JOHN ADAM BOHNET

His face and head with its distinctive bald pate looked out of various convention reports between 1907 and 1927, including the one above from 1911. He testified at two legal trials involving Charles Taze Russell. He was responsible for the pyramid monument near CTR’s grave. He was the man who actually grew “miracle wheat.” He compiled at least one small book and wrote numerous articles and letters for Watch Tower publications, as well as various newspapers. And unlike many of those who were very close to Russell, he stayed loyal to the Watch Tower Society after the change in administration. Although occasional anecdotes about his work in the 1920s have appeared in modern Watchtower literature, he is not as well remembered as many less public figures of the day. This article tries to redress that balance for John Adam Bohnet.

In 1915 Bohnet was asked to write his life story for the Bible Students unofficial newspaper, the St Paul Enterprise. Many of the facts about his conversion and early work with the Society are taken from this account, first found in the August 27, 1915 issue and then republished unchanged on February 8, 1916.

Additional facts about his life over this period are taken from his testimony in two trials, Russell vs. Russell (1906) “the divorce trial” and Russell vs. Washington Post (1913) “the miracle wheat trial.” Bohnet was a key witness in both trials, where he was quizzed about his own history and his connections with CTR and the Watch Tower Society. For a fuller summary of his St Paul Enterprise testimony, see Separate Identity volume 2, pages 261-271.

Adam’s parents, Johann Adam Bohnet (1830-1926) and Christina Dorothea Unkel (1829-1924) were born in Freudenstadt, Germany, but came to America in 1852 and settled in Michigan, ultimately in Ann Arbor. They had four children, all born in Michigan. Our subject John Adam (May 11, 1858 – April 14, 1932) was the first, and as the story will show, both his parents and some of his siblings also became Bible Students.

Bohnet’s parents were Lutheran, and though he was baptized in infancy he never made that faith his own. His father was a blacksmith, and Adam started his working life in farming, before moving from Michigan to Portland, Oregon, in 1883, to work first at brick making and then to work for a San Francisco publishing firm in Seattle. After set-backs he contemplating renouncing what little faith he had, but then an encounter with a revivalist preacher at the YMCA reawakened his spiritual interest. He became a Bible Class leader for the M.E. Church, linked to travelling widely for his firm. He described his commitment at Ogden, Utah: “My pew on Sunday was never vacant, and my loose change jingled merrily on the collection plate.”

Returning from a business trip he found his own Church temporarily closed so visited a Presbyterian Bible class nearby where an unnamed leader invited him to his home and enthused about a book that had “wonderfully opened the Bible to him.” Bohnet never saw the book because the owner had loaned it out, but another copy had been ordered from the East. When Bohnet called to say goodbye before departing for Nevada on business the book had arrived. In fact, three books had arrived, the first three volumes of Millennial Dawn. A letter Bohnet wrote to the National Labor Tribune for May 18, 1911, confirmed that this first encounter with the Divine Plan of the Ages was in 1892.

Bohnet was always quite outspoken, and his comments on his first encounter with Volume 1 as his train rattled towards Reno are typical: “While on the train next day I read with interest and astonishment the preface of Volume 1 – the wording of which, to my regret, was changed for all subsequent editions…” He struggled on the noisy train and then read through the night at his hotel. He was convinced he had found the truth. The local Methodist preacher was less than impressed – Bohnet described him as “bitterly antagonistic” – but there was no stopping Bohnet. He wrote: “By the Lord’s grace I was instrumental in locating and assisting out of Mystic Babylon, within the next twelve months, twelve dear saints.”

Bohnet attended the 1893 Bible Students convention at Chicago, where he was baptized and met CTR in person for the first time. He noted that his beard and hair seemed as black as coal.

CTR and Maria as part of group picture at the 1893 convention.

Bohnet does not appear in this particular photograph.

As we will see later, Bohnet became an indefatigable letter writer. His first was published in Zion’s Watch Tower for the September 1 and 15, 1893 double number and he kept up a steady stream over the years down to 1931. From very early on he described his witnessing experiences, and was soon on the list of speakers representing the Watch Tower Society. The 1894 annual report in the December 15 ZWT mentions him on page 393 as one of a number of “traveling salesmen, colporteurs and business men” who used their spare time at their own expense to visit groups and give talks. According to a letter in the St Paul Enterprise for February 13, 1917, he gave his first ever chart talk in Portland, Oregon, in October 1894.

At this point we might note that many years later Bohnet described how CTR gave him the address of Benjamin Wilson, the translator of the Diaglott, and how he called on Wilson in Sacramento, California for several revealing conversations. The report is found in the St Paul Enterprise for April 4, 1916, and it should be noted by modern writers that in the conversation Wilson flatly denied ever being a Christadelphian. While there is no reason to doubt the account, Bohnet’s article says this was in 1892. That appears too early for his biography – would CTR really entrust such an important visit to a neophyte he’d not even met at the time? This writer assumes that the visit on Wilson, who lived until 1900, probably happened around 1894.

Zion’s Watch Tower magazine for August 15, 1894, put out a call out for a stenographer to assist CTR at the Bible House. Bohnet quickly saw an opportunity, and as he wrote: “I knew nothing about shorthand writing. But immediately wrote Brother Russell that I was sending to Chicago for stenographic instructions; and when sufficiently proficient would join him.”

Blandishments to stay in his present employment in San Francisco fell on deaf ears, and in April 1895 a very determined and focused John Adam joined the Bible House family as CTR’s stenographer.

As a secretary Bohnet’s work involved taking dictation and typing out a number of confidential documents. These included letters CTR wrote to his wife and her relations and also drafting Joseph Lytle Russell’s last will and testament. He was also called on to give testimony in the Russell vs. Russell hearing of 1906. At the Bible House most workers lodged outside, but from 1894 the Russells lived in. CTR had to go away for a few days in 1897, which could have meant leaving his wife Maria on her own. Bohnet witnessed a telephone conversation where CTR tried to arrange through Ernest Henninges (then office manager) for Bible House worker Clara Taylor to stay with her. Maria declined the offer as she had other plans. In fact, she was shortly on her way to stay with her brother Lemuel in Chicago and never came back under the same roof as Charles.

Going by a date he gave in his father’s obituary, Bohnet’s work at the Bible House was to be interrupted in 1896. In his life story he explained it this way. Traveling back from a speaking assignment he had a fall and badly damaged an ankle. Not wanting to be a burden on a busy Bible House family he arranged to go back home to Ann Arbor to his parents’ home to recuperate. He had another secondary motive which was to share his faith with his family. As noted above this was very successful and we will learn more about some of his family later.

Bohnet was not back in harness at the Bible House for very long. Learning that the Society needed to borrow money, late in 1897 he suggested to CTR that he should go back into business with his old firm and make a financial contribution which would allow for several others to replace him in the office. After assuring CTR of his steadfastness to the truth he received this reply. He said that in substance, CTR’s words were:

“True, we need more money, and since you have this opportunity, which may be of the Lord’s appointment, and it is your desire to help out in the running expenses, go, and God bless you. But bear in mind, my dear brother, you are still counted as a member of the Bible House family.”

The exchange as told may seem somewhat unusual. All we can say from this distance is that his account was published while CTR was still alive, and was known to read the Enterprise from time to time.

Back in the secular field, Bohnet still did what he could for the message but for the next seven years worked in Washington DC for a company promoting a proprietary remedy called “Viavi.” (Russell vs. Brooklyn Eagle transcript, page 64). It was marketed for “female complaints.” Checking contemporary literature there’s a suggestion it might have been partly marketed as a female contraceptive. It seems a strange choice of employment for a confirmed bachelor. He left this company’s employ around 1904, which was probably just as well as the California State Journal of Medicine for April 1907 was to go after them with all guns blazing. Next, according to court testimony, he worked selling home supplies from a base back in Pittsburgh. This failed, and he went back into the Bible House. It would appear that this time it was CTR helping HIM.

In 1905 he published a scripture compendium by subject called “Features of the Plan of God.”

Back in the Bible House he worked at correspondence and in the dispatch department and was soon going out as a visiting speaker again.

A huge change took place in Watch Tower history in 1909. The Society moved its headquarters from Allegheny to Brooklyn, New York. Here the Bible House family became a much larger Bethel family.

Bohnet was the man they left behind. He still visited groups to give talks, and became extremely well known as a convention speaker. However, the main item of business he cared for was the Watch Tower Society’s own cemetery.

The 1910 census lists Bohnet as “Superintendent United Cemetery.” This was originally a series of three small cemeteries put together and called United Cemeteries, in Ross Township about five miles north of Pittsburgh.

As to why the Society would deal in business like a cemetery company, the Society’s secretary-treasurer W E Van Amburgh explained in the court case Russell vs Brooklyn Eagle (1913 – trial transcript pages 203-204) that many donations for their religious work were conditional; the donation could in fact turn out to be just a loan, depending on the circumstances of the donor. Consequently, they needed assets that could generate income and in case of emergency could be turned back into cash. A cemetery company seemed a good idea at the time – to quote direct from Van Amburgh: “The Society thought well to have some place where we could have a good asset…they found a farm, and they arranged for a United Cemeteries company as being the most stable, it could not run away, something satisfactory that could always be used as an asset.”

The cemetery charter was granted in 1905, and in 1907 CTR’s last will and testament made provision for his own burial there, in a special area reserved for Watch Tower workers. The whole area they owned totalled 90 acres, but only about 18 acres ever became a cemetery. The rest was either unused or kept as farming land. Getting permission was not difficult because there was already an established Roman Catholic Cemetery on the adjoining property.

As noted above, when the headquarters staff all moved to Brooklyn, Bohnet stayed behind in Pittsburgh to look after the cemetery. Below is a picture taken around 1920-1921, looking down the hill over the Society’s plot. CTR’s grave marker is there, and then there is a pyramid monument, rather like a modern War Memorial with names inscribed on the sides. It is in the center of the Society’s plot and was installed at the beginning of 1920 (see The New Era Enterprise, February 10, 1920). Two small grave markers can be seen for Bible Students Arabella Mann and Mary Jane Whitehouse, which sadly have long since disappeared. On the slightly rising hillside in the background is an old farmhouse, which became the cemetery superintendent’s house. This is where Bohnet lived. He is in the aforementioned 1910 census at this address, along with another family of helpers.

It should be noted that the headstones in front of the house are not actual graves. At the time the picture was taken the cemetery company sold headstones and these were samples for purchase.

During the 1910s, when Bohnet was well known as a convention speaker, he was photographed many times. He was also involved with the pyramid in the above photograph. It was reported that it came from his design, and when CTR died in 1916 he supervised various funeral details, and then also supervised the eventual installation of the monument over 1919-1920.

Having come from a farming background, while in residence he used some of the spare land for farming purposes, which included what came to be called “Miracle Wheat.” This has been discussed elsewhere on this blog, but basically Bohnet was impressed with the wheat, and donated seed for sale through the pages of the Watch Tower magazine in 1911. An unexpected drop in prices from the original source and an attack by a tabloid-style newspaper created difficulties and led to the aforementioned Russell vs Brooklyn Eagle trial in 1913. Bohnet gave evidence and also revealed more of his personal history in examination and cross examination. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but in retrospect he would probably have done better to have just sold the seed direct, and made his own personal donation to the Society’s work.

In October 1916 CTR died and was buried in the United Cemeteries. In January 1917 Joseph F Rutherford was elected as president. In the division that followed, Bohnet put his full support behind Rutherford. When, in July 1917, Rutherford appointed four new members to the board of directors of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Bohnet (still resident in Pennsylvania) was one of them.

Events then moved quite rapidly for him. The cemetery company had ticked over and generated a certain amount of income, but it was not spectacularly successful. The decision was taken to realize the asset in 1917. It was probably wise. The land cost them $27,000 in 1905, but with a functioning business on it they realized $90,000 in December 1917.  

But it all happened very quickly. Bohnet was still advertising for cemetery help in April 1917 (Enterprise: April 17, 1917) but by December 1917 the property, apart from selected areas for Bible Student burials, was gone. The purchaser was the Catholic Northside Cemeteries association, which owned the adjoining cemetery.  It meant that both Bohnet’s work as superintendent and the house that went with it disappeared.

As a Society director one might have thought that a life in Brooklyn Bethel beckoned. Instead, Bohnet became a Pilgrim, an official visiting speaker sent out to groups by headquarters. He missed a memorial service at CTR’s grave on May 30, 1918 (a federal public holiday called Memorial Day when businesses were closed and people could gather together), because he was away on a Pilgrim visit (Enterprise: June 25, 1918). Apart from trips back home and coming back to Pittsburgh to supervise the installation of the pyramid, he spent the next ten years “on the road.”

To give an idea of the distance he covered, we can examine the speakers’ appointments on the back page of The Watch Tower. In 1918 he visited congregations in Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont and Wisconsin. In 1919 he added Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina and Texas. In 1920 he added Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, New York and Oklahoma. We could go on, but the picture is clear – Bohnet did not stick to one small area of the United States, he was sent everywhere.

Over the years he became an untiring writer for first the Enterprise, and later The Golden Age magazine. He staunchly supported the direction taken by the new administration of the Watch Tower Society with its emphasis on personal evangelism with campaigns like the Golden Age work from 1919. In the splits that occurred at this time he urged all to return to the IBSA, but wasn’t averse to laying into those who had left. The original split with its “committee of seven” (Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Divine Purpose [1959] page 73) Bohnet dismissed in the Enterprise for August 23, 1921: “It seems to be inoffensive – doing little or nothing” and contrasting it with the activity of the Watch Tower Society.

His greatest ire was reserved for the Standfast movement, which suggests in context that it may have had a greater impact on readers at the time. Bohnet ridiculed it and debated its teachings (see for example: St Paul Enterprise for March 11 and 18, 1919). The Standfasters were to fragment, one group started a commune, another insisted on membership cards and it wasn’t long before they generally disintegrated; although they were still in sufficient memory to be mentioned by J F Rutherford in The Watch Tower for September 15, 1931, page 279.

Bohnet’s choice of subjects in the Enterprise was eclectic. Excluding actual reprinted sermons, here are some more examples, with the issue date of the St Paul Enterprise in parenthesis: a letter explaining that rumors of his death were greatly exaggerated (July 9, 1915); his aforementioned life story (August 27, 1915); how and why they moved the headquarters from Allegheny to Brooklyn (October 1, 1915); a campaign mounted to obtain a Ford motor car for CTR (October 1, 1915) subsequently vetoed by CTR (October 22, 1915); visiting Benjamin Wilson (April 4, 1916); reviewing the funeral of CTR (November 14, 1916); Noah’s Ark found on Mount Ararat (January 16, 1917); a recent visit made by a sister on Maria Russell (February 20, 1917); a tribute to William Abbott, late editor of the Enterprise (March 27, 1917); a letter urging all to vote for Rutherford et al at the forthcoming election of Society officers (December 18, 1917); attacking the Standfasters as noted above (March 11 and 18, 1919); visiting the “Brooklyn eight” in Atlanta Federal prison (March 18, 1919); and visiting a seriously ill Rutherford after his release (June 24, 1919).

At the end of 1919 the St Paul Enterprise became The New Era Enterprise. Bohnet continued his contributions. He marketed a cancer cure (January 6, 1920) which hits problems (January 27, 1920); he installed the pyramid monument on the United Cemeteries site from his own design (February 10, 1920); Miracle Wheat was now Weber Wheat and winning prizes (October 19, 1920); a suggested substitute for coffee (June 15, 1920); problems with the other Bible Student supporting paper, the National Labor Tribune (November 16, 1920); vigorous backing for the Golden Age work (December 14, 1920); a character assassination of Judge Howe who presided over the trial of the “Brooklyn eight” (December 14, 1920) and resulting complaints from Enterprise readers (January 11, 1921); God was now blessing the Watch Tower Society with a swipe at those who had left as noted above (August 23, 1921); vigorous encouragement for readers to embrace the Golden Age work (December 27, 1921); a recipe for cleaning wallpaper (January 19, 1922); praising The Harp of God as a masterpiece (January 24, 1922); the only true Bible Students were those still with the Society (March 7, 1922); and perhaps most entertaining, a fanciful alternative version of the Garden of Eden. Maybe it still existed in Armenia. Maybe Enoch transferred there and still lived there. Maybe if a plane flew over the area, Enoch might throw an apple at it… (April 18 and May 2, 1922 double issue, followed by some lively correspondence thereafter).

From 1923 Bohnet’s personal contributions to the Enterprise more or less dried up, although he was still featured in news items such as giving the Million talk over a local radio station (March 6, 1923). There is a letter in the June 1926 issue where he corrected inaccuracies about the Russell family – he (Bohnet) typed up Joseph Lytle Russell’s last will and testament and CTR declined to accept an inheritance. His last known contribution for the paper was writing his father’s obituary in 1927, which we will come to later.

As his output for the Enterprise dropped off, Bohnet began to write regularly for the new magazine, The Golden Age, edited by Clayton J Woodworth. Perhaps the most important of his articles was in The Golden Age for April 9, 1924, where he outlined the “true story” of the Miracle Wheat episode. Having been the one to grow the wheat on cemetery property he was well placed to write this article.

As already noted, his Pilgrim work took him all over the United States and numerous advertisements for talks in different regions can be found on newspaper databases throughout the 1920s. In addition, he spoke on several radio stations. His activity has been briefly remembered in more recent Watchtower literature.

For example, the Watchtower for September 1, 1983, features the life story of Grant Suiter who became Secretary-Treasurer of the Watch Tower Society in 1946.  Referring back to the 1920s he wrote: “J A Bohnet made a particular impression and was of special help to me. He was a man who had characteristics that endeared him to some people but had the reverse effect on others. He loved Jehovah and evidently was modest, but he kept this quality somewhat concealed under a gruff exterior.” A talk he gave moved the Suiter family to all get baptized. The article contains a small picture of Bohnet. The 1975 Yearbook (page 49) gives a very human pen portrait of Bohnet as a pilgrim visitor, making a kite for a young boy and helping him to fly it.

The dedication to this work involved personal sacrifices. For example, his Bible Student parents died in their nineties and both had obituaries in The New Era Enterprise, His mother Christina was featured in the issue for November 25, 1924 and his father, John (Johann) in the issue for March 1927. As noted above this last obituary was written by Bohnet himself, and recorded that his pilgrim work had taken him so far away he never heard about either death until after the funerals had taken place.

Bohnet was featured in a photograph in the 1927 IBSA Convention Report (Toronto: July 25, 1927) sitting in a row next to W F Salter and J F Rutherford, looking less than comfortable with a child on his knee. The sub-caption (probably a joke from Clayton J Woodworth) reads: “Take a look at Bohnet fathering some little boy.”

He remained on the regular list of speakers on the back page of the Watch Tower until mid-1928, and was also featured extensively in newspapers for speaking engagements and radio talks, up to that year. He last appeared on the official list of Society representatives in the 1929 Yearbook.

This was a time of change. From 1926 the role of Pilgrims started to change from visiting speakers to supervisors and promoters of active witnessing. This culminated in a name change to Regional Service Director in 1928 (see Proclaimers book page 223). As already observed Bohnet was fully behind the emphasis on personal evangelism, but he would have been 70 years old in 1928. At some point he went back to the family home. Writing from Michigan in the June 1, 1930 Watch Tower magazine he explained his situation:

 “While I am not situated now to engage in the regional director service, much to my regret, I can spare the time and the use of my car to drive sisters to distant towns and villages on regularly appointed days to place books in the service work at my individual expense of gas and oil, and thus herald the glad tidings of Messiah’s kingdom to those who have a hearing ear and an open mind.” He signed off “With much love to all at Bethel, Faithfully yours in Christ.”

The bulk of this letter was praising the book Creation, contrasting the activities of those currently loyal to the Society with those who weren’t. He followed this up with another letter in the February 1, 1931 Watch Tower magazine that enthused about the two volume set called Light and in his usual recurring theme, he urged all those who had left to reunite with the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. The published letter was given the heading “Inspiration to Greater Zeal and Service.” This was the last letter from him published in The Watch Tower. It was followed by his last article for The Golden Age called “The Myrtle” (about the myrtle tree with an allegorical application) published in the issue for August 19, 1931.

He died on April 14, 1932. His death certificate confirmed that he had never married; that he had gone into the University Hospital, Ann Arbor, Michigan, in March for a gastrectomy, and that he died in hospital four weeks post-operation just short of his 74^th birthday. His occupation was given as “lecturer for the IBSA for the last 30 years.” The information was supplied by his brother Jacob Bohnet. He was buried in the family plot in the Ann Arbor cemetery.

There is one coda to this story. As noted above, when Bohnet went home to recuperate after an injury in the latter half of the 1890s he witnessed vigorously to his family. It resulted in his parents and three other relatives becoming Bible Students. One of these was his sister, Elizabeth Octavia who was born in 1859. Elizabeth married Lyman Pettibone in 1882 and lived to be 102. She died on January 10, 1961. As befitted a very old resident, her funeral made the local newspapers. After giving her family history the paper commented on who was to take the funeral.

Source of newspaper unknown. Cutting from the Find a Grave site.

The funeral announcement notes that someone from the (quote) “Jehovah Witness Church in Ann Arbor” would be officiating.

This means that the family trail of association with the Bible Students/Jehovah’s Witnesses that started in 1892 ran for at least 70 years. Sadly, the modern descendants the writer contacted when preparing this article knew nothing of the connection.