From Zoe's New Book

Can you help?

We are hemorrhaging money with medical expenses. This means we cannot afford Zoe Knox's new book: Jehovah's Witnesses and the Secular World. Hard cover costs $99.00 plus postage. If you want a way to support our research, this is it. Up to you. Mr. Schulz wouldn't ask, but I am. She says nice things about us in that book and it seems well done, based on the little we were able to read.

M. F. Russell

you may want to review this older post
http://truthhistory.blogspot.com/2014/07/pittsburgh-central-high-school-as-it.html

Project progress - and ZWT samples

The first issue of ZWT was 6000 copies, many sent out as samples, which then continued for several months. How did people react to receiving these? Please could readers here check any very early newspaper references to ZWT, and crucially any readers’ comments as published in ZWT over the first couple of years?

To do this in ZWT you would need to consult the originals, not the reprints. Originals as pdfs, and a text file of all the originals are available, and I would imagine most readers here have them. This is important because the reprint volumes omitted many of the notices and smaller letters, which for our purpose in 2018 probably yield the most information.

This information is needed for one of the uncompleted chapters of Separate Identity volume 2.

You can send short comments here, or longer comments if you wish to me back-channel, and I will collate whatever comes in and make sure Rachael receives it.

In case the initial ZWT print run of 6000 copies seems ambitious it must be remembered that CTR had access to at least three publications’ mailing lists (although there would have been some overlap of readership) and was well known in Age to Come circles (The Restitution gave away Object and Manner to all readers) and Adventist circles (The Advent Christian Times warned readers about his preaching). CTR had done a lot of travelling and speaking over the past couple of years and was well known in groups that might be receptive to ZWT. But how receptive were they? And if receptive, what reasons did they give? That is the project for this post.

MARIA ACKLEY - SCHOOL TEACHER

In the previous post we asked for help in researching Maria before she married CTR. I want to thank those who contacted me by email. I have done some extra research in newspaper archives over the past few days and am putting together here an article on what is known. IF ANYONE CAN ADD TO THIS PLEASE MAKE A COMMENT OR CONTACT ME BACK-CHANNEL.

Mahlon Foster Ackley (1807-1873) was born in New Jersey. Selena Ann Hammond (1815-1901) was born in Philadelphia. They married and their children were all born in Allegheny. Of the five who survived to adulthood, Maria was in the middle. She had two older sisters, Laura and Selena, and a younger sister and brother, Emma and Lemuel.

Some biographical material about Maria’s parents can be found in Selena Ann Hammond Ackley’s obituary from 1901.

The Ackley family history site also quotes another couple of obituaries (unidentified) which provides the following extra information:

She journeyed by stage and canal with her mother to Johnstown, Pa, where she was married to the late Mahlon F Ackley of Allegheny, who was employed on the Pennsylvania railroad, which was then in the process of construction. Early in the 1840s she came to Allegheny with her husband and had resided there ever since. She saw the city grow from a straggling village to a metropolis. Mrs Ackley was for many years a member of the North Avenue Methodist Episcopal church, and before the formation of that church was, with her late husband, connected with the Arch Street church of the same denomination. (end quote).

The 1850 and 1860 census returns list Mahlon as a carpenter and in 1870 as a car maker.

As well as giving her history, Selena’s obituary also gave details of her five surviving children in 1901. Taking them in order of birth they were, Laura J Raynor (1839-1917), widow of Henry Raynor who died in 1873. Selena A Barto (1848-1929), widow of Baptist minister, Charles Edmund Barto who died in 1883.  Then we have Maria Frances Ackley (1850-1938) and Emma Hammond Ackley (1855-1929). And finally there was Lemuel Mahlon Ackley (1857-1921), who became a lawyer in Chicago. Maria went to him first when she left CTR. Lemuel died quite spectacularly when a disgruntled defendant shot him in a courtroom in 1921.

Laura Ackley became a dressmaker before she married. Selena Ackley became a teacher and Maria followed Selena to become a teacher as well.

In the 1870 census both girls (Selena aged 22 and Maria aged 19) are listed as teachers.

Selena (with variant spelling Salina) Ackley is mentioned in the Pittsburgh Daily Commercial for July 24, 1868. At a meeting of the Board of School Directors of the Reserve Independent School District she is elected to work as Assistant in the Spring Garden School.

However, Selena would leave the teaching profession on marrying Baptist minister, Charles Barto. I don’t have a date for their marriage, but their first child was born in 1873. Years later as a widow with two adult children she listed herself as “private teacher” in a census return.

This means we can safely assume that all references to “Miss Ackley” as a teacher in Allegheny or Pittsburgh for the period 1872-1879 refer to Maria.

Maria was asked about her schooling in the 1907 court hearing. She said she had been educated at the High School, Pittsburgh, and then at the Curry Normal School. The latter was for teacher training. It may not be connected but early ZWT meetings c.1880 took place at the Curry Institute.

There are a number of newspaper references in Pittsburgh papers to Maria Ackley, M F Ackley and Miss Ackley, all in connection with teaching.

The first one is particularly interesting and so is reproduced here. The Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette for June 24, 1871 described a meeting of the Allegheny Teachers association where Maria gave what amounted to a lecture on public speaking.

Maria’s speaking ability would stand her in good stead many years later when she went on the road to defend CTR in the 1894 troubles.

Maria gave another lecture the following year. From the Pittsburgh Daily Commercial for April 3, 1872 – from the annual meeting of the Allegheny County Teachers’ Institute (Second Day) “In the evening, Miss Mariah Ackley read an essay entitled Will It Pay?”

Two more references from 1872. The Pittsburgh Daily Post for June 20, 1872 – “the following teachers have been elected for the 19^th ward public schools: Grammar, Miss Lyons and Miss Ackley.” Then the Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette for July 27, 1872 – “Miss T (?) Ackley was elected teacher to fill the vacancy in Room no. 7 of the North Avenue building.”

1873 adds another dimension to Maria’s work when she is elected as a Sunday School Teacher. From the Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette for April 5, 1873:

Three years later she is still teaching in Sunday School and is given a pin-cushion to show appreciation. From the Pittsburgh Daily Commercial for January 4, 1876:

In 1877 she is mentioned in the teacher elections for the public schools. She is elected as Marie F Ackley for the North Avenue School. Also elected is a Mary D Lecky. We will come back to her with the next cutting.

However, not all was plain sailing in the teaching profession. In early 1878 Maria was accused of assaulting a pupil. The news was in the Pittsburgh Daily Post for January 19, 1878:

It appears that her fellow teacher in the North Avenue School, Mary Lecky, was concerned that someone might think it meant HER. The Pittsburgh Daily Post for January 22, 1978, carried a clarification:

Putting this in context, we must remember that corporal punishment was allowed at this time and the complaint may have been malicious. There is no information in the newspapers as to how the investigation turned out, but we must assume Maria was cleared of any misconduct. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for July 3, 1878 carried a report of the latest election of teachers. For the Second Ward, North Avenue School, Marie F Ackley was elected again; as was Mary Lecky.

However, with that kind of experience and after a decade of teaching (with more of the same looming ahead) perhaps Maria was getting tired of it all. Getting married, as her two older sisters had done before her, was the normal way out for a single woman.

On March 13, 1879, she married Charles Taze Russell.

Project progress - and Maria

Readers of this blog will be pleased to know that, in spite of current illnesses, work on the second volume of Separate Identity continues.

And hopefully you can help.

This is a special request for any information you can find on the pre-marriage history of M F Russell, when she was Maria Frances Ackley.

Information needs to be verifiable, so the source need to be provided.

You may have access to a newspaper archive (see below) or be adept at working your way around Ackley family history sites. You may have material on Maria's later life that gives references to when she was a single woman. And you may be able to add some context to existing records. Just as a "for instance" consider the two newspaper cuttings below.

They both relate to Maria as a school teacher. The first is from The Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette for July 27, 1872. Miss Maria T Ackley is elected to fill a vacancy in the North Avenue building. We can probably assume this is a misprint for Miss Maria F Ackley.

The second is from five years later, from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for July 3, 1877. Right at the bottom of the page for the North Avenue School, we find Maria F Ackley elected.

But what is the context? How did these schools work at that time? What age groups would Maria be teaching? What level of qualification did Maria need to get the job? Did you have to specialize to teach at these schools, or was your training just a general all-round education to a level recognized at the time? Such background gives "meaning" to the cuttings.

And these are just two cuttings from my internet newspaper archive. You may have a subscription or access to a different archive with different newspapers and additional information about Maria.

So please could all readers check and send in anything they can find. It is far better to get the same information two or three times than for something to be missed. 

Something short could be sent as a blog comment. Anything more detailed with attachments can be sent direct to me (you'll find a contact email by clicking my name on the blog) and I can then collate this information and forward it to Rachael.

Thanks, in advance, for any help you may be able to give.

DEBATES

by Jerome

If you have not looked at this blog for a little while, please look below this article for news about Rachael's stay in hospital, and perhaps send her a message.

Debates sometimes featured in the early Bible Students’ witnessing efforts. CTR was featured in two famous ones, against E L Eaton in 1903 and later against L S White in 1908. The text of both debates was transcribed and published. In 1915 J F Rutherford engaged in debate with J H Troy. Again the text was published, originally in the 1915 convention report, transcribed in the main by Rutherford’s son Malcom.

In the UK a debate was held in Scotland in 1896 between Bible Student Charles Houston and a Scottish Free Church clergyman Donald Davidson which was extensively reported. Houston would have probably become a well-known name in UK Bible Student history, but he died young. For the story of this debate you can check back in this blog or download my book on it. See:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/compiled-by-jerome/the-houston-davidson-debate/ebook/product-20338933.html

(I know this is a shamless plug, but the download IS free).

However, not all invitations to debate were accepted. Following the Russell-Eaton debate, CTR received a challenge through the pages of the Christadelphian Advocate magazine. The strand of the Age-to-Come movement that developed into the Christadelphians was to split into several different fellowships. An original statement of belief was later “amended” by a sizeable group, leaving those who disagreed as “unamended” Christadelphians. The unamended group was responsible for the Christadelphian Advocate, founded in Iowa in 1885 by Welsh immigrant Thomas Williams.

As you can see from the main article in this issue, CTR was not their favorite person. A member of the Christadelphian ecclesia started publishing materials the editor viewed as heresy. In a swipe at him, the beliefs of CTR and ZWT came in for attack. Amongst the issues that clearly marked out the differences between Christadelphians and Bible students were two mentioned in the paragraph below from October 1903:

In 1904 CTR was challenged by one of their members to debate with the Advocate’s editor.

CTR’s response was polite but negative.

It was also noted that the invitation had not come directly from the editor but just one of the paper’s readers, although the paper had chosen to publish the correspondence.

In 1906 the attempt was made again. CTR’s response was published in the Advocate:

Much as those outside the Christadelphian fellowship tended to lump different Christadelphian groups together, so to a degree did Christadelphians when looking at the developing Bible Student movement. So John H Paton appeared on their radar.

From 1905:

This shows that while Paton’s magazine had a more limited circulation than ZWT (and they confused his magazine title World's Hope with his book Day Dawn), he was still quite well known in these sort of circles.

Having failed to tempt CTR, Williams challenged Paton to a debate. Paton accepted and the two men and their adherents squared up to each other in February 1906.

The results were published in a booklet by the Christadelphian Advocate.

CTR’s debates tended to dwell on conditional immortality and whether or not there was a hell-fire. Paton’s debate centered on his main Universalist platform.

How much the event influenced the respective sides, other than confirm their existing positions, is debateable. But the Christadelphian Advocate felt confident enough to publish the results. Although they did choose to cry “foul” in their introduction.

The May 1, 1915 WT published an article from CTR on the subject of ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF DEBATES. In it CTR wrote:

"Although the Lord's providence did seem to open up the way for the "Eaton-Russell Debate" and later, for the "White-Russell Debate," and through these Debates led the way on to the publication of the Sermons in hundreds of newspapers throughout the world, nevertheless the Editor is not, and never was, much of a believer in the advantages of debating. The Debates mentioned were valuable chiefly as entering-wedges for the newspaper work…So far as the Editor is concerned, he has no desire for further debates. He does not favor debating, believing that it rarely accomplishes good and often arouses anger, malice, bitterness, etc., in both speakers and hearers. Rather he sets before those who desire to hear it, orally and in print, the Message of the Lord's Word and leaves to opponents such presentations of the error as they see fit to make and find opportunity to exploit.--Hebrews 4:12."