It's never too early to plan ahead. After bunches of emails, phone calls, and face to face, Bruce and I think we should divide book three in our history series into books three and four. As we see it now, book three will cover the years from the publication of Plan of the Ages to 1912, ending with the Missionary Tour and report.
We aren't near done with volume 2 of S. I., but it's time to put material together. You can help. We need someone to scour the newspaper archives (such as fultonhistory.com; the Library of Congress Newspaper archive, etc.) for Russell's Newspaper sermons and, more importantly, for comments on his newspaper ministry. Also search Google Books.
Instead of sending articles piecemeal, or sending entire newspaper pages, open the .pdf versions of the articles, cut and paste them into a Word document (or Word Perfect), include name and date of newspaper; include title of article. When you accumulate significant material, send it via google documents or dropbox.
This will help me stay organized. (Bruce seems to thrive on chaos; I throw up my hands in dismay.)
Other than the two famous debates (1903, 1908) there were other proposed debates and some actual debates between Watch Tower adherents and others. We need to document this as above. Again, poast it all into one document and send it that way.
Jerome has his hands full. So I need other volunteers for this. This is not a rush assignment. Book three is only in the planning stages.
We will need "country histories" too. Most of the Yearbook histories omit significant detail. You are interested in the history of your country? Research it in depth for the period 1885-1915. We want newspaper clippings, magazine articles, extracts from books. If in a foreign language, please translate them for us. I can translate German, but not well. (It gives me a headache. Save me the headache.)
Anyone?
Sunday, January 24, 2016
Saturday, January 23, 2016
This is what ...
This is what happens when we get help solving mysteries:
Macon Carter van Hook was born in North Carolina sometime in December 1843 to Southern-born parents who after living in Ohio for a period, immigrated to North Carolina. Though attached to the South by birth and parentage, he served as a sergeant in Company K of the 6th Iowa Volunteer Infantry, applying for a pension in July 1865, as an invalid soldier. Russell mentions his work in 1887 and we hear nothing more of him until 1894 when a letter from him appears in Zion’s Watch Tower. Sometime before 1887, he and his family moved to Columbus, Ohio. The 1910 Census shows him as retired, but he continued to present Bible lectures in Ohio. Our last notice of him seems to be an advertisement for a lecture entitled What Happens After Death, given in Portsmouth, Ohio, in January 1914. He died in Columbus, Ohio, April 27, 1917
and this:
Van Hook, Macon C. (Veteran.) Age 18. Residence Oskaloosa, nativity North Carolina. Enlisted July 12, 1861. Mustered July 18, 1861. Re-enlisted and re-mustered Jan. 26, 1864. Wounded severely in side May 13, 1864, Resaca, Ga. Promoted Fifth Corporal Jan. 1, 1865; Fifth Sergeant March 1, 1865. Mustered out July 2, 1865.
Thanks to Miquel we now have this:
Macon Carter van Hook was born in North Carolina sometime in December 1843 to Southern-born parents who after living in Ohio for a period, immigrated to North Carolina. Though attached to the South by birth and parentage, he served as a sergeant in Company K of the 6th Iowa Volunteer Infantry, applying for a pension in July 1865, as an invalid soldier. Russell mentions his work in 1887 and we hear nothing more of him until 1894 when a letter from him appears in Zion’s Watch Tower. Sometime before 1887, he and his family moved to Columbus, Ohio. The 1910 Census shows him as retired, but he continued to present Bible lectures in Ohio. Our last notice of him seems to be an advertisement for a lecture entitled What Happens After Death, given in Portsmouth, Ohio, in January 1914. He died in Columbus, Ohio, April 27, 1917
and this:
Van Hook, Macon C. (Veteran.) Age 18. Residence Oskaloosa, nativity North Carolina. Enlisted July 12, 1861. Mustered July 18, 1861. Re-enlisted and re-mustered Jan. 26, 1864. Wounded severely in side May 13, 1864, Resaca, Ga. Promoted Fifth Corporal Jan. 1, 1865; Fifth Sergeant March 1, 1865. Mustered out July 2, 1865.
Thanks to Miquel we now have this:
We
don’t know who “Brother” van der Ahe was. The most likely candidates are two
Pittsburgh residents living and working near the Russell’s Fifth Avenue store.
The Pittsburgh directories spell the name as Vandera. Thurston’s 1869 Directory
lists William, a salesman, and Louis, a shoemaker. There is no firm identification
of Van der Ahe.
Macon Carter van Hook was born in
North Carolina December 8, 1843 to Southern-born parents who after living in
Ohio for a period, immigrated to North Carolina. Though attached to the South
by birth and parentage, he served as a sergeant in Company K of the 6th Iowa Volunteer
Infantry, enlisting at Oskaloosa July 12, 1861, when he was eighteen and
reenlisting in January 1864. He was severely in the right side at Resaca,
Georgia on May 13, 1864. He applied for a pension in July 1865, as an invalid
soldier and was granted four dollars a month.
Russell mentions his work in 1887
and we hear nothing more of him until 1894, when a letter from him appears in Zion’s
Watch Tower. In 1883 he and his family lived in Miamisburg, Ohio. Sometime
before 1887, he and his family moved to Columbus, Ohio. The 1896-1897 R. L.
Polk directory for Columbus says he was employed as an “agent.” The 1910 Census
shows him as retired, but he continued to present Bible lectures in Ohio. Our
last notice of him seems to be an advertisement for a lecture entitled What
Happens After Death, given in Portsmouth, Ohio, in January 1914. He died in
Columbus, Ohio, April 27, 1917.[1]
[1] Residence in Miamisburg, wound, and pension details: List
of Pensioners on the Roll: January 1, 1883, Government Printing Office,
Washinton, D. C., page 233.
HELP!
So at some point the blog post index and the 'search this blog' box went missing from this blog. I don't know how to fix that. Anyone?
Stuff
So we have many secondary research issues, things it would be nice to know but we can live without if we must. I'm enlisting your help with some of these.
We want to know the name of the Methodist clergyman in Americus, Kansas, in 1883.
We want to know J. B. Adamson's exact occupation.
We need to identify "brothers" M. C. van Hook, Myers and Cobb - early Watch Tower evangelists. Thanks to Miquel, we now know that M. C. van Hook is Macon C. van Hook, born in North Carolina in 1844 and later a resident of Columbus Ohio! Super stuff!
We need a reasonable biography of William Dow of Albany, New York. He supported Russell in an article appearing in The Albany Morning Express in 1895.
We want to know the name of the Methodist clergyman in Americus, Kansas, in 1883.
We want to know J. B. Adamson's exact occupation.
We need to identify "brothers" M. C. van Hook, Myers and Cobb - early Watch Tower evangelists. Thanks to Miquel, we now know that M. C. van Hook is Macon C. van Hook, born in North Carolina in 1844 and later a resident of Columbus Ohio! Super stuff!
We need a reasonable biography of William Dow of Albany, New York. He supported Russell in an article appearing in The Albany Morning Express in 1895.
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Out of Babylon: Current Work - Temporary post
If you copy this for personal use, please don't share it off the blog.
Thanks for the comments, everyone! Helpful and encouraging. The rest of this post is deleted.
Out of Babylon
There
is almost no record of the earliest congregations’ internal structure or of the
nature of their meetings. Though meeting guidance was given as early as 1884, a
standard meeting format wasn’t introduced until the 1890s, and nature of meetings
varied by place. To understand them we must rely on comments made in later
decades. While some of his observations were appropriate to later years, the
anonymous author of the Watchtower series “The Modern History of Jehovah’s
Witnesses” accurately describes affiliated congregations in the period before
1900:
James E. Fitch - As we have it now.
James Edwin Fitch
J. E.
Fitch (1830-1926) was an early Washington Territory pioneer and Methodist clergyman. In the late 1850s
Fitch was in Wisconsin, working in cooperation with a Baptist missionary “for
the purpose of showing to the world how well Christians could agree, and to
show their love for the churches; and a revival ensued whereby many were saved
from the sin of the world, taken into the Churches.” About two hundred converts
were added to the Methodist church during the first year (1857-1858) of Fitch’s
ministry in Wisconsin.[1] In
1868 Fitch was in Iowa.[2]
His ministry within the Methodist church seems to have been successful.
In
1882 Fitch was living in North
Prosser, Washington. Fitch
read Food for Thinking Christians and was convinced by it. He recounted
his conversion to Watch Tower doctrine in a letter to The St. Paul, Minnesota,
Enterprise: “The Holy Sprit led my companion and self out of darkness into
light, 36 years ago, by reading and studying that blessed little booklet, ‘Food
for Thinking Christians,’ and the later restitution publications, ‘Searching
the Scriptures daily whether these things were so.’ We have never doubted these
precious harvest truths from that day to this.”[3] He
and his wife left the Methodist Church which he later referred to as the “barren desert of Methodism.”
We
did not find a reference to Fitch in The Watch Tower, so his work within
the Watch Tower movement is unclear. However, we run across him in
one of the first person interviews that sometimes contribute to our research. In
the late 1970s and early 1980s the elder of us interviewed surviving members of
the Hazen family, long time residents of the lower Yakima River Valley. Kermit Hazen, an elder in the Pasco,
Washington, congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses recalled his
father’s interaction with an aged and infirm former colporteur. Though the connection
is tenuous, we think this is Fitch. He lived in the right place, near Prosser, Washington. The aged colporteur’s family opposed Watch Tower teachings. Fitch’s family presents him as a
Methodist. The 1900 United States Census
notes Fitch as “a preacher,” hence a colporteur within Watch Tower parlance.
Friday, January 15, 2016
James E. Fitch
Letter from Fitch in March 12, 1918 St. Paul Enterprise
He lived in Washington State at the time of writing.
We need some basic biography for him. Can you help?
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Just a reminder ...
Some of our readers feel a sense of ownership when it comes to this blog. But the blog belongs to Mr. Schulz and myself. We set the rules, enforce them and make policy.Often if you see a scold or a restatement of the rules, we will not tell you why we did that. Assume you don't know the whole story.
We do not care what religion you are; you many not break the rules.
We do not care what religion you are; you many not break the rules.
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Jerome or Roberto
Help me if you can. I want to block visits from S. Korea and Russia, the entire countries.
I'm asking politely. Since neither the Russian nor the Korean visitors to this blog can abide by the rules, I'm asking you to stop visiting this blog. I don't want you here. You have absolutely no ethical standards. A thief is a thief. You are not free to use our material without our consent. Stop it and go away. Be nice little boys.
I'm asking politely. Since neither the Russian nor the Korean visitors to this blog can abide by the rules, I'm asking you to stop visiting this blog. I don't want you here. You have absolutely no ethical standards. A thief is a thief. You are not free to use our material without our consent. Stop it and go away. Be nice little boys.
In the past week ...
In the past week we've had about 100 visits from South Korea, and in the past month 150 visits, but NO comments. Why is that? Do you feel free to use our material without even a thanks? Civilized behavior demands a thank you when others further your research, does it not?
You are making me uncomfortable and suspicious. It takes effort to block an entire country. I'm asking you to state your reason for coming to this blog or to go away and stay away. If I have to block the entire country of South Korea I will. I'd rather you just respect the rules here and GO AWAY.
The material on this blog is copyrighted. You are not fee to use it without permission. Even if that's the usual practice in Korea.
You are making me uncomfortable and suspicious. It takes effort to block an entire country. I'm asking you to state your reason for coming to this blog or to go away and stay away. If I have to block the entire country of South Korea I will. I'd rather you just respect the rules here and GO AWAY.
The material on this blog is copyrighted. You are not fee to use it without permission. Even if that's the usual practice in Korea.
Saturday, January 9, 2016
So you know
I'm swamped with end of semester stuff and planning a teacher (and para-educator) training day for staff. So you may not see much new material on the blog for two or three weeks.
We have a new reader (or readers) from Korea. If that's you, leave a comment and introduce yourself. We lost a couple of readers to a fit of temper. Shame on you. All we ask is that you keep your comments to historical matters. We respect everyone's religious views, but we do not debate them here. If that bothers you, then you do not belong here. Restating rules that have been in place here since the blog was started is not a scold.
We need Russell era controversialist booklets and articles, especially those published before 1910.
There are several Hessler family obituaries that might lead to living family. The obits suggest the family continued as Jehovah's Witnesses. Anyone volunteer to trace living family and contact them?
If you email me and don't get an immediate reply, know that I'm not ignoring you. I'm very busy. Sometimes you have to wait. If you don't hear from me in a week, resend the email.
Mr. Schulz is some better, but please do not email him. He works on our project, sleeps a lot, and his work is limited to a few hours a week. Please direct your questions and comments to me.
I was asked about blog 2, the private blog. It is inactive.
We have a new reader (or readers) from Korea. If that's you, leave a comment and introduce yourself. We lost a couple of readers to a fit of temper. Shame on you. All we ask is that you keep your comments to historical matters. We respect everyone's religious views, but we do not debate them here. If that bothers you, then you do not belong here. Restating rules that have been in place here since the blog was started is not a scold.
We need Russell era controversialist booklets and articles, especially those published before 1910.
There are several Hessler family obituaries that might lead to living family. The obits suggest the family continued as Jehovah's Witnesses. Anyone volunteer to trace living family and contact them?
If you email me and don't get an immediate reply, know that I'm not ignoring you. I'm very busy. Sometimes you have to wait. If you don't hear from me in a week, resend the email.
Mr. Schulz is some better, but please do not email him. He works on our project, sleeps a lot, and his work is limited to a few hours a week. Please direct your questions and comments to me.
I was asked about blog 2, the private blog. It is inactive.
Friday, January 8, 2016
Comment
Mr. Schulz and I invest a huge amount of money and work to further our research. We don't ask you for money. We do like comments. The same two - sometimes three - people comment. Everyone else that visits this blog avoids commenting. Even an "interesting" or "well done" is good.
Lack of comments is personally discouraging. You want this work to continue? An occasional comment helps.
Lack of comments is personally discouraging. You want this work to continue? An occasional comment helps.
Thursday, January 7, 2016
Remember this?
From the chapter titled Out of Babylon (with slight revisions)
We do not know who the
class “leader” was, but we do know something of George Hessler. [died May 1913]
He was a cabinet maker, “well known in building circles,” and a member of the
Improved Order of Heptasophs, a fraternal organization. Hessler was an
inventor, holding patents for a ‘book holder’ and a toilet chair.[2] A
German immigrant, he became a citizen in February 1909.[3]
Later in life he invested in a Cuban gold mine and he was swindled.[4] As
with Daniel Hessler, we do not know if he maintained his interest. When his
daughter Hazel was married in 1905, it was by the “Reverend Stahl.”[5]
This cannot be taken as evidence of later belief because in this era adherents
turned to clergy for weddings. Few Watch Tower evangelists were recognized by
state or county officials to perform marriages.
The Woodworths were not alone. Others represented
pre-existing interest in Scranton. Among them was D. M. Hessler. We know little
about Daniel Milburn Hessler. (1860-1917) He was a prominent citizen, owning a
laundry business in Scranton with branches in New Jersey, Indiana and
Pennsylvania. He appears once in the Watch Tower through a letter to
Russell in February 1891, and he named a son born that year Charles Russell
Hessler. Commenting on a new cover design for Zion’s Watch Tower, we
find him expressing his strongly held belief:
I
received January number last night and quickly noticed the new suit in which
the tower is clothed. I feel sure
that the improvement will be greatly appreciated by its readers. The emblem of
the cross and crown is an appropriate and beautiful design to be worn by the tower. Its presence should ever
encourage, sustain and comfort the household of faith. It should also be a
warning or reminder; for as the cross and crown are inseparable in the design,
so the two are to be inseparably associated in the experience of the
overcomers. If we would wear the crown we must bear the cross.[1]
Hessler drops out of the record with
this letter. We do not know if he maintained his interest or how active he was
within the Scranton congregation. By
July 1895, meetings were held in George W. Hessler’s home at 728 Green
Ridge Street. Erlenmyer would have directed the Woodworths to this meeting. The
one notice of it appears in the July 13, 1895, Scranton, Pennsylvania,
Tribune:
The
Watch Tower Bible class will meet at the residence of G. W. Hessler, 728 Green
Ridge street, [sic] Sunday, July 14, at 10 a. m. The subject will be “Restitution
of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets since
the world began,” Acts, iii 21. The leader will also explain from the “Chart of
the Ages” the special call of this gospel age, “The straight gate and narrow
way to life, and the few there be that find it.” Matt. Vii, 14.
[1] Extracts from Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch
Tower, February 1891, page 29.
[2] U.S. Patents numbers 263,290 and 752,551.
[3] Scranton Wochenblatt, February 25, 1909.
[4] The Scranton, Pennsylvania, Truth, January 12,
1911.
[5] The Scranton, Pennsylvania, Truth¸ June 7, 1905.
D. M. Hessler's son Charles Russell served at Bethel in the 1940s and is mentioned in the 1943 Yearbook. Can anyone help us connect with Hessler relations who are still Jehovah's Witnesses?
Benjamin Ford Weatherwax
1836-1903
With grateful thanks to Diana via Ancestry.com who is a vaguely distant relation. She gives permission for the photograph to be reproduced as we see fit.
Wednesday, January 6, 2016
Not so wild wild suspcion
The evidence is so slim as to be suspect, very suspect, but we're working on the supposition that Brother van der Ahe was Chris von (also van) der Ahe, the owner of the Browns baseball team. All we have is the possibility that he met a Watch Tower evangelist in New York. We think the possibility is strong. He had a connection to Pittsburgh, were he was well known.
We need to prove or disprove this. We're up against a brick wall. Can you do better?
We believe his interest was short lived. We believe that personal difficulties started it and ended it. But, everything is just suspicion. Help!
We probably have to give this up, as fun as it would be to have a drunken baseball club owner in the story. Our focus has switched to William Van der Ahe, aka vonderahe and vondera, etc. He appears to have been a clerk, maybe in Russell's Federal Street Store. HELP!
We need to prove or disprove this. We're up against a brick wall. Can you do better?
We believe his interest was short lived. We believe that personal difficulties started it and ended it. But, everything is just suspicion. Help!
We probably have to give this up, as fun as it would be to have a drunken baseball club owner in the story. Our focus has switched to William Van der Ahe, aka vonderahe and vondera, etc. He appears to have been a clerk, maybe in Russell's Federal Street Store. HELP!
It's time (We think) ...
To start preparing Separate Identity, volume one, for ebook format. The first step is to make corrections to the text. Send me a list of the "literary owies" you've found in the test.
Roberto, can we ...
Can we add some sort of "Please visit our newest posts. We'd love to see your feedback." thing to the blog title?
R
R
Saturday, January 2, 2016
"Fringe" items
A sample of the kind of advertisements that started appearing in the St Paul Enterprise newspaper in 1917. If any survived they would be highly collectable today.
I rather like the "Four pages, over 2,000 yards..."
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Richards again ...
We need to know if he shows up in The Watch Tower in the 1920s and 1930s. Anyone help?
Monday, December 28, 2015
We need to confirm birth data for this man
William E. Richards
W. E.
Richards was born in Illinois in May 1861 and joined the Methodist Episcopal Church
as a youth. By the time he appears on the pages of Zion’s Watch Tower,
he lived in Ohio with his wife and children. Writing to Russell in February
1892, he recalled his youthful interest in the Bible and his desire to preach: “From
a child I have read the Scriptures, and all other books that I thought or hoped
would make plain to my understanding the truth, as I was hungry to know and
anxious to teach it.”[1] By
the mid-1880s he was “
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Another early worker
The Lady Canvasser
A
notice appeared in the Monongahela, Pennsylvania, Daily Republican of May 7,
1887, saying that, “The lady canvasser of the book ‘Millennial Dawn,’ wishes to
announce to the subscribers that the book will not be delivered until the 20th
of the month of May, or a little later, as the first edition of the book has
been entirely exhausted. About the 20th, she will be in the city to deliver the
books.” We do not know who this was. In the November 1883, Watch Tower,
Russell named “sisters” Raynor and Vogel as exemplary colporteurs. Vogel’s
first name appears to be Catherine. She continued in the work into the 1890s,
working with a Helena Boehmer in eastern Pennsylvania.[1]
Laura J. Raynor (1839-1917) was Maria Russell’s older sister and a widow. (Henry
Raynor, her husband, died in 1873.) Her active ‘ministry’ seems to have been
short-lived, and when Maria Russell left her husband Laura left the Watch Tower.
There
were other women evangelists. One such was Millia La Clare, a resident of
Kansas. Despite his illness, she and her husband packed their two boys, aged
seven and eleven, into a covered wagon “to save expenses” and canvassed the
prairie. Her brief biography, written as a letter to The St. Paul,
Minnesota, Enterprise tells the story:
Bro. Marting
Minor progress on this man:
Fred W. Marting (b. 1853) received a copy of Food
for Thinking Christians in the fall of 1881 and began circulating it
immediately. “It was food for me,” he wrote. “I scattered it ever since.” Later
in life he lived in Pittsboro, Indiana, and then Chicago, Illinois.[1]
Friday, December 25, 2015
Phillips and Bowman from earlier post
Captain John Riley Phillips, born
August 24, 1839, near Meadowville, son of James and Osa (Johnson)
Phillips, grandson of Jacob Phillips, great grandson of Isaac, and
great-great-grandson of Moses Phillips, an Englishman who settled on the
South Branch, and subsequently in Randolph County. Isaac Phillips
married Miss Kittle, of Randolph, and Jacob married Sarah Bennett. Osa
Johnson was a daughter of John Johnson and granddaughter of Robert
Johnson, a Scotchman. The subject of this sketch had one sister, Sarah
Ann, and no brother. His parents were very poor, possessed but little
education, married young and settled first in the eastern part of
Barbour, then a wild region. Subsequently they moved to Clover Creek,
which was still wilder, and again they moved, this time to Brushy Fork
in Barbour, where they made a permanent home. John Riley Phillips was a
man of unusually brilliant mind. Had he been educated he would probably
have gained a national reputation as a thinker and lecturer. He was an
orator of unusual ability, and a careful reader of such books as came
within his reach. His education was limited to the schools of the
neighborhood. Among his teachers was William Furguson who made a deep
impression upon the young man's mind. A literary society in that
neighborhood, attended by Captain Phillips, Captain A. C. Bowman and
others, was an association for good, and in point of intellectual
strength its equal could be found in few rural districts anywhere.
Not Satisfactory ...
Here's an excerpt from a new chapter. This is not making me happy. Not at all. We need to identify these people. If you want to help, this is a good way. Put first names to the last names in this section .... This is rough draft.
New Workers
It is
impossible to name everyone who showed interest or who became an adherent.
There are, however, interesting comments that lead us to some sound
conclusions. Many of the names we run across are those of Age-to-Come/One Faith
believers. Russell said some of his readers had been Second Adventists. Edward
Payson Woodward, whom we met in Nelson Barbour: The Millennium’s Forgotten
Prophet as chairman of the Worchester Conference and found in sympathy with
Barbour, wrote that several of his “personal friends … accepted Mr. Russell as
their Leader and spiritual Guide.” He too read Millennial Dawn (later Studies
in the Scriptures), but rejected it.[1]
Many more came from mainline Churches. New workers entered the field almost
with the first issue of Zion’s Watch Tower, but we are left with scant
documentation. Despite our best and persistent efforts we cannot identify most
of them.
“Brother and Sister McCormack”
Apparently
well-known to Watch Tower readers, the McCormacks are mentioned once. In
July 1882, Russell noted that they were moving to Chicago:
The
Chicago friends will be glad to know that Bro. McCormack is about to remove
there. Chicago is a good field, and our Brother and his wife remove there in
the hope of being used by the Master for the blessing of the household of
faith, by disseminating the truth. When he calls on you, receive him well –he
is a brother in Christ. Let meetings be commenced at once, and the Lord bless
you.[2]
Though
we lose sight of the McCormacks afterward, we don’t lose sight of the work in
Chicago. Street witnessing with Food for Thinking Christians produced
fruitage. Someone wrote to Russell in 1884 expressing his gratitude for the
booklet. He believed it reformed him:
Having picked up one of your little books on the street,
called “Food for Thinking Christians,” and “Why Evil was Permitted,” I became
deeply interested in it. It seems very good for thinking sinners as well as
Christians. I am a reformed man now, having been down in the gutter many a time
through intoxicating drink, though I have not tasted any now for over a year,
may God help me to keep from it. Having just read the little book, I see that
you will send others, and by so doing you will oblige me. I would like to lead
a better life, and become a Christian. I cannot see fully into the reality of
religion, but may the Lord open my heart and eyes to the great love he has for
them that fear him. I will try to make good use of anything you send.[3]
A few
months previously, Russell printed a letter from a newly interested person who
reported that he and his wife were dissatisfied with denominational teachings.
They wanted to circulate tracts:
You will permit me, though a stranger, to say that I
have received knowledge for both head and heart that years of searching had
failed to accomplish, and so with the hope of seeing others freed from
sectarian darkness, I, too, will be glad to be counted among those who are
helping to distribute the meat in due season. I know whom I trust now, thanks
be to God. The “Food”, came just when I had lost hold, because there was
nothing to hold me in the churches – for I searched Baptist, Methodist, Free
Methodist, Congregational and Presbyterian denominations till I became
satisfied that the Lord had something better for me to find: Then “Food” came –
it seemed accidentally – but now I see it was providentially. Let me heartily
thank you – or rather thank God for giving you the ability to open the way to
the light. Great is the surrounding darkness and we are desirous to have others
see their way clearly. If you can send us some reading matter, we can drop it
into good soil. A dear old child of God left our house in great sorrow and
perplexity of mind last Sunday evening. He has been a deacon in the Baptist
church for thirty years. Said he, “O, I have studied these matters until I just
find, that the more I give my mind to these things the less I know; and now I
just know nothing and have made up my mind to let it go, for God will bring it
out all right; and what can I do but wait Gods own good time. When we get over
there, we will see face to face.” I endeavored to persuade him to expect the
mystery to be explained. Said he: “O bring me anything. I want the best the
Lord gives. I know God is love and I hate this “Hell doctrine!” The minister in
a little church here is in a quandary: he is a thinking man, only he is in the
“iron bedstead.” Please send reading matter, if possible, – these two at least
feel their need.[4]
An
unnamed but persistent worker sent a brief note in April 1886, enclosing a
subscription payment. The note makes it clear that he had been working in the
poorer neighborhoods: “It is encouraging to know that among the lowly houses
there are ears to hear.” When printing the note, Russell omitted the signature.[5]
The Lady Canvasser
A
notice appeared in the Monongahela, Pennsylvania, Daily Republican of May 7,
1887, saying that, “The lady canvasser of the book ‘Millennial Dawn,’ wishes to
announce to the subscribers that the book will not be delivered until the 20th
of the month of May, or a little later, as the first edition of the book has
been entirely exhausted. About the 20th, she will be in the city to deliver the
books.” We do not know who this was. In the November 1883, Watch Tower,
Russell named “sisters” Raynor and Vogel as exemplary colporteurs. Vogel’s
first name appears to be Catherine. She continued in the work into the 1890s,
working with a Helena Boehmer in eastern
Pennsylvania.[6] Laura J. Raynor
(1839-1917) was Maria Russell’s older sister and a widow. (Henry Raynor, her
husband, died in 1873.) Her active ‘ministry’ seems to have been short-lived.
Others
Also active in late 1883 were
“Brothers” Van der Ahe, Cain, Grable, and Hughes. We know almost nothing about
them, not even their first names. In 1887, Russell mentions “Brothers” Marting,
van Hook, Gillis, Myers, Bryan, Cobb,
Blundin, Hickey, and Bowman.
Blundin and Hickey we profile in more appropriate
places. M. C. Van Hook was active in the American Midwest. He filled in for
Josephus Perry Martin while Martin preached near Miamisburg, Ohio. He was still
active in 1892, working with Samuel Leigh and William H. Deming in southern Ohio
and northern Kentucky. Russell described them as “earnest and faithful and are
blessed and a blessing wherever they go.”[7] He
was working in Indiana in 1894. We lose sight of him afterward. And we do not
know his full name.[8]
Myers is an unknown. Several Myers appear in latter
issues of the Watch Tower. None of them seem to have been active in this
period. Marting and Cobb are also unknowns. There are two possibilities for
“Brother Cobb.” A poem by N. B. Cobb appeared in the June 1881, Watch Tower,
and a brief note praising The Plan of the Ages was signed by a J. Cobb.
It appears in the October 1886 issue.[9] We
have but on sample of Cobb’s work, preserved in a letter to Russell printed in
the June 1888 Tower. Sent from D. M. Lee, a Baptist minister in Reynolds
County, Missouri, it records Cobb’s work with sample issues of Zion’s Watch
Tower:
Please
indulge me, a little. I had a copy of “zion's
watch tower” (Oct. 1886) handed me the other day by Mr. Cobb. I am
wonderfully well pleased with it. It has brought certain strange things to my
eyes, that I have been for years desiring to look into. I have toiled many long
years as a minister under the Baptist banner. The more I study the Scriptures,
and the better I understand Baptist Theology and discipline, the less I esteem
them.
For
years I have fought the palpable, absurd and inconsistent doctrine of eternal
punishment. I am now 71 years old and unable to work; but thank God, I can talk
yet, if I can't work; and when I speak, I wish to speak the truth; but feel
confident I cannot do it under my confused conditions. I need a kind hand to
lead me out. If you please send me the tower,
I will use it to the best of my ability, and will undertake to pay you for it
during the year.[10]
We have three possible identities for Bowman. Adam C.
Bowman, once a captain in the 19th Virginia Cavalry and a lawyer,
circulated The Plan of the Ages, but his activity seems to have been
mostly limited to Barbour County, West Virginia. He handed a copy to J. R.
Phillips, a Confederate veteran.[11]
Phillips took up the message, writing to Russell in 1887:
I
have talked much about the millennial
dawn with persons of intelligence, since I began its reading. Some
priest-ridden persons reject it, but I find its ideas a joy to many. I traveled
for fifteen miles across my county, a few days since, with a gentleman, and
shortly after joining him I remarked, I have been lately reading the millennial dawn, the most wonderful book
of our day. I gave him its outline and he eagerly continued the conversation
through our three hours ride. The next day I luckily had another friend to make
a part of the return ride with. I mentioned the book as before, and the gentleman
soon became interested, and we discussed it up to our parting. He then invited
me to go to his community and lecture upon the subject, which I promised to do,
when I thoroughly investigated the whole subject. I thank you a thousand times
for having placed this book in my hands and will be glad to have the second
volume on any terms.[12]
Phillips remained interested at
least to 1891. After reading Millennial Dawn – Volume 2, he wrote to
Russell expressing his gratitude. He was wounded in the Battle of the
Wilderness and crippled for life, he said. “I returned to my home that had been
ruined, at the close of the war, and found myself a cripple for life with a
life-struggle before me. I felt that my lot was a hard one, but I determined to
honor God and keep up a resolute will. Sometimes dark and threatening clouds
gathered about me, almost despair settled over my mind and fears almost
paralyzed my hopes for the future.” Reading The Plan of the Ages changed
that. “I read it, and poverty vanished into the marvelous light of a bright and
glorious hope,” he wrote. After reading both volumes he believed he could read
his Bible with understanding. He wanted to visit Russell during on of the Passover
conventions to shake his hand and thank him.[13]
Another possibility is a J. T.
Bowman who held meetings in Joplin, Missouri. He comes into the record too late
to be the “Brother Bowman” active in 1886. The most probable of the Bowmans is
Payton Green Bowman [continues]
[1] E. P. Woodward: Later-Day Delusions, No. 7: Another
Gospel; An Exposure of the System Known as Russellism, Safeguard and Armory,
July 1914, page 2.
[3] Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, March
1884, page 1.
[4] Extracts from Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch
Tower, November 1883, page 2.
[5] Extracts from Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch
Tower, April 1886, page 2. [Not in reprints.]
[6] C. T. Russell: Harvest Laborers: Pray for Them, Zion’s
Watch Tower¸ September 15, 1892, page 50.
[7] For Deming see volume 1, page 52. We profile Blundin in
chapter – . Quotation is from ZWT of February 15, 1892,
page 50.
[8] Voice of the Church, Zion’s Watch Tower EXTRA,
June 11, 1894, page 190. [Not in reprints.]
[9] On page 8 of that issue. [Not in reprints.]
[10] Extracts from Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower,
June 1888, page 2.
[11] There are three J. R. Philips listed among Virginia
veterans. Two were privates in Cavalry units. One was a Captain serving in the 31st
Virginia Volunteers. Captain John R. Phillips fits the biographical details
found in Zion’s Watch Tower. (See J. D. Cook: A History of the
Thirty-First Virginia Regiment of Volunteers, C. S. A., Masters Thesis,
West Virginia University, 1955, pages 7-8.
[12] More Good News, Zion’s Watch Tower, October 1887,
page 8. [Not in reprints.]
[13] Extracts from Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower,
February 1891, page 30.
We think ...
After talking it out with Mr. Schulz, we think the lawyer mentioned in a previous post was Adam C. Bowman of West Virginia, a lawyer in coal country and a Watch Tower adherent in the correct period. There is no firm proof. It's only a surmise. We would like to locate his photo.
Laura J. Raynor
From the Pittsburgh Press in 1917.
Maria’s older sister was a keen supporter of ZWT theology
for a number of years, although you would not know it from her obituary.
A recent post on this blog has a Sister Raynor sharing in
colporteur work in 1887. Laura had been widowed some years before in 1873.
Harry Raynor had been under 40 years old at the time, leaving her with three
children, Howard M Raynor (c.1867-1946), Selina Raynor, who never married (c.1865-1948),
and Maria Raynor (c.1873-after 1941). Maria Raynor married S Frank McKee and
she is named as May Raynor McKee on his death certificate in 1941. The whole
family and offshoots stayed in the general Pittsburgh area.
At the time of her being mentioned in 1887, Laura’s children
would have been of an age to be mainly independent; Selina would have been
around 21, Howard around 20, and Maria (May) around 14. They were also all
listed as living in the same home as Laura’s mother, Selina Ackley, in the 1880
census.
Laura is mentioned several times in subsequent issues of
ZWT. In the May 1, 1892 issue, there was a meeting at her home. In the 1894
troubles, she signed a document with her sister Maria and others supporting
CTR. In the 1897 troubles between CTR and Maria, she supported Maria.
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Comments ...
Comments make me happy. They also provide me with feed back. Comments on content work best, even a 'well done.' Grammar we fix later.
A brief change...
...from all this serious research...
A sad tale noted in the Bible Students' newspaper, the St Paul Enterprise, involving Miracle Wheat, a monogrammed car, and the locals diversifying from cattle rustling and horse stealing.
Alas, I do not know whether he ever got his car back.
A sad tale noted in the Bible Students' newspaper, the St Paul Enterprise, involving Miracle Wheat, a monogrammed car, and the locals diversifying from cattle rustling and horse stealing.
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Another ....
"Brothers Van der Ahe, Cain, Grable, Hughes, and Sisters Raynor and Vogel and others are doing remarkably well, and we trust that before next month many others will be doing as much or more."
Who ARE these people?
Update: Laura J. Raynor, Maria Russell's older sister. Sister Vogel is probably Catherine Vogel, a widow from Pittsburgh. We still have no ID for the rest.
Who ARE these people?
Update: Laura J. Raynor, Maria Russell's older sister. Sister Vogel is probably Catherine Vogel, a widow from Pittsburgh. We still have no ID for the rest.