering together of consecrated
Christians to study their Bibles as their hearts yearned to do.
“Charlie would give them little talks,” he
said, “and after awhile he began to go around and speak here and there. When
they started to call him Elder Russell, the question arose as to what would be
the proper title for their minister. When they asked Brother Russell, he
answered simply, ‘We will just go on without any name, for are all one in
Christ Jesus.’”
Mr Hickey said he never expected to attend
such a convention as this one, and considers it the greatest privilege of his
life.
(end of quote)
We have to accept that this is anecdotal
evidence from an old man about events nearly fifty years before. We don’t know
how good his memory was, or how accurately he was reported by the Enterprise
writer, but it gives us a flavour of those early times.
A search in the early ZWTs provides a
number of references to a “Brother Hickey” but these all appear to be Samuel I
Hickey, a former Presbyterian minister, who had quite a high profile in those
early days. So all we have - unless other researchers can find out more - is the
Enterprise interview, and also Thomas’ obituary in his local paper.
The above obituary from the New Castle
News, January 14, 1927, firmly identifies Thomas as an active member of the International
Bible Students Association. It states that he moved to New Castle 22 years before,
which would be around 1904, and his final employment status was as a boiler
maker.
There is a Thomas Hickey in New Castle
trade directories for the 1890s, and this Thomas is described as working in the
Vulcan Iron co., so there may be an error in the obituary dates and this is
him. Or maybe the 1890s feature some other Thomas Hickey. It was not an
uncommon name.
Thomas was certainly well-known enough in
his New Castle community to warrant the 1927 obituary, which also detailed two
fraternal societies he belonged to, one of which was back in Pittsburgh.
One wonders how many of his surviving five
children, fifteen grandchildren and seventeen great-grandchildren continued in
the same religious persuasion.
7 comments:
Jerome:
Thank you for the fascinating human interest story !!
I really appreciate your hard work and dedication to bringing out as much of the details as possible.
Andrew Grzadzielewski
Excellent, Jerome!
Hi. I am a (relatively) new visitor to this site. Great work researching. Is there a place where I can ask questions? I have an old 1922 Cedar Point convention, and I am trying to decifer who is in the picture. I can recognize Rutherford, Van Ambergh, and a few others. Seeing if someone can identify anyone else.
Thank you.
Hi,
I am a (relatively) new visitor to this blog. Great work with all the research. Is there somewhere I can ask questions on this site?
I have a 1922 Cedar Point convention picture, and was hoping to identify a few people. I can identify Rutherford and Van Ambergh, but wondering about a few others.
Thanks,
Jimmy
Scan the photo and email it to me. Save it as a .gif file. (blogger likes gif files)I'll post it on the blog, and we'll see if we can help. my contact email is in my profile.
Ok, I will email you there.
Thank you so much. By the way, previously my name came out as Jimmy, but it is Jeremy...Autocorrect...
Jerome this article is terrific. Chapeau
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