Bible House family - 1906

The date the photograph was taken is written on the back of one collectors' copy.

I had a little difficulty working out rows 1 and 2 until I carefully checked the feet in the photograph.

Most will recognise a few of the people. The photograph also includes Margaret (or Margaretta) Land, who was CTR's sister.

CTR himself is not in the picture. Perhaps he was behind the camera...

Snip

Mr. Schulz sent me this material today. It is rough draft, still in research, for a chapter entitled Out of Babylon. Comments welcome.

Out of Babylon

 

            The nature of Russell era congregations is misstated by Biblically illiterate historians and sociologists. Edward Abrahams asserted that “Russell used the words ‘alienated,’ ‘isolated,’ and ‘troubled to describe his congregations.”[1] We ask, where?            

            Between 1879 and the end of 1916, the word alienated appears in fifty-nine issues of the Watch Tower. Watch Tower writers and Russell especially use it as commentary on Colossians 1:21-23: “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard , and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven.” This is not a statement of social alienation, but of the need for reconciliation to God through Jesus.

            The word appears in quotations from other sources, usually as commentary on the alienation of the young from contemporary churches and the Bible. These are not a reference to Watch Tower congregations. Russell never uses the word alienated in the sense meant by a sociologist. The one place where one might presume he meant it in that sense is found in the January 15, 1912, Watch Tower. Russell wrote: 

The Church has cried in "the wilderness" in the sense that she has been alienated and separated from the world. She has called upon all who would hear to prepare for Messiah's Kingdom. She has told more fully than did John the Baptist of the effect of Messiah's Kingdom – the leveling up of the valleys (the lifting up of the poor), the straightening out of the crooked things and the smoothing of the rough things, that thus all flesh might see, appreciate, understand, experience the salvation of God. Both John and the Church declare that this salvation is to be brought through Jesus and His glorified Bride in Kingdom power. The point we are making is that while John the Baptist was an antitype of Elijah, and was forerunner or herald of Jesus, so, only more particularly, the Church in the flesh is a higher antitype of Elijah, and still more particularly a herald of the Messianic Kingdom.[2] 

            Did Russell suggest that the congregations were socially alienated? Not in the way Abrahams and others suggest, and certainly this one occurrence is not an example of continual usage. Russell says the Church has no part in the world’s social upheavals and essential sinfulness. But the Church as an obligation to the world to uplift, to declare salvation, and to rebuke wrongdoing. Christians are not to approve of the world’s ways. This is not similar to the social alienation that led to the Haymarket affair or the Railroad Insurrection. This is a push for holiness.

            But what of Russell’s use of the word “isolated”? When using it of Watch Tower adherents, especially in the very early days, Russell meant those who were the lone believer in their area, not that they were otherwise isolated from their communities. An example is found in the October 1881 Watch Tower. Russell wrote an extensive report on the progress of Watch Tower evangelism “To strengthen and encourage the lonely and isolated ones.”[3] Reporting Communion observance in 1884, he touched on the small number of believers, using the word ‘isolated’: “In some places only two or three assembled, in others more, and some isolated individuals alone, but the general testimony is that the Master was present at least in spirit; and for aught we know was personally present.” Does this seem to be a reference to social isolation? Not to us. But, as we shall explore, their unique beliefs left them separated party or wholly from the religious community. Again in1884, Russell wrote: 

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. 

We rejoice with all these that we have been so enabled to comprehend the Gospel as to find that out of the abundance of the heart our mouth must speak; that the love of Christ and the knowledge of his glorious truth constraineth us.

But while we thus rejoice together, we can but rejoice with trembling as we realize the secret, subtle, and persevering efforts of the Prince of this world to overcome the saints. No artifice or effort is left untried: Opposition, ridicule, rejection, flattery, false reasoning to disprove the truth, cares of this world, bribery with the good things of this world, and allurements of various kinds, are all used as the necessities of the individual cases may require.[4] 

            This is within Christian experience. Early Methodists and Baptists, and First Century Christians all experienced isolation because of belief. The trials he described are common to those who live by New Testament standards. Some sociologists believe this is harmful. Adherents in this era felt the isolation, but the counter to it was suggested in this article. Because they were ‘true believers’, they were also evangelists, expressing their beliefs to others. There is no alienation in this. They were determined to speak as God would have them speak, to bring the gospel to any who would hear.

            Russell was aware of this dichotomy. Isolated from “worldly” belief and practice by the desire for holiness and divine approval, adherents also felt compelled to take the Gospel to others. Drawn on his experiences with Watch Tower believers, he wrote: 

But where is this faithful Church to be found? – this people so set apart from the world, so faithful, so loyal and so true? – so ready always to recognize and accept the Lord's help? Does it gather here or there or yonder? and is God manifestly in the midst of its congregation as evidenced by its joyous songs and fervent prayers? Ah, no! it is a scattered flock; so much so that the world does not discover that there is such a people. The world knows them only as isolated and peculiar individuals who cannot assimilate even with the masses of those who bear the name of Christ. There is one in the quiet of country life whose chief interest is not in the harvest of his earthly crops, and who only plants and reaps thus that he may be able to devote himself so far as possible to the reaping of God's harvest. He has glorious tidings for his neighbors far and near, of the kingdom which is soon to be established in the earth. And there is a farmer's wife: in the midst of her busy cares the blessed sound of gospel grace has fallen on her ears. She feels at once like dropping the domestic duties and going abroad to tell the good news. But no; she remembers the Lord's teaching, that he that provideth not for his own house is worse than an unbeliever; and so she says, I will let my light shine here. These little ones around my feet shall learn to rejoice in the truth; my companion, my neighbors, my farm hands and all that I can reach through the mail or the press shall know of it; and all these domestic duties which I realize the Lord would not have me ignore shall henceforth be done with an eye single to his glory. 

Here is an invalid and there is an aged saint. Their faith in the Word of God, regardless of the vain philosophies and traditions so commonly accepted, brings upon them many reproaches which are meekly born for Christ's sake, while they humbly endeavor to let their light shine upon those about them. And yonder in a crowded city are a few who dare to be peculiar – to separate themselves from the customs and habits of social life, to forego the pleasures and present advantages of former social ties, to speak the new and heavenly language, to sing their songs of hope and praise and by every agency within their grasp to send forth the glorious message of the coming kingdom. And then scattered far and near are some unencumbered with earthly cares and joyfully denying themselves, esteeming it a privilege to devote all their time and energy to the great harvest work. Yes, "the Lord knoweth them that are his," and he is in the midst of them. He knows their loyalty to him and they know his voice and are ever ready to follow his leading. Thus no harm can overtake them. They will stand and not fall, and will in the end be crowned as victors. A thousand will fall at their side and ten thousand at their right hand in this day of trial, but they will be kept in the very midst of the wildest confusion. They may, as the trial proceeds and as the faint-hearted and unfaithful fall, be left to stand almost or entirely alone in their several localities; but then they will realize all the more the preciousness of being alone with God.[5] 

            Strict adherence to Bible standards, no matter what the doctrine, has always produced something like this. It is hard for us to see Watch Tower adherents in the Russell era as social misfits in the same sense that those at the extremes of the labor movement and other disenfranchised groups were. Former slaves and their children, poor farmers, under paid and abused laborers in every field, shop girls who prostituted themselves because they were not paid a fair wage suffered from forces outside their control. Separation form ‘the world’ on a doctrinal and holiness basis was a choice. Put in Apostolic terms, either one served God or was part of the world.

---

[1]               E. H. Abrahams: Charles Taze Russell and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, American Studies, Spring 1977, page 61.

[2]               C. T. Russell: Prepare Ye for the Kingdom, The Watch Tower, January 15, 1912, pages 32-33.

[3]               C. T. Russell: In the Vineyard, Zion’s Watch Tower, October/November 1881, page 5.

[4]               C. T. Russell: View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, August 1884, page 1.

[5]               C. T. Russell: God is in the Midst of Her, Zion’s Watch Tower, August 1891, pages 108-109.

A snippet from a chapter in progress

Signs in the Heavens           

Pretend and real heavenly events panicked those who looked for signs in the sun, moon and stars. On September 6, 1881, the skies over New England, Vermont and New Hampshire – over two hundred thousand square miles – turned yellow. The cause was uncertain, though probably a forest fire in the wilds of Northern Canada. This was startling event. Yellow haze hung in the upper atmosphere undisturbed by a steady breeze. In some areas the haze reached the ground. Schools were dismissed and workers sent home or work proceeded under candle light. Chickens roosted, night insects chirped, birds slept. While some saw it as an interesting phenomenon needing a good, scientific explanation, many panicked. The Friends Intelligencer said: “Among those who apprehended that the weird prophecies of the seers of Israel concerning the earth’s destruction are to find literal fulfillment in our day there was general apprehension that the last day of the human race had come.”[1]

            Abraham Brown of East Kingston, New Hampshire, wrote to the Springfield, Massachusetts, Republican, suggesting that it was a last-days sign:  

‘The sky was draped in a kind of fog, a little too light for smoke, and a little too dark for steam.’ As all our wise men have failed to give a scientific reply to the question of your correspondent, allow me to suggest that a ‘fog which is a little too light for smoke, and a little too dark for steam’ may properly be called a ‘vapour of smoke’ – and whether it be from a supernatural cause or from unexplained or unknown natural causes – it looks, and I have no doubt is one of the wonders of the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel, as declared by the apostle Peter in Acts 11, 19 and 20: ‘I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come.’[2] 

            Brown was serious. So were a multitude of others struck by the similarity between the event and Bible prophecy. Watch Tower adherents were not persuaded. They expected other events that year.

            As we noted in a previous chapter, Albert Jones focused on the perihelion of planets on June 19, 1881, mentioning it in Bible Students Tract number six. He believed Thomas Wilson’s booklet and other similar predictions supported his expectations. He was not alone. Many outside the Watch Tower movement did as well, including Barbour and his followers. Aged Barton Speak, who billed himself as “an old Jacksonian Democrat,” wrote:

It is now midnight, and I am just in from the Stars. You know this is the night of the conjunction of the big stars, that is, the planets, and to-morrow – Sunday – is to be the end of the world; that is certain so called wise men have said so. I ope this will prove a blessed Saturday night for you if it is the last one. How little the beaux that sit in conjunction with their lasses to-night know what is going on overhead. They don’t know that the big stars of the solar system move up into a straight line with the sun, to-night. That is so. … If there isn’t a big disturbance to-morrow, I don’t want to be told … that when the earth gets out on a dress parade with the sun and other big bodies in the sky there must of necessity be a big disturbance …. The fact is, I don’t’ believe that a disturbance will take place.[3] 

            Speak was right, of course, or we wouldn’t be writing this and you wouldn’t be reading it. Writers from The Restitution speculated on the supposed perihelion of planets, taking the mater seriously. In May 1879, a F. W. Haskell of Lynn, Massachusetts, wrote to Barbour asking: 

Have you seen an article in the papers on the conjunction of the four planets with the sun, which is supposed to explain the pestilence and miasmatic pressure brought to bear on the earth, and which is to vibrate with convulsions and thus scatter disease and death to its inhabitants? There was an article in a Boston paper last week, warning the people to take care of their health, as they will soon be called upon to face a season of pestilence such as has not visited our earth since the christian era. [sic] They ignore the ending of the gospel age, and yet are looking for the very things foretold.[4] 

            Barbour didn’t append an answer to Haskell’s letter, but in the next issue recommended the booklet published by Thomas Wilson which we discussed on chapter [#]. Published under two titles, the one noted by Barbour was Star Prophecies, or a View of Coming Disasters on the Earth from1881 to 1885, as Viewed from an Atronomical and Astrological Standpoint. Its ideas persuaded readers of both magazines. Wilson also published John Collom’s The Prophetic Numbers of Daniel and the Revelation which focused on pyramid measurements and planetary perihelia. Other books and pamphlets, almost without number, did as well.

---

[1]               Yellow Day: Friends Intelligencer, September 17, 1881, page 489.

[2]               Quoted in Historic Magazine and Notes and Querries¸ October/November 1882, page  66.

[3]               Letter from an Old Jacksonian Democrat, Mifflintown, Pennsylvania, Sentinel and Republican, June 22, 1881.

[4]               F. W. Haskell to Barbour in the May 1879 Herald of the Morning, page 56.

Just a taste ...

We started a new chapter. Mostly it's just notes, but some of it exists in rough draft. This chapter focuses on their expectations for 1881. Here is a small bit:

Both the Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of the Morning continued to point to 1881 as a significant date. As with most of this era, Watch Tower belief about 1881 is seldom presented in context or with any sort of accuracy. Most of those who discuss Watch Tower expectations divorce them from contemporary history, present them inaccurately, usually purposefully so. Watch Tower readers expected a variety of events, some of them conflicting. They were a small, hardly noticed detail in a larger picture. A contemporary newspaper noted:

 

It would be difficult to describe all the sinister predictions that have, as by common consent, been concentrated upon the coming year. The soothsayers, divines, oracle makers, astrologers, and wizards seem to have combined to cast their spell upon it. Superstitious people of every sort, and some who are not willing to admit that they are superstitious, regard the year 1881 with more or less anxious expectation and dread. …

 

Timid persons first began to look forward with some alarm to the year that is about to open, when, several years ago, the key to the so-called prophetic symbolism of the Great Pyramid of Egypt was made public, backed by the name and reputation of the British astronomer, Piazzi Smyth. Others using Mr. Smyth’s observations and measurements, have gone much further than he did in drawing startling inferences; but no one can read his book without perceiving how powerfully it must affect those who have the slightest leaning toward superstition or credulity. …. So the belief, or at least the suspicion, spread that the secret chambers of the Great Pyramid, under Divine guidance by the most mystical character in all history, Melchisedek, King of Salem, foretell … that the Christian era will end in 1881.[1]

---

[1]               The Terrible Year at Hand, The Sliver Creek, New York, Local¸ January 14, 1881. The same article appeared in many other newspapers. Author’s name is not given.

Our First Amazon Review

5.0 out of 5 stars THE FIRST IN-DEPTH HISTORY OF THE ORGINS OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES, June 4, 2014

By

E. Jones  

Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Separate Identity: Organizational Identity Among Readers of Zion's Watch Tower: 1870-1887 (Paperback)

This is the first thoroughly researched and comprehensive history of the Jehovah's Witnesses early years. Other histories of the early days of the Jehovah's Witnesses spend just a few paragraphs or pages on the years 1870 - 1879, which are the years covered (in 380 pages!) in this volume one of a planned two volume work. And those histories are all mostly based on a single Watch Tower article of May 1890 (reprinted in 1894 and 1906) and maybe some thoughts from A. H. Macmillan's book Faith on the March. Neither of which were meant to be in-depth works. But there is much more to that history and this book goes a long way in filling the historical gaps that exist because of reliance on those two earlier works.

The authors of this work, Schulz and de Vienne, have done a remarkable job in producing the first history of this period based on original research made to fit an academic standard. They not only tell what they know but how they know it by means of a 189,000 word text with 1,700 footnotes and 102 photos and illustrations. So their work is verifiable. As the authors point out the problem with other histories of this period is that they present much that is not verifiable or ignore others who played a significant role during this period and concentrate on Charles Taze Russell to the exclusion of the numerous others who had a share in Jehovah's Witnesses history and the evolution of Watch Tower readers into a distinct religion.

The authors acknowledge Russell as a prime mover in the movement that developed. But while Russell did influence others he was also influenced by others. So while C. T. Russell is a focus of this history he is not the only focus. You will find here numerous biographies of those who Russell interacted with, showing exactly how they influenced his beliefs, that you will not find in any other Witness history. There are also biographical bits of information about Russell and others that had been scattered throughout Watch Tower and Bible Student publications that have been brought together here, in one place, for the first time. Also, as part of the authors original research you will find information obtained from letters, articles, and newspaper interviews that Russell and others wrote and gave, some before the Watch Tower magazine even came into existence. Joseph Lytle Russell, Ann Eliza Russell, Age-to-Come/One faith believers, Y.M.C.A., George Darby Clowes, George Washington Stetson, George Storrs, William Henry Conley, Margaret (Russell) Land, Henry Dunn, and Joseph Seiss are just some of names that are given the full treatment instead of just being barely or not at all mentioned in other Witness histories. In particular if you thought you knew who George Stetson and George Storrs were and the full impact they had on Russell from other Witness histories you will find out you were wrong. Four chapters are devoted to the relationship between C. T. Russell, Nelson Horatio Barbour, and John Henry Paton. What they did, who they spoke to, what they believed and preached and what others wrote and said about them from their meeting in 1876 till the breakup in 1879.

This is history written to an academic standard which means that it is verifiable and it sticks to the facts. So the authors don't try to prove that Russell and those associated with him were led by God, as Russell's friends believe, or that he was a religious apostate, as his enemies believe. This is not a book about the truthfulness of Witness theology. It's history without religious commentary. Since this is the first of its kind history the authors, also, when appropriate point out significant inaccuracies or unverifiable statements in other Witness histories. This is a book about the history of a group of certain individuals, who they were, what they did, what they said, and what they believed according to available records and how this all led to the formation of a distinct religious group.

Can you help with this?

We think a man named William Carlton Irish was associated with Barbour and and maybe Russell. Can we you find his name in Herald of the Morning or Zion's Wach Tower?

Update

An update to our current research is on the private blog. If you subscribe to it, you may want to visit the blog and read what will be chapter two in volume two. A few paragraphs remain to be written.
R

Separate Identity, vol 1 is now on B&N and Amazon. But we'd appreciate it if you buy it from lulu. We fund our research from the sale of the books. We get almost nothing from Amazon and BandN sales. Lulu pays us better.

We need ...

We need a list of Watch Tower congregations formed before 1900. Anyone?

John Newton Fox

Taken from a family history web page

            John Newton Fox was born June 4, 1839, according to his death certificate or January 9, 1839, according to his obituary. He was born in St. Clair Township, Butler County, Ohio. He was the son of Levi Fox and Eliza Yerkes. He was a farmer for most of his life.

He married Sarah Jane Ricketts in 1863 when he was about 24 years old in Wayne County, Iowa. Their children and life together are described in detail in the section on John and Sarah Fox.

The same year he married, John's father, Levi, sold him sixty acres of land for $50. The deed to John Newton Fox, both dated and recorded on March 11, 1863, is found in Lucas County Land Record Book G, p. 569. The description is the NW¼ of the SE¼ and the W½ of the NE¼ of the SE¼ of Section 34. This is the 60 acres along the New York road labeled "Phoebe Gookin" on the 1895 plat.

John was left a widower in November, 1885 when his wife Sarah died. He married Isabelle Solinger on April 9, 1893 and became a stepfather to her children. Below is a transcription of a letter that John wrote to Leonard Shelton. His grandson, Richard Fox, said "grandpa Fox had beautiful handwriting."

 

December the 14 1910 

hellow lenard this evning we are all wel mother and Earl are both at work so will try to answer some of the questions that yo sent but thare is hundreds of qustions in the bibel that I cant answer and yo are too far away from me and it is hard for me to read your hand riting then again it is discuriging to rite answers if yo let the children destroy them befor yo investigate themfirst i think that solaman was david sun 

Second i think thar was synagogs and heason worship long before Christ time but non of them perfect but Christ was building up what will be the true church that will be the bride the lams wife will have part in the first reserection they will be maid immortal they are the only ons that will be. 

they will be maid spirt being they with thir lord will gug the world and gug angels all so thar will be 144000 thousand of them the bible ses fear not litel flock it is your fathers good pleasure to give yo the cingdon they are on trile to day but the world at larg is not on trile to day but will be on trile during the gugment day witch will be athousand year

then i think that al sin and pain misre and distress and anquish and deth itself all springs from that one penalty prenounced on adam when that is all settled then if we sin we will die for our own sin and not for adams transgressions 

well i cant give you the bible referenc on this yo are too far awa but if you study it well yo will finde it to be the case

well if you can send me brother rusels surman i will be glad or even his text read this carful 

from John N. Fox

 

John's grandson, Richard Fox wrote that when John N. Fox was a young man, the story was told me, he suffered extreme frostbite in his feet and lower extremities. As he aged the circulation to the feet and legs dried up and his legs turned black with gangrene. (I hope you are not squeamish as some of the family's history is a little gruesome.) His limbs were actually decaying beneath him. I don't know why they didn't amputate them but operations were extremely dangerous and expensive in those days. My mother told me that the rotting flesh would get maggots in it and that Isabelle would pour boiling water over his legs to kill them. He could not feel the hot water but he imagined he could feel the maggots. The maggots probably would have rid him of the putrefied flesh but he wouldn't have known that. One doesn't have to imagine the agony the poor man went through before he died.

John died at age 74 on January 2, 1914 in Chariton, Lucas County, Iowa of "sapremia gangrene of the feet" and was buried in Salem Cemetery with his wife, Isabelle and son Earl.

Mr. John N. Fox passed away at his home on East Armory Avenue in Chariton on Sunday morning, January 4th, 1914, at the age of seventy-four years, eleven months and twenty-six days, after an illness of several years' duration with gangrene of the foot and a complication of troubles. Funeral services, conducted by M. C. Lorimor, were held at the family home on Monday afternoon at 2 o'clock, after which the remains were laid to rest in the Salem cemetery.

John N. Fox was born in Ohio on January 9th, 1839. On January 6th,1863, he was united in marriage to Sarah Jane Rickey (sic), who died several years later. To this union seven children were born, six of whom are living. They are Mrs. Eliza Smith of Oklahoma; Mrs. Clara Woods, of Fairmont, Neb.; Mrs. Mae McKelvey, of Des Moines; Etta and Orpha, of Chariton, and Boney, of Oklahoma.

Mr. Fox was again married on April 9th, 1893, to Mrs. Isabella Shelton, who survives him. To them one son, Earl, of this city, was born. Mr. Fox was a good, Christian man, and bore his intense sufferings with a patience and fortitude that were remarkable. He had resided in Lucas county for many years, and was esteemed by all who knew him for his many excellent qualities. His demise will be mourned by a host of friends who will extend sincere sympathy to the surviving relatives.          

 

Postcard John wrote to his grandson, John Elmer Smith when his first daughter, Hazel was born in 1910.

            John N. Fox passed away at his home, Sunday morning, Jan. 4, 1914, after an extended illness of about twelve years. The greater part of this time he suffered intensely with blood poison. His feet became infected, and he had not been able to take a step for more than ten years, losing one foot entirely a short time since. He was taken to the Methodist hospital in Des Moines, several years ago, hoping to be benefited but it baffled the skill of the physicians there and seemed nothing could be done to alleviate his sufferings.

 

Obituary:

 

The deceased was born in the state of Indiana, Jan. 9th, 1839, and had he lived five days longer would have reached the age of 75 years. He came to Iowa, when young and was united in marriage to Sarah Jane Rickets, January 6, 1863.

To this union were born seven children, Mrs. Eliza Smith of Wright, Minn., Mrs. Clara Woods of Fairmont, Nebr., Mae McKelvy (sic) of Des Moines, Etta O'Day of Davenport, Bomie Fox of Bush Head, Oklahoma; Orpha of Chariton, and Merritt, who died in 1908. His wife died Nov. 18, 1885. He was again married April 9, 1893, to Mrs. Isabella Shleton. To this union one son was born, Earl, who remained at home. Mr. Fox came to this state in an early day and was one of the pioneers of this county.            

He was a good Christian man, and had his fellowship in the church of the Millennial Dawn. Funeral services were held from the home Monday afternoon, conducted by M. C. Lorimor, and the remains interred in the Salem cemetery. Mrs. Mae McKelvey (sic) of Des Moines and Mrs. Clara Woods of Fairmont, Nebr., were the only children from a distance able to be present. (obituary found by Frank Myers in an old family scrapbook)

 

Will of John N. Fox

I, John N. Fox, of the town of Chariton and state of Iowa of the age of sixty-five years and being of sound mind and disposing memory to make declare and publish this my last will and testament and hereby revoke all former wills by me made in the manner following. 

To - Wit: I desire that all my just debts and funeral expenses be first paid. I devise and bequeath to my wife Issabelle Fox all my property both personal and real, of whatever kind that I may own at the time of my death, in addition to what she may be entitled to by law, to have and to hold for her own use during the term of her natural life. On the death of my said wife Issabelle Fox, I desire that the property both personal and real go to my son, Earl Fox, to have in fee simple as his own property.  

In witness whereof I have hereto attached my signature this sixth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and four.  

signed John N. Fox      

Russell's Newspaper Sermons

Sometimes all we have to do is wait

One of the already completed chapters for volume 2 is entitled Advertising the Message. We discuss a special edition of Plan of the Ages published in 1891. We put some considerable effort into finding a copy of the title page, abandoning that over a library fee of twenty-five dollars and six dollars postage. Herewith is the book ....

 

 

 

William Morris Wright

Visitors to the United Cemeteries (chartered originally as Rosemont, Mount Hope and Evergreen United Cemeteries in 1905) will usually investigate the special area featuring a pyramid and the nearby grave of Charles Taze Russell. However, higher up the hill, across a small road, can be found an area that is also of interest. The photograph is taken from there and shows the obelisk for William Morris Wright, born in Ohio October 15, 1848, and died on April 3, 1906.

Wright wrote to CTR in 1887 on the subject of “coming out of Babylon” (see reprints 983). CTR’s detailed response prompted a further letter (reprints page 996) where Wright had now had his name taken off his original Congregational Church roll.

At the time of his death, Wright, originally from Ohio, had been part of the Bible House family in Pittsburgh for eight years. His death certificate gives his occupation as insurance adjuster. He was one of the trustees of the original cemetery company on its incorporation in 1905, and thereby one of the first to sadly require its services.

The nature of the obelisk was to allow other family names to be added in due course, but only Wright’s name is on the base. The other three sides are blank, which strongly suggests the family were ultimately buried elsewhere. Wright was married and according to a brief obituary in the Pittsburgh Press for April 4, 1906 had four adult sons at the time of his death.

His Watch Tower obituary (found in reprints page 3765) mentions that he was also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.

Note: He is not to be confused with James Dennis Wright, one of the Society directors at the time of CTR’s death.

Identity

We need to identify the author of this poem which appeard in Zion's Watch Tower in the 1880s.

 

I searched through the 1881-81 (there was no Newark city  directory for 1880) looking for any women with the initials  A.M.B. I only found one, Anna M. Bennett, widow of Uzal O. [Bennette], residing at 422 Plane Street in Newark. There  are about fifty other women whose initials could be A.B.  (i.e. their first names began with A, their last names began  with B, and the directory did not give a middle initial).

 
 Very truly yours,
 Larissa Brookes, Librarian

Oh the things one finds:

Anna M. Pennington married Uzal Bennett (Bennette) on July 5, 1840, in Essex County New Jersey. Uzal was born in New Jersey in 1813 and died October 1849. He is burried in Newark. Anna appears to have been a long-suffering woman. In July 1841, Uzal was sued for seducing a young girl and ordered to pay$2500 to the girl's mother. It was a huge sum in 1841. We do not have a death date for Anna.

Isn't history fun!


Jones divorce records.

We are unable to pay for these. Total cost is $49.00.

Can you help?

            We need solid biographical information for John Judkins Jones, a physician in Indiana in the 1880s. Anyone?

           Drawing public attention to A Separate Identity is a struggle. If you like our book, leave a review on the Lulu book page. Show it to your friends; tell everyone  you know about it. Please help.

Very Sad News

"Ton," who you know from this blog and who contributed endlessly to our project has died. We are profoundly sad. We wish his family every comfort and blessing.

Rachael
Bruce

The Cleansing Wave (Crimson Wave)

Quoted by Russell in the September 1880 issue of Zion's Watch Tower

another bit from chap 2

Communion

            The timing and nature of the Lord’s Evening Meal became an issue between the annual celebrations of 1880 and 1881. G. M. Myers faulted Russell and others for the memorial dates they advocated. We discuss this in more detail later in this chapter. Others objected too. Russell discussed this in the May 1881 Zion’s Watch Tower:

A number of letters received seem to indicate that the occasion was very generally celebrated among the scattered “twos and threes” “of this way.” We presume that it was celebrated in about twenty places. All who wrote expressed the feeling of solemnity and appropriateness, attaching to the celebration on the anniversary, rather than at any other time. One or two brethren questioned the date announced – suggesting that by the almanac it would fall on the 12th instead of the 14^th of April. To these we reply that the calendars in most almanacs are arranged upon astronomical calculations and are seldom exactly in harmony with the Jewish methods, which seem to be based on the eyesight. Some almanacs publish the Jewish calendar, and we used it in ascertaining when the “14th day of the first month,” Jewish time, would come. The moon is used to symbolize The Law or Jewish nation, which reached its full at the time of Jesus' presence, but began to wane when he gave them up and died. The moon was at its full on the 14th of April and began to wane; this seems to agree with the Jewish calendars and therefore we observed that time.  

One sister wrote expressing disapproval, and asks, Why not go back to the Law in everything as well as in keeping the Passover? Our sister is in haste; we did not suggest the observance of the Passover as instituted by The Law, but the observance of “The Lord's Supper” instead of it. Nor did we suggest this as a law, believing that “Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” (Rom. 10:4, and 7:6). But who will say that we may not celebrate the death of our Lamb on the anniversary, for, “as often as ye do this, ye do show forth the Lord's death.” 

            Most of those who transitioned from being Bible Examiner readers to Watch Tower readers were familiar with Russell’s reasoning, though not necessarily agreeing with it. 

Position of Women 

            The propriety of women preachers seems not to have been discussed by the Allegheny believers before 1876. Advent Christians allowed women preachers. Others did not. The question came to Russell in early 1881. Someone asked him to “please explain 1 Cor. 14:34. Let the women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but let them be under obedience as also saith the law.” Russell answered: 

It is not for us to say why, when God gives no reasons. Neither can we tell why Jesus sent none of the noble and good women who believed on him to preach, when he sent first the twelve and then the seventy before his face. However, much may be said of good accomplished by women in the temperance cause, etc., we nevertheless believe that this scripture has never been disregarded with impunity. We believe woman to be a type of the church, and man the type of Christ the head of the church, and we might draw the lesson that we, the spouse of Christ, are not to dispute or instruct in the church, but listen to the voice of our Head – give ear to his word.       

            His answer did not quiet the issue, and it was raised again in May 1881. Russell was confronted with this question: 

Bro. Russell: How do you interpret Phil. 4:3. "I entreat thee with me in the gospel...whose names are in the book of life." And Acts 1:14: "All continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women." And 1 Cor. 11:5: "Every woman that prayeth or prophesieth (teaches)?" 

            Russell’s reply probably disappointed Advent Christian and Life and Advent Union adherents who approved of women evangelists, but he took a more liberal position than many in that era. He said: 

We understand these scriptures to teach, that women did a work in the apostles' days which was approved and appreciated by them and by the Lord. Yet we believe that women usually spoke only at the smaller gatherings, and that when Paul said "Let the women keep silence in the [congregations,] he probably had reference to the public gatherings, at which it was the custom to have more or less of a debate. In these public debatings, Paul thought a woman's voice would be out of place, and this is the opinion of most thinking men and women to-day, though we think that it has by many been carried to an extreme, forbidding them to pray or teach on any occasion, even in more private assemblies of Christians, and this we regard as an error. 

God has arranged that the man and woman are representative of Christ and his Bride the church, and this rule by which the husband is the head of the wife is always maintained in scriptures. (Though there are exceptions to the rule in nature.) And probably this is one reason, that men have always been given the more active and public work of the ministry and women more the work of assisting and more private teaching, yet equally as acceptable to God. So Christ is the active agent in carrying out his own plan. He is the great minister of all, and we as His church do a lesser part and yet an acceptable part, well pleasing to God.

            Issues surrounding women’s rights and responsibilities would persist, fueled by the woman’s suffrage movement, and by Russell’s distorted view of marriage. Russell believed the phrase “and the two will become one flesh” meant that the woman’s personality was subsumed into her husband’s. While we consider this issue in chapter [#], most of this discussion is more appropriate to the third book in this series. All we need notice now is that this issue persisted; that it was aggravated by a less than Biblical view of women and by attitudes common in the era. Even Russell noted this, though we think unintentionally, when he wrote: “This is the opinion of most thinking men and women to-day, though we think that it has by many been carried to an extreme” Russell’s comment reveals a conflicted view of authority. Thinking men and women among his contemporaries were persuasive authority when they agreed with him. They were not when they held a contrary opinion. 

Ango-Israeliteism  

            George Storrs believed the Anglo-Israelite theory. We discussed it in volume one, which you should review. Despite a modern denial by a one-time Abrahamic Faith writer, the belief that the “lost tribes” of Israel were Anglo-Saxon peoples was pervasive among One Faith/Age-to-Come believers, so it isn’t surprising that the issue came Russell’s way. Citing verses from Galatians and Romans, Russell observed: “Abraham was the father of two seeds, the children of the flesh [twelve tribes of Israel] and the children of promise, [faith], of which two seeds Ishmael and Isaac were types.” The promises belong only to the spiritual seed, “the children of promise.” So it didn’t matter if the English, the Germans, and Americans were somewhere under the skin Israelites: 

We know not whether the people of these United States and of England are the natural, fleshly descendants of Israel or not. It could make no difference as regards the spiritual “prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus.” If they are, and were made to know it, the effect of those earthly promises would probably be to blind them to the spiritual prize as it did the others, 1800 years ago. If they are of the natural seed, they will receive grand blessings in the coming age, after the spiritual seed has been exalted to glory and power; as it is written. “They shall obtain mercy (God's promised blessings) through your mercy” (through the spiritual seed.) – Rom. 11:31.

Still working ...

I posted rough draft material from what will be (unless the outline changes) chapter two in the next volume. Here's a bit of update. This concerns Russell's vist to Berwick PA.

            Letters published in the Berwick area newspapers give us some insight into what interest was found there. In volume one, we presented Russell’s views on the state of the Christian church. He saw the church as divided into two classes – true, committed Christians and “the merely nominal Christian who is such because it is essential to respectability … but who is restive, even under the modified restraint which the church exacts, and desires to bring the church down to the level of a “social club’ composed of the respectable of society.” Russell framed this into a prophetic scheme, but the same observation distressed other committed Christians.

            While there was a secularization of religion in this era, there was another shift that Russell and others found as disturbing. Russell’s theology was based on Redemption doctrines. Redemption doctrine is belief in Adamic sin and consequent depravity of the human race. Darwinian evolution suggested to many that men were progressing. That human efforts were improving the race pervaded religious and secular thought. Proliferating invention, new and novel ideas (many of which would be discredited within a decade or so), gave many the impression that humanity was improving. They confused inventiveness and cleverness for improvement. This left Russell and others with conflicted attitudes. Watch Tower adherents looked for signs that the millennium had begun. Inventions provided those. They rejected the idea of progress without remission of sins, but many sought it outside of or within religious and quasi-religious movements. This manifested in a number of ways, among them Christian Socialism, the labor movement, Christian utopian and social service organizations. Conservative religious rejected the “social gospel” as contrary to the “divine plan.”

            Residents of Berwick noted the secularization of religion and were as distressed as was Russell. The Columbia County Democrat printed a letter addressing the issue in its September 24, 1864, issue. The writer, noted only as “William,” objected to the politicization of religion in the Methodist Church. During the Civil War this was, as we noted in volume one, also an issue for Pittsburgh residents.  William visited the Methodist congregation “hoping to hear the word of god expounded according to the laws laid down in the Holy Bible.” Instead, “to the utter shame and disgrace of the Christian community,” he heard a political “stump-speech, too offensive to be uttered in the house of God.” It was “still more outrageous” that the minister expressed his political opinions on the Sabbath, “which should be devoted to the praise of God, and not to political affairs.” The hymn was a patriotic song, not a religious one.

            Though he expressed it as religious outrage, the issue for William was his contrary political belief. He was a Copperhead. He wanted Lincoln out of office and McClellan elected. The minister was a Republican. William called the minister a “political negro head.” While William came at the problem of secularization from a different perspective than Russell’s, his letter tells us that secularization was an issue in Berwick.

            Casual sexuality was also an issue. The March 6, 1871, issue of the Montour American, published in nearby Danville, Pennsylvania, editorialized: 

We know several parties who have a habit, in church, as well as elsewhere, of keeping up a continual cooing to the thorough disgust of everybody about them. If they, like Armand and Heloise, think themselves consecrated to the “artful god,” whose arrows have stuck deep in their soft hearts, they should stay home and enjoy their faith, and not parade it in public places to annoy and disturb the more high-minded.

Blog Comments

Comments on this blog should be relevant. Those that aren't will not appear.

R. Wakefield

He is sometimes noted as R. W. in Zion's Watch Tower. We need a full biography. We think he was born about 1830. He seems to have died before 1900. He wrote to newspapers promoting his beliefs. He was an Adventist before adopting Watch Tower belief. He seems to have become an Adventist in the 1850s. He lived in Newark, New Jersey in the 1880s.

We really know nothing at all.

Making Connections

            One definition of intelligence is the ability to make connections. Someone with a higher level of intelligence makes them in  more complex, more minute ways than others do. Sometimes this definition makes me feel stupid.

            A historian’s success depends on making connections – connecting event with event, people with people and people with events. Sometimes those things sit in front of me and I don’t see them until my slow moving brain clicks.

            That happened today. The click was audible. (That might be an exaggeration, but it’s not much of one.)

            In volume one of A Separate Identity we identify a “W. W. F.” with Walter F. Fahnestock, a Pittsburgh hardware merchant. It’s a solid identification, and in its context just an interesting detail. But we peruse identities when we can. We were successful with that.

            In volume two (writing in progress) we discuss a Joseph J. Bender. He’s on the obscure side, even if we know some things about him. To retrieve an obscure fact, I reread the chapter in which he appears. And lo! Joseph J. Bender worked for Fahnestock White Lead Company. Now we know Bender’s most probable rout of entry into the Watch Tower movement.

            This illustrates why details are important, and it illustrates why sending us things you may see as of no significance is important.

 

            Some probable connections are beyond testing. If you read A Separate Identity, Volume 1, you will remember the newspapers saying Wendell ran off with a girl named Terry. (You remember that, right?) We see a probable connection and more reasonable explanation of events in the suggestion that this was one of the daughters of the Terry family. They hosted the 1873 assembly of those waiting for Christ that fall or winter. We’ve never found enough documentation to confirm this. One of you may be more adept at that than we’ve been.

Addenda to previous post

The previous post isn't about this blog, but the private, invitation only blog. We have no plans to shut this one down. The private blog seems to have outlived its usefulness. It would be simpler to send what we post there to the few truly interested. This blog isn't at issue.

Has anyone read ...

Has anyone read the post on the private blog? Seems to me that it's worth at least one comment.

Bruce and I expend a considerable amount of work and personal treasure to research Watch Tower history. While we know this is a "low-interest" subject, it seems to me that at least one out of all those who have reading privileges there would say something.

The private blog exists so those with more than usual interest can see more deeply into our current research and contribute at least a comment. If no-one comments, then there is no reason for it to continue. Up to you, folks.

What can you do? Try this:

1. If there is something you don't understand, ask a question. We won't know we've confused you unless you say so.

2. If you know something relevant, tell us. Don't presume we know or have something. We might, of course, but we might not. It takes little effort to tell us about something.

3. You like a bit of our research as posted on blog 2? Tell us you like it and why. It helps us to know why you might like something we wrote. We pursue areas where others make comments. Sometimes that opens up an entirely new area. Sometimes it leads to a blank wall. But better to know what interests our readers than not know.

4. Do your own research. Share it, especially if you find something new or different or see something in a new light. A recent conversation with a professor of history at a nearby university (she's part of a meet for coffee group) has led us to reassess the phrase "secularization" as it relates to late 19th Century western culture. It won't result in a huge change to volume 2, but it will make a change, and make things clearer. She's writing a book. She shared elements of her research over lemon cake and coffee. Her casual comments helped. You can do that too.