J. W. W.

A letter found in the September 15, 1918, Watch Tower is signed J. W. W., England. Internally, the letter indicates he was an elder in the Manchester congregation. Can we identify this man?

B. W. Keith recounts his history.

This letter appeared in the September1, 1911, issue of Paton's magazine, The World's Hope. Paton's followers met in Almont, Michigan, for three days starting August 1, 1911. Paton did not say how many attended, but the article reporting it suggests the number was very small. Fifty would probably be a generous estimate. 

Keith was unable to attend but sent this letter to wish them well. His letter:

From Bro. Keith. 

            To the dear friends in Convention Assembled at Battle Creek, Mich. How gladly I would be with you if the Father in Heaven had made it possible for me to do so; but I am neither financially nor physically able.

            Some of you know that for a good many years I have been intensely interested in the subjects which are at the foundation of your gathering together. About forty years since I began a course of Bible study taking in new views of different subjects and leaving behind old traditions until I am entirely remodeled. Starting from the M. E. church, I found myself almost completely out of mystic Babylon, before I had discovered the invitation to “Come out of her, my people.” I think that innate immortality was about the first mark of the Beast to be obliterated from my forehead, the trinitarian doctrine about the same time.

            The Father did not allow me to stop there, but in a few years brought to my attention the time measurements of the Bible. And being naturally a lover of mathematics, I became at once interested in the mathematics of the Bible, and soon mastered the Chronology and related measurements, until when the beautiful system of parallels was discovered I was ready for it; and since I have watched the development of facts which seem to corroborate the conclusions drawn from the system.

            The “Larger Hope” [He means Universalism] view did not seem to come so easy for some time, but it is all so plain to me now, that I sometimes wonder that I had any difficulty in seeing it at once. Now I love the “song of Moses the servant of god, and the song of the Lamb,” with all the intensity of my nature, enlightened by the “Spirit of Truth.”

            I trust that the Lord gathered you together, and that he is in the midst of you, and that you will find it a very profitable meeting.

            Yours in a sincere love of the truth,

 

            B. W. Keith, Chicago, Ill.

Research assistance

 For a future - hopefully not all that distant - project, I need a collection of all the articles no matter how insignificant published about Russell, Millennial Dawn and related subjects in Indiana from 1881 to 1910. 

Save them to a single document in pdf format.

Probably sources:

https://elephind.com/

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

https://newspapers.library.in.gov/?a=q&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------

Any takers for part or all of this project?

https://www.genealogybank.com/explore/newspapers/all/usa/indiana/indianapolis

Ancestry newspaper archives.

The Pittsburgh Christian Advocate - August 21, 1913

 

A new comment on an old post

This was posted to something from 2015. No one will see it there, so I'm moving it here:

Hamilton L. Gillis of Terra Alta wrote several letters about Russell to newspapers near Terra Alta after 1906. Although he expected to be bodily resurrected, I believe these letters prove that he did not die in 1906. (For example, see Preston County Journal 19 Nov 1908, pg. 2).

You may also find it interesting that he often wrote letters signed only with the initials HLG, or his nom de plume "Ham." Although many of his letters appear in the Preston County Journal, an even richer batch can be found in the pages of the Oakland Republican, which was published less than 20 miles from his home. In these later letters, he grew critical of Russell, who had spoken at Mt. Lake Park several times (quite near Terra Alta).

If any of you can turn up the newspaper articles mentioned in the above post, you will save me the chore. I'm not doing well, but I do need to see these articles.

Bruce

Update

 I continue to work on Separate Identity, vol. 3. The research is much more difficult than it was for the first two volumes. Fortunately, an interested party sent me documentation otherwise impossible to find. It has materially furthered my research, though it has meant rewriting some of what I had thought 'finished.'

I have surgery today, actually four surgeries combined. They will send me home today or tomorrow, but I'll be mostly confined to my chair for a week or so.

I need the impossible. Letters by any of the principals, no matter how insignificant they may seem. They must be out there somewhere though there will be few of them. Barbour trashed letters when he was done with them, so letters to him are probably nonexistent. Letters from him? Slight chance, but if you have one, please scan it.

Someone asked in the comments if I wanted scans of material they had. While I answered that, let me repeat my answer: Yes. 

I need talk outlines from the 1940s, Watchtower Society letters from any period before 1980. 

Who built the pyramid?

 

Edmund Kohler from 1927 newspaper

So who built the pyramid?

No it wasn’t Djoser or Khufu or other ancient Egyptians. We are talking about the pyramid monument that stood for a little over one hundred years on the Watch Tower Society’s plot in United Cemeteries, Ross Township, near Pittsburgh, PA.

From 1905 to 1917 the Watch Tower owned a cemetery company called United Cemeteries. Charles Taze Russell was buried there in November 1916. Most of the 90 acre site was sold at the end of 1917 to the Northside Catholic Cemetery, which adjoined their land. The Society just kept back certain small areas for their own use, the most notable one having a central monument in the middle of the plot. A seven foot high pyramid was erected in early 1920, designed to list the names of all those buried nearby.

When the Bible Students held a convention in Pittsburgh in 1919 some visited the grave and also visited the stoneworks “nearby” to see the pyramid under construction. It was natural that as well as new cemeteries springing up off what was now called Cemetery Lane, some companies would also provide monuments to order. One such company built the pyramid.

It was the Kohler Company, founded by Eugene Adrian Kohler (1865-1922). Eugene was born in Germany, came to America in 1892, was married in 1893, and was finally naturalised as an American citizen in 1917. He and his wife Lena had six children including Edmund Kohler (1894-1971), who joined the family business and eventually took it over. In the 1910 census Eugene is listed as Proprieter, Monumental Works.

Eugene died comparatively young from pulmonary tuberculosis, directly linked to his work as a stone cutter. He was buried in 1922 in the former Northside Catholic Cemetery, now known as the Christ Our Redeemer Catholic Cemetery. But it was Eugene who cut the stones for the pyramid. The monument was hollow, made up of four triangular sides leaning towards each other on a concrete base, with a capstone holding it all together. Originally it contained a casket full of books and documents and photgraphs as a kind of time capsule of Watch Tower progress and history. Ultimately, this “treasure” would cause the pyramid’s downfall.

While Eugene cut the stones for the pyramid, his son, Edmund, then sandblasted the sides to carve out the names of those buried nearby. When the pyramid was put together in early 1920 there were nine names inscribed over three of the four sides. As it happened, the idea was soon abandoned. More were buried there, in fact today one can safely say that the site is fully used, but no further names were ever added to the monument.

Edmund’s history is summed up in census returns from 1920 through to 1950. In 1920 he is stone cutter (monumental works), 1930 he is letter carver (monument), 1940 he is letter cutter (stone cutting company), and 1950 he is proprieter (monumental business).

On an undated business card the business is described as: Edmund Kohler, Modern Cemetery Memorials.

When he died, his obituary in the Tampa Tribune (Florida), 25 January 1971, stated the company’s title was Memorial Art Works.

In the mid-1960s, Edmund retired and the site was sold to Fred Donatelli Cemetery Memorials. They still operate there. The new company inherited some records from the Kohler business including those relating to the pyramid’s purchase and construction. However, in the early 1990s the Donatelli Company was visited by a representative of the Watch Tower Society, who was given the documents. We can be reasonably certain that the pyramid was broken into in early 1993 and the casket of memorabilia stolen. The edifice was left in a dangerous state, and it may be that the documents were needed to see how best to quickly repair it before a side fell on someone and killed them.

Move forward to recent times. The pyramid was broken into again on several occasions – probably because idiots didn’t realise the contents were long gone. It was patched up from time to time. But in 2020 the capstone disappeared (again) which held it all together. Also this time the cross and crown motifs were badly damaged on all four sides.

What was interesting this time is that someone took a photograph of the revealed space. Someone had written in the cement what appear to be the initials F K and the year 1919. Allowing for cement dust to encroach on this in part, we can reasonably assume that the Initials were E K.

Was that Eugene, or more likely Edmund? Yet again the whole structure was in a dangerous state, and the decision was ultimately taken that enough was enough and it was to be taken down and taken away.

It was taken down on September 1, 2021, and now lives on in photographs, as a time capsule of how things once were. What was nice to see is that the nine names on the pyramid sides - that disappeared with it - have been restored on simple stones now placed in the same area.

(With grateful thanks to Corky Donatelli who provided valuable information and sent me on my journey, and James S Holmes, Watch Tower of Allegheny Historical Tour, for the modern photographs)

I can't read most of this. Can you translate it? Please?

 For another project: