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Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Good news and Bad news

The good news is that Separate Identity, vol 2 is still on track for a March 2020 release.

The Bad News is that it will cost about $40.00 USD. Despite my best efforts, I cannot find a way to reduce the cost. However, if I can enlist the help of a techie, this volume will have an ebook release too. It will cost less. I regret this, but I cannot change it.

Update:

As it stands now - still being edited and with a few additions - :

Two Introductory Essays and an Afterword that is chapter length.
Sixteen Chapters
602 pages
297,000 words
150 Photos and illustrations, many of which haven't seen the light of day in well over a century.
Fully footnoted so readers can follow our research path.

Contents

Introductory Essay – B. W. Schulz

Introductory Essay – R. M. de Vienne

Chapter One
     Foundation

Chapter Two
     Seeking Cohesion

Chapter Three
     Out of Babylon

Chapter Four
     Congregation Culture: 1880-1886

Chapter Five
     Organizing and Financing the Work

Chapter Six
     The Publishing Ministry

Chapter Seven
     Evangelical Voice

Chapter Eight
     The Church in Maria’s House

Chapter Nine
     New Workers in the Field

Chapter Ten
     Clergymen and Lay Preachers

Chapter Eleven
     Foreign Language Fields Within the United States

Chapter Twelve
     Food for Thinking Christians


Chapter Thirteen
     In All the Earth: The United Kingdom

Chapter Fourteen
     Joseph Moffitt: An Important Early Voice

Chapter Fifteen
     In All the Earth: Canada

Chapter Sixteen
     In all the Earth: China and Other Lands

Afterword

     Doctrinal Evolution and Prophetic Failure

Saturday, December 21, 2019

Volunteer needed ...

I need a volunteer to transcribe some older letters, mostly by J. F. Rutherford. Many of the scans and images I have are not suitable to reproduce. But they are readable. If you volunteer, you must be able to work quickly. There are, at last count, 29 pages. The topics vary. Anyone?

As a side comment: These have no restrictions on circulation or sharing. Occasionally someone sends us material and asks us not to share it. This is not the case with these.

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Not related to this project

I need scans of Watchtower letters from 1950-1980.

Friday, December 13, 2019

Oh ... the memories ....

Expectations.

If our readers do not find this blog interesting enough to prompt a comment, I cannot see adding additional content until there is something important. Contrary opinion does not matter now, does it? It's not your blog. Jerome and Roberto are free to add what they wish. I'm too busy to add material that is unread, unwanted or unappreciated. Please do not add your inane, repetitious comments on this issue. The remedy is for you to assume some responsibility and comment.

You are a guest in my house. Behave like one. 

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Original with an extra verse appeared in 1928 Song Book

I was there. Were you?

Needed

I've put out a call for things like this before with little success, but I'm repeating it anyway. I need opposition material, magazine articles, booklets, etc. published in the Russell era or just after. I located two on my own and purchased them as originals, but I'm just as happy with scans. There are a number of these in British libraries. I have no access. If you live in the UK, you could be of great help tracking them down.

I have an eye surgery coming up. Second in a series, and I hope the last. But I continue to work on vol 2. Those who are proof reading should be aware of the March target date.

Be aware that my wife's health is deteriorating. So If I am out of contact, that is why.

I am building a university's collection of Bible Student and Witness publications. If you live in the USA and wish to donate something, leave a comment below.

Away?


Bruce is alive and well and sharing atrocious jokes on twitter...

Monday, December 9, 2019

A letter to one's father


In July 1918 Malcolm Rutherford wrote a long letter to his father, Joseph F Rutherford, who was then incarcerated in Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. The letter was published in full in the St Paul Enterprise paper for December 10, 1918.



Friday, November 29, 2019

Photodrama films

(reprinted)



Those who love the Photodrama of Creation will recognize these frames from the end of the sequence on the flood, with the tinted sequence of the ark that ends with the rainbow appearing.

After the footage was meticulously copied frame by frame, the key nitrate stock in private hands was donated to the George Eastman museum as they have the professional facilities for its preservation.

Also the following document has come to light from the time which details the order and contents of all the slides and moving pictures from the production.


Interestingly it is dated November 17, 1914, and stresses that this revised schedule should be followed “implicitly.” Although the Photodrama started life as a three parter for a very short time, it had been shown in four parts for most of 1914. The extra part was not so much adding extra material as making each performance of a more manageable length for audiences of the day. But one wonders what changes were deemed necessary by November of that year.

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Away


I'll be away from my blog until Tuesday, December 3, 2019. If you email me, expect a delay before I can answer.

Friday, November 22, 2019

Some you win... Some you - don't...


This is a brief tale of a search that in some ways led to disappointment. Being based in the UK I was asked if I could find the last resting place of the Edgar family. As well as their speciality of pyramidology three of the Edgars, John, Morton and Minna (two brothers and a sister) also wrote a series of little booklets. One of them by John “Where Are The Dead?” was instrumental in attracting the interest of a young man named Fred Franz before the First World War.


We knew from printed accounts that they were buried in a family plot in the Eastwood Cemetery, Glasgow. There are two cemeteries of this name, an Old and a New, but the date of the first interment identified the site as being in the Old.

Were there memorial headstones? Would there even be a pyramid? That is not as fanciful as it sounds. Here is the grave for Piazzi Smyth.


And here from a Bible Student publication is a grave marker in Yeovil, Somerset, for a Bible Student, William Hallett, who died in 1921.


The cemetery records in Glasgow had not been transcribed, let alone posted on the internet. But I was able to make contact with a Family History Society in Glasgow and a member very kindly did a search for me. Almost immediately the burial registers for the family were found.


John bought three adjoining plots and later a fourth was added, totalling plots numbered A-950-953. Sixteen members of the extended family were eventually buried here. The last interment was in 1968. Any modern generations of the family, if they still exist, obviously moved elsewhere.

The next step was a visit to the area and again a willing volunteer from the area visited the site and took the following photograph. The graves numbered A-950-953 are both sides of the tree in the foreground. One wonders what size the tree was when these plots were sold originally.


There are a few memorials standing, which at least enable one to fix the correct site, but alas, none for the Edgar family. In UK cemeteries vandalism and sheep with itchy bottoms have eliminated a lot of memorials, but it would appear from the photographs that the Edgars never did have a lasting memorial installed.

Realistically, had there been anything like a pyramid there, it would have been found and publicised long before now.

So this is a non-story really. But you never know until you follow everything up what may or may not be discovered.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

If I remember right ...

This first appeared in the 1948 song book.


Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Catholic Opposition

I need examples of Catholic opposition to Russell 1916 and before. Anyone?

This statement from Keith appeared in November 1882

I will appreciate thoughtful comments on this.


A Townman’s Teaching.

            Editor Advertiser: In complying with a request for a synopsis of what I am teaching, I shall necessarily have to be so brief as to only give some of the principal features; and take the risk of being misunderstood and misrepresented, though not more so than at present, perhaps. But I will say first that I do not believe that this earth will be purified by a literal fire, and all but an insignificant portion of the people destroyed.
            I do believe that the God is dealing with the race according to a prearranged system, called the purpose or plan of the ages – Eph. 3:11; Heb. 1:2, 11:3. Rev. Ver. N. Y. margin, and that there are yet ages to come, during which God will show to the world the riches of his favor, in kindness toward us, in raising us up to sit with or reign with Christ – Eph. 2:6, 7.
            I believe, in common with thousands of others, that there are many indubitable evidences that we are now in the ending of the gospel age, and that the period of transition or lap of something over thirty years, will be marked by great revolutions, political, social and religious.
            In other words, it is the “day of the Lord” so often referred to in both old and new testaments, and in such a way that many have thought and still think there would be a great conflagration – 2 Pet. 3:10.
            The length of the past ages, and this transition period, is shown by the chronology and time measurements found in the bible. The frequent misapplication of those measurements, which have caused many to look for a burning time, does not prove that there may not be a right application, in harmony with God’s great application, in harmony with God’s great system of the ages. The fact that they are in the bible is a sufficient argument for their importance, and that the wise would understand them in due time. One of the intensely interesting features of the time, is the Jewish question, which is already attracting the attention of the civilized world, and, because of being the fulfillment of so large an amount of prophecy, and at the exact time given, it will be a powerful argument against the increasing infidelity of our day.
            Many who now scoff, will see the importance of the subject in a few years.
            I believe that the position taken by three general classes of religionists are based on scriptures, and, though contradictory, as advocated, will be seen to be beautifully harmonious in time; and it is being shown even now. Many are learning every year. I refer to Calvinism or election; arminianism or “free grace” and universalism. While based on scripture, the advocates of each line of thought must be more or less wrong in their conclusions, because of not seeing the force of the other two, and not rightly applying. The three classes of scripture can not be true in one age.
            God’s promise and oath in regard to the development of a Seed, and the work to be done by the Seed, after development, must be the basis of right application, and consequent harmony.
            The promise first appears as a threat to the serpent, to bruise his head – Gen. 3:15; it was ratified with Abraham oath, saying: In thy Seed shall all the nations be blesses – Gen. 22:15, 18.
            Paul says that Seed is Christ and those who are Christs chosen in the gospel age – Gal. 3:16, 29.
            The elect are represented as the body of Christ, and called Christ – Rom. 12:4, 5;  1 Cor. 12:12; and they are called the children of promise – Gal. 4:28, 6, 7, 9.
            God has been electing a few, not to torment nor annihilate the many; but because he will ultimately justify the nations through faith – Gal. 3:8, Acts 15:14, In his wisdom he permitted evil for man’s development, and he will bring good out of it – 1 Cor. 1:21.
            The Seed, then, means the “head and body” united, glorified together, as the Christ of Scripture; and God has chosen this Seed as the mediator between God and men – the nations – to give them the truth in due time – 1 Tim. 2:4, 6; and to reconcile the world to himself – 2 Cor. 5:19.
            God has sworn by himself that every knee should bow, and every tongue confess – Is. 45:20, 23. Paul says every knee and tongue means: those in heaven – angels; those on earth and under the earth; under ground ones, and they will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father – Phil 2:10, 11. This work of the Seed belongs to the times of restitution or ages to come – Acts 3:19.
            I have tried to state as briefly as possible, some of the principal lines of thought which I am teaching; and have given a few of the many passages of scripture which support them. All who will try to understand them, will see that election, as taught in the Bible, is true and beautiful; God’s favor is free; and in due time will be manifested to all his creatures.

B. W. Keith

Monday, November 18, 2019

Becoming more urgent


There are many anti-Russell tracts and booklets in British libraries to which I have no access. My research will benefit from copies. Can you help?

G. Andrae

I need what biographical information there is on a G. Andrae, a physician living in Steglitz, a Borough of Berlin in the 1920s.

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Contact Card


(reprinted)


The above contact card was for Mrs M A Boder. Mary Ann Dunbar (1860-1948) was from Scots-Irish background and married William F Boder in Allegheny in 1889. They had one son, William Dunbar Boder (1891-1980).

Mary is mentioned once in ZWT in the issue for August 15, 1908.  She signed a document giving support to “the vow” as part of the Avalon class (Avalon, Allegheny, Penn.)  The document was also signed by W D Boder. This was not her husband but her son who would be about 17 years old at the time.


Mary remained with the IBSA and her funeral announcement in 1948 mentioned Jehovah’s Witnesses. From the Pittsburgh-Sun Telegraph, March 7,1948, page 33.


I do not know her son’s subsequent religious history other than that he claimed exemption on his WW1 Draft card on the grounds of being a member of the International Bible Students. From a document dated June 5, 1917.


The Daily Pittsburgh Gazette, December 31, 1855


Monday, November 11, 2019

Der liberale Beobachter und Berks, Montgomery und Schuylkill Caunties allgemeine anzeiger, August 22, 1843.


The second Mrs A D Jones


Republished from elsewhere with permission. Trivia perhaps, but fun. I understand that Bruce is carrying on further research on Isabel, so may be able to add to this in due course. 

I know that the second Mrs Albert (Royal) Delmont (Jones) is off the topic of Watch Tower history, other than perhaps a footnote. However, her assessment of men which you will find at the end of this article is an interesting comment in itself. Isabel Mulhall (Delmont) was a fascinating character. Albert obviously thought so, as newspaper articles of the day describe how he was first smitten just by her seeing her picture. It was downhill all the way from then on.

Albert and Isabel were married in 1896 and divorced in 1903. The Washington Post stated that this was after Albert met “financial reverses.” Isabel briefly went on the stage, before becoming Mrs Sidmon McHie.  Somewhere around 1906 she was in the news for accusing her chauffeur of blackmail, a man who was then employed by Mr McHie.  Sidmon was a Wall Street operator and publisher – and millionaire – you could smell the money. At a hurried secret ceremony they married in 1909. (see The Washington Post, August 1, 1909).

Isabel thereafter went by the name of either Isabel M McHie or Isabel D McHie, and one assumes the D stood for Delmont. She must have had financial assets of her own or been given some by Sidmon, because in 1919 she and her husband made wills leaving the other partner as main beneficiary. This became complicated when they separated acrimoniously in 1925. In 1926 an agreement was forged where Sidmon would give her certain assets and also pay her an allowance of a thousand dollars a month for as long as she lived. But there was a condition. The sixth covenant of the document said: “It is agreed that the parties shall live apart and separate and shall not annoy or molest each other.”

Salmon stopped paying the allowance in 1932 claiming in subsequent legal proceedings that Isabel had indeed continued to annoy and molest him. He divorced her in 1936 on the grounds of HER “cruel and inhuman treatment.” (See Fifth Avenue Bank of New York v. Hammond Realty Co., Court of Appeals for Seventh Circuit, October 30, 1942).

Isabel made the newspapers quite regularly. One occasion she was locked in the brig of a steamship for causing a disturbance. (According to the Milwaukee Sentinel for December 20, 1942, she tried to sue the Cunard Steamship Line for $100,000 over the incident, but the company successfully proved she had been – quote -“obstreperous”). When choirboys practiced at a church opposite her she played Caruso records at full blast! (The same citation from Milwaukee Sentinel). A ruckus at a Baltimore hotel resulted in her being committed to an asylum but she escaped when a Brooklyn clergyman (or someone dressed as one) came to visit with a heavily veiled woman, who exchanged places with her. (This of course is if the Brooklyn Standard Union paper for May 13, 1931 is to be believed.)

In 1935 she made the news again when she was “taken from a train” after throwing large sums of money out of it. From the New York Evening Post for March 22, 1935.


Isabel died in 1939 at the age of 63, after an exciting if not exactly happy life. She had been living at the home of her mother, Susan Mulhall, and her final resting place was at the Fresh Pond Crematory and Columbarium, Queen County, New York. You can check this out on Find a Grave.

Her paranoia was indicated by her will, which provided substantial funds for an autopsy and investigation in case she had been poisoned.

Then the fun started again. Who would inherit her sizeable fortune? Her father, who had deserted the family nearly 60 years before, suddenly reappeared to make a claim. The Milwaukee Sentinel for December 17, 1942 managed to snap a tender moment on the court steps between her parents.


A younger person called a protégé, also made a claim. And ex-husband Sidmon, who was still alive, made a claim. And the squabble went on until 1943, when finally her wishes were granted. (See Bingham Press, February 15, 1943). So where did the rump of her fortune go? It was left to a dog’s home that trained guide dogs for the blind.

And here is the punch line. Maybe it was the absent father, maybe it was the two husbands (both old enough to be her father, and including of course our own ADJ) – but she planned a sculptured bust of herself in her own memory, headed by the words which also adorned her stationery. It was a quote originally attributed to Mme de Sevigne (1626-1696):

THE MORE I SEE OF MEN, THE MORE I ADMIRE DOGS!


Monday, November 4, 2019

A. D. Jones, yet again

While in St. Louis Jones was employed by Arthur R. Jones & Co. I suspect a family relationship. Jones & Co. were seen as disreputable in St. Louis. Can we prove a family relationship? Here is what I know about A. R. Jones:

Arthur Russell Jones was the son of Bushrod W. and Lydia (Stickney) Jones. He was born in Vinton, Iowa, Jan. S, 1865. He had a high school education, advanced education in those years. In 1889 he married Edith Forrester.

In 1883 Arthur moved to Chicago finding employment with the Chicago and North Western Railway as a traveling live-stock agent. In 1889 he became assistant general manager of Street’s Western Stable Car Line; then found employment with the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway as general freight agent. He returned to Chicago in 1896, establishing Arthur R. Jones & Co. dealing in “commercial paper,” short-term unsecured promissory notes, until 1897, in stock and bond brokerage from 1897 to 1902, in commercial paper again, 1902-1905. In 1905 he organized the Mercantile Credit Co.,

Friday, November 1, 2019

The third Mrs A D Jones


(rewritten and revised from a few years back - for those who enjoy the trivia as well as the scholarly stuff)


Albert Delmont Jones (now calling himself Albert Royal Delmont) married Bambina Maude Scott on September 29, 1904. He was around 50 years old at the time and (if the 1920 census is to be believed) she was 21. A 1922 newspaper has a claim that her first husband was a Cincinnati millionaire. Cincinnati was certainly one of ADJ’s past locations. (Interview question: “Tell me, Bambie, what was it about this 50 year old millionaire that first attracted you to him?”) Bambina liked the name Delmont and kept it through several subsequent marriages, including John Hopper and Cassius Wood. In 1922 she was last heard of (under the Delmont name) planning to marry a Lawrence Johnson.

In the newspapers she is sometimes Bambina Maud Delmont and sometimes Maud Bambina Delmont and Maud sometimes has an E on the end, and sometimes not. But the “Delmont” is consistent.

Bambina liked getting married, but didn’t always finish the paperwork for her divorces and was subsequently charged with bigamy on one occasion.


In the 1920 census returns she was running her own shop in Los Angeles selling and fitting corsets.

Bambina’s claim to fame (or infamy) is her part in the Roscoe Arbuckle scandal. Fatty Arbuckle was a silent film comedian who was huge (in more than one way) in his day. He is probably remembered in film circles today as the man who gave Buster Keaton his start in the movies.

Arbuckle was savaged by the media when he was suddenly arrested and accused of rape and murder after a 1921 party in San Francisco. The victim was a small part actress named Virginia Rappe. The charge was subsequently reduced to manslaughter. Arbuckle went through two hung juries before being cleared at a third trial where the jury were out for all of six minutes, using five of them to write a statement making a formal apology to him for the injustice he had suffered.

There was little doubt that Virginia Rappe’s death was preventable. Health problems exacerbated by a series of abortions made her fragile, and she didn’t get prompt or proper care when she was taken ill. But the lurid accusations against Arbuckle all originated with Rappe’s companion who crashed the party, namely Bambina Maud Delmont. While Wikipedia cannot be called the most accurate of sources, it does quite a nice line in character assassination: “Delmont had a long criminal record with multiple convictions for racketeering, bigamy, fraud and extortion, and allegedly was making a living by luring men into compromising positions and capturing them in photographs, to be used as evidence in divorce proceedings.”  The Weekly World News in 1961 veered into alliteration by accusing her of being a “Tinseltown tart.” Her unsubstantiated testimony at the original hearing got Arbuckle indicted, but then the prosecution deliberately kept her far away from all the actual trials, because her obvious inability to tell truth from fiction would have immediately sunk their case.

So this was the third Mrs ADJ.

When you consider ADJ’s history after his “fall from grace,” it would appear that some people just seem made for each other.

Albeit briefly.


Addenda

For those who love trivia and conspiracy links, Arbuckle’s own third wife was Addie Oakely Dukes McPhail, the former wife of Lindsay Matthew McPhail, who was the son of Matthew Lindsay McPhail who had helped lead the New Covenant breakaway from the Society in 1909. You really couldn’t make this stuff up.

(With grateful thanks to Miquel for originally providing the McPhail connection)


Thursday, October 31, 2019

A. D. Jones' Good Deeds

In 1884 Jones, newly wealthy, founded a charity called Day Star Universal Relief Fund.

I have insufficient documentation. If you can find more, send it on, please.

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Comments

Blog readers will get out of this blog what they put into it. Lack of comments means fewer blog posts. If you do not provide us with reason to share our research, we will have declining reason to post. We do have lives beyond this blog.

Stage Struck


Albert Royal Delmont Jones' soon to be second ex-wife went on the stage in 1903.


So did his third ex-wife in 1922.


It was a long way from Zion's Day Star.

Friday, October 25, 2019

Other things

Some of our regular readers know that Rachael wrote a YA novel some years ago. Two or three of you read it. It's not at all related to our history project, so this may not interest you. But we plan on republishing her book with a new cover and with added illustrations.

This will happen later next year, after Separate Identity is published.


Thursday, October 24, 2019

A. D. Jones again

I can trace him to NYC in 1877 and believe he was there maybe as early as 1876 or even 1875, but cannot prove that. I do not have time to follow up. Can you find any trace of him in New York City from say 1874 to mid 1878?

Also, can we find a help wanted ad in the NYC papers placed by Russell?

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

A visitor




A visitor to the grave of Joseph Lytle Russell in the Allegheny Cemetery. From Watch Tower of Allegheny Historical Tour book by James S Holmes (available through Amazon). Picture reproduced with kind permission of the author.

I personally did this tour with the author in 2014.

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Can you untangle this?

I sent this email to "Jerome," but anyone can help. I wish Ton was still alive. He'd untangle this ... But, alas, he is not ...

Delmont Jones, his daughter and which Jones this Delmont is

https://books.google.com/books?id=y0MWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA337&dq=%22delmont+jones%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj6weje27DlAhWQJTQIHYT6CY8Q6AEwAXoECC0QAg#v=onepage&q=%22delmont%20jones%22&f=false

see page 337.

There are several hints, but no proof, that the Jones were related to the owners of Jones and McLaughlin Steel in W. Va. W. I. Mann worked for them for a while. My best efforts have not untangled this mess. Can you?

Bruce

Jerome reminded me that we have a genealogy prepared by Ton. Herewith the solution:


Delmont Jones, born Pennsylvania  on 3  Aug  1803, died Pittsburgh,  PA     on 30  Dec  1878, married  on 2  Apr  1826,  (they had two twins) with Mary Ann Carr Jones, daughter of Edward Carr and Elizabeth Eliza Sanders, born London,  England  on 16  Jun  1802, died on 2  Mar  1875.
                 From this marriage:
6.              Jemima Jones, born on 12  Dec  1835.

We still need to know if there was a relationship between 'our' Jones and Jones and McLaughlin Steel.

Friday, October 18, 2019

What's in a name?

by Jerome

Interest in the bad boy of Watch Tower history “Albert Delmont Jones” caused me to have a look again at newspaper accounts of his exploits, and also his changes of name throughout his history, a cross between Icarus and Hogarth’s The Rake’s Progress.

For Watch Tower history we know him as Albert Delmont Jones. The names “Albert” “Delmont” and “Jones” are used for a number of people in various partial permutations, including his grandfather, his father, his brother, and also one of his sons who died young. So it is easy to follow the wrong trail. He started the paper Zion’s Day Star in late 1881, which soon became just The Day Star. By the end of the 1880s, ADJ was in trouble both in business and matrimony and his wife Cassie divorced him on the grounds of infidelity.

In the 1890s he reinvented himself in St Louis as a businessman extraordinaire. He dropped the common name “Jones,” added the name “Royal” and with a flourish became Albert Royal Delmont. A blind pool investment scheme (basically where investors invest “blind” without knowing where their money is going – not the wisest of moves) had gone sour and there was a court case. What it does is tie the different names of Albert together. From the St Louis Post-Dispatch, 20 July 1896.


So here in July 1896 we have the Albert Royal Delmont “blind pool” case, and there is lots of complicated material in several newspapers of the day for those who want to get a headache. Of interest to us is that one of the witnesses (and possible co-conspirator) is Wiliam J H Bown, who is billed as Delmont’s brother-in-law. ADJ’s ex-wife Cassie was originally Cassie Bown. So here we can link Albert Delmont Jones with Albert Royal Delmont.

It was interesting that William Bown is called ADJ’s brother-in-law because ADJ had married again by this time, to a young Society beauty half his age, Isabel Agnes Mulhall. The couple moved to Chicago and ADJ tried again, this time linked to a company called Albert R Jones and Co., commission merchants. (The name Delmont was dropped this time.)  A R Jones and Co. were expelled from the Chicago Board of Trade according to the newspaper cutting below. From the St Louis Dispatch, 22 January 1902.


Prior to this ADJ had tried his hand at publishing again. The 1900 Chicago census has him down as Albert Delmont and occupation as editor. For a long time we didn’t know what he edited after the long defunct Day Star. We now know his new venture was called American Progress. It is not known how long it lasted as no copies appear extant. From the Norton County News (Kansas), 23 March 1900.



It was only a matter of time before the marriage of ADJ and Isabel hit the buffers. Albert’s money went, and so did she. The newspaper cutting below written in popularist style has the inference that Albert’s manly charm was not the mainstay of their relationship. From the Saint Paul Globe, 15 September 1903.


He is still Albert Royal Delmont at this point.

By the end of his life the name “Royal” was to go the same way as “Jones” and he was simply listed on his death certificate as Albert Delmont.

Thursday, October 17, 2019

Another ...

I cannot read all of this. Can you?


HELP!

This is from the Cincinnati, Ohio, Catholic Telegraph of Nov 24, 1881. The image is poor. I can't read it. Can you. A clear transcription would be helpful.



Monday, October 14, 2019

Separate Identity 2

As it stands now, almost finished, it has 597 pages. There are 149 illustrations, including many photographs that haven't seen the light of day in over a century. Among the photos are those whose names will be familiar and those who have never been profiled in a history of the Watch Tower. I haven't counted the footnotes. They are plentiful, and those interested should be able to follow our research trail.

As with the first volume, this book is very detailed, though it does not exhaust the subjects covered. I hope others will follow the trails outlined in this book.

While much needs to be done, we are at the end of the trail. I'm still looking at a March release date, though that is subject to change.

A. D. Jones

From The Guardian [London, England] June 10, 1882:


Zion's Day Star, a journal published at New York in the interests of the Millennium, makes the following editorial requests: “We suggest that you read carefully, -at least twice, most of the articles, and especially those on chronology and the Prophetic Time. Without this our readers can scarcely get the connections, and unless these are seen the force of the argument cannot be appreciated.” This advice, though perhaps salutary, and even needful, is not very complimentary to the lucidity of the writers or to the intelligence of the readers.

A. D. Jones and related ...

This appeared in the Christadelphia Advocate of January 1889 in response to an argument over the proper name for believers. [Depending on your browser, you may have to click on the image to see it entire.] While it is interesting to see the writer class the Watch Tower with other Age to Come groups, my problem in identifying the periodical "Good News." Can you help?


Wednesday, October 9, 2019

First Chapter

For COMMENT. Usual rules. You may take a copy for yourself. Rough drafts will change. Never rely on a rough draft. Not ready for proof reading. Delay that for later. But comments are helpful, even on a draft this raw.

Now is the time to comment. This comes down tomorrow. 


Note: If you have skipped the Introductory Essays, please return to them and read them. Doing so will put the remainder of this volume in context.

1. Foundation


            Russell wrote a flurry of letters to counter Barbour’s speculations. And having decided to start a new paper to give a voice to their established doctrine, he sought regular contributors.[1] We have profiled all of these but Albert Jones in volume one of this work. Jones came from a fairly well-off family and was a ‘clerk’ in one of Russell’s stores. Instead of being a mere clothing salesman, he seems to have had accounting and management responsibilities. We find him not much later opening a thriving clothing store of his own and pursuing other business interests.

the rest of this post has been removed.

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Misc.

I owe several answers to their emails. Be patient, please. I'm experiencing work overload.

Do we know if P. S. L. Johnson's private papers still exist? Can you help locating them?

Some were interested in the Sermon Ledger Book. I now know that these were kept by Maria Russell, and that it is indeed in her handwriting. I also know that they formed the basis of some Watch Tower articles. Interesting, huh?

We've asked before, but do you have or can you locate personal letters by any Watch Tower adherent in any period. They do not have to seem 'historical' in nature. I would like scans, photocopies or,if you wish to part with them, originals.

Things that may seem irrelevant often provide clues to things that are.

We need a scan or photocopy of a single issue of a periodical held in the Harvard library. I have a mass of hospital and doctor's bills. If you want to pursue this in my behalf, email me, and I will send you details.

Mrs. Russell wrote many letters to subscribers and others, especially to women who sent in questions or comments. I need to see any of these that still exist.

I have some health issues now. But I am still working on chapter 1, the one unfinished chapter to volume 2.

Saturday, October 5, 2019

The Russells and the Allegheny Cemetery

(reprinted)

by Jerome


Allegheny cemetery entrance (for the Russell family plot)

Plan of graves in the Russell family plot, Section 7, Lot 17
Owner: James G Russell. Size of lot: 300 (square feet).
Back row: 1. Mary Russell, 2. Charles T Russell, 3. James G Russell, 4. Sarah A Russell,
Front row: 5. Joseph L Russell, 6. Ann E Russell, 7. Joseph L Russell Jr., 8. Lucinda H Russell, 9. Thomas B Russell

This undated plan from the Allegheny cemetery records was drawn up after the last burial took place in 1897. The same document listed the names as above, and also gave the interment numbers and dates of burial.


You will note that for some reason this gives no details for grave number nine, but elsewhere in the document we find this was for interment number 4778, name: Thomas B Russell; date 8/11/55.

As will be seen from the dates and in the following article the numbering is not the order of burials. The graves were started from the right hand side of the plot and then worked across to the left side in two rows. The actual order of interments was:

4. Sarah A Russell 1846
3. James G Russell 1847
9. Thomas B Russell 1855
8. Lucinda H Russell 1858
7. Joseph L Russell Jr. 1860
6. Ann E Russell 1861
2. Charles T Russell 1875
1. Mary Russell 1886
5. Joseph L Russell 1897

But first, some background to the Allegheny cemetery.

As cities in America grew in the 19th century, the problem of burying the dead became an issue, involving both public health and space. Town and city graveyards tended to be small, sectarian, and full. The rural cemetery or garden cemetery was a solution. It was designed to be a landscaped region that allowed the public to have parkland outside the city area, while also allowing the families of the rich to indulge in eye-catching memorial architecture. The latter seemed to work on the principle that, while you may not be able to take it with you, at least you could show the huddled masses you’d once had it! It also took the burial of the dead outside of church control.

The first rural cemetery in America was founded near Boston in 1831. Quickly others followed, including the one where most of CTR’s immediate family are buried, in Allegheny. The Allegheny model was chartered in 1844, and the grounds (originally one hundred acres of farmland) were dedicated to their new use on September 20, 1845. Other tracts of surrounding land were later purchased, so that a 1910 guide describes the cemetery as having grown to a little over 273 acres, divided into 39 sections.

Modern publications give a figure of around 300 acres, divided into 48 sections with fifteen miles of roadways. The area is carefully landscaped with well established trees, and is a haven for wildlife. Over 132,000 are buried there. Perhaps the most famous resident is Stephen Foster, the nineteenth century composer.

Although the cemetery location was chosen to be well outside the metropolis, inevitably the city encroached around it and then way beyond it. Today it is a very useful green space with some forestry, as well as a cemetery, in the middle of an urban area. It is located in the Lawrenceville neighbourhood of Pittsburgh, bounded by Bloomfield, Garfield and Stanton Heights. Its official address is 4734 Butler Street.

The original prospectus allowed for the purchase of individual graves or family plots. The prevailing sizes of the latter were 150, 225, 300, or 500 square feet each. A 150 square foot lot was for six graves, using wooden rough boxes only, a 225 foot lot was for eight interments and a 300 foot one for ten burials.

So finally we come to the Russell family.

We know that Charles Tays Russell (CTR’s uncle with variant spelling for the middle name) came to Allegheny and founded a business in 1831, assuming his obituary is accurate. He joined the Third Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, on 22 January 1834.

Other family members gravitated to the same area. His older brother James G Russell was in the New York area in the early 1830s, but is listed in the 1840 Pittsburgh area census. James Russell’s plans on moving to the Pittsburgh area included his extended family also staying there. Forever. Literally. He purchased a 300 square foot sized family plot in the brand new Allegheny cemetery, designed for ten interments. As it worked out, only nine family members would eventually use the site. The family plot is Section 7, Plot 17. Here is how it looks today. There are eight stones for a total nine graves, all laid flat on the ground.

Back row: Mary (no marker), Charles, James, Sarah
Front row: Joseph, Ann, Joseph Jr, Lucinda, Thomas

The first two interments were Sarah Russell in December 1846, followed a year later by James himself in December 1847.

There is a document in general circulation called the Relatives of Charles Taze Russell, originally produced by Robert Speel, a Russell descendant through Joseph Lytle Russell and his second wife Emma Ackley. This work could be called a labor of love, produced in the pre-internet age, and seems to draw a lot of early information from the Allegheny registers and the details found in Charles Tays Russell’s last will and testament. But there is one significent error in it. It lists Sarah Russell as the sister of James Russell, who bought the family plot. However, Sarah was not his sister, but his wife. This is not clear on the burial registers which give no details of familial relationships, but below is the small headstone that still survives for Sarah.

Sarah, wife of Jas. G Russell, died Dec 14, 1846.

This makes a lot of sense. James would purchase the family plot because first: he was the oldest in the family, and second: because his wife Sarah was dying or had died. James was born ten years ahead of Charles Tays Russell and seventeen years ahead of Joseph Lytle. As the oldest and to our knowledge the first-born, he would normally have taken the lead. However, he was to die comparitively young and hence disappears from the narrative before our CTR was even born.

Sarah Russell was originally Sarah Ann Risk from Faun, Ireland. Her father was an excise officer in the old country. She married James in the early 1830s and they reportedly lived first at Elmwood Hill, New York. Her sister, Margaret Risk married James’ brother Alexander. Alexander is outside the scope of this article in that his life in America was spent in New York and New Jersey. However, since his picture has survived and I have permission to reproduce it, here it is:

Alexander Grier Russell, an older brother of Joseph Lytle Russell.

Returning to the Allegheny cemetery, as indicated above it started with around a hundred acres of land and has grown to about three times that size today. But initially the take-up was small. In the first year, 1845, from the start in September to the end of the year there were only eight burials in total.

In 1846 there were only 29 new interments. These included Sarah Russell. One must assume that James had the pick of many potential family plots; his choice then being dictated partly by cost, but also by situation and outlook.  However, total interments were 67 that year, because there were also 38 re-burials. It was common in the early days to remove bodies from city cemeteries at the request of relatives, who wanted a more congenial final resting place for their whole family.

So by the end of 1846, a grand total of 75 burials or re-burials had taken place at the cemetery. Sarah died of consumption in the December; her burial registration number is 73.

Almost exactly one year later, in December 1847, James died. His burial registration number is 264. He was laid to rest next to Sarah in the top row of two on the plot, the one furthest from the roadway. James died of paralysis, so one assumes he suffered a fatal stroke at the age of 51.  Here is the small stone grave marker for James.

 
James G Russell.

So that made it two down, and eight places left to go in the family plot (only seven of which were eventually taken up).

By the time James died Joseph Lytle (sometimes spelled Lytel) Russell was living in Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Daily Post newspaper started a regular column in 1843 listing the names of all those who needed to collect mail from the Pittsburgh post office. In the issue for Monday, October 16, 1843 (repeated in the following two daily issues) we find both Joseph L Russell and James Russell.


A month later in the issue for Saturday, November 18, 1843, we find the other brother, Charles T Russell, also being asked to collect his mail.

Joseph joined the same church as his brother Charles Tays, the Third Presbyterian, Pittsburgh, on March 7, 1845. And it was his branch of the family who would use the site next. The Allegheny Cemetery charter laid down strict legal provisions for inheritance of family plots – first to children (James and Sarah did not have any) then to parents (assumed to be long dead in the old country), and then to brothers and sisters.

In common with many in those unhealthy times, Joseph and his wife Ann Eliza were to lose three of their five children quite early on. Thomas, pictured on the left in the January 1, 1912 WT photograph was the first – he died of whooping cough and was buried in a row nearest the roadway in front of James and Sarah’s graves.

Thomas and Charles

The cemetery record states he died in August 1855 at the age of five years and three months. While not something to pursue here, it should be noted that the 1850 census returns suggest Thomas was born around January of 1850. That would make him five years and eight months when he died. It’s possible that the crabby handwriting and fading ink of the era caused someone at some point to confuse a three and an eight.

Thomas B Russell had been the firstborn, and was no doubt named after his maternal uncle, Thomas Birney, who lived in Pittsburgh. He was followed by Charles Taze Russell in 1852 (both Charles and Taze being an obvious nod to his paternal uncle, Charles Tays) and then Margaret Russell in 1854. Charles and Margaret survived to adulthood of course, and were finally buried side by side, but elsewhere.

Then a young daughter named Lucinda was born (probably a nod towards Thomas Birney’s sister Lucinda). She died from scrofula (sometimes spelled scrophula), a form of tuberculosis affecting lymph nodes in the neck, in July 1858 at the age of a year and a half. Lastly, there was a young son, Joseph Lytle Jr, who died of croup at the age of six months in April 1860. The family had been living and working in Philadelphia at this point, but it was still important to the family to bring the little bodies back to the Allegheny cemetery for burial in the family plot.

For the three children, three sad little gravestones survive, but they are very weathered and the memorial inscriptions on them have all but gone. On the one reproduced below you can just make out the figures 1857 and 1858, so this would be the grave marker for Lucinda.


Finally, after losing her three children, mother Ann Eliza died from consumption in January 1861. Her funeral took place from the home of her brother, Thomas Birney, in Pittsburgh. Her will, written just the month before, when she was no doubt very ill, lists her husband, Joseph Lytle, as “her agent in Philadelphia.” The notice of death in the Pittsburgh Gazette for January 26, 1861 calls her the wife of Joseph L Russell (of Philadelphia, PA).

Her grave stone survives, although it is worn in places. It reads:

ANN ELIZA
WIFE OF
JOSEPH L RUSSELL
DIED (indistinct) 1861
IN THE 39 YEAR OF
HER LIFE

There is an inscription at the bottom – probably taken from a scripture – but indecipherable today.


After Ann Eliza’s death, the family plot remained unused for nearly fifteen years. During this time, CTR and his sister grew to adulthood, and CTR started his spiritual journey in earnest.

Then, in 1875, the original Charles Tays died. His life story, such as we know it, is covered in an earlier article on this blog – The Other Charles T Russell. Charles Tays died of hepatitis in December 1875 and was buried in the family plot. The grave was positioned in the top row, next to James and Sarah, whose funerals had been 30 years before. Charles Tays’ grave stone is quite well preserved.



It reads:

IN MEMORY OF
CHARLES TAYS RUSSELL
A NATIVE OF
COUNTY DONEGAL, IRELAND
DIED
AT PITTSBURGH PA
DEC 28 1875
IN THE 70 YEAR
OF HIS AGE

Eleven years went by before the next interment. The extended Russell family who settled in Pittsburgh included an unmarried sister, Mary Jane Russell. Mary had been housekeeper for her brother, Alexander Russell, in New York after the death of his wife, but on Alexander’s death in the 1870s she moved to Pittsburgh to live. Joseph Lytle probably took over managing her care. When Charles Tays died, he left $3000 in a trust fund for Mary’s support. By 1886 the plan had gone awry and it was necessary to dip heavily into the capital to care for her. But within a week of the documentation being drawn up, Mary was dead. She died in September of 1886 and was buried in the top row next to her brother Charles Tays. No stone was provided.

There was only one more person who would share this final resting place, CTR’s father, Joseph Lytle. Joseph had re-married (his second wife being CTR’s wife’s sister) and they had one child, Mabel, who was to live until 1961. The family moved from Pittsburgh to Florida, but Joseph Lytle then returned to Pittsburgh shortly before his death, likely so he could die there. He was buried alongside his first wife and the three children who had died before them.

Joseph’s stone reads:
FATHER
JOSEPH L RUSSELL
BORN IN IRELAND
JULY 4 1813
DIED IN ALLEGHENY
DEC 17 1897

The inscription at the bottom reads: Blessed and holy are all they who have part in the first resurrection. They shall be Kings and Priests with God.


And that was it, as far as the Allegheny cemetery plot was concerned; a total of nine interments out of a possible ten. The years went by, it became forgotten, and grass encroached over the stones lying flat on the ground; until more recent times when the plot was rediscovered. The memorial inscriptions for Joseph Lytle and Charles Tays are in the best condition today, but of course they are the most recent.

So why didn’t CTR end up buried here with his family in the one remaining space?

I have no way of knowing how carefully to scale the chart of graves reproduced with this article may be, but if accurate, it might appear that squeezing in another interment could be problematic. Probably more to the point, CTR was involved in founding a new cemetery.

The Rosemont, Mount Hope and Evergreen United Cemeteries were founded on land purchased from what was called the Wiebel farm in 1905. One section in the Rosemont Cemetery was earmarked for Bible Student use. In his will, written in 1907, CTR directed that he be buried there. By the time of his death in 1916 the area was simply called United Cemeteries. His sister Margaret (or Margaretta) R Land was buried next to him in 1934.

But that needs to be the subject of another article.


Postscript

It should be noted that elsewhere in the Allegheny cemetery are other relatives of CTR. His maternal uncle Thomas Birney (from whose home his mother’s funeral was conducted) was also buried here in 1899. There is a family plot in Section 24, lot 46. In the same grave (grave 1) as Thomas (1830-1899) is Thomas’ wife Mary Ann Birney (1832-1906).

The Birneys had at least five children and two daughters never married. They are buried in this family plot, Eve Birney (died 1950) and Mary Birney (died 1953).