Watch Tower History: September 2025

Slight edits by blog editor for clarity. Photos were submitted, but did not transfer well. So, they're omitted for now.

A full account of the life of Nels Edward Nelson may someday be written. A tale that would chronicle the journey of a boy born in Sweden on October 2, 1875, who, at age seven, crossed the Atlantic to begin a new life in America. And tell how on August 13, 1902, the boy, now a young man forging steel in the mills of Duquesne, Pennsylvania, married Laura M. Reese with whom he built a family, welcoming Margaret A. Nelson on June 21, 1903. And how this family grew to include Carl Richard Nelson on March 10, 1910, who suffered from mental illness later in life and passed away at 43 years of age. It would vividly portray their triumphs and struggles in the gritty heart of coal and steel country during all the upheaval of The Great War and the decades that followed.

But today is not that day and this is not that story. This article has a much narrower aim: to share what available records say about Nels Edward Nelson’s life as a devoted Bible Student. Nelson became identified with the Bible Students in 1897. This timing, revealed in an article published in response to critic of the movement William T. Ellis. Nelson writes of himself:

I have not only been at Brooklyn, and at the same convention that Mr. Ellis attended at Washington, D. C., but additionally have attended eleven other general conventions of the I. B. S.A. and I have been identified with the movement for sixteen years-a personal acquaintance of the venerable Pastor during the period and have read nearly all that he has written and many of his publications have been read several times.

Much of what we know about Nelson’s relationship with Bible Students comes from The National Labor Tribune. While the Labor Tribune was not the first newspaper to regularly publish Russell’s weekly sermons it was one of the earliest, publishing Russell’s sermons as early as January 1905. The Labor Tribune became a favorite among Bible Students because of the prominent place it gave to Russell’s sermons, placing them on page 2 or 3 rather than on the back page, and the generous spacing and clear font made it an easier read than other papers. Gradually, the Labor Tribune expanded the area given for Bible Student content to include letters of appreciation, and by 1910 they were publishing contributions by Bible Students other than Russell.

Articles by well-known Bible Students such as Bohnet, Blackmore, and Van Amburgh found their way onto the pages of the Tribune. But it was the writings of N. E. Nelson that loomed largest. It’s been said that every person has one good novel in them. For Nelson, this ‘novel’ was a history called “Pastor Russell’s Sphere in the Reformation.” This remarkable work first appeared in February 1913 Labor Tribune as “Pastor Russell and His Mission.” His article continued in the October 1913 issues as “Pastor

Russell and His Mission–Culminates in the Reformation (October 1913), and as “Pastor Russell’s Sphere in the Reformation” which was serialized from October 1915 to early 1916. Efforts to recover archives of the Labor Tribune for most of the year 1916 are ongoing so the complete Nelson series is not currently available. But enough has survived understand Nelson’s argument.

Nelson wrote that Russell, and by extension Bible Student doctrine, unified the best of the Protestant Reformation while avoiding its excesses. Nelson wasn’t the first person to say this, but he made the case persuasively. A version of this idea appears in The Finished Mystery. Its writer-compiler, Clayton J. Woodworth, was also edited Nelson’s Pastor Russell’s Sphere in the Reformation.

A clue to how Nelson’s work was received by Bible Students of the era can be found in the United States vs. Joseph F. Rutherford et al. trial transcript. A letter from Gertrude W. Seibert written to the then newly formed Executive Committee and dated December 6, 1916, suggested a memorial to Russell be published in book form that would include, among other things, Russell’s comments on Revelation and Ezekiel and “Bro. Nelson’s articles on ‘Pastor Russell’s place in the Reformation,’” as printed in Labor Tribune.

Other articles, series, and letters appeared by Nelson in the Labor Tribune, all in his characteristic style. These include “Triunity of Creation,” “Arius and Servetus contrasted to St. Augustine and Calvin,” and “Dante’s Camouflage.” These writings reflect a mind deeply familiar with Literature, Church History, and Bible Student theology. The source of this knowledge is one of the enduring mysteries attached to him.

Nelson was very active at Russell’s funeral. William Abbot, Editor of The Saint Paul Enterprise, with whom Nelson had prior disagreements regarding The Enterprise’s publishing standards, mentioned Nelson in his funeral account (November 14, 1916): “The lining of Brother Russell’s grave pure white, emblematic of his purity of life-was decorated with one thousand feathery mountain ferns and elaborately studded with white chrysanthemums, the handiwork of the cemetery associates, under the oversight of the writer, assisted by Brothers F. E. Williams and N. E. Nelson and wife of Duquesne. It was loving hands that wrought this work of art as a last tribute to our noble brother.”

A week later, the Enterprise advertised a list of 18 photos taken on the day of Russell’s burial; Nelson, his wife, and daughter are listed as appearing in several of them. I have located none of the original photos.

The divisions that formed in the Bible Student community as a result of the events of 1917 and early 1918 made their way onto the pages of the Labor Tribune. The Tribune’s editor at that time, Joseph H. Vitchestain, though sympathetic to the cause was at a disadvantage in adjudicating these disputes as he was not ‘consecrated’ himself. Even with Bible Student J. H. Blackmore acting as a kind of censor for the Tribune’s Bible Students pages, many divergent ideas still slipped through.

Nelson did not always comment, but when he did his words reflected a strong sensibility and acted as a corrective of sorts. For example, in 1918, Bible Student W. W. Giles suggested that paying the War Tax was equivalent to receiving the Mark of the Beast mentioned in the Bible book of Revelation. Nelson couldn’t help himself, and his response, directed to the Editor, was published in the Labor Tribune on March 7, which says in part:

I appreciate your spirit of fair play in granting your readers the privilege of expression, even though they do not always voice the sentiments of the majority, but this particular article is no credit to your paper, nor to the cause of the I.B.S.A. Perhaps you are not aware of it, but this article contains seditious teaching, and since the writer poses as a representative of the I. B. S. A, in advocating resistance to paying war taxes to the United States Government I request this article be repudiated through your columns. The writer of this article sets forth a hazy and ill-defined proposition that the "Mark of the Beast" is an intellectual assent to, or a willing paying of taxes to the government because it is at war. Every one has a right to his opinions on all questions, but this article states that "we of the I. B.S.A., etc., implying that all members of that association stood for the principle as defined by him. I am not speaking for the association in repudiating this, but I know of no such proposition being promulgated officially by the proper representatives of our association.

Nelson is credited with playing a key role in the release of Rutherford and associates from prison following the close of World War I. A report about the I.B.S.A. Convention at Scranton published in The Labor Tribune on August 26, 1920, includes the following detail: “Among the arrivals from your town is Brother H. E. [N.E.] Nelson, of Duquesne: who drove here with his family in his machine. Brother Nelson has the honor, with Mrs. Woodworth's assistance, of starting the ball rolling to release the "convicts" from Atlanta, He is quiet and unassuming and takes his honor lightly, knowing he did only his duty.”

How Nelson “started the ball rolling” may in part be understood by reading about the vigorous campaign The Labor Tribune waged in late 1918 and 1919 to free “The Men at Atlanta.” This campaign was aided by Nelson, as noted in the Labor Tribune, “The work and the indomitable persistency of N. E. Nelson, of Duquesne, Pa., must not be overlooked in the campaign for the freedom of the eight men who have been given their freedom. Nelson was tireless and was ever ready with his wise counsel.”

A letter written by Nelson to Clayton J. Woodworth has also survived the walls of the Atlanta Penitentiary. These four handwritten pages dated August 1, 1918, give a peek into the personality of Nelson, Woodworth, and another notable Bible Student of the period:

Well dear brother are you getting accustomed to your quarters! How is brother Mack? [Alexander Hugh MacMillan] I fancy he will be hunting something to work off his energy. I hope he will not get into periods of despondency for he is a boy of extremes. And perhaps you also may be subject to this tendency. I understand you and Mack are together - I think you will make a good team.

Nelson attached to this letter a section of his will, expressing his desire to publish a 300 page manuscript of Pastor Russell’s Sphere in the Reformation in book form and leaving with executors $2500.00 ($53,700 by 2025 standards) for that purpose. Ultimately Nelson left the decision with the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania whom he also gifted his manuscript concluding “if the Lord wishes to make use of it, my plans will not stand in the way.”

In the Fall of 1920, The Labor Tribune severed its relationship with Bible Students. It is at this point that records of Nelson’s writing stop. One can’t help but speculate on how his thinking developed over the subsequent decades. A short article by him about the weather, “A Strange Summer,” appeared in the Golden Age magazine, December 6, 1922. He ended the article with a perhaps uncharacteristically indecisive note: “Is The Christ, the new Power of the Air, actively taking in hand the atmospheric conditions, with a view to the still further undoing of Satan's empire? I wonder.”

Probably Nelson but maybe his son is reported to have sung at the 1929 Bible Student Convention Report “a tenor solo by Brother Nelson, of Duquesne, Pa. Later in life, Nelson and his family took the same course as several other Bible Students from Pennsylvania and left the city of rivers for the coasts of Florida, moving with his wife and, eventually, his son to St. Petersburg in 1930, where he lived for the remainder of his life. His passing was commented on in the Tampa Bay Times on September 20, 1956, page 4. Nelson’s death was not listed in any of the journals that represented various branches of the Bible Student movement. The well-known Dawn Bible Student George O. Jeuck officiated. Regrettably, the report says little about his life but perhaps says enough with the words, “He was a member of the International Bible Students.”