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            Watch Tower evangelism in Michigan is representative. Its story is repeated in every other American state, in Britain, and in Canadian provinces. So Michigan is a somewhat arbitrary choice. In the period considered in this book and up to 1902, Michigan newspapers took little to no notice of Watch Tower evangelism. Almost our sole access to this story is through contemporary issues of Zion’s Watch Tower and letters found in later issues of The St. Paul, Michigan, Enterprise.

            An exception is found in the minutes of the Michigan Congregational association for 1898. In 1898 William Ewing, a Congregationalist clergyman and Michigan State Sunday School Superintendent, complained of declining Sunday School attendance, blaming it on Millennial Dawn, Age-to-Come preachers, Church of God – evidently also age to come – Free Methodists and others:

From careful observation and statistics, I am convinced that the proportion of those who do not attend Sunday school as well as church, is largest in the rural communities. In many country districts, both church and Sunday school attendance is less than it was years ago.

the cause of decline.

I called your attention a year ago to the fact that a large amount of Sunday school work was being done around our churches in a desultory way; which led to feeble schools being organized, either to be short-lived, or to open the way for contending sects of "Free Methodist" "Saints," (Present and Latter Day), "Millennial Dawn," "Church of God," "Age to Come," and others of the same variety. After an infliction of this kind, the most reliable people of many communities stay away, and the others sink into godless indifference.

            Age-to-Come/Chruch of God/One Faith believers challenged congregationalists on doctrine. Free Methodists presented financial problems because they denied the right to charge pew rent. They were also doctrinally conservative. Ewing said that he had “frequent conferences on this matter” with church workers “and also with representative members of the Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist denominations.” They agreed that the situation was grave. He said that inter-denominational cooperation was needed: “I believe we need to draw closer together as different denominations, and plan for a strong Sunday school advance in close connection with all our churches.” He wanted union Sunday schools – that admitted anyone, regardless of faith – to fade away. “It has been found wise and necessary,” he said, “to plant the Sunday school as a branch of a church, expecting it to develop into real church life.” Despite this, he believed that they needed “the counsel and cooperation of the wisest in our churches, and those of sister denominations, that the work may be strong and permanent,” adding that “When we face this problem there is more work than we can all do. There is no need of any rivalry, and as far as I know there is none. I wish to bear testimony to the good fellowship between the field workers of the different denominations in this regard.”[1]

            Ewing’s report testifies to a successful Watch Tower evangelism disproportionate to the number of adherents in Michigan. [The same is true of the other denominations he mentions.] In an era when attendance reports for the annual Memorial of Christ’s Death [Communion] were erratic and incomplete the April 15, 1899, Zion’s Watch Tower reported only seven sparsely attended meetings with a total attendance of sixty-seven. This almost certainly understates the number of adherents, but even if by half, there were few adherents in Michigan.[2]

            Paton cultivated interest in Michigan before he met Russell, and Keith engaged in mission work there, primarily through lecturing. Other than Robert Bailey, W. E. Van Amburgh’s parents,[3] and a few others, almost all of the Watch Tower evangelists and adherents in Michigan of the 1880s and 90s are anonymous, but we have a considerable history – one that illustrates how believers turned Watch Tower counsel to evangelize into practice. This was not the organized sales-culture of the Rutherford and Knorr years. It was impelled by the generally-held belief that informal evangelization was a Christian’s duty. This is illustrated by an incident recounted in the 1977 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses. In 1895 Rasmus Blindheim, a resident of Norway, received two Watch Tower published book sent to him by his brother, a resident of Michigan. “He understood that this was the truth. He obtained the Society’s literature as it was published and maintained regular contact by mail with his brother in America. Blindheim seems to have been the first actual Norwegian witness of Jehovah, and worked to spread the truth all through his life, dying in 1935 at eighty years of age.”[4]

            [ZWT letters  and analysis here]

The Van Amburghs

            One of the few Minnesota families whose conversion occurred sometime before 1900 that we can identify is the van Amburgh family. They entertained Watch Tower ‘pilgrims,’ traveling speakers, in their home. For a “Mrs. H. A. Remick” a visit to Northfield, Minnesota, where the van Amburgs lived in 1900, to hear McPhail speak was memorable. Mrs. Remick and Fannie (Frances) van Amburg became regular correspondents, and Remick described her as generous with time and money.[5]

            Fannie [Frances] Sophia Patterson was born July 15, 1839, in Livingston County, New York.[6] She was, according to her obituary, the youngest of ten children. Her mother died about three years later, and her father died when she was five. Her obituary says, “As an orphan she was “bound out” to an aunt, then living in Illinois. Her early life was one of privation and very limited opportunities.” We cannot sustain this from census or other records. There is a “Fanny Patterson,” age twenty, in the 1860 Census. She is listed as a servant in the household of George G. Patterson, a blacksmith [36 years old] and his wife, Harriet [35 years old]. She is listed as a servant. All of this is unresolved at the date of this book’s publication.

            When she became an adult she moved to Goodhue County, Minnesota, to live with “her only sister.” She taught school until she married Daniel S. van Amburgh in August 1862. These were Civil War year, and Daniel enlisted in the Sixth Michigan Volunteer Infantry, leaving Frances to care for their farm. Daniel’s service was mostly on the frontier though late in the war his unit was moved south.[7] The van Amburgs endured “sever experiences,” most of which are left un-described by an obituary writer.

photo

The Van Amburgh Family – Courtesy of Jerry Leslie

            In 1873 they moved to Northfield, Minnesota; the obituary says they wanted “to provide better school facilities for their boys.” She joined the Methodist Episcopal Church and was “an active worker.” In addition to “church work,” Daniel’s obituary says they were active within the Grand Army of the Republic and its women’s auxiliary, The Women’s Relief Corps.[8] The 1880 United States Census tells us that Daniel continued to farm. They incorporated into their family some nephews and a niece. We do not know why. Living with them were Nettie, Harvey, and Arthur Patterson. These were young children; the oldest – Nettie – was nine, and the youngest – Arthur – was two.

photo

1880 Census Record

     

            Their oldest son, William Edwin [Born August 28, 1863] recalled that his mother “dedicated me to the Lord before I was born.” She rededicated him after he was born. This echoes Russell’s experience and was not uncommon in the era. “My first recollection is learning prayers at my mother’s knee,” he continued. He joined his mother’s church when he was ten, the year the moved to Northfield, becoming “active in church affairs.” He said that he made “a full consecration” as far as he knew how when he joined the Methodist Episcopal Church. When he was twenty-three (1886) he “signed a written statement to the effect that everything I owned or expected to own, or posses, was to be given to the Lord.”

            Both boys graduated from Northfield High School and went on to Carlton College in Northfield. William pursued English, Classical Studies and Music. George enrolled in English Studies and Music. William was enrolled for two years; neither boy graduated.[9] Both learned other trades. George had a varied career. Public documents list him as a motorman (ie: a street car driver), a salesman; an electrician and a waffle-house owner.[10] William took a course in telegraphy. After completing a year’s course he was hired (1884) by the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway, moving to Traill County, North Dakota.[11] Civil War pension records show that his parents followed him there.[12] Though we do not know if William acquired an Exhorter’s License, he started to preach while in North Dakota: “I was active in the church work and Y. M. C. A. work, holding services nearly every Sunday in the city where I was engaged in railroad work,” he later recalled. He preached in school houses. We can find no independent verification for this, but we do not doubt it.[13]

            William returned to Minnesota in September 1887 to marry Ada May Wood.[14] She was somewhat younger than he and attended Carlton College between 1884 and 1887, a year longer than William.[15] They moved to Huron, Beadle County, South Dakota, sometime before 1886. They had very limited social interaction; the population of the entire county was a tad over eight thousand. She made her will shortly before she died of consumption (March 6, 1887), leaving a small house in Ramsey County, Michigan, to her husband.

            William reported that in late 1894 and early 1895 he was interested in and reading about the second coming of Christ. In February 1895, a friend loaned him The Divine Plan of the Ages. This was a life changing moment for the van Amburgh family. “I studied it,” he recalled, “and said that [it] is the Bible in A. B. C. I was so interested and it was so different from what I had read that I took it to the Lord in prayer, to find out whether it could be the truth.” When he was two-thirds through, he got down on his knees in the telegraph office and prayed. He studied more thorougly:

I became very deeply interested and took up the study with other translations of the Bible, the King James Version, Concordances, Helps and Dictionaries, to see whether this was really a proper interpretation of the Bible. Being convinced of the fact – I studied a year – I withdrew from the Methodist Church in 1896. From that time on ... I was associated with the [Watch Tower] society in the sense of endeavoring to promulgate their doctrines.[16]

            William became part of Watch Tower headquarters staff in 1900. His family had returned to Minnesota where they took up the Watch Tower message. William is by far the most known of the van Amburghs, but his parents represent the path the message took within Minnesota. Informal testimony from friends, from relatives, from strangers grew the Watch Tower fellowship

John Adam and Christina Doratha [Dorothea Unkel] Bohnet

            Census records indicate that both were born in 1830, but Christina’s grave marker gives her birth date as 1829. Birth location records are confused. One suggests that John Adam was born in Austria. Another suggests that they were both from Wurttemberg. A family record says: “John Adam Bohnet and Christina Doratha Unkel were born in the same place in Germany, sailed on different ships from Germany to the United States and disembarked in New York City on the same day. John sometimes went by his middle name Adam. He was a blacksmith by trade. His blacksmith shop faced Carpenter Road. Christine raised flowers to sell, tulips and gladiolas.”

            Christina’s obituary says they lived “together in the same home ever since their marriage, and [they are] said to have been the oldest married couple in the state [of Michigan].”[17]  They immigrated to America in 1854, settling in Minnesota. They were on the American frontier, and their life reflected that. The 1880 United States Census verifies the family record, listing Adam as a Farmer and Black Smith. We have little record of their early years in America, but Christina’s obituary tells an interesting story: “In her early maidenhood [she] crossed the Atlantic in 39 days, in a sailing vessel, and worked as a hired girl, 16 hours every day, for $1.00 Per week, for years in a family near Ann Arbor. After supper each night during apple season she peeled and sliced a bushel of apples by hand and dried them for winter pies. On wash days she was up at 4:00 a.m. and had her wash on the line before breakfast hour.”

            We do not know their marriage date. We know something about her early married life:

She took the fleece direct from the sheep, carded it, spun it into yarn on a foot tread spinning wheel and knitted by hand all the stockings for herself, her husband and her five children as long as they attended school and she did this by the light of her home-made, tallow candles. Talk about a woman working’ she was a wonder of wonders; slight of frame and swift of movement; even up to her last sickness [at age ninety-five] she could catch a fly with her hand. She suffered without complaint. She was love and justice personified, and the generous almost to a fault, never turned away from her door a hungry beggar.[18]

           

            The Bonhet’s met Watch Tower theology in about 1898. One of their sons, James A. Bonhet, became prominent in the work. Bohnet relatives lived nearby, and some seem to have accepted Watch Tower teachings.

Hans Fredrick Peterson

            H. F. Peterson became an adherent sometime before 1889. He was born in Sweden in December 2, 1848, immigrating to Minnesota in 1886, and spending most of the remainder of his life in Lund Township, Douglas County. What we know of his conversion and continuing connection to the Watch Tower comes from an obituary written by his son Walter who wrote that “circumstances hindered him from doing much in the Lord’s service,” adding that: “If it had not been for him I would be in darkness, for which I am very thankful to our Heavenly Father that He has seen fit that I should see this great light which shines more and more unto the perfect day, for we sorrow not as others, for we have a better hope, so I can well say he had done what he could.”[19]

            Walter left the “circumstances” hindering his father’s activity un-described, but we know enough about his life to surmise. He was a farmer in an era that saw most American farmers living in poverty or near it. He and his wife had five children. One dropped out of the record between 1900 and 1905, and we presume they died. The 1905 state census tells us that in that year they ranged in age between six and eighteen. Scratching a living from the ground and raising four children left little time for anything else. Hans died May 5, 1920 in Evansville, Douglass County, Minnesota.

H. V. “Minnie” Peterson and Viola Townsend

            Minnie Peterson and Viola Townsend were the first two adherents in St. Paul and Minneapolis. However, as significant as that is, we know little about either of them. Minnie was born January 20, 1858, in Germany, immigrating to America in 1883 when she was sixteen. She married William P. Peterson in Wisconsin, and they immigrated to Minnesota sometime between 1890 and 1894. Her obituary describes her as, “Having been reared from the earliest childhood by Christian parents.” She was, said her obituary, a devout Christian, “ever loving to know more of God’s Word.” We do not know the exact date of her conversion to Watch Tower faith, but she was an enduring and faithful member of the St. Paul congregation. Again, from her obituary we have this:

She was a faithful class attendant and a diligent student of the Word. Although of a quiet retiring disposition, it delighted her soul to bear witness at every opportunity to the old, old story of Jesus and His love. She was wholly devoted to spiritual things, and in holding up the banner of truth and righteousness.[20]

            That’s the entire story as we know it. It is frustratingly brief and just as frustratingly incomplete. And we know less about Viola Townsend. She is mentioned in a letter printed in the November 1, 1896, Watch Tower, but the reference is incidental, adding nothing to our understanding.[21]

Alfred Henry Furley

            A. H. Furley [1865 – 1947] was an English born immigrant, listed as a “laborer” in the 1895 Minnesota state census. Furley was, as were many, probably most, Watch Tower adherents, seeking to conform to the Divine Will as expressed in the Bible. He believed that God led him into “His marvelous light.” He had, he wrote, the elements of ‘truth’ early in life: The need for a savior; the need for a Ransom from sin; and the obligation to obey “my dear Heavenly Father.” He associated with the Salvation Army, but found many religiously divergent voices among them. “I came across many people with so many different views,” He wrote. “Here indeed was confusion – Babylon – making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for those not in the Truth, to know which were the right views.” He characterized 1885 to 1893 as years of religious instability: “I was drifting about in confusion, but gathering the Truth from Scriptures little by little.”[22]

            A Watch Tower colporteur found him sometime in 1893. Leaving the colporteur unnamed, he described their interaction this way:

There came to me in Duluth, Minn., a colporteur who asked me, if I did not wish to buy a book. On my inquiring what it contained, he explained to me some of its contents. I readily saw that it was different from any other book. Our talk drifted along and one question led to another until we came to the subject of the soul, he wishing to know how I harmonize my view with the Scriptures, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.”

I did not buy the book at that time, but later a tract was left with me, and I saw that I could get the book on loan, so I sent for it – it proved to be “The Divine Plan of the Ages.” And it surely was a wonderful book, making everything so plain, which before had been so full of mystery.

            The tract is unidentifiable, at least by us. And Furley’s narrative leaves the exact dates of this transaction vague. He was isolated from others “of like precious faith,” and in 1903 inserted an ad into the personals section of The Duluth, Minnesota, Evening Herald, seeking others “interested in Zion’s Watch Tower and Millennium Dawn Series.” We do not know the result, and the remainder of Furley’s story is illusive.

Duluth paper here

Arthur Cumberland

            Cumberland was an immigrant, born in England December 9 1826. The 1900 United States census dated his immigration to 1833, and a ship’s record says he arrived in New York City on August 13, 1833, aboard the sailing vessel Portia.[23] He moved first to Pennsylvania, and we find him there in the 1850 Federal Census; then to Minnesota. Various census records list his occupation as teacher and farmer, not an unusual combination in that era, especially on the frontier. His obituary reported that “he came into the truth in 1882” while he was living in Mantorville, a very small village. It does not give particulars but the date suggests he read Food for Thinking Christians and was convinced by it. He started reading and saving Watch Tower publications, finally accumulating “a full set of Towers bound and complete from the first issue up to date.” [1916] He became a serious Bible reader. His obituary said: “He was one of the best read brothers in the Scripture we ever met. If we gave him a part of a quotation, he would give it to us in full and tell you where to find it.” The obituary reported him as an earnest worker, the mainstay of the Rochester, Minnesota, class. His last few years were spent in Canada, also working to further the Watch Tower message. Of his children, two of his daughters were also Watch Tower adherents. He died August 27, 1916, still an adherent.

            It is impossible to attach names to the letters we analyzed earlier in this chapter. But we can make some observations, or rather repeat observations we made earlier. The spread of Watch Tower belief in Minnesota is typical of the movement’s growth elsewhere. It depended on an evangelical spirit that pervaded the age. Those who were serious Christians, no matter their doctrine, felt obligated to testify. Watch Tower evangelism was not a new thing. It was a long standing practice, but colored by a new understanding of the Bible’s message. A new belief system, one suggested there was a narrow path to divine choosing, engendered zeal.

            The Watch Tower continued to advocate evangelism. Jehovah’s Witnesses, the principal descendent religion, tend to focus on the 1922 Cedar Point, Ohio, Convention. They quote Rutherford’s speech:

Do you believe that the King of glory has begun his reign? Then back to the field, O ye sons of the most high God! Gird on your armor! Be sober, be vigilant, be active, be brave. Be faithful and true witnesses for the Lord. Go forward in the fight until every vestige of Babylon lies desolate. Herald the message far and wide. The world must know that Jehovah is God and that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords. This is the day of all days. Behold, the King reigns! You are his publicity agents. Therefore advertise, advertise, advertise, the King and his kingdom.

           

            It is important to remember that this was at best a revitalization – more accurately, a strengthening – of an evangelizing spirit after the difficult war years. It was a spirit fostered by The Watch Tower from its first issue. Though it is fodder for a book about the war years, evangelizing did not die out among Watch Tower adherents during World War One. It only became more difficult.

---

[1]               Minutes of the Michigan Congregational Association at Their Fifty-Seventh Annual Meeting in Grand Rapids May 17-19, 1898, Also of the Michigan Home and Foreign Missionary Societies with Reports and Statistics, Lawrence & VanBuren Printing Co. Lansing, Michigan, 1898.

[2]               The figures for Michigan are: Saginaw, 12; Detroit, 8; Wheeler, 7; Kalamazoo, 10; Muskegon, 13; Adrian, 6; Ypsilanti, 11.

[3]               An untitled short article in The St. Paul, Minnesota, New Era Enterprise says she “has been long in the glorious truth.” See August 8, 1922 issue. It does not date her introduction to Watch Tower theology. An article published in the September 5, 1922, issue says both parents were adherents. [See the article: Sixtieth Wedding Aniversary.]

[4]               Page 195. There are too many possibilities to clearly identify his brother by name.

[5]               Voices of the People, or What our Readers Say, The St. Paul, Minnesota, Enterprise, October 31, 1916.

[6]               Her obituary gives her name as Franny P. The “P” stands for her maiden name. Her son George’s marriage certificate says her second given name was Sophia. – British Columbia, Division of Vital Statistics: Marriage Registrations 002146 to 002561: 1893-1894. [GR 2962, Volume 006] Certificate No. 2437. The certificate describes him as a Methodist, expected in 1894, and his wife Hatty Henry [the widow of Eugene Higby] as Presbyterian.

[7]               The 1890 Special Census of Civil War Veterans says he served from May 1863 to June1865. See the enumeration for Traill County, North Dakota.

[8]               Obituary, The St. Paul, Minnesota, New Era Enterprise, December 9, 1924.

[9]               Annual Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Carlton College, Northfield, Minnesota: For the Academic Year 1881-1882, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1882; W. E. van Amburgh’s testimony in United States v. Rutherford, et. al., transcript of record, page 660.

[10]             Motorman is listed on his first marriage certificate; salesman is noted on his death certificate [WA Certificate No. 1823]; electrician is listed on his second marriage certificate, 1911. Waffle House is from  1920 Federal Census records.

[11]             Later absorbed by the Great Northern Railway.

[12]             See: The General Index to Civil War Pension File. Certificate 770.077. Daniel’s obituary, cited above, says they lived in Northfield from 1873 to 1909. This is false, though their residence in North Dakota seems to have brief.

[13]             Testimony found in United States v. Rutherford, et. al, transcript of record, page 661.

[14]             Rice county marriage certificate dated September 28, 1887. Census records tell us that her father, John Wood, was a “market gardener” in the Northfield area.

[15]             Carlton College Bulletin, June 1921, page 125.

[16]             United States v. Rutherford, et. al, Transcript of Record, pages 661-662.

[17]             Obituary, The St. Paul, Minnesota, New Era Enterprise, December 9, 1924.

[18]             ibid.

[19]             “Voices” or What our Readers Say, The St. Paul, Minnesota, New Era Enterprise, April 20, 1920.

[20]            Details from the 1900 US Census and Mrs. Minnie Peterson [Obituary], The St. Paul, Minnesota, New Era Enterprise, April 27, 1926.

[21]             Encouraging Words from Faithful Workers, Zion’s Watch Tower, November 1, 1896, page 264. [Not in Reprints.]

[22]             Furley to editor of The St. Paul, Minnesota, Enterprise, January 29, 1918.

[23]             New York, New York, Index to Passenger Lists, 1820-1846; retrieved from https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GGX7-9Q7M?cc=1919703&wc=M6YK-PTL%3A212777401