For Another Project

 Help! I can read perhaps one word out of ten. Can you translate this? I've added four images. One is the entire document. The other three are best images I can make of the writing. I'll add another image to a subsequent post. This appears to have been a letter, but I am not certain about that.

Another image. This was hidden by a fold in this very fragile document:

The 'Cleburne County Draft War' - The Remake

Guest post by Gary

     In 1967, scholar James Frederick Willis, a native of Heber Springs, Arkansas, described an event termed the ‘Cleburne County Draft War’ as being the occasion “when over 200 possemen and soldiers with two machine guns attempted to subdue 8 Russellites.”(1) It has remained the classic review of the event ever since. So, what happened and how accurate a description is this?

 

     Using primarily newspaper reports from the time, Willis related that on Saturday, July 6, 1918, Sheriff Jasper Duke, from Heber Springs, Arkansas, and two fellow officers, including Bill Bice, prepared to raid several addresses between Rosebud (White County) and Pearson (Cleburne County) so as to capture five ‘slackers’.  Dr S.A. Turner and Porter Hazelwood were also persuaded to join the posse with the Sheriff suggesting, “I’ll get you a gun. There’s $50 a piece in it for each of us. I’ll divide the spoils with you.”

 

     Unsuccessful visits were made by the five-man posse late that night in searches for various men but on Sunday morning, just before sunrise, they sneaked up on the farm home of the 58-year-old Tom Adkisson’s family, slipping into a barn under cover of darkness. As we now know, Adkisson’s younger son, 24-year-old Charley Bliss, had registered for the draft claiming exemption as an International Bible Student and was called up to Camp Pike some months earlier, but failed to arrive.  He and his brother-in-law, Leo Martin, both gave incomplete addresses on their draft cards, suggesting perhaps, that if they were to be conscripted the authorities would have to come and find them, which - eventually - is precisely what happened! (2)

 

      Usually when enlisted Bible Students from cities and major towns failed to report to army camps, shortly afterward they received a polite visit at their home from a local policeman and amicably accepted their inevitable arrest before being taken to camp where, if they resisted further, they received court martial under the charge of desertion. But in Cleburne County, Arkansas, they did things differently.

 

     Willis acknowledges that conflicting accounts exist as to precisely what happened next.  Whether the Adkisson family knew who the visitors were and why they had chosen to arrive at such an ungodly hour is debateable. Suffice to say that in the twilight someone fired a shot, gunfire was briefly exchanged, Porter Hazelwood was badly injured, and the posse hurriedly fled. Hardy Richmond Adkisson, Bliss’ older brother, found Hazelwood and the family arranged for him to be moved and cared for at a neighbor’s house. A doctor was called for, but sadly Hazelwood died later that afternoon. 

 

     Meanwhile, the Sheriff’s party had returned in haste to Heber Springs with news of the incident. Unsurprisingly, it drove the townsfolk into a state of frenzy and within a short space of time twenty-five men carrying rifles were recruited from here, Searcy, Pearson, and Quitman to return to the Adkisson farm and bring in the ‘slackers’ by force. 

 

     According to various newspaper reports, between the two visits Tom had invited other young men from the area who were known to be sympathetic to his position to show their support.  When the second posse returned, it is said that some of these young men were in the house, while others were perched with guns in defensive positions in tree-tops or hidden in the underbrush.  Further that both sides engaged fire for forty-five minutes before the Adkisson party somehow slipped away into the forest, allegedly setting the underbrush afire behind them to block pursuit.

 

     Gathering more volunteers, including Sheriffs from neighboring counties and bloodhounds, the posse blitzed through the countryside without ever locating the Adkisson ‘gang’.  With popular imagination running riot, local towns panicked as rumors circulated that a large “band” of desperate armed deserters would soon attack. By now, in addition to Tom Adkisson there were only eight men being searched for and their interests were only to defend themselves rather than to attack others. Also, it is questionable too whether they were all together at the time of the visit of the second posse to the Adkisson place. Even so, the local authorities called for more help so that by Monday, July 8, thirty men from the Fourth Arkansas Infantry, National Guard, arrived in Heber Springs, bringing with them two machine guns.

 

     For the next few days, the National Guard and the local forces scoured the countryside searching for the men without success. Meanwhile, several of the men’s families and friends were rounded up in a local hotel with a local Bible Student preacher, who was said to have stirred the sedition, and his family.  Some of these were threatened with lynching, and their food supplies were confiscated to ensure that nothing could be passed to those on the run. Effectively, if these could not be found they were to be starved into submission.

 

     By Saturday, July 13, when the National Guard returned its machine guns back to Little Rock, all the resistors, who were hiding in different locations, had surrendered. Significantly, each turned themselves in to the authorities from neighboring regions so as to avoid retribution from the posse from their own county. As Tom Adkisson put it, “A band of men around Heber Springs … were trying to do us harm, and that is the reason we would not surrender up there.” 

 

     As one might expect, since the event followed the national ban on the distribution of the book The Finished Mystery and the recent imprisonment of Joseph F. Rutherford and his fellow IBSA directors under charges of sedition, it was open season on verbally attacking Bible Students.  It is no wonder then that, in the aftermath, the local newspapers blamed the Russellites’ resistance on their religion, their isolation, and their ignorance. In particular, the Arkansas newspapers homed in on the local Bible Student minister, TH Osborne, who it implied had misled these simple country folk into a course of sedition.  A doomsday scenario was even conjured up suggesting that since these millennialists believed themselves living near the time of Armageddon, surely they were planning on fighting their way through it all to the bitter end, weren’t they? All entertaining to read, of course, but though neither Willis nor the newspapers of 1918 might not have known it, this was not in any way reminiscent of early Bible teachings which instructed adherents to respect the superior authorities (Romans 13:1-7) and that “Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the LORD.” (2 Chronicles 20:17) At no point were Bible Students instructed ever to become involved in armed warfare, since they believed “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal” but spiritual. (2 Corinthians 10:4) Besides only Almighty God Jehovah himself would bring Armageddon and, in so doing, would certainly not need the assistance of puny men, with or without guns.(3) 

 

     At the trial that followed, the Adkisson’s vehemently denied firing the first shot and claimed their actions were motivated not out of millennialist zeal, but purely from a need for self-defense. Naively they had anticipated their explanation of events would be substantiated by the Sheriff’s deputy, Bill Bice. However, to their dismay, for whatever reason Bice failed to appear in Court. As the case for their defense floundered, Tom Adkisson was sentenced to serve two years for voluntary manslaughter, while his son Bliss was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment after having been found guilty of second-degree murder. (4) A later report located recently from the Newport Daily Independent, Arkansas, dated Saturday, January 11, 1919, p1, added that “four of them, Leo Martin, Lon Penrod and two of the Blakeleys were sent to the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth for five years.”(5) Evidently these, alongside Bliss Adkisson, were the five ‘slackers’ the local posse initially searched for.

 

 

     In a commendable summary, Willis concluded that if the Bible Students “panicked, thus betraying, perhaps unknowingly, their own beliefs, the solid-citizen-patriots blatantly desired a bloody sacrifice to their offended patriotism and blindly violated portions of the national ideal which they proudly purported to defend.”  In the end, therefore, neither side came out with any glory.(6)

 

     But is this the end of the story?  Most of what Willis recorded came from the local newspapers of the time, yet how reliable were these? For one thing the newspapers frequently misspelt the names of several men, as did Willis in turn.  The two Blakeley brothers were actually the Blakey brothers, Jesse and Lum, whose full names were Jesse Fountain Blakey and Christopher Columbus Blakey. Additionally, Lon Penrod was John Penrod!  Further, the IBSA preacher TH Osborne was Thomas Houston Ausburn. Worse still, in their hurry to report the events the papers played fast and loose with the facts by ‘joining the dots’ and making assumptions.  For instance, one report bizarrely speculated that three members of the gang had already received military induction before deserting camp and returning home carrying their army rifles!(7) The New York Times erroneously claimed the incident had ended on July 8, since Tom Adkisson had been killed and all the remaining men had been captured. (8) Another report suggested that an illegal alcohol still was found in searches of his house following the visit of the second posse.(9) Each of these misrepresents the men by conjuring up a ‘gang’ of intoxicated and dangerous desperadoes on the run, presumably intent on causing mayhem to whoever crossed their path. A few reports said that the second posse discovered a ‘food hoard’ at the Adkisson farm which the posse impounded and distributed to the army. This may well be true, since prior to American involvement in the war, Pastor Russell had encouraged prudent Bible Students to collect for a possible ‘day of distress’ so as to share with others in need.(10) Unsurprisingly, as if to prove their sedition, the papers made much of the fact that searchers found a copy of the book The Finished Mystery at the Adkisson home, although possession, as opposed to distribution, was not in itself an offense.  Consequently, The Pulaskian newspaper carried the front-page headline ‘Russellite Books Cause Sedition’ with the shocking subheading stating that the ‘Finished Mystery is read by all those who sought to resist draught and defied officers in Cleburne’.  It quoted Major Brandon, who had arrived to supervise the search, as saying that “we are convinced that the young men acted in compliance with instructions issued by ministers of the Russellite faith. They advised the men to register, but not to report or don the uniform of the United States. If the Russellite faith is not suppressed, it should be immediately.” The newspapers made much of the fact that women from the respective families of those on the run had been used in trying to contact the men and convince them of the need to surrender. One even provided a cartoon making jest of the situation. (11)

 

 

     No official account exists to explain what happened from a Bible Student perspective. Yet is so uncharacteristic of early Bible Student thought and actions that it seems inevitable that more must be involved to this account than has been popularly remembered.

 

Time for a remake?

 

     Given that Willis didn’t have access to Ancestry records as do modern researchers, and that he had limited access to Bible Student records, he relied heavily on the newspapers of 1918 and the court record to compile his account. In fairness he tried his best to produce a balanced account though the evidence he sifted was itself inevitably lop-sided. As a result, he seemed to side with the seemingly inevitable conclusion of the time that Russellism was the cause of the whole misery. I believe, however, that if Willis told the story today and tapped into the right sources he would likely change much.

 

     Scanning newspapers of the time one can find an article, for instance, which hints at a slightly different scenario to that recalled by Willis and popularly received.(12) It again implicated the local Russellite preacher, which this time it correctly named as Houston Ausburn, and who it said had “imbedded” in to Tom Adkisson’s mind the Russellite message to such an extent that “he does not believe in war of any kind.” Adkisson is quoted as having said that Ausburn was one of the finest men he ever knew and “he preaches the whole truth, I believe.” Interestingly for what will follow, it also said that Adkisson and Ausburn had shared a crop for the last two years. However, importantly it commented:

 

     ‘Although Tom Adkisson would not discuss the gun fight at his home Sunday morning, July 7, Bliss said today that the gang had heard after they were in the woods that the officers of White, Faulkner and Cleburne counties had planned to raid the Adkisson home Monday morning, but the Cleburne County Sheriff, Bliss said, decided to capture them on Sunday.’ They refused to talk about the shooting, however, except to say that when the posse of about 25 men returned after the shooting of Hazelwood, the men were in the field and the posse began shooting at the house. The women told them to come in and search the house, Adkisson said, but they refused, cursing the women, he said. The men then came out of the field and the second battle began. After the battle the men kept to the woods all of the time.’

 

     Two things come out from the report. Firstly, the assertion that a joint approach was to have been made to collect the ‘slackers’ but that the local Sheriff hurriedly seized the opportunity to take the men and credit for himself.  Secondly, that “the men were in the field” when the second posse of twenty-five men arrived. We may not be able to ascertain the accuracy of the first claim, but the second claim presents a very different scenario than that popularly received. Whereas earlier newspaper accounts had it that the Adkisson’s had mobilised support and were ready and waiting for the return of a larger posse, the account attributed to Bliss shows the men in the fields, unprepared, and only eventually returning toward the house with the intention of protecting their kin. The Adkisson account, if one is inclined to accept it, offers a more likely explanation of how the men were able to escape from the posse. It suggests they attempted to return to the house, came under considerable fire and thereafter were forced to retreat in haste. This seems a more likely scenario since had some of the Adkisson contingent, perhaps only a few men, been in the house when the second posse arrived it would be difficult to imagine how any of these could possibly have outmanoeuvred a twenty-five men posse to escape unscathed to the fields.

 

     At this point, I introduce a further piece of evidence that is over 100 years old but that Willis likely would not have had at his disposal. The St. Paul Enterprise, an unofficial Bible Student paper, contained a letter from IBSA travelling minister M.L. Herr in May 1919, about a Brother TH Ausburn from Rosebud, Arkansas, who Herr credits being privileged to visit since he learned “by actual fellowship the depth of the Divine Spirit that dwells in this consecrated heart.”(13)

 

     Herr goes on to talk of the way that, in contrast with the St. Paul Enterprise, “worldly newspapers, controlled by Satan and his spirit of lying, accomplish Satan’s purpose.”

 

     The letter explains Ausburn’s background.  We are told for instance, that “for 14 years Brother Ausburn was an earnest young minister in the Baptist church in the rural district. In 1914 he met a Photo-Drama operator, Claude Stambough, who interested him “in present truth”.  The letter says that Ausburn “acted promptly leaving all to follow Jesus. It cost him something.” Herr explained that Ausburn had a wife and six children to look after but left the comfort of the Baptist ministry to humbly accept “an opening to raise cotton and do lumbering 12 miles from the railway on the mountain-side.”

 

 

     In the next paragraph, Herr touches on the Cleburne draft incident as he explains:

 

     ‘During the war, ignorant mountaineers refused registration and others drafted refused to respond. The enemies of the Truth and Brother Ausburn saw their opportunity and perceiving the winds of bitterness and hatred favorable they filled the newspapers with lying reports of the influence of a Russellite preacher who was back of the ‘slackers.’ In the accounts these ‘slackers’ numbered hundreds, but when facts were obtained the number shrank to five for whose foolish action, subsequently abandoned, it was amply proven Brother Ausburn was in no sense responsible. A mob with disguise of law wantonly destroyed provisions and property.  I am told: the losses aggregating $500.  The sum becomes much larger when one reflects upon how meagrely the Arkansas mountaineer lives and what it costs in hard labor to produce this much in that country.  The brother was cast into jail and a full month elapsed before he was released.’

 

     By this point the reader may already have been struck by a very different picture being presented than that of the news media of the time, and indeed Willis’ account from 1967.

 

     Herr’s account tells of that a “mob with disguise of law wantonly destroyed provisions and property.” Evidently, he believed the posse returned intent on doing more than simply capturing Bliss Adkisson. They also wanted retribution for the death of Hazelwood, however it occurred. And yet there is still more that can be added to Herr’s account. 

 

     While researching the ‘Cleburne County Draft War’ online I came across yet another article relating the incident much as had the papers in 1918. However, a telling 2016 blog comment from a man named Robin J. White stated: 

 

     My Grandmother was a witness to all of this. She lived to 102 years old and the youngest of his children. This battle only happened after the Adkisson family was burned out of 2 homes, family business burned to the ground, livestock stolen and killed. He was the sole provider for a large family.(14)

 

     Of course, blog comments from alleged relatives given 98 years after an event should be treated with caution and not granted the veracity of evidence such as Herr’s report from 1919, but it does support the idea that lives, homes and livelihood were being threatened by the arrival of the first two posses. Indeed, Tom Adkisson always maintained throughout his trial that his motivation in acting was only that of protecting his large family and personal self defense. And while I do not include the comment to justify the shooting of Hazelwood in anyway, it suggests what happened occurred under extreme provocation.

 

     So, is this blog entry a valid historical family story that has been preserved? Ancestry.com enables modern researchers to check the credibility of the statement to some extent. Tom Adkisson did indeed have a daughter named Nora Jewell Adkisson who lived a long life, dying in 2006 at 102 years of age.(15) Perhaps a reader of this blog, maybe even Robin J White himself, might be able to add further information? 

 

     What may we conclude then from this unhappy episode?  It is always easy to be wise in retrospect, but Bible Student conscientious objectors in 1918 who lived in rural areas with gung-ho sheriffs and excitable locals might have found it better to have simply arrived in army camps when instructed and then downed tools, so as to speak, by refusing the military uniform and drills. Any alternative that involved resistance by use of weapons inevitably would end in disaster. (Matthew 26:52)

 

     It is indeed sad to report what happened to both Porter Hazelwood and, ultimately, to Bliss Adkisson too. Bliss behaved well during his imprisonment and eventually gained a position of trust and oversight as a prison guard at the Tucker Prison Farm. However, on September 18, 1921, when the notorious bank robber Tom Slaughter attempted to escape, Bliss Atkinson was killed in trying to prevent him.(16) 

 

     As for the Blakey brothers, these served time in the Fort Leavenworth Detention Barracks, and in the case of Jesse, the Pacific Detention Barracks, otherwise known as Alcatraz. Eventually they were given an early dishonorable discharge from an army they never considered they belonged to in the first place. However, it should be noted that while they registered for the draft, neither claimed exemption as International Bible Students. Further, while the Adkisson and Blakey families were related and likely worked together, evidence from the Swarthmore database of American WWI conscientious objectors suggests that the Blakey brothers, along with John Penrod, actually belonged to the restorationist Churches of Christ faith.(17) It is also unclear what involvement, if any, they had in either of the two shooting incidents at the Adkisson farm. 

 

     What though of the local IBSA preacher Thomas Houston Ausburn, who was blamed by the newspapers for having bemused the relevant families into believing millennialist teachings as if they had no mind for themselves?  In fact, we now know that he had only become a Bible Student in 1914 whereas, in contrast, Tom Adkisson acknowledged:

 

     ‘I have been a student of Pastor Russell’s for 30 years. And if there is anyone to blame for the literature in that country it is I.’(18) 

 

     Even so, reporters were astounded to hear Tom Adkisson’s speak and see his manner which was not that of a country yokel as they had expected.  “To talk to him is a revelation for his grammar is that of a highly educated man”, stated the Arkansas Gazette.(19) 

 

     Regardless, Adkisson made it clear that he was neither repentant or apologetic for what had happened:

 

     ‘If it came up again like it did the last time, I would do just like I have done, I believe.’(20) 

 

     I do not know what happened to Tom Adkisson following the end of his prison sentence other than that he died in 1932. As regards Thomas Houston Ashburn, he retained his beliefs as a Bible Student and Jehovah’s Witness. His Ancestry.com entry shows he died in March 1961 and was given a Jehovah’s Witness funeral on March 14 before his interment at the Mount Zion Cemetery, Steele, Missouri.(21) 

 

     God alone knows the full story of this unpleasant episode in Bible Student history. But at last history allows for a more balanced approach to be taken which considers evidence from the Adkisson perspective rather than relying solely on the patriotic newspaper accounts of the time. Putting together newspaper reports with the those given by Herr and more recently White, I would suggest a possible explanation involves the second posse pursuing the Adkisson males back into the fields and then spitefully setting alight to the crop owned jointly by Adkisson and Ausburn, while blaming the Adkisson family for causing the fire to block pursuit. 

 

     We may conclude therefore by saying that the ‘Cleburne County Draft War’ involved just one known Bible Student conscientious objector, Charley Bliss Adkisson, who had been drafted and not reported when requested to do so. Tom Adkisson and Hardly Richmond Adkisson also became involved when attempting to protect their family after an over enthusiastic posse threatened their family and livelihood. At least five and possibly six other men who were not Bible Students also were searched for.  The newspapers of the time, Willis’ 1967 account and indeed social history ever since has largely blamed the ‘Russellites’ for the incident. However, we must understand the public’s willingness to apportion blame in the context of the times.  Bible Students were viewed with suspicion and hatred because of their refusal to support civic and military affairs. The book The Finished Mystery had been banned from distribution earlier that year and the Watch Tower Society President Joseph Rutherford and six fellow directors had recently been found guilty in relation to a charge of sedition. So how else would the ordinary American citizen likely understand reports of the Cleburne incident?

 

     Thankfully, Herr’s St. Paul Enterprise letter went on to relate how things changed dramatically for Ausburn within less than a year of his ordeal. It explained that “the publicity given the case and the manifest injustice has reacted in favour of our brother. People know him and they know also the character of the persons active in his persecution.”(22) Indeed, during the petition made by Bible Students earlier in the year to pardon Rutherford and his co IBSA directors, Herr records that as a consequence of Ausburn’s conduct and reputation “the governor of the state, mayor of Little Rock, ex-mayor, lawyers, doctors and even ministers gladly signed the petition for the pardon of our brethren.”(23) 

 

     The tragedy of Porter Hazelwood’s death inevitably is the significant moment that marks the ‘Cleburne County Draft War.”  Yet the ‘war’, if it ever was such, in fact involved only two brief skirmishes and, eventually, a search of over 200 possemen and soldiers with two machine guns for eight or nine men, only five or six who had been called up and only one of whom is known, based on completion of their draft registration forms, to have been an International Bible Student.(24) Therefore, although ‘Russellism’ took the blame for what had happened it was in fact only one factor among several motivating those involved. 

 

References:

 

(1) James F. Willis article, The Cleburne County Draft War, appeared in The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 1, (Spring, 1967, pp. 24-39)

 

(2) Draft registration forms are searchable on Ancestry.com. Bliss was registered in class one as a single person but failed to answer his call. His older brother Hardy was married with a dependent child, and so consequently was registered as class 4 and never called up. 

 

(3) As an example, see The Time is at Hand (1889) - Studies in the Scriptures vol. 2, p.82

 

(4) Adkisson vs. Arkansas, Criminal Transcript No. 2398 (Little Rock: Justice Building, Supreme Court Archives, p.1-226)

 

(5) Newport Daily Independent, Arkansas, dated Saturday, January 11, 1919, p1.  This repeated a report given earlier in the Judsonia Weekly Advance, August 21, 1918, p1

 

(6) James F. Willis, The Cleburne County Draft War, p39

 

(7) The Sentinel Record, Hot Springs, July 10, 1918, p1

 

(8) New York Times, July 8, 1918

 

(9) Daily Arkansas Gazette, Little Rock, July 17, 1918

 

(10) See the article entitled ‘The Prudent Hideth Himself’ in Watch Tower, November 1, 1914, p 334-334, (R5571-5572)

 

(11) The Puluskian, Pulaski Heights, Little Rock, July 19, 1918, p1

 

(12) Daily Arkansas Gazette, Little Rock, July 17, 1918

 

(13) Letter from M.L.Herr to Brother Stewart, appearing in The Saint Paul Enterprize, May, 13, 1919, p2, column 1, letter in the Voices of the People section 

 

(14) https://ozarks-history.blogspot.com/2013/10/cleburne-county-draft-war.html?m=1

 

(15) Ancestry.com search

 

(16) Pine Bluff Daily Graphic, September 20, 1921

 

(17) The Adkisson and Blakey families were related, since Ancestry.com reveals that Tom Adkisson was a younger brother of Susan Minerva Blakey, mother of Jesse, Jim and Lum. 

 

Records for Jesse, Lum and John Penrod can be found in the Swarthmore database of WWI US conscientious objectors, searchable at https://www.swarthmore.edu/library/peace/conscientiousobjection/WWI.COs.coverpage.htm

 

Many Churches of Christ members held millennialist views at this time with those following the teachings of David Lipscombe tending towards pacifism. Similar to the Bible Students, Lipscombe taught that all “wars and strife between tribes, races, nations, from the beginning until now, have been the result of man's effort to govern himself and the world, rather than to submit to the government of God.” As a result, many followers believed that the use of coercion and/or force may be acceptable for purposes of personal self-defense but that resorting to warfare was not an option open to them.

 

(18) Arkansas Gazette, July 20, 1918

 

(19) Arkansas Gazette, July 17, 1918

 

(20) The Log Cabin Democrat, July 16, 1918

 

(21) Herr letter, The Saint Paul Enterprize, May 13, 1919, p2

 

(22) Ibid

 

(23) Ibid

 

(24) Another man who is also said to have been searched for was Amos Sweeten. However, he did not claim to be a Bible Student on his draft registration form but requested exemption on grounds of poor health (asthma).

 

Consequently, the nine men ‘on the run’ can be named as:

 

(i)   Tom Adkisson (father) 

(ii)  Charles Bliss Adkisson*

(iii) Hardy Richmond Adkisson 

(iv) Jesse Fountain Blakey*

(v)  James Madison Blakey 

(vi)  Christopher Columbus Blakey*

(vii) Leo D. Martin*

(viii)John William Penrod*

(ix)  Amos Sweeten*

 

I have added an asterisk beside the six men subject to the Draft call as of July 1918. 

Found by Ray S.

 From the April 29, 1902, Indianapolis, Indiana, Journal:

J. W. W.

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

B. W. Keith recounts his history.

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

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

From Bro. Keith. 

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

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

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

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

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

            Yours in a sincere love of the truth,

 

            B. W. Keith, Chicago, Ill.

Research assistance

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

Save them to a single document in pdf format.

Probably sources:

https://elephind.com/

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

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

Any takers for part or all of this project?

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

Ancestry newspaper archives.

The Pittsburgh Christian Advocate - August 21, 1913

 

A new comment on an old post

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

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

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

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

Bruce

Update

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

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

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

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

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

Who built the pyramid?

 

Edmund Kohler from 1927 newspaper

So who built the pyramid?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 For another project:

N. H. Knorr: Peace - Can it Last?

 

Original directors

Five of the original directors of Zion's Watch Tower Society as it existed in 1884. This is a composite picture put together by Bernhard. The "missing" two directors are Smith and Adamson. 

Pastor Russell arrested

 

From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 22, 1914. According to the full story, the police stopped the showing of the Photodrama half way through and arrested Pastor Russell who was present in person. The issue was showing moving pictures on a Sunday. Also Adam and Eve weren't wearing any clothes! He was arrested on Sunday night and "discharged from custody" on the Monday. Did he actually spend a night in jail? The case was thrown out.

James Larkin Pearson

 I've run across this name. What is his connection to The Watch Tower? Anyone know?

Some help, please

 This sentence is attributed to Russell:

"A man's sin in this life will be but an angel, a black angel perhaps, but an angel nevertheless to lead him to the powers of virtue in the life that Is to come."

I cannot find it in Russell's work, and I suspect it's contrived. Can you find it in anything Russell wrote?

Philip Sidersky and the Ross libel trial

One of the historical documents researchers have long wanted to see is the transcript of the Ross libel trial. The court copy disappeared decades ago, and descendants of the main participants do not have copies. The Watchtower Society’s copy went through a phase of: ”was, but is not, but is yet (maybe) to reappear…” Crucially, at the time that Marley Cole wrote up the case in Jehovah’s Witnesses – The New World Society, he never actually saw an original transcript in Bethel (letter from Marley Cole dated February 15, 1989).

For further information on this background see the article on this blog The Ross Libel Trial posted on May 20, 2013.

To recap just briefly on the main points, a Baptist clergyman in Canada, John Jacob Ross, published a booklet attacking CTR. CTR was advised to sue him for criminal libel. Legally, in retrospect, this proved to be a mistake as the cutting below from the Toronto Globe for April 2, 1913, shows:

Essentially, for a charge of criminal libel to success (as opposed to a civil case) there would need to be a clear threat of a breach of the peace. Bible Students were not likely to riot in the streets, let alone even read Ross’s words, so the jury was instructed to render a verdict of “no bill.” The merits or otherwise of the case did not come into it. In restrospect, it is a shame this point was not established by legal minds before proceedings ever started.

Anyhow, emboldened by the case being dismissed on a technicality, Ross claimed a “victory” and produced a second booklet where he basically accused CTR of making false claims on the stand about being a scholar of Biblcal languages. The charge has been repeated over the years by opposers of CTR - who have also never seen the transcript.

The hearing was written up in the local newspapers at the time, but none picked up on this point that Ross would later labor. However, it is now possible to establish with reasonable certainty what exactly did happen in this part of the hearing.

Enter stage left, a certain Philip Sidersky (1870-1938).

Photo from the Elizabethtown Chronicle for October 19, 1937.

Siderksy was born in Russia, and some papers suggest he had once thought of training as a rabbi. Instead, he came to the United States and was reinvented as the “Reverend Philip Sidersky,” author, editor, and speaker to various denominations on converting Jews to Christianity. He also became an extremely active critic of Pastor Russell and the Bible Student movement. He was to become such a public face of opposition to CTR’s work that he even gets a mention in modern Watchtower literature (Yearbook 1979, page 95). CTR must have responded at some point, because Sidersky then tried to sue him in a counter response. From The Washington Post, September 7, 1911:

This came to nothing. But undaunted, Sidersky produced a whole magazine just to attack CTR and Watch Tower teaching. It was called Searchlight on Russellism and ran from late 1915 to at least when CTR died at the very end of October in 1916. Two issues are known to have survived. The first, volume one, number one, is in the Harvard Divinity School library.The second, volume one, number six, is interesting because it contained a letter from Sidersky to the President of the United States, asking him to clamp down on CTR’s writings being sent to members of the National Guard. This was to end up in the files of what ultimately became the FBI, as part of the package of difficulties the Bible Students faced during World War 1.

So what is the connection with the J J Ross libel trial? Two pages of each issue of Sidersky’s paper (page 2 and then continued on page 7) contains a transcript of the Ross hearing. In the absense of the original trial transcript this provides us with probably all that can now be obtained of the case.

We have to assume that the transcript is accurate, but there is no way to check. We also have to note that Sidersky selected what suited his purpose. None of the prosecution material aimed at Ross appears; rather, it is the defense counsel, Staunton, grilling CTR, which makes up the surviving selective extracts. However, they do give us a flavor of the proceedings.

The complete transcript that survives is in the next article, without any editorial comment. However, I do recommend reading the following background material first.

It starts off with Counselor Staunton being somewhat insulting, and CTR being less than willing to volunteer information. However, it soon settles down, and there is some interesting verbal sparring between the two individuals, with CTR questioning Staunton at one point.

The section in Searchlight volume 1, number 1, covers the intitial stages of the examination. This includes CTR’s schooling and the key section on languages. We will come back to that shortly. The second section from Searchlight volume 1, number 6, covers financial matters. The case of William Hope Hay, a pilgrim who made a financial donation to the Society, then some time later had a breakdown and had to be hospitalised. The Society paid the hospital fees. And then the different corporations used by the Society. Ross had accused CTR of running a money-making scheme and basically hiding affairs behind various corporations. It was explained quite clearly by CTR how the Society’s affairs worked, and how the different linked corporations were simply needed to legally operate in Pennsylvania, New York, and also the far-flung corners of the British Empire.

No smoking gun there.

But let’s return to the claim that CTR lied on the stand about his “qualifications.”

What actually was said? From the Sidersky transcript:

But when Ross wrote his second booklet, his report said this:

In Ross’s account, the question was do you know the Greek? However, the “quote” doesn’t actually make sense. The Greek? The Greek what?

Ross leaves out that crucial word “alphabet.” CTR had already stated clearly he had no schooling in Latin or Greek. So he did not “know” Greek. But yes, he knew the alphabet, but might make a mistake on some of them. (This writer can relate to that).

Losing the word “alphabet” is a very unfortunate typo in the circumstances. It is either that, or a deliberate attempt by Ross to mislead. Well, you, the reader, can decide.

So that is the background. In the next article, we just have the straight transcript without comment.