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While the mass distribution of Food for Thinking Christians via messenger service boys and through cooperating periodicals drew the most attention, the work that mattered was done by committed individual Christians. It was this work that set the pattern for much of the evangelical activity that followed.

Few names of the earliest workers survive, and of those names we do have many are now obscure. There was already a very small base of active workers. Sunderlin, Mann, Keith, Jones, and a few others were the foundation of this work. None of them were colporteurs in the sense that they devoted their time to the sale of tracts. They were preachers, lecturers, visiting speakers.

Three others received some mention in the June 1881 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower. Russell mentions two of them in such a way that he seems to have expected many of his readers to know them.

Robert Bailey

Robert Bailey of Howardsville, Michigan, entered the work that month as a “proclaimer of the same ‘Glad tidings’ entirely consecrated to the Lord and his work.”[i] Almost nothing is known of his life. The 1880 Census shows him living Saint Joseph County, Michigan, and gives his occupation as “minister of the gospel.” Bailey was born about 1853 in Canada to an American mother and Canadian father.[ii]

A letter from him appears in the July/August 1881 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower. It suggests that he entered the ministry four years previously: “About four years ago I forsook the paths of sin, and gave up all for Jesus; since then I have been striving to follow Him. I studied His word faithfully in order to know my duty, and can say, to the praise of our Heavenly Father, that He permitted me to see many precious promises, and faith claimed them mine.”[iii]

He explained that during the year previous to his letter he had prayed earnestly for “greater light” from God’s Word. He felt his prayer was answered by a visit from J. H. Paton in February 1881: “My daily prayer was for wisdom, and an understanding of His Word. … Accordingly, in February, 1881, He sent one of His messengers (Brother Paton,) who, by the grace of God, ‘opened our eyes to behold wondrous things out of His law.’”

That May he was in Pittsburgh for the Lord’s Supper. He was introduced to Russell, Sunderlin, Mann, Jones and to [insert first name] Adamson who like himself was new to the message: “I was privileged to meet and hold sweet converse on these precious and exhaustless themes with our beloved brothers … . It is needless for me to tell you that it was a delightful and profitable season. These precious truths thrill my whole being. I am willing to spend and be spent, in telling the ‘story of Jesus and His Love.’[1] Pray for me, that I may have wisdom to ‘rightly divide the word of truth,’ and grace to enable me to suffer with Christ, and with you share the glories of the world to come.”[iv]

The letter was dated at Howardsville, Michigan, a place so small it had no post office of its own. The 1880 Census placed him in Flowerfield, a few miles distant. Frustratingly, a contemporary Gazetteer notes that there were two church organizations in Flowerfield, but neglects to name them. So there is no way to identify Bailey’s previous religious affiliation. He quickly drops out of the record. He isn’t mentioned again in Zion’s Watch Tower, and he isn’t found in later census records.

His preaching seems to have been local to St. Joseph’s County, Michigan. The small congregation there seems to have followed Paton and his Universalist sect after the fragmentation of 1881-2. Other individuals from Howardsville are mentioned only in Paton’s The World’s Hope. [v]

‘Brother McGranor’

In the same article through which Russell announced Bailey’s entry into the ministry he wrote: “Brother McGrannor, [sic] of Pennsylvania, has also gone forth recently to give his entire time and labor in the "harvest" field; may his labors also be crowned with such success as may seem good to the Lord of the harvest and gain finally the ‘Well done good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things.’” [vi] Other notices of “Brother” McGranor have his name spelled with one “N”, and that appears to be the correct spelling.

When Food for Thinking Christians was published, he played a part in its circulation, and he is listed as one of the principal evangelists engaged in that work. Russell explained that McGranor was working principally in Western Pennsylvania and Ohio, “distributing tracts … as he goes preaching.”[vii]

When Tony Willis, writing as Timothy White, prepared A People for His Name (1968) he seems to have made no effort to discover the identity of McGranor and others.[viii] By a process of elimination principally using census records we can identify “brother McGranor” as Patrick McGranor or one of his sons. The most likely of these is his son William J. McGranor. William was born in about 1851 according to the 1880 Census.[ix] His middle initial isn’t given in the census record but in a brief newspaper mention in the August 7, 1895, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Progress. The article has him living in Deckers Point, Pennsylvania at that time.[x] Only a tenuous bit of evidence point to him as the “brother McGranor” of the Zion’s Watch Tower article. The article newspaper article continues with a mention of a Mrs. Jerry Keim. At least one from the Keim family was also an active evangelist in the early days of The Watch Tower.
One should not consider the fact that his initials fit those of a contributor to Zion’s Watch Tower as evidence. The W.J.M of the Watch Tower article is a misprint for W.I.M. This is seen by comparing the initials at the end of the initial article signed “W.J.M.” and its continuation which is signed “W.I.M.” for William I. Mann. .[xi]

The question of who “brother McGranor” really was, is not resolvable in any sort of satisfactory way without further evidence. When Food for Thinking Christians was published he participated in its distribution. In the October/November issue of The Tower, Russell reported that the tracts “Have … been distributed in the medium and larger cities, and at the principal camp meetings, Brothers Adamson, Keith, Keim, McGranor and others, being still engaged in the work of distribution. Only about 65,000 yet remain.” Tony Willis took this to mean that McGranor and the others took charge of hiring and supervising the boys who distributed the tracts. Russell added: “Brother McGranor is distributing tracts, and as he goes preaching in Ohio and western Pennsylvania. The Lord has been blessing him greatly.” While it appears that McGranor’s preaching was incidental to his tract distribution, nothing in this comment suggests anything more than a personal circulation of the booklet Food for Thinking Christians in the small towns and villages of Ohio and Western Pennsylvania.

This is the final notice of “brother McGranor.” Identifying him further requires a more ingenious researcher than I am.

J. B. Adamson

Adamson was an Ohio businessman who seems to have been a shopkeeper. There is some confusion as to his real occupation, but Russell described him as having “a profitable and increasing business paying about $1,500 a year as well as other things.” One presumes Russell meant he had other sources of income. In terms of 2009 dollars, his income from his business amounted to about forty-three thousand dollars. How much beyond that he had in “other things” is impossible to calculate.

He was introduced to Watch Tower readers in the same issue as the two men mentioned above, but only by the initials “J.B.A.” A brief letter of greeting from him and some introductory words by Russell form the basis of most of what we know of him. His first name is unknown, and a search of Census records, while it provides some possibilities, does not provide a definitive result. Russell introduced him as a “very dear saint” and “brother in Christ” and explained that Adamson had decided to “give up all that he has of time, reputation and ability … for the Crown of Life.”[xii]

Adamson explained later that he had “always” been religiously inclined because he had “godly parents, but “I failed to get as clear an idea of consecration as I wished. I never believed in lukewarm or disobedient Christians, but I had no wise, loving saints to confer with in my early religious experience. Few or none thought of the Bible as the only rule; therefore, I was sometimes cast down and discouraged. I never could join a church, or enter the ministry, though I had tempting offers of the necessary funds. .. Yet, I always worked heartily in all churches, Y.M.C.A., or other revival work.”[xiii]

Sometime early in 1880 while on a trip to Columbus, Ohio, he found a copy of Zion’s Watch Tower. “I was attracted at once,” he recalled, “finding in it so much gospel … and better than I had.” By mid-year he traveled to Pittsburgh to find Russell. He seems to have mislaid the watch Tower address and visited the office several of the religious press in Pittsburgh. He found that Zion’s Watch Tower was in less than high favor among them, but he cast the insults in a positive light seeing them as imparting “Scriptural marks of saintship – being ignored, ‘cast out,’ and ‘suffering reproach’ for Christ’s sake.”[xiv]

Adamson impresses one as vague. His letters leave an indistinct trail He uses a vocabulary common to them all, but one is occasionally left wondering if he meant exactly the same thing as did everyone else. His description of his first meeting with Russell falls into this category. At first it appears plain and straight forward, but on analysis it becomes imprecise. He summarized their meeting this way: “I could hardly follow Bro. Russell in his explanations and see at once that there is a plan of God in the Ages, and that all the Scriptures fall into line and harmonize with it. I was too good. Men are sometimes dazed by a bright natural light, and so also by bright unfoldings of the world. This was my case.”[xv]

We are left wondering if he was confused by Russell’s explanation or if he found it “too good to be true.” Which ever was so, he left Allegheny unconvinced and sought out Charles Cullis in Boston and enrolled in his Faith Training College.

Cullis, a graduate of the University of Vermont and a Holiness oriented Episcopalian, was a homeopathic physician in Boston. He advocated Faith Cures and founded among other agencies the Faith Training College (1876) to advocate his views.[xvi] Adamson enrolled in 1880, but terminated his studies there, finding the college “unsuitable for me.” He doesn’t explain if he had a doctrinal difference or if he found he was not an apt scholar.

He left Boston for Providence, Rhode Island, where he “acted with the Y.M.C.A. in a revival.” Again, his statement lacks specifics. He doesn’t say if he merely handed out tracts or if he picked up litter, or explain in anyway what “acting with” the YMCA meant. From there he made his way to Bridgeport, Connecticut, to attend “the Mission revival services.” He “proposed to return to Boston again, but there was no opening except toward Pittsburgh.” Again, the lack of specifics is maddening. What, exactly, does he mean by the phrase “no opening except toward Pittsburgh”? That he had no more money than a fare to Pittsburgh? That makes no sense because Boston is far closer to Bridgeport than is Pittsburgh. Business took him toward Pittsburgh? Who knows? The man is frustratingly vague.Nevertheless, six months after he’d visited Russell (December 1880 or January 1881) he returned for another conference

[1] The phrase Story of Jesus and His love is quoted from the hymn “I Love to Tell the Story” by A. Katherine Hankey, first published in 1866. It is found in Joyful Songs, Nos. 1 to 3 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Methodist Episcopal Book Room, 1869).
[i] To the Readers of the Watch Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, June 1881, page 8.
[ii] 1880 United States Census: Flowerfield, St. Joseph, Michigan, National Archives Film T9-0603, page 331B .
[iii] A Letter From Yours and Ours to His and Ours, Zion’s Watch Tower, July/August 1881, page 5.
[iv] A Letter From Yours and Ours to His and Ours, Zion’s Watch Tower, July/August 1881, page 6.
[v] Letter from A.P.S to Paton in Extracts from Letters, The World’s Hope, December 15, 1886, page 302. Letter from Mr. and Mrs. M. B. to Paton in Extracts from Letters, The World’s Hope, May 1, 1897, page 143.
[vi] To the Readers of the Watch Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, June 1881, page 8.
[vii] In the Vineyard, Zion’s Watch Tower, October/November 1881, page 5.
[viii] White, Timothy (Tony Willis): A People for His Name: A History of Jehovah's Witnesses and an Evaluation‎ , 1968, page 26.
[ix] 1880 United States Census: Greene, Indiana, Pennsylvania, National Archives Film number T9-1135, page 238D.
[x] I identify the W. J. McGranor of this newspaper article with Peter McGranor’s son instead of the younger Dr. William J. McGranor, a physician on the basis of where he was visiting. The McGranor family was centered in Indiana County, Pennsylvania.
[xi] W.J.M.: The Day of Judgment, Zion’s Watch Tower September 1879, page 8; W.I.M.: Day of Judgment, November 1879, pages 4-5.
[xii] To Readers of The Watch Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, June 1881, page 8.
[xiii] Letter From Bro. Adamson, Zion’s Watch Tower, February 1882, pages 1-2.
[xiv] Letter From Bro. Adamson, Zion’s Watch Tower, February 1882, pages 1-2.
[xv] ibid.
[xvi] Taves, Ann: Fits, Trances, and Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James, Princeton University Press, 1999, page 227; Randall Herbert Balmer: Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism, page 166; See also the article Faith Cure: McClintock and Strong, eds, Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, Supplement, Volume 2, 1889, page 372.

J. B. Adamson

I need the full name or at least first name and initial of J. B. Adamson. Anyone know it?

We Need Research Help ....

The text below is from the rough draft of a chapter than considers the cirulation of the booklet Food for Thinking Christians. If you have any additional information about Bailey or McGranor, we would like you to share it with us.

From Commitment and Organization (Tentatively numbered at chapter six):

While the mass distribution of Food for Thinking Christians via messenger service boys and through cooperating periodicals drew the most attention, the work that mattered was done by committed individual Christians. It was this work that set the pattern for much of the evangelical activity that followed.

Few names of the earliest workers survive, and of those names we do have many are now obscure. There was already a very small base of active workers. Sunderlin, Mann, Keith, Jones, and a few others were the foundation of this work. None of them were colporteurs in the sense that they devoted their time to the sale of tracts. They were preachers, lecturers, visiting speakers.

Three others received some mention in the June 1881 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower. Russell mentions two of them in such a way that he seems to have expected many of his readers to know them.

Robert Bailey

Robert Bailey of Howardsville, Michigan, entered the work that month as a “proclaimer of the same ‘Glad tidings’ entirely consecrated to the Lord and his work.”[1] Almost nothing is known of his life. The 1880 Census shows him living Saint Joseph County, Michigan, and gives his occupation as “minister of the gospel.” Bailey was born about 1853 in Canada to an American mother and Canadian father.[2]

A letter from him appears in the July/August 1881 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower. It suggests that he entered the ministry four years previously: “About four years ago I forsook the paths of sin, and gave up all for Jesus; since then I have been striving to follow Him. I studied His word faithfully in order to know my duty, and can say, to the praise of our Heavenly Father, that He permitted me to see many precious promises, and faith claimed them mine.”[3]

He explained that during the year previous to his letter he had prayed earnestly for “greater light” from God’s Word. He felt his prayer was answered by a visit from J. H. Paton in February 1881: “My daily prayer was for wisdom, and an understanding of His Word. … Accordingly, in February, 1881, He sent one of His messengers (Brother Paton,) who, by the grace of God, ‘opened our eyes to behold wondrous things out of His law.’”

That May he was in Pittsburgh for the Lord’s Supper. He was introduced to Russell, Sunderlin, Mann, Jones and to [insert first name] Adamson who like himself was new to the message: “I was privileged to meet and hold sweet converse on these precious and exhaustless themes with our beloved brothers … . It is needless for me to tell you that it was a delightful and profitable season. These precious truths thrill my whole being. I am willing to spend and be spent, in telling the ‘story of Jesus and His Love.’[i] Pray for me, that I may have wisdom to ‘rightly divide the word of truth,’ and grace to enable me to suffer with Christ, and with you share the glories of the world to come.”[4]

The letter was dated at Howardsville, Michigan, a place so small it had no post office of its own. The 1880 Census placed him in Flowerfield, a few miles distant. Frustratingly, a contemporary Gazetteer notes that there were two church organizations in Flowerfield, but neglects to name them. So there is no way to identify Bailey’s previous religious affiliation. He quickly drops out of the record. He isn’t mentioned again in Zion’s Watch Tower, and he isn’t found in later census records.

His preaching seems to have been local to St. Joseph’s County, Michigan. At least one other individual from there expressed interest, though he ultimately sided with Paton and his Universalist sect.[5]

‘Brother McGranor’

In the same article through which Russell announced Bailey’s entry into the ministry he wrote: “Brother McGrannor, [sic] of Pennsylvania, has also gone forth recently to give his entire time and labor in the "harvest" field; may his labors also be crowned with such success as may seem good to the Lord of the harvest and gain finally the ‘Well done good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things.’” [6] Other notices of “Brother” McGranor have his name spelled with one “N”, and that appears to be the correct spelling.

When Food for Thinking Christians was published, he played a part in its circulation, and he is listed as one of the principal evangelists engaged in that work. Russell explained that McGranor was working principally in Western Pennsylvania and Ohio, “distributing tracts … as he goes preaching.”[7]

When Tony Willis, writing as Timothy White, prepared A People for His Name (1968) he seems to have made no effort to discover the identity of McGranor and others.[8] By a process of elimination principally using census records we can identify “brother McGranor” as Patrick McGranor or one of his sons. The most likely of these is his son William J. McGranor. William was born in about 1851 according to the 1880 Census.[9] His middle initial isn’t given in the census record but in a brief newspaper mention in the August 7, 1895, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Progress. The article has him living in Deckers Point, Pennsylvania at that time.[10] Only a tenuous bit of evidence point to him as the “brother McGranor” of the Zion’s Watch Tower article. The article newspaper article continues with a mention of a Mrs. Jerry Keim. At least one from the Keim family was also an active evangelist in the early days of The Watch Tower.
One should not consider the fact that his initials fit those of a contributor to Zion’s Watch Tower as evidence. The W.J.M of the Watch Tower article is a misprint for W.I.M. This is seen by comparing the initials at the end of the initial article signed “W.J.M.” and its continuation which is signed “W.I.M.” for William I. Mann. .[11]

The question of who “brother McGranor” really was, is not resolvable in any sort of satisfactory way without further evidence. When Food for Thinking Christians was published he participated in its distribution. In the October/November issue of The Tower, Russell reported that the tracts “Have … been distributed in the medium and larger cities, and at the principal camp meetings, Brothers Adamson, Keith, Keim, McGranor and others, being still engaged in the work of distribution. Only about 65,000 yet remain.” Tony Willis took this to mean that McGranor and the others took charge of hiring and supervising the boys who distributed the tracts. Russell added: “Brother McGranor is distributing tracts, and as he goes preaching in Ohio and western Pennsylvania. The Lord has been blessing him greatly.” While it appears that McGranor’s preaching was incidental to his tract distribution, nothing in this comment suggests anything more than a personal circulation of the booklet Food for Thinking Christians in the small towns and villages of Ohio and Western Pennsylvania.

This is the final notice of “brother McGranor.” Identifying him further requires a more ingenious researcher than I am.

[i] The phrase Story of Jesus and His love is quoted from the hymn I Love to Tell the Story by A. Katherine Hankey, first published in 1866. It is found in Joyful Songs, Nos. 1 to 3 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Methodist Episcopal Book Room, 1869).
[1] To the Readers of the Watch Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, June 1881, page 8.
[2] 1880 United States Census: Flowerfield, St. Joseph, Michigan, National Archives Film T9-0603, page 331B .
[3] A Letter From Yours and Ours to His and Ours, Zion’s Watch Tower, July/August 1881, page 5.
[4] A Letter From Yours and Ours to His and Ours, Zion’s Watch Tower, July/August 1881, page 6.
[5] Letter from A.P.S to Paton in Extracts from Letters, The World’s Hope, December 15, 1886, page 302.
[6] To the Readers of the Watch Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, June 1881, page 8.
[7] In the Vineyard, Zion’s Watch Tower, October/November 1881, page 5.
[8] White, Timothy (Tony Willis): A People for His Name: A History of Jehovah's Witnesses and an Evaluation‎ , 1968, page 26.
[9] 1880 United States Census: Greene, Indiana, Pennsylvania, National Archives Film number T9-1135, page 238D.
[10] I identify the W. J. McGranor of this newspaper article with Peter McGranor’s son instead of the younger Dr. William J. McGranor, a physician on the basis of where he was visiting. The McGranor family was centered in Indiana County, Pennsylvania.
[11] W.J.M.: The Day of Judgment, Zion’s Watch Tower September 1879, page 8; W.I.M.: Day of Judgment, November 1879, pages 4-5.

Work in Canada - update

A recent comment on an earlier post asks for more information on the early work in Canada. The poster asks for a booklet. Sorry, I do not have one. Below is a rough draft of one of our more complete chapters. It considers the work in Canada in the 1880's.

Cite this material as: Schulz and deVienne: Development of Ecclesia Among Readers of Zion's Watch Tower: 1877-1887, as retrieved from TruthHistory.blogspot.com, [insert date]

We are still seeking additional references, but without success. Any contributions to this research would be welcome. Usual formatting problems, please excuse them.

The Work in Canada
There was interest in Canada during the Barbourite era. Some from Canada attended the Worchester Conference in 1872. Russell’s booklet Object and Manner of Our Lord’s Return saw circulation in Canada. A profile of his work done when he died said: “Many students of the Bible throughout the United States and Canada responded to the information derived from that book, and his correspondence became voluminous.”[i]

It is very likely that Canadians were on the original subscription list. Russell felt no need to send special representatives of Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society to Canada to circulate Food for Thinking Christians, so there must have been sufficient pre-existing interest upon which he could rely.

The two most significant examinations of Watch Tower history in Canada both gloss over the 1880’s, and the writers seem to have not seen the period as worthy of extensive research or they simply lack the resources. Almost exclusively, documentation of the work in Canada is found in the pages of Zion’s Watch Tower. Finding other documentation is very difficult, and the lack of thorough treatment of the period is understandable. Almost the only external reference to preaching in Canada is the letter sent to the editor of The Rainbow mentioned in the section on the United Kingdom.

The earliest correspondence from Canada noted in The Watch Tower is a letter from Ontario published in the January/February 1882 issue. The writer is, as was usual, unnamed. He thanked Russell for sending “the papers,” asked to be entered as a regular subscriber and asked, “Will you kindly advise me in regard to severing my connection with the church of which I am a member?” He explained that he could no longer attend his previous church “because it would be consenting to their teaching, which I do not now believe.”[ii]

A letter from Galt, Ontario, found in the May 1883 issue shows some missionary activity on the part of at least one individual. The writer thanked Russell for copies of Food for Thinking Christians and Tabernacle Teachings and said: “I am now endeavoring to feed the ‘Heavenly Food’ to my hungry fellow-Christians. Two others and myself are meeting three or four times per week to make ourselves more thoroughly acquainted with these great truths, and to satisfy ourselves that these teachings are based on the Word of God. As soon as we get through this, we intend to begin a systematic course of teaching out of ‘Food for Thinking Christians’ for all in this place whom we can interest and who are hungering and thirsting after the precious truth of God.”[iii]

In December 1883, Russell published a letter sent from Eglington, the city from which The Rainbow correspondent had written. No hint as to the writer’s identity appears in the letter, but it stands as proof of some evangelical success in the Eglington area. The writer mentions a diagram from an earlier Watch Tower article and says: “I am desirous to use the Diagram to awaken interest in the coming of the Lord among professing Christians.” [iv]

A letter from Ayrshire, New Brunswick appears in the December 1884 issue. It reveals and active missionary effort in Canada, though the details are not included in the letter. The writer isn’t identified either, but using the subtitle Why Evil Was Permitted instead of Food for Thinking Christians, the writer says:

SIR:--In the goodness of God I have got a look at your pamphlet, "Why Evil was
Permitted." I have been deeply interested in the subjects therein presented for
some time. Please to favor me with a copy of ZION'S WATCH TOWER with the
supplement already mentioned, and any others of a like description. Christians
cannot but note to what an extent the power of God is being put forth in the
calling of one here and another there. In striking contrast is the way in which
the devil, knowing that his time is short, is using every effort in his power,
and so the conflict is going on, while the so-called Church of God is sound
asleep. Let us realize our position. By faith having received the blessed Christ
and realizing the guiding and teaching of the Holy Ghost, may we grow in grace
and in the love of God.[v]

While tracing interest among Canadians during the 1880’s is difficult, there are hints of it. In October 1883, Paton included a notice in his magazine that he couldn’t use Canadian postage for subscription payments.[vi] Since most of Paton’s early readership came from those who also read Zion’s Watch Tower, this notice presupposes Canadian interest. By 1889 interest is noted in Manitoba, but with no indication of when it developed.[vii]

A “Pastor Brookman” appears in the pages of Zion’s Watch Tower first in 1886, as one of the principal evangelists associated with the Watch Tower movement. He attended a meeting of evangelists in Allegheny held in connection with the Lord’s Memorial Meal in April that year.
William Brookman, originally an Anglican clergyman, was born in England. After living in “the East Indies” for a period, he immigrated to Canada in the late 1840’s.[viii] He is listed in a Gazetteer published in 1869 as a traveling agent for The Upper Canada Bible Society.[ix] One source claims an association with Methodism from which he separated “on the eternal torture question,” and another with a Baptist congregation.[x] The connection to Methodism is a misstatement. Brookman, balding and with a huge fluffy beard, was briefly pastor of the First Baptist Church at Brantford.[xi]

Brookman organized “a purely undenominational organization, not possessing any distinctive appellation” in June 1881, “when about thirty of the present members with their families nearly all of whom had seceded from the Yorkville Baptist Church formed a new congregation, unattached to any religious sect.” The history just quoted says:

Previous to the separation—which was based upon the rejection of the doctrine of
endless life in misery being the punishment for sin—Mr. Brookman had been in
charge of the above-mentioned church for about a year, and prior to that again
had ministered in the Church of England for nearly a quarter of a century. The
main features of the belief professed by this little congregation, which numbers
only fifty-six members [in 1885] , are, in addition to that already mentioned;
the adoption of the great central truth of life only in Christ; the acceptation
of the Word of God as the sole rule of faith and practice, and, whilst holding
alone to the immersion of believers as true baptism, practicing
loving-fellowship with all who love the saviour.[xii]

The exact date of Brookman’s introduction to Watch Tower theology is unknown, but it was at least near the time he and those with him started their independent chapel. He continued his association with Russell into at least the 1890’s and maybe to his death in 1907, but he also corresponded with Paton and wrote an occasional article for The World’s Hope usually neutral or critical of Paton’s views. The earliest article from him that I have thus far found is one entitled “Eternal not Endless” printed in the January 1884 issue of The World’s Hope.[xiii] Brookman continued to write to Paton into the 1890’s, and there is a record of him sending money to aid Paton during an illness.[xiv]

It is likely that the small congregation led by Brookman was responsible for the circulation of Food for Thinking Christians in Toronto mentioned in the Rainbow article. Certainly Brookman was circulating Watch Tower material by 1886.

When he attended the memorial and conference in Allegheny, April 18 and 19, 1886, he spoke on the Ransom doctrine. Russell found his sermon interesting and edifying. The morning of the memorial gathering, Brookman and others active in the work “in a more or less public way” related “how they each found the work to progress in their hands, and the methods they found most successful in their efforts to ‘preach the Gospel to the meek.’”[xv]

A brief letter addressed to Brookman from “one of the Toronto brethren” appears in the same issue of Zion’s Watch Tower that reported his presence in Allegheny for the memorial and conference. It suggested a certain amount of hesitation on the part of some to accept both the invisible presence views and Russell’s belief in the heavenly resurrection of the saints.[xvi] Whoever was agitating these objections did so for some time. Another letter of nearly identical import appears in The World’s Hope [insert reference]

Little more is heard from Brookman. A member of the Toronto group wrote Russell in 1891 that “Bro. Brookman is very desirous that you should be with him at his hall.” Russell spoke to the group “by urgent request” on February 22, 1891. No hint is given either as to the urgency.[xvii]
Russell addressed a public meeting twice before speaking to Brookman’s congregation. Four hundred heard him speak on Restitution and on the Kingdom of God. That evening he spoke to the Toronto Believers at their meeting place, Jackson Hall at the corner of Young and Blood streets. No topic is mentioned, but from comments made by S. D. Rogers, a colporteur working in Toronto, the church there was suffering under some form of opposition:

While the harvest work is thus progressing, and the wheat is being gathered, we
cannot expect that the tares will all be gathered into bundles for burning
without some resistance, and so we are not surprised to find some gnashing of
teeth and gnawing of tongues. And this will no doubt be seen more and more as
the servants of the Master are the more faithful and enterprising in proclaiming
the message of present truth. The “hirelings” say: It is all right for you to
hold these views but you should not go about telling them to others. The Good
Shepherd says: “Feed my sheep.” And the more we feed the sheep so much the more will the false shepherds complain. In Canada, as well as elsewhere, some of the
would-be shepherds are speaking all manner of evil things against the messengers
of the truth. They do not understand us a bit better than the Jews understood
our Lord and his little band of disciples. Light hath no concord with darkness.
At least two nominal ministers in Ontario have publicly burned the Millennial
Dawn, and heaped all kinds of reproach on the author and those who are
circulating this peculiar book.[xviii]

The last reference to Brookman is in the September 1, 1892, Watch Tower where appears an article by him entitled “Future Probation for the Dead.”[xix] Certainly not all of the Toronto Believers were favorably disposed toward The Watch Tower. The memorial report for 1899 returned a figure of twenty-one who participated. One is tempted to speculate that the urgent request for Russell’s presence in 1891 had been the fragmentation of the Toronto Believers into those who were favorable to the Watch Tower message and those who were not.[xx]

The little congregation in Toronto had the same difficulty finding a suitable name as did the rest of those associated with The Watch Tower. Eventually they adopted the name Church of the Baptized Believers. It was dissolved by his request when Brookman died on April 2, 1907.[xxi] He is known to have written at least one tract or small book entitled The Future of the Non-elect Dead: The Vast Majority of Mankind in All Ages, published in 1906. He edited an eighty-seven page hymnal entitled Hymns of Faith and Love, published in 1897. While still an Anglican, he wrote The Scripture Alphabet in Verse, which was published in Canada in 1847. I haven’t been able to examine any of these publications.

Brookman and others were active in Canada from an early period. Even if the period is poorly documented, the activity of small groups and individuals can be presupposed. Russell mentions no extraordinary efforts in Canada, probably because he had a small but active base of fellow believers.

The 1979 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses briefly profiles a Thomas Baker, saying he accepted “Bible truth at an early date”:

Thomas Baker (was) a sawmill operator of Elba, Ontario, a small community about
50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Toronto. A very religious man, Baker had
been the superintendent of the Anglican Sunday school. But his buzzing sawmill
became a place that also buzzed with the grand news of God’s kingdom. As his
daughter Annie puts it: “Every customer who came in was given a tract or booklet
or book. I don’t think he missed anyone!”

Since Thomas Baker was so well
known, his departure from the established church in the community raised plenty
of questions. In fact, so many people asked about this that he published a
booklet giving the reasons for his action. Baker died in 1906, and the funeral
talk was delivered by a person to whom he himself had taught the truth of God’s
Word.[xxii]

Baker was born March 20, 1848, in Ireland, and immigrated to Canada in 1850. His wife was twelve years his junior and born in Ontario. Her maiden name is unknown. I haven’t been able to examine Baker’s booklet, and a letter from Jehovah’s Witnesses says that while they know of the booklet, they don’t have a copy.[xxiii]

Dating Baker’s introduction to the Watch Tower message is not possible without examining the booklet. The Bakers took to the message sometime before 1891. Local census records show the Bakers as members of the Church of England in 1881. In an 1891 census they are listed as “Bible Christian,” which was originally the name of a Methodist-oriented sect, but may have also been one of the many names used by readers of Zion’s Watch Tower.

The same census lists a Thomas Smith, then seventy-eight, and a William Young, a thirty-three year old blacksmith, as Bible Christians as well. Young’s children are also listed at “Bible Christian,” though his wife is not.[xxiv] It is unclear whether these were associates of the Bakers or not.

A letter from Thomas and Harriet Baker appears in the June 1, 1894, Watch Tower. It doesn’t date their association beyond an indefinite reference to the period “since we came to a knowledge of God’s plan.”[xxv] In the 1901 Census, Baker is listed as a “Restitutionist,” a name some applied to those adhering to Zion’s Watch Tower.

Other Lands

In an age when the foreign missionary activity of Christendom was at its peak, it is not surprising that Watch Tower publications found their way to many lands often sent by friends or relatives. In May 1883 Russell wrote:

Letters are constantly coming to hand, from out of way places, telling how truth
has been recognized and appreciated and is feeding the consecrated ones wherever
they may be. We cannot doubt that every consecrated child will be brought in
contact with the light now shining on the sacred page. During the past month we
have heard from two deeply interested Indians, one of them a preacher; also,
from a missionary in China. It is glad tidings of great joy to the ends of the
earth, wherever God has children unfettered by traditions of men.

There
are many inquiries for preaching --many from out of way places where we could
not send. All should remember that, the fact of a necessity for preaching is a
call to those who have truth, to freely give what they have freely received of
God. It is a call to preach, of the genuine sort, and each child of God is a
witness -- a light bearer. Let your light so shine as to glorify your Heavenly
Father.

There are a number of ways of preaching. Among the most telling
methods is private conversation, backed up with well chosen articles marked for
their reading and study. One sister writes us from Virginia that she began to
tell what she had recently been learning to a few neighbors privately, and so
many came that presently a schoolhouse was needed to accommodate them, and it
even was crowded. So, each one willing and anxious to labor in the vineyard will
find the master ready to use his service, and a door of some sort will open.
Make use of small pportunities, and greater ones will come in due time. Only, be
sure you do all in the love of the truth, and not in a spirit of combativeness.
Then assuredly you will be blessed while blessing others.[xxvi]

Most of the early international mission work was done by individuals with no particular training but much faith who felt the urgent need to pass on what they had learned. Russell made this point in an article entitled “Seed Time and Harvest”:

The Lord shows his truth to a humble soldier in the British navy, and his heart
is filled with … zeal to tell it to others. The Lord then sends him to India at
the expense of the British Government, and gives him abundant leisure to herald
the good news there, to strengthen and establish some in the faith, and from
there to write letters and scatter printed matter in other distant parts. Thus
the trumpet tones of present truth … are sounded in India, and we may be sure
that in due time it will reach, through this or some other means, every saint in
India who is worthy to be gathered with the elect. And so several sailors are
bearing the good news to distant parts, and through them saints are being
gathered, cheered and comforted. One occasionally finds his way to South
America, again to Australia, and again to England, always watching for
opportunities for harvest work. Through the efforts of another of the Lord's
missionaries the truth reached some of the saints in China, who rejoice in its
light. The Lord wanted to gather some saints in Sweden, and he raised up some
earnest Swedes in this country, who by private letters and translations
communicate the good tidings to other Swedish saints. And so with the Germans. …
Thus through the press, by private correspondence, by traveling brethren, and by
the special efforts of those whose sphere is more limited, the Lord is carrying
on his great harvest work. He is sending forth these reapers with a great sound
of a trumpet, to gather his elect together.[xxvii]

By 1884 Russell could report a significant foreign correspondence. He urged the isolated ones to take comfort in knowing there were others in similar circumstance and to stand firm, using every opportunity to spread the message of the Present Christ and impending Millennium:
Many interesting letters from various parts, both across the waters and in our own country, give evidence of the fact that though iniquity abounds and the love of many waxes cold, still the Lord has a people consecrated and endeavoring to carry out that consecration in their daily life.

It is comforting to those who stand isolated in their own neighborhood to
realize this. There are many such isolated ones, and all have much the same
experience--in the world, tribulation; in Christ, peace. It is also a source of
encouragement to learn that while we realize that the harvest is great the
laborers are being multiplied, and that so far as we can learn, the saints are
realizing their call to make known the glad tidings, and that though their
talents be many or few they are not to be folded away in a napkin. We have
learned that there are as many ways to preach the Gospel as there are talents
among the saints.[xxviii]

[i] Biography, The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence, December 1, 1916, page 357.
[ii] View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, January/February 1882, reprints page 312.
[iii] View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, May 1883, page 1.
[iv] Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, December 1883, page 2.
[v] Extracts From Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, December 1884, page 2.
[vi] See the notice in The World’s Hope, October 1883, page 8.
[vii] View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, June 1889, page 1.
[viii] Finley, Mike: Mount Pleasant Cemetery: An Illustrated Guide, Canada, no date, page 51.
[ix] McEvoy, H.: The Province of Ontario Gazetteer and Directory, Robertson & Cook, Toronto, 1869, page 478.
[x] Methodists: C. Pelham Mulvany: Toronto Past and Present: A Handbook of the City, W. E. Caiger, Toronto, 1884, page 184. Baptists: History of Toronto and County of York, C. Blackett Robinson, Toronto, 1885, volume 1, page 318.
[xi] Shenston, Thomas S.: A Jubilee Review of the First Baptist Church: Brantford 1833-1884, Bingham & Webster, Toronto, 1890, pages114-115. He served them from April 3 to May 6, 1880.
[xii] History of Toronto, pages 317-318.
[xiii] Brookman, W.: Eternal Not Endless, The World’s Hope, January 1884, pages 57-60.
[xiv] Brookman, W.: Extracts From Letter, The World’s Hope, March 15, 1892, page 94.
[xv] View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, May 1886, page 1.
[xvi] See: View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, May 1886, page 1; Blessed Dying—From Henceforth, same issue, page 3.
[xvii] See: Extracts From Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, February 1891, page 30, and see the announcement Meetings in Toronto that follows.
[xviii] Harvest Work and Meetings in Canada: A Word from Brother S. D. Rogers, Zion’s Watch Tower, March 1891, page 47.
[xix] The article is on pages 282-285 of that issue.
[xx] Memorial Widely Celebrated, Zion’s Watch Tower, April 1, 1899, page 95.
[xxi] Finley, Mike: Mount Pleasant Cemetery: An Illustrated Guide, Canada, no date, page 51.
[xxii] 1979 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses, pages p 78-9
[xxiii] Letter from Christian Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, June 11, 2008. “Brother Baker’s daughter Annie told the brothers, when they were preparing the 1979 report on Canada, that her father had published this booklet. However, they do not have a copy of it in their files, nor do we have a copy in our files.”
[xxiv] Email from Steve Brown, archivist at Dufferin Museum, Ontario, to Bruce Schulz, dated June 18, 2008.
[xxv] The letter from Thomas and Harriet Baker appears in the June 1, 1894, issue of Zion’s Watch Tower on pages 178-179.
[xxvi] View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, May 1883, page 1.
[xxvii] Russell, C. T.: Seed Time and Harvest, Zion’s Watch Tower, September 1886, page 6.
[xxviii] View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, August 1884, reprints page 645.

Name

Holmes Wilber Deming was born August 11, 1852. He married Alice Lucinda Cooley on Janaury 8, 1898. His death was announced in the October 1947 issue of The Herald of Christ's Kingdom.

We need to hear from anyone who knew him or has more details of his life. Please contact us through this blog.

H. W. Deming

H. W. Deming, 1939

Not Demming as one issue of Zion's Watch Tower says, but Deming. He was the first known Watch Tower recognized colporteur. He has been ignored in various Watchtower histories because he associated with one of the breakaway groups after 1918.

From a 1939 Bible Student Convention report:

Brother H. W. Deming, of Ada, Ohio, in which he told of many of his early experiences in the harvest work.

And Brother Deming was well qualified for the assignment given him on the program because he was the very first colporteur to serve in the field at a time that pre-dates the establishment of the Bible House in Allegheny, Brother Deming, in his unique and entertaining manner, told of his
association with Brother Russell in those early days, when the shipping department of the truth movement was carried on in a corner of Brother Russell's shirt store. Brother Deming, for a time, served as "Shipping Clerk." He also told of the blessings he received in helping to arrange for the
first general convention of Bible Students. This convention was held in the city of Chicago in the year 1893; and the total attendance was less than one hundred.

Brother Deming's part on the program, in itself, was inspiring to the brethren at the convention, in that it gave them a close-up view of the struggles and joys of the service in the days when Bible Students were very few in number. ...

SEPTEMBER 1939 EPWORTH FOREST GENERAL CONVENTION

M. C. van Hook

The M. C. van Hook of Zion's Watch Tower appears to be the same as the man listed in the 1880 Census as living in Twin, Ohio. That places him near New Lebanon, where he is known to have preached. I still do not have a first name for him.

The census has him born in North Carolina, thirty-five years old, married with five children aged from four months to twelve years.

Anyone have more details?

More Mysteries

"Brothers Leigh, Demming and van Hook" are mentioned together as working in Ohio and N. Kentucky. Van Hook is also associated with J. P. Martin, a clergyman from New Lebanon, Ohio.

I need first names and details. Anyone?

This is proving really difficult, and identifying these individuals is very important to our research.

We also need a death date for Sister Erlenmyer. We have her alive in 1900 and still active in the work, partnered with a sister Leonora Thompson, a West Virginia native. Leonora was 29 in 1900.

Mysteries

A "brother Boyer" is mentioned in Zion's Watch Tower. In 1882 he was in Pittsburgh. He was a former temerance worker. Anyone know his first name?

A "brother Leigh" is mentioned in 1882. We need a first name. He visited Russell in Pittsburgh that year. With a "brother Spears" he organized a preaching tour by boat down the Ohio River. I need first names.

A sister Erlanmyer is first mentioned in 1882. She was from New York. I need a full name.

Help if you can.

Misc.

I need some help locating Pittsburgh newspapers on microfilm for the years 1877-1883.

We're researching the publication of Food for Thinking Christians. The reaction to the booklet was largely negative; Russell says this. We've only located three newspaper articles from the era. We would like more. If you have any information, I would appreciate hearing from you.

I'm also researching Jesse Harper of Danville, Illinois. His book (The Millennium Age; The Restoration, The Race Restored, The Earth Restored, The Earth a Home (Entos) for All) suggests that he was familiar with Russell and with the Ransom/Atonement debates. If you have any information about him, I would appreciate it if you shared it.

We continue to need the anti-Food for Thinking Christians booklet I mentioned in an earlier post. Also, there was a distrubance with the circulation of Food in Newark in August 1881. I cannot locate any information. Anyone in New Jersey who can help?

I'm seeking photographs of Calista B. Downing, Horace A. Randle and William Robert Fuller, the first Watch Tower missionaries in China.

Below is a revision of earlier material. This is the later section of a chapter entitled In All the Earth. Excuse the formatting problems:


China
A letter from Chefoo (now Yantai), China, was printed in the May 1883 issue. Miss Calista B. Downing, the missionary who wrote to Russell wasn’t the one to whom an issue of Zion’s Watch Tower was mailed. Instead, it was shown her “as a curiosity.” She read it carefully and with interest, explaining to Russell that she was “somewhat out of the orthodox ruts”:
If you will send me the paper I will try and get the subscription to you in some way--for, though a self-supporting missionary, I cannot quite call myself one of the “Lord's poor” to whom you offer the paper gratuitously, for Our Father has bountifully supplied all my needs, since I gave up my salary, three years ago. I think I can get a few subscribers among my friends in China, for I find not a few who are trying to reconcile the “mercy that endureth forever” with the final irrevocable doom of all who, since the fall, have died without a knowledge of the Redeemer of the world. We have no “Post-Office Order” arrangements here, else
I would send the subscription at once.[1]
Her name isn’t associated with the letter; as was most often the case the letter was published without signature. But, in 1900 another missionary and physician, Horace A. Randle, recalled:
There has been in China for years one solitary witness for the present truth, Miss Downing, of Chefoo. This lady was formerly a missionary of the Presbyterian Board and she chanced to meet with a stray Watch Tower, about the year 1883, in which she read an article on restitution, and at once decided to subscribe for the paper.[2]

C. B. Downing was viewed as a bit odd by other missionaries. “Amongst the missionaries of Shantung I am afraid Sister Downing was considered a queer old lady having some odd notions,” Randall wrote.
As with many of the early Watch Tower readers, finding biographical information on Miss Downing is difficult. A Miss C. D. Downing appears in the 1850 Census as a resident of Boston. That Miss Downing was born about 1825. I cannot state with certainty that she is the same as the missionary teacher in China.
Calista B. Downing graduated from the St. Johnsbury Academy in Vermont sometime near 1846. While attending the Academy she was a member of The Excelsior Club, a literary society.[3] In 1859 and 1860 she served as a missionary to the Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians.[4] The Civil War made missionary work dangerous, and she had to leave it.[5] She was a school teacher in Red Wing, Minnesota, before becoming a missionary, and as a missionary was supported with contributions from Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis.[6] She arrived in China in 1866 as part of the American Presbyterian Mission, to help found a girl’s boarding school at Chefoo which she did by the next year.
Downing participated in The General Conference of Missionaries in China, and she was a delegate to their convention held in Shanghai May 10-24, 1877. She was associated with C. W. Mateer’s mission in Tung-Chow (now Tongzhou) and assigned to the station at Chefoo. The mission at Chefoo, “the chief foreign port of the province of Shantung” was established in 1862, the year after the mission in Tunchow.[7]
She most closely associated with Hunter Corbett and his wife, and the Corbetts saw her arrival as an answer to prayer. “During the year we were permitted to welcome Miss Downing as a member of Chefoo Station, as well as to our family. In this our prayers were answered, and we hope that she will be blessed of God in winning may souls for Christ,” Corbett wrote.[8] Calista Downing and Mrs. Corbett had worked together in the Native-American mission field in the United States.[9]
China’s population lived in abject poverty and superstition was rampant. It was heart wrenching. Probably, seeing conditions in China as they were in the mid to late 19th Century had some influence on her ready acceptance of the message of the Millennial Restitution, the restoration of an Edenic earth.
Writing to the journal Woman’s Work for Woman in 1872 she recounted some of the heart-breaking and difficult situations she met: “In my visits from home to home I see many girls growing up in sin and ignorance whom I long to get, but their heathen relatives would ‘rather they starve’ than let them come to use. Many times they reject our offers to train their girls in our school, and sell them for slaves or for worse than slaves. Poor ignorant people. They will not believe we will keep our word with them, but think we want their girls ‘to take to foreign countries or to make medicine of them.’”[10]
Two years later, another letter from Miss Downing addressed the issue of child prostitution and slavery. The letter was addressed to a group that “had undertaken the support of a child in her school.” She wrote: “This little girl was a slave bought from a bad woman who had become ill and sold this child to get money to buy medicine. I do not know, nor does she, what her father’s name was. … I have another little slave girl who is very pretty. Of her parents we know nothing.”[11]
She gave up her association with the American Presbyterian mission in China by 1894. The Directory & Chronicle for China, Japan, Corea, Indo-China, Strait Settlements, ect. for that year lists her as independent.[12] She moved from being principal of the Presbyterian girl’s boarding school to the teaching staff of Temple Hill Anglo-Chinese College in Chefoo. The educational directory that lists her as on staff says: “This school is not directly under mission control. It is self supporting. The strong religious character of the school and the establishment of similar schools in the city have somewhat retarded its growth.” With a Mrs. W. C. Booth, Downing was one of two foreign teachers. There were also six Chinese instructors.[13]
Though her most obvious missionary work was loaning or giving away Watch Tower publications and discussing the message of the impending Restitution of All Things with European and American missionaries, it is certain that her message went to her students too. A contemporary publication, The Encyclopedia of Missions, said of the boy’s and girl’s boarding schools at Chefoo: “Many have been received into the church who became interested in Christianity through what they heard from the children in these schools.”[14] So while it is true as observed by Carolyn Wah, that Watch Tower missionary activity in Asia “did not start among the Asians, but among foreign missionaries,” the push of Calista B. Downing’s activity was to reach her Chinese students.[15] Even if her contemporary missionaries and teachers saw her as a bit odd, The China Mission Handbook reported that under her care, “the school has been a great blessing to our work.”[16]
Still, her primary mission field using publications was among English speaking missionaries. Writing to Maria Frances Russell in 1887 she said: “I am giving away and lending my copies of Millennial Dawn and my papers, and any time you can send me extra copies of the Watch Tower I can use them to advantage. I expect to see a good many missionaries from other parts of the country during the summer, as this is a health resort, and I shall scatter my Towers, and lend Millennial Dawns. The last bound copy I gave away before taking the wrapper off.”[17]
Still later, in 1888, she explained her work more fully:
The Dawns reached me on the 23d of September, for which many thanks. Three of the books are now in Shanghai. The good and thoroughly orthodox Methodist sister, to whom I gave one, said, "The restitution theology is very interesting, and I am glad you have found such rest and peace in believing it." I am sure she will read the book carefully, and be benefited by it. Another book has gone into a Baptist family. And the third I gave to Rev. Dr. W., who believes in the Millennial coming of Christ, and is, I think, somewhat prepared for Dawn. One book has gone to Ching-chew-fu into the Eng. Bap. Mission. The others I shall send--one to Peking, one to Amoy, one to Tang-chon, etc. The papers also arrived in due time and will soon be scattered over China. The books ordered came by last mail, received two or three days since. Since writing the above, the Concordance and Diaglott came. I cannot thank you enough for the kind letter received at the same time. I am using my Dawn, and the others and the papers are being scattered broadcast over the land. The Rev. Bp. S. (probably Right Reverend Bishop Schereschewsky, of the Protestant Episcopal Church) has a Dawn. You may be sure I lose no opportunity to tell the glad tidings.[18]

Miss Downing is last listed as a missionary in 1903.[19] She at least died sometime before November 1918 when her will was probated.[20]
There is no practical way to measure the effects of Calista Downing’s preaching on the Chinese who were her principal interest. One would like to know if her adopted daughters maintained an interest in Millennial Dawn. There seems to be no record of them after Miss Downing’s death.
She succeeded in interesting at least two other missionaries, and perhaps more. William Robert Fuller, a Methodist minister, was one of these. I’ve found little in the way of early biography. One picks him up in London in 1864. He is married to Harriet Peachy, a practicing clergyman, and prominent enough to have been on the platform at the Seventh Annual Meeting of the Methodist Free Church Mission Society.[21]
The impetus toward a Free Church China mission came from J. Hudson Taylor who proposed the mission in the early 1860’s. Because of the Taiping rebellion, action was postponed until later. Fuller was sent out from the United Kingdom to Ningpo, (now Ningbo) China, by The Missionary Society of the United Methodist Free Churches in1864 as its first missionary.[22] A nearly contemporary account says:
The Committee considered that the time had come for making a beginning. It had reason to believe that ‘specially favourable circumstances’ presented themselves for opening a Mission in Ningpo, one of the treaty ports; and it resolved to send two Missionaries to Ningpo as early as possible. The Rev. J. H. Taylor kindly undertook to give instruction in the Ningpo dialect to the brethren who might be selected. The London Fourth Circuit recommended Mr. W. R. Fuller, who on inquiry, was thought suitable and designated to the work. He had the advantage of Mr. Taylor’s instructions; and he also became a medical student at the London Hospital, the managers of which kindly remitted the usual fees. NO second offer of a suitable kind seems to have been made, and in the summer of 1864, Mr. Fuller, accompanied by his wife and family, sailed for Shanghai, en rout for Ningpo. Mr. and Mrs. Fuller arrived safely at Shanghai; though they encountered a dreadful typhoon on their passage, and had to commit to the mighty deep the body of their youngest child, who died at sea. Mr. Fuller soon commenced preaching and conversation services at Nigpo, and was cheered by seeing some pleasing fruit of his labours. On account of serious illness, Mrs. Fuller, after a few months, returned to England with her children. Mr. Fuller remained to prosecute his work. … In conducting the services … Mr. Fuller did not preach. A native preacher delivered the address, Mr. Fuller reading the Scriptures and giving out the hymns.[23]

He opened a “dispensary” at Ningpo and ministered to health needs as well as spiritual needs.[24] Fuller returned to England in 1866, apparently to care for and collect his family, “but again went back to China, and for a time laboured at Ningpo, and afterwards at Chefoo” where he met Calista Downing. She placed Zion’s Watch Tower and Millennial Dawn in his hands. He quietly preached the new teachings and did not come to Russell’s notice until about 1892, some years after he espoused Watch Tower teaching. His letter to Russell dated March 2, 1891, appears as an appendix to The Time is at Hand, volume three of the Millennial Dawn series, and incidentally shows C. B. Downing to still be an active Watch Tower missionary in that year:
It is now several years since an apparently incidental conversation … led my good friend, Miss Downing to place a number of Zion’s Watch Tower in my hands. Above I say incidental—I will now correct myself and say providential; for this I most firmly believe it to have been, inasmuch as from that day to this I have been … truly blessed, comforted, enlightened and strengthened. …

Is it not wonderful to observe the ways and means which God, by his Spirit, has been employing … in bringing numbers of his people into a clearer understanding of Bible truths, cleansing the Word, as it were, from the dust of centuries, bringing out things new as well as old to the forefront for examination, clinching and dovetailing its various books so that it can be seen that not a single one can in anyway be done without, and causing the whole Scripture to shine forth in all its undimmed glory …

In my humble opinion, your works … furnish the very best commentaries and helps I have met with, on the Scriptures texts and prophecies relating to the second coming of our Lord. I read them again and again with ever increasing pleasure.[25]

Fuller followed Miss Downing’s lead in withdrawing form previous church affiliation. Little information exists to illuminate his separation form the Methodists. A short statement is found in one history of the Methodist mission to China, saying: “Eventually he retired from the ministry, and we understand, as subsequently practiced successfully as a medical man.”[26]
Fuller remained in Chefoo, supporting Calista Downing in her ministry. There is some slight evidence that Fuller wrote letters to other missionaries and circulated Watch Tower literature among them. In 1894 Fuller operated The Chefoo Dispensary and General Store and, though an English citizen, he served as American Vice-counsel in Chefoo.[27] His death date is unknown, but he appears to have died before 1900.
It is unclear if it is to Fuller or to Horace A. Randle that we should refer a comment found in May 15, 1898, issue of Zion’s Watch Tower: “A shipment of Dawns and tracts of nearly six hundred pounds goes to China, to a brother, a missionary there, who has recently become interested in the harvest message and who believes that he sees opportunities for some of the elect to be sealed in that far off land.”[28]
Horace Randle was another missionary to China converted through C. B. Downing’s work. Most of his history is more appropriate to another discussion since his interest came after the period of Watch Tower history we’re considering. He was born about 1855 in Chelsenham, Gloucester, England to William and Harriet Randle and was one of at least four children. His father is described in the 1861 Census Returns of England and Wales as a “corn dealer,” a grain wholesaler.
He was sent out by The China Inland Mission April 5, 1876, and arrived there on May 22nd of the same year. In March 1880 he married Ellen Boyd, also a missionary with The China Inland Mission.[29] She and her older sister Fanny Boyd arrived in 1878, and within eighteen months she and Horace Randle were married. Ellen was about three years his senior according to the 1871 Census.[30]
Randle worked hard and cautiously to make converts. He found opposition to their work pervasive among the ruling and intellectual classes in China, and he made only slow progress:
During the nine years of my work in China I have been permitted to baptize thirty-three converts. I tell you these numbers, not because I wish to boast; it is a very small number, but it may show you, perhaps, the average of a man’s work. … We have the opposition of the literary classes and the mandarins. This we found to be universal. The character of the people and their reverence for old-time customs is a difficulty. The very construction of the language is a serious difficulty, and makes it by no means easy to express spiritual thoughts to the people. But Confucianism I consider to be the greatest obstruction; although the opium traffic, I should say, is the saddest.[31]

In 1885 Randle was sent to the United States for medical training and he graduated with an M.D. His medical credentials are often listed as: “Horace A. Randle, M.D. (U.S.A)” and on that basis he was occasionally taken for an American. The listing was given in that form because the qualifications for an M.D. in the United States differed from those in the United Kingdom. After graduating from an American medical school he enrolled for similar education at Edinburgh, graduating from that program in 1888, and he and his family returned to China on November 16, 1888. In 1890 he moved to Chefoo.
He began preaching the Watch Tower message in the early 1890’s, making several trips to the United States to meet Russell and to preach. A brief article in the June 30, 1900, New York Times announced an address by him at the Harlem YMCA. By 1901 he was resident in England, the census of that year describing him as a “medical missionary preacher” associated with “Millennial Dawn Christians.”
Though associated through his medical work with a Baptist mission, he remained affiliated with The China Inland Mission. He formally resigned his association with them On April 20, 1894.
In the context of this history, the brief summary of his activity found in Jehovah’s Witnesses: Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom will suffice:
Horace Randle … had his interest further stimulated by an advertisement for Millennial Dawn that appeared in the London Times, and this was followed up by copies of the book itself—one from Miss Downing and another sent by his mother in England. At first, he was shocked by what he read. But once convinced that the Trinity is not a Bible teaching, he resigned from the Baptist Church and proceeded to share with other missionaries what he had learned. In 1900 he reported that he had sent out 2,324 letters and some 5,000 tracts to missionaries in China, Japan, Korea, and Siam (Thailand). At that time it was mainly to Christendom’s missionaries that the witness was being given in the Orient.[32]

Though after accepting Watch Tower theology Randle’s focus was on fellow missionaries, his primary interest was those the missionaries taught. He saw reaching missionaries as the surest way to reach native-language converts. There is no record of any result of Randle’s Millennial Dawn teaching on his previously made Chinese converts.

[1] View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, May 1883, page 1.
[2] Randal, Horace A: Present Truth in the Far East, Zion’s Watch Tower, May 1, 1900, page 150.
[3] Fairbanks, Edward T.: The Town of St. Johnsbury VT: A Review of One Hundred Twenty-Five Years to the Anniverasry Pageant 1912, Cowles Press, St. Johnsbury, Vermont, 1914, page 238.
[4] Historical Sketches of the Missions Under the Care of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, Women’s Foreign Missionary Society, Philadelphia, 1881, pages 33-34.
[5] Smith, Harold Frederick & Charles Hodge Corbett: Hunter Corbett And His Family, College Press, Claremont, California, 1965, page 47 identifies this as the reason she left her missionary work among native Americans.
[6] School teacher: Rasmussen, C. A.: History of Red Wing, Minnesota, 1933, page 217. Church support: Fifth Annual Report of the Woman’s Presbyterian Missions of the North-West, Chicago, 1876, page 92.
[7] Records of the General Conference of the Protestant Missionaries of China, Held at Shanghai, May 10-24, 1877, Presbyterian Mission Press, Shanghai, 1878, pages 2, 5. Survey of Missions of the Board, The Foreign Missionary of the Presbyterian Church, January 1871, page 203.
[8] Corbett, Hunter: Review of a Year’s Work at Chefoo, China, The Home and Foreign Record of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, March 1867, page 59.
[9] Smith, Fredrick F. and Charles Hodge Corbett: Hunter Corbett and His Family, College Press, Claremont, California, 1966, pages 166, 185.
[10] Woman’s Work for Woman, September 1872, as quoted in Margaret E. Burton: The Education of Women in China, Fleming H. Revell Company, pages 45-46.
[11] Woman’s Work for Woman, January 1874, as quoted in Margaret E. Burton: The Education of Women in China, Fleming H. Revell Company, pages 50-51.
[12] Hong Kong, The Daily Press, 1894 edition, page 100.
[13] Nathaniel Gist Gee: The Educational Directory for China, Second Issue, Education Association of China, 1905, page 22.
[14] Bliss, Edwin Munsel, editor: The Encyclopedia of Missions, Funk and Wagnalls Company, New York, 1891, Volume 2, page 252.
[15] Wah, Carolyn R.: Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Empire of the Sun: A Clash of Faith and Religion During World War II, Journal of Church and State, January 1, 2002. The article contains several errors of fact. She identifies William T. Ellis, a noted opponent of Russell’s, as a Watch Tower representative. She dates missionary activity outside the United States to “as early as 1892,” at least eleven years after it began.
[16] The China Mission Handbook: First Issue, American Presbyterian Mission Press, Shanghai, 1896, page 199.
[17] C.B.D.: A China Missionary Writes, Zion’s Watch Tower, October 1887, page 2.
[18] C.B.D.: The Truth in China, Zion’s Watch Tower, Febrary 1888, page 2.
[19] Protestant Missionaries in China, The Gospel in All Lands, February 1903, page 87.
[20] The China Monthly Review, Volume 6: pages 422, 503
[21] Marriage: The John Henry Hinton Photographs, Edmonton Art Gallery, 1977, page 7. Meeting: London District Missionary Activity, The United Methodist Free Churches’ Magazine, June 1864, page 385.
[22] United Methodist Free Church Missionary Society, The Christian Witness and Church Members’ Magazine, Volume 21, 1864, page 272
[23] Kirsop, Joseph: Historic Sketches of Free Methodism, Andrew Crombie, London, 1885, pages 104-106.
[24] Samuel Couling, editor: The Encyclopaedia Sinica, Oxford University Press, 1917, page 583.
[25] Letter from W. R. Fuller to C. T. Russell found in an Appendix The Time is at Hand, Millennial Dawn, Volume 3, Special Issue of Zion’s Watch Tower representing Vol. 12, No. 6, June 1891, pages 377-380.
[26] Kirsop, Historic Sketches of Free Methodism, page 106.
[27] The Directory & chronicle for China, Japan, Corea, Indo-China, Straits Settlements, Malay States, Siam, Netherlands India, Borneo, the Philippines, &c. ; with which are incorporated "The China directory" and "The Hongkong directory and Hong list for the Far East" for 1894, Daily Press, Hong Kong, 1894, pages 97-98.
[28] Views from the Watch Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, May 15, 1898, page 150.
[29] All the unreferenced statements in the biographical sketch of Randle are derived from a research summary prepared by David Hails, an archivist with OMF International, and included in an email sent to B. W. Schulz on November 11, 2008. OMF International is the successor to The China Inland Mission.
[30] The Boyd family is noted in Census Returns of England and Wales, 1871. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK: Public Record Office, 1871. Fanny was six years older than her sister Ellen. “In 1878 I went out to China with a younger sister, now Mrs. Randle, and we worked together for the first eighteen months or so at Gank-k’ing …. After my sister was married we went to Kiu-chau.”—Fanny Boyd in J. Hudson Taylor, editor: China’s Millions¸ Morgan and Scott, London, 1886, page 95.
[31] Horace A. Randle in China’s Millions, pages 94-95.
[32] Jehovah’s Witnesses: Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom, Watchtower Society, Brooklyn, New York, 1993, page 418.

The Original

Russell reproduced a chart showing world population broken down by religion. Here is the original.

From Atlanta Constitution 18 Aug 1887

Russell initially tried to place Millennial Dawn in bookstores. Here's an add from an Atlanta bookstore. The well known Bill Arp review was also in The Atlanta, Georgia, Constitution. It's found in the July 24, 1887 issue.

Value

Our blog seems to have generated very limited interest and almost no discussion. Rachael deVienne and I are considering taking it down. If there is interest out there, we need to know it.

Personally, I think our time is better spent elsewhere. We need to hear from those interested. Without sufficient interest (we'll know it when we see it) this blog is going away or going into hibernation.