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 19th
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.
3 comments:
Very nice information. The name Knorr being in the documents is very curious, but I'm sure that's a story for another time.
thank you sincerely, for your hard work here.
It would have been fun if Maria had physically assaulted Nathan H Knorr's father or grandfather, but I suspect that's a stretch of the imagination too far..,
Br. Knorr's father was born in 1872. So he couldn't be it. Maybe an other related person.
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