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.