New Castle, Pennsylvania
The New Castle congregation had its
start in a book canvas by John Adamson. Writing to Russell in late June or
early July 1887, he said:
I am having grand
experiences every day. It seems impossible to get through New Castle. Yesterday
took 46 names and left in afternoon train for home. In no other town have I got
in so many books to the square, and I have excellent talks. Some careful thinkers
are investigating, and awakened sleepers by the dozen. Of course there are
bitter opposers, but as far as noted people are willing to investigate for
themselves, and I have fruit already and expect much fruit. You may increase
the order to here to 300 copies.[1]
By
late 1889, a small congregation formed, the local newspaper reporting that “a
comparatively new form of religious belief has recently obtained among certain
people of this city.” They had, the newspaper claimed, “very decided and
definite opinions as to the date of the millennium.” They met in the office of Andrew
Lewis, a dentist with offices at 2 Washington Street, “for the study of the
Bible and for prayer, and the discussion of the millennium.” They claimed to
have “Biblical authority” for believing the millennial reign of Christ near at
hand.[2]
While
Adamson may have sewn the seeds, the congregation owed its existence to A. C.
Wise, once a United Brethren minister. United Brethren were a German speaking
church with doctrines similar to the Methodist Church. Their clergy were
untrained, and Wise was uncomfortable with public speaking. When speaking
briefly at a Bible Student convention in 1907, he remarked: “I have been placed
on this program without any consultation, and I am not engaged much in
addressing the public, but more from house to house on the great Plan.”[3] It
was through his house to house ministry that the New Castle congregation was
formed. The New Castle, Pennsylvania, Daily City News reported: “One Dr.
A. C. Wise, of Neshannock, Mercer county, [sic] is a leader in the new
doctrine, the theories of which he obtains from a book called ‘The Millennial
Dawn,’ for which he is agent.”[4]
Wise
was no sort of doctor. The Daily City News appears to have ‘played it
safe’ by calling a clergyman doctor. Instead he was Aaron C. Wise, a farmer by
trade and an itinerate Brethren preacher with no discernable education. He was
new to the work. In a letter to Russell dated to May 1894 he says he had been
in the work about five years.[5]
That takes us to this period. He explained his view of ‘the work’ in that same
letter: “The work, as I understand it, is to find the ‘wheat’ class, and with
the present Truth intellectually seal them and thus separate them from Babylon.
In doing this, many DAWNS are sold to others who may not now appreciate them,
but who thus assist in bearing the expense of the laborers; and they will be
read by and by.” He reported lecturing “some and quite acceptably, but have no
ambition to make that a special work.”
Wise
loved humor, incorporating it into his evangelism. We cannot place as to time
or place the one example he left, but that seems not to matter. This was his
preaching method:
The Scriptures show us that having ... having thus
consecrated our wills, we may be able to be of service to our fellow beings, neighbors
and friends, and might by the Lord's grace, impress these precious things on
their hearts and minds. How many of these incidents have come to our attention
in our service of the truth! I remember working in a town where they said, “If
you will see a man down there he will talk the Scriptures to you.” And towards
evening I called on him, and this is what occurred. I am a little humorous in
my way of approaching people and I said, “I understand you are quite a teacher
of the Bible and understand it.”
“Yes.”
“I have come in to run you in a corner.”
“Every time you do you will get a five-dollar note.”
And I gave him a little talk on the divine plan of the
ages from the chart, and when I got through he says, “Do you believe that?”
“I certainly do.” And he had not a word to say. Thus
was I instrumental in impressing on his mind the great and glorious truth. I
did not see him afterwards, but I learned he came into the truth.[6]
The
New Castle paper described Wise as “chuck full of the ideas of the book he is
selling.” It reported that he “succeeded in inculcating the doctrines pretty
deeply where he has been at work.” The paper said that a “J. C. McCombs” was “one
of the most zealous ‘Millennial Dawn’ disciples. McCombs, a shoemaker, was, the
paper said, “a deep thinking man and a member of the Methodist church” from
which he had withdrawn over doctrinal difference. City directories suggest that
this was Joseph A. McCombs who in addition to running a shoemaking business
owned other business as well. Nothing is firm here. There is a John C. McCombs
in the record, but he is listed as a railroad engineer.
The
Daily City News said the “object of the millennium expectants is not to
organize or to form any settle or distinct denomination, but the principles are
to be maintained and supported by individual rather than collective belief.” The paper called the believers in New
Castle “earnest and zealous in their convictions.”
5 comments:
A C Wise was not the father of C A Wise. C A Wise (Charles Augustus Wise) who looked after things while JFR was in prison was the son of Charles Ludwig Wise (c. 1831-1914).
The trail starts with C A Wise's passport application in 1924 when, representing the Watch Tower Society, he applied for a passport and gave his father's name as Charles Ludwig Wise. He had recently remarried and his marriage certificate from 1924 gives the father as Charles Wise and his mother as Caroline Rolf. Census returns show that both Charles Snr and Caroline came from Sweden. The passport application says that Charles Snr reached America around 1850, whereas the 1900 census return (when he is a widower living with his son) says 1851.
On some census transcripts the L for Ludwig has been miss-read as a B.
Charles Ludwig and Caroline Rolf were married on 16 July 1856 in Laporte, Indiana. The transcript on the Indiana Marriage Index gives his name as Charles L Wais. So as was common he anglicized his name to Wise. I am guessing that the original was probably something like Weiss. Unfortunately you have to pay to actually get a copy of the 1856 marriage document, but that should show the correct name of his Swedish parents. He doesn't appear to have applied for naturalization, otherwise that would have been a helpful document.
So - to cut a long story short - no apparently relation to A C Wise.
...although just noticed in the 1870 census that Charles Augustus Wise had a brother four years older than him named Adolph... Born c.1860.
There is no connection between Charles A. Wise and Aaron C. Wise, how Jerome also wrote. I send you a photo from A.C.Wise from 1911.
Thanks, Bernhard. Got it. We'll use it.
Aaron C Wise died in 1932 and his obituary mentions his connection with the IBSA and the United Brethren before that. I have sent you the docs.
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