Picture

We need a volunteer in the New York City area who is willing to visit the police archive and check for a criminal record (and photo) from 1896. Anyone?

We need a volunteer

We need a volunteer who lives near Columbia, South Carolina, who is willing to visit USC and turn pages in an archive.

Anyone?

You can help

You can help us by recommending our blog to others. You can help us by leaving a favorable review on the book site from which you bought our books. There is one very positive review on Amazon. We know we’ve sold more than one copy on Amazon. If you like our book leave a review.

If you participate in other Internet forums where Watch Tower history is a topic of interest, point people to our books and to this blog.

We are researching some hard to follow areas. We need material about congregations formed before 1910. We need letters and photos relevant to the period. Even those you may see as insignificant will help.

End of Chapter on Food for Thinking Christians

Raw, unedited. But here it is:

Of those prominent in the work up to 1881, Paton’s name is conspicuously absent from the list of those circulating Food for Thinking Christians. He is mentioned in passing as active in Michigan and, Russell “presumed,” busy writing for the first issues of Zion’s Day Star. Paton was already surrendering to Universalism, something that had appealed to him from his youth, and he was uncomfortable with the lead Russell had taken. This is best detailed in another chapter.

Samuel T. Tackabury entered the work in March 1882. He had been “a member until now of the M.E. Conference.”[1] Tackabury was a new convert, one of the few ministers convinced by Food for Thinking Christians and other Watch Tower publications. He forwarded his ministerial credentials along with his resignation from the Methodist Episcopal ministry and from the M. E. denomination to church authorities, and it is duly noted in The Minutes and Official Journal of the New York Conference.[2] He had been active in the Methodist ministry at least from the mid 1860’s,[3] resigning his charge in 1877 because of chronic ill health. Early in his Methodist Episcopal ministry, he supported himself as a “dairyman and farmer.”[4]

He returned to the ministry later and was, at the time he was introduced to Watch Tower teachings, pastor of the newly-formed Methodist Episcopal Church in Pierre, South Dakota, and serving a congregation in Ohio.[5] Because of continued fragile health, his missionary activity was short-lived, and he fulfilled his mission by “preaching the blessed gospel by letter and otherwise to many of the scattered saints.”[6] Tackabury died August 5, 1888, of “consumption,” that is tuberculosis.[7] According to the 1870 Census he was born about 1832. By February 1883, Tackabury was back in Ohio.

Entering active Watch Tower evangelism at the same time were two individuals noted only by their last names: “We may also count among the public preachers Bro. Graves, who for many years has been not only a ‘commercial traveler,’ but a railroad train preacher[8] and tract distributor. He is rejoicing in the shining present truth, and has done good in preaching it, distributing ‘Food’ during the past six months. Bro. Boyer will, for the present, remain in Pittsburgh, where he will do some mission work among his numerous friends and former co-laborers in the temperance work, meantime giving much time to the study of the Word which is able to make us wise; preparing himself thus for more public work. While in good health he held meetings in western parts of New York State.”[9]

William Boyer, an English immigrant, was born June 30, 1823, in Warrington, Lancashire, to Samuel and Jane Boyer. A brief biographical note says:

 

He worked in a chemical laboratory until he came to the United States in 1846. He located in Dane County, Wis., coming out with what was then known as the “British Temperance Emigration Society,” which soon broke up. Mr. Boyer purchased a farm, and has followed this occupation, living in Wisconsin until January 1867, when he came to Iowa, purchasing 245 acres of fine land …. Mr. Boyer and all his family are members of the M. E. Church, in which he is a local deacon and supplies the Orchard Circuit. He has held many of the township offices and is at present one of the Trustees. He votes the republican ticket. He is one of the substantial and reliable men of Floyd County.[10]

 

Nothing is known of his conversion to Watch Tower theology or of any subsequent ministry. He was, however, involved in organizing believers in the United Kingdom into fellowships, “writing letters of introduction wherever two or more reside in one town.”[11]

He is not the same as the “gentleman” who in 1887 ran away with a fifteen year old girl from Reading, Pennsylvania. While it would make for an interesting story, the facts do not fit him. Boyer served as a sergeant in Company F of the 15^th Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry. He was severely wounded in the neck at Corinth Mills, and this may account for the health issues mentioned by Russell.[12]

There is circumstantial evidence that “Bro. Graves” was John Temple Graves. If so, his association with Zion’s Watch Tower was brief. By 1910 he was espousing the cause of the American Peace Society. An article appearing in the June 11, 1910, New York Times quoted Graves as saying: “I was a traveling lecturer for many years between Pittsburg [sic] and Omaha … I dealt in natural gas and carried my fixtures.”[13] That John Temple Graves is the “Bro. Graves” of Zion’s Watch Tower remains speculative, but we think a good indicator is his connection to N. H. Barbour. In 1903 Graves invited Barbour to speak at a conference on the “mob spirit in America.” Graves, who became a well known writer and lecturer, was moderator at that conference.[14]

 

photo here

John Temple Graves –Library of Congress Photo.

 

            While Russell recounted the efforts of others, he did not chronicle his own. Only one example of his personal evangelism using Food for Thinking Christians and Tabernacle Teachings exists. Russell admired Joseph Cook, a well known writer and lecturer.[15] Cook, a Congregationalist clergyman from Boston, held views of social issues that paralleled Russell’s, and he supported “vicarious atonement” beliefs that were similar to Russell’s own. Russell wrote that Cook was “justly celebrated for his able defense of the Bible and its author, God, against the attacks of Atheists and Infidels.”[16] Russell also published an extract from Cook’s Monday Lectures: Fifth Series in the September 1880 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower.[17] Cook returned from a widely publicized “around the world” tour in November 1882, lecturing in various places. Russell sought him out, probably sometime in 1884, gifting him with the two booklets.

            Russell extracted from another publication a short paragraph suggesting that Cook accepted some form of “second probation,” republishing the comment in The Watch Tower. The article said: “Rev. Joseph Cook, in one of his lectures, declared that no living man knows anything about the theory of probation, and expressed an opinion that the charitable view of the question was, that probation after death would be granted those who failed to accept the gospel in this life.”[18] This misrepresented Cook, but it was probably what prompted Russell to seek a meeting with him. Johnson believed that a strongly worded sermon rejecting the second probation doctrine of Dr. August Dorner, a German theologian, was really directed against Russell. Johnson also claimed that Cook prevented Russell from lecturing at “the conventions of many churches.” A review of Cook’s Occident does not reveal any mention of Russell, though Dorner’s theology is in this one area similar to Russell’s. While we cannot disprove Johnson’s claims, our research does not sustain them.

            P. S. L. Johnson elaborates an entire conversation between Russell and Cook that we find difficult to credit. The basic story is that Russell presented Cook with the booklets and Cook promised to read them. Johnson claimed that Cook had previously read other material from Russell, and it is very probable that Russell sent him tracts and sample copies of Zion’s Watch Tower. Cook believed Russell to be under-educated and did not endorse Russell’s doctrine. All the other matter presented by Johnson seems to be contrived to fit his hyper-allegorical, prophetic view of Watch Tower history.[19]

 

photo here

Joseph Cook

 

By January 1886, Maria Russell could report that “at present there are about three hundred colporteurs at work in the vineyard earnestly laboring for the good of their fellow beings and for the ‘well done’ of the Master, disseminating these publications.” She wondered why more hadn’t taken up the work “We should each ask himself,” she wrote, “What am I doing to herald the blessed gospel which did so much for my own heart? How am I manifesting to God my appreciation of his grace?”[20]

 

Interviews

 

Newspaper reporters sought out Russell for interviews. Many of the articles were short and of no lasting interest. Some few give us a fair picture of Russell and his message. The New Philadelphia, Ohio, Democrat ran an interview with Russell that’s of particular interest. Russell pointed to growing labor unrest as a sign that the “time of trouble” was upon them. He mentioned no specific event, but there was no need. 1882 saw endless unrest in the mine fields of the west and Cumberland. In its May 2, 1884, issue The New York Times reported on no less than seven strikes, one that included threats of violence; so there was no need for Russell to pinpoint one specific event.[21]  The article, except the last paragraph, was largely fair:

 

Rather a new construction is put upon the signs of the times by Mr. C. T. Russell, of Pittsburgh, who is a leader of what he calls the “Christians,” and who do not belong to any denomination and are not Second Adventists. He says we are now in the thirty-seven years that will precede the reign of universal peace, but that until 1915 disaster and revolution are to be expected.

 

“What evidences are there that we are in these years of trouble that precede the millennium?” he was asked

 

“Look at the condition of affairs all over the world. Labor and capital are massing themselves, nations are trembling and the whole outlook tends to strengthen our position. God moves by natural means, and this uprising of labor against capital is the result of the diffusion of knowledge among the masses causing them to rise against oppression of all kinds, political and social.”

 

“This thirty-seven years, then, will be filled with trouble such as the world has never known?” said a reporter.

 

“Yes, sir. This period is the day of the Lord, we think in which society shall be disintegrated, and kingdoms and governments, as such, pass away.”

 

He thinks the Nihilists and Communists are forerunners of the storm, and that Church and State will go down in the “maelstrom.” His predictions of revolutions he bases on Scripture reading, as follows:

 

“Do you consider the present aspect of affairs between labor and capital indicative of great trouble in the future?” was asked.

 

“There will be more trouble, and there will be eventually a terrible struggle for supremacy with all the dire results consequent upon such a struggle, and I think the scriptures predict it. Among other passages read James V. 1-5” 

 

            The article quoted James 5:1-5 in full, but ended with the observation: “And thus the cranks do multiply, and the people imagine a vain thing, seek, in the supernatural, the explanation of social disturbances, which arise from purely economic causes.”[22]

            To prompt more interest a tract usually referenced as The Minister’s Daughter was issued as a supplement to the June 1882 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower. It reprinted John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem. On the reverse was a message entitled “True and Righteous Are Thy Ways, ‘Lord God Almighty.’”  

 

Analysis

 

Because of their much wider circulation the Bible Students Tracts and Food for Thinking Christians filled a place that Day Dawn failed to fill. Paton’s book circulated in very small number, mostly among those already interested or within the Second Adventist community. The tracts and later booklet based on them, Food for Thinking Christians, circulated widely among those not previously exposed to Watch Tower teaching. It drew interest from outside the Second Adventist community.

A few decades later Harris Franklin Rall, professor of Systematic Theology at Garrett Biblical Institute, Evanston, Illinois, presented an analysis of Watch Tower teachings. Without commenting directly on either Food or the tracts, he suggested that it was rooted in First Century Christianity or at least in an attempt to reclaim primitive Christianity. His review was somewhat critical, because he felt Christianity had evolved beyond its Chiliastic roots:

 

A different influence was that working outside the great churches and appearing in the smaller separatist groups. These were the modern successors of the more radical circles of the Reformation period. In the first half of the nineteenth century there appeared in England the Irvingites and Plymouth Brethren, in this country the Adventists under Miller. Other movements appeared [including] Millennial Dawnism … Common to them all is the thought of a millennial kingdom to be established upon earth in some special manner. Certain other elements constantly recur, though not always present in any one instance: a verbal theory of inspiration, a frequent recourse to type and allegory, … and the sharp criticism of the established churches and opposition to them. The emphasis upon a biblical and legalistic literalism is often joined with an attempt to reproduce primitive Christianity.  … In its fundamental point of view as a theology and as a program of salvation, modern premillennialism represents Jewish apocalypticism. It despairs of this age and looks to some sudden and unexpected deed of omnipotence to overthrow the old, and establish a new world. It has the same extreme emphasis upon divine sovereignty and the same fatalistic conception of world history.  …

 

It is important, as we turn to a detailed study of modern premillennialism, that we shall not only recognize how it is connected with the past, but also the peculiar character which it has to-day. The change that has taken place will appear if we contrast this modern movement with the chiliastic hopes that were held in many parts of the church in the first two centuries. The early Christians lived in a hostile world, governed by forces that were always frankly pagan and sometimes threatened their very existence. They saw no hope for deliverance except by the destruction of the whole world-order. They believed that the age was near its end. In the midst of this darkness they felt that the Lord would speedily return and deliver them. They had no plans for the future because they did not expect any future. …

 

Modern premillennialism faces a radically changed situation. It has to deal with the fact that nineteen centuries have passed, that several score generations have come and gone since that early day. It cannot ignore the fact that there is such a thing as a long Christian history for which some sort of meaning must be found. And unless it turns again to discredited calculations and fixing of dates, it must realize that there may still be long centuries and even millennia ahead of us here in this earth. The time is past when it can merely quote a passage and voice a hope. And so modern chiliasm differs radically from the simple and unreflective hope of that early day. It is no mere expectation of the speedy second coming of Christ. It is no mere teaching as to the order of certain events. It has of necessity become an elaborate system of doctrine, a complete outline of theology. It is an interpretation of Christianity claiming to give alone its true meaning. In Judaism and early Christianity these hopes were expressed with a certain freedom, marked with feeling and imagination, with no suggestion of logic and system. Modern premillennialism has become scholastic system, with rigid forms of thought and endless elaboration of doctrine.[23]

 

            Though Rall is critical, he saw “Millennial Dawnism” as an attempt to return to Christian (and Jewish) roots. He accurately describes the Watch Tower movement as a rejection of the world in favor of a clearly defined relationship to God and as a protest against the laxity and deflection of contemporary churches.

The claim to “truth” disturbed Rall and others for several reasons. Any claim to advanced understanding of “truth” calls into question those who do not hold the same views. No one likes to be questioned, though probing beliefs is an essential to solid faith. Finding themselves defined as lacking led many to an uncritical rejection of Watch Tower theology. It was a rare critique that addressed Watch Tower belief in a solidly Biblical way. The few criticisms that did address issues in that way probably number less than a dozen. Of those critical of Food for Thinking Christians, none address its doctrines with a clearly presented Biblical refutation.

Also, the claim to advanced light turned into a cudgel in the hands of the unkind and stupid and led to severe and un-analytic rejection of Watch Tower teachings. The two most dramatic examples come from the years immediately following those we’re considering. Briefly told, a number of pugnacious Watch Tower evangelists caused harm to the movement by their aggressive behavior. One got himself arrested for a disturbance outside a Pittsburgh church and another disrupted a religious assembly to hand out protest tracts not produced by the Watch Tower.[24]

One Twentieth Century writer suggests that Food for Thinking Christians is Russell’s most important book. In that it was the first wide-spread dissemination of Watch Tower teachings, this is true. Criticisms such are Rall’s and those of more modern anti-sect writers ignore or diminish the significance of the long history of Historicist interpretation of prophecy. A more thorough going Biblical discussion would have benefited all parties. It simply did not occur in any meaningful way.

What did occur was an increase of resignations from former church affiliation on the part of newly converted Watch Tower adherents. Russell printed one such letter in the December 1881, Watch Tower. Written by a woman to her congregation of sixteen years, it was a plain statement of the essentials of Watch Tower teaching:

 

Believing that we are in the harvest of the Gospel Age as spoken of in Matt. 13:30, when the reapers are separating the wheat from the tares, which the Lord has permitted to grow together during the age, and also that the nominal church of all denominations is represented by the wheat and tares in the field-- in which both have been growing, and that its mixed condition of worldly-mindedness and lukewarm Christianity is displeasing in the sight of our Lord, I have … concluded to sell all that I once found dear--my reputation and my friends if need be--my time, my talents, my means, my all.

 

This mixed condition of truth and error, worldliness and lukewarmness, etc., I believe to be the Babylon described in Rev. 18, in which are still some of the Lord’s dear children. To all such he says, (vs. 4) “Come out of her my people that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”

 

In obedience to this command, I ask to have my name taken off the list of membership of the nominal church. It is written in the Lamb’s book of life and that is enough.

 

In withdrawing my name I do not withdraw my affections from you, but would if I could have you all “as ripened wheat,” gathered into the barn – condition of safety, rather than bound with the bundles of tares for the burning – with the “fire of God’s jealousy.”

 

Let me urge you each to a deeper consecration and a more thorough searching of the Scriptures.

 

Others separated from their pervious church affiliation forming de facto congregations in cities where more than one shared similar beliefs. The congregation in Albany, New York, dated its formation to 1881 and by implication the publication of Food for Thinking Christians. They called themselves “Believers in the Restitution,”[25] one of many names used by congregations of Watch Tower adherents.

---

[1]               View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, March 1882, page 1.

[2]               The Minutes and Official Journal of the New York Conference: Fifteenth Annual Session of the Central New York Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church held at Ithaca, New York, October 11-17, 1882, pages 24, 60. Earliest mention of his ministry within the M. E. Church I could find is in The Syracuse, New York, Journal, May 3, 1866, page 5.

[3]               Elliot G. Storke. History of Cayuga County, New York,  lists him as active in the ministry in 1864.

[4]               Hamilton Child. Gazetteer and Business Directory of Onondaga County, N. Y., for 1868-9.

[5]               His health issues are mentioned in Central New York Conference reports in the late 1870’s Pastor in Pierre, South Dakota: Hughes County History, Compiled and Arranged in the Office of County- Superintendent of Schools, Hughes County, South Dakota, 1937, page 115.  

[6]               A Word from Brother Tackabury, Zion’s Watch Tower, March 1888, page 1.

[7]               Brother Tackabury’s Death, Zion’s Watch Tower, August 1888, page 1. Tackabury was married twice. His first wife, Mary G. Watkins, died May 6, 1863. The marriage and her death are noted in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, January 1913, page 84. He married secondly Alice Force in Ohio. That marriage is noted in A Centennial and Biographical Record of Seneca County, Ohio, The Lewis Publishing Co, Chicago, 1902, page 439.

[8]               Christopher B. Coleman: Some Religious Developments in Indiana, Indiana Magazine of History, June 1909, describes a “railroad preacher” this way: The circuit rider and itinerant preacher, so necessary and useful in the early times, survives under different conditions in a less glorious service and with less effectiveness in the railroad preacher of the present, living in some central location and going to scattered congregations for preaching service on Sunday, and to funerals and weddings on week-days, stirring religious sentiment by periodic protracted meetings, but seldom vitally affecting the life of the community. – page 68.

[9]               View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, April 1882, page 1.

[10]             History of Floyd County, Iowa, Inter-State Publishing Co., Chicago, 1882, volume 2, page 795. The story of the British Temperance Emigration Society and Boyer’s place in it can be found in William Kittle: History of the Township and Village of Mazomanie, 1900, See chapter one.

[11]             Untitled Announcement, Zion’s Watch Tower, July 1882, page 1.

[12]             William Worth Belknap: History of the Fifteenth Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry, Keokuk, 1887, pages 208, 554, 594.

[13]             Commercial Men Get Divided Instruction, New York Times, June 11, 1910.

[14]             Mob Spirit in America, Chautauqua Press, 1903, page 23ff.

[15]             Cook was born January 26, 1838 in Ticonderoga, New York. He graduated from Harvard in 1865 and then studied for the ministry at Andover Theological Seminary. He moved to Boston in 1874, becoming famous for his Monday Lectures sponsored by the YMCA. His lectures drew upwards of 2500 people and earned him an enviable reputation as a speaker. He lectured through out the United States and in Europe. He died in 1901. His obituary is found in the January 26, 1901, New York Times.

[16]             C. T. Russell: Spiritualism, Zion’s Watch Tower, March 1881, page 2.

[17]             Joseph Cook: God the Director of Forces, Zion’s Watch Tower, September 1880, page 5. The extract is from Monday Lectures: Fifth Series, London Edition, 1880, page 21.

[18]             Untitled short article: Zion’s Watch Tower, February 1884, page 2.

[19]             P. S. L. Johnson: The Parousia Messenger, Philadelphia, 1938, pages 555ff, 575, 584. The Parousia Messenger – Vol. 2, Philadelphia, 1949, page 504. Joseph Cook, Occident, With Preludes on Current Events, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 1884.

[20]             M. F. Russell: Tract Fund Report, Zion’s Watch Tower, January 1886, page 2.

[21]             Labor Troubles, The New York Times, May 2, 1884.

[22]             Religious, The New Philadelphia, Ohio, Democrat, May 18, 1882.

[23]          H. F. Rall: Modern Premillennialism and the Christian Hope, Abingdon Press, 1920, pages 101-103.

[24]             There are two versions of Elmer Bryan’s arrest outside a church in Pittsburgh in 1889; one describes him as “mild mannered” and the other as pugnacious. The New York Evening Telegram April 1, 1889, is most favorable to Bryan. The Pittsburgh Dispatch, April 1 and April 6, 1889, paint the opposite picture. The Dispatch may have been swayed against Bryan by the social stature of John S. Slagle, “a well-known iron manufacturer.” Bryan accused Slagle of assault.

                S. I. Hickey disrupted a meeting of The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in New York City, handing out a self-published protest tract. He was ushered out of the church where the meeting was held and driven away by police. The story is told in The Pittsburgh Dispatch, May 18, 1889.

                Neither Bryan nor Hickey would remain within the Watch Tower organization. Bryan had a reputation for being hyper critical of others. He married one of von Zech’s daughters was sucked into von Zech’s complaints against Russell. Hickey had universalist leanings and eventually pursued that doctrine.

                Another aggressive Watch Tower evangelist was J. N Kleusch. In 1894 he was arrested and fined twenty-five dollars for threatening behavior. The Chicago Inter-Ocean reported: “In his missionary zeal Mr. Kleusch endeavored to force Mrs. Charles Manval to buy a tract entitled “Millennial Dawn.” When she refused to do so he began to threaten her and tell her the doom of backsliders. At this juncture, however Mr. Manval entered the house. He covered the missionary with a revolver, ordered him out of the house, and then swore out a warrant for his arrest. In the Police Court yesterday morning the missionary appeared as his own advocate and conducted his case in a novel manner. Hanging up a chart before Justice Quinn, he began to demonstrate to the court that the day of judgment was at hand. It required only a few moments for the Judge to become satisfied on this point, and he accordingly assessed the alleged missionary $25 and costs.” – See the January 16, 1894, issue.

[25]             His Second Coming: Believers in the Restitution Say Christ Will Come again in 1914, The Albany, New York, Evening Journal, May 28, 1900. There is no record of this group in contemporary issues of Zion’s Watch Tower. This article comprises the entire history of the Albany congregation before the 1890’s. In 1900 they met in the home of Fredrick Clapham at 288 First Street. The article is vague, and it is possible that instead of the congregation being formed that year, it was a reference to the formation of Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society. The actual quotation is: “The ‘Believers in the Restitution is a society organized in 1881. It is comparatively small in this city, but in several sections and in England, it is flourishing.

Blog visits have dropped off to nearly 0

I don't see a reason to keep this blog active if no one visits it. Do you?

Part of a chapter (Vol 2)

Food for Thinking Christians

            True to his word, Russell released the small paperbound book, Food for Thinking Christians, in August 1881. It reprinted Bible Students Tracts one through five and the Chart Supplement and contained some additional matter.[1]

The archive that owns relevant material has been reluctant to share it, and we have been unable to consult key documentation. But some documentation has come to us, and from it one can conclude that plans for a major tact distribution in the United States and United Kingdom were formulated at least by February 1881 with the formation of Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society as an unincorporated association.

As indicated in a pervious chapter, a handwritten document dated “February 1881” was drawn up and signed by the principals. Those signing the document – C. T. Russell, A. D. Jones, W. H. Conley and J. L. Russell – stated their belief that much good would be accomplished by a “judicious and thorough distribution of tracts” that would share their beliefs about God’s “plans.” They intended to target all the large cities of North America and the principal cities of Great Britain. This would require millions of tract-pages, thousands of dollars and thousands of distributors. They explained their belief that their money belonged to God from the day they gave themselves to him. The document was a commitment to finance the work.

Unless the widely circulated donation amounts found on various websites are derived from another document, they are in error. This document committed the four principals to significant (for 1881) amounts: Charles Russell committed to $7000.00; Albert Delmont Jones committed to $2000.00; William Henry Conley promised $4000.00; and Joseph L. Russell promised $1000.00. These amounts were to be paid in two payments. The first half was paid on signing and the remainder on demand after six months. The money was entrusted to C. T. Russell who in turn committed to keeping an open and accurate set of books.[2]

            Russell envisioned circulating at least three hundred thousand copies of the tract. That large number required contracts with more than one printing firm, and Russell contracted with firms in Columbus, Lockport, Philadelphia and New York City.[3] Contracts with delivery services, primarily American District Telegraphy Company, were let.

Though the Watch Tower Society is reluctant to release documentation, some details are known. Russell shepherded the monies donated for the tract work. Instead of using the paper provided by the printing firms with which he contracted, he provided them paper, buying it from the wholesale firm of Hand & Ellsworth. We don’t know the final figure, but there is a record of one payment of $2299.86.[4] R. H. Forestal Company of Philadelphia provided the paper for printing there. The cost was $1727.29. Russell contracted with various freight and mass mailing companies, electrotyping companies and printers. What little of the original ledger we’ve seen indicates that he sought the best prices. If Russell contracted in person, the publication and circulation of Food for Thinking Christians was an immense personal commitment.[5]

Russell personally contracted with the American District Telegraph Company instead of using one of the brethren in New York City or Newark as his agent. A newspaper report says: “Mr. C. T. Russell … dropped in upon the offices of the American District Telegraph Company in this city on Wednesday afternoon. He was turned over to Superintendent Jackson of the Circular Department. Mr. Russell said that he desired to have distributed 100,000 copes of the pamphlet. Mr. Russell said that he was going to different cities to engage people to distribute the pamphlets.”[6]

Several sources describe Russell as nearly six feet tall.[7] The Sun described the person who contracted with American District Telegraph messenger service as “medium-sized.”  Perceptions differ, but the Sun’s reporter was obviously more observant than other reporters were. Russell was five feet nine inches tall.[8]

Russell reported that A. D. Jones “gave valuable assistance in the tract distribution” in New York City and Newark.[9] We do not have more specifics. Russell explained that the tract was “distributed gratuitously at the church doors in all the largest cities of the United States and Great Britain by the messenger boys of the District Messenger Service on three successive Sundays and in the smaller towns through the mails.”[10]

In some of the smaller towns individual Watch Tower evangelists took charge of circulating the book. Some of this was organized from the Watch Tower office and some was volunteered. An instance of the last is found in a letter from a reader in Kansas: “I would like a few copies of ‘Food for Thinking Christians.’ I will treat and place each one as though it were pure gold..”[11]

A letter from Austintown, Ohio, dated January 16, 1882, reported: “‘Food for Thinking Christians,’ was duly received a few weeks ago, and I have carefully distributed the greater portion of them among such as would appreciate such teachings.”[12] In the June 1882 Watch Tower, Russell announced that “Bros. Leigh and Spears have started on a trip down the Ohio river in a small boat belonging to the latter. They purpose (D.V.) to visit all the river towns between here and Cincinnati or St. Louis, spending about a week at each. This will require all summer or longer.” The purpose of this trip was to circulate Food for Thinking Christians.

Identifying Leigh and Spears was difficult. The primary identifier is that they sailed from “here” or Pittsburgh. This suggests that they were residents of either Allegheny or Pittsburgh. The only Leighs in the city directories include an S. M. Leigh, a teacher at The House of Refuge, a home for juvenile offenders. Unfortunately, this is a “Miss S. M. Leigh,” thus not qualifying as “brother” Leigh.[13] A later directory lists a William Leigh, a waiter.[14]  The 1880 Directory lists a Valentine Leigh, a laborer. Other directories list a Samuel Leigh, a glass molder, and an E. C. Leigh, a student living on Federal Street.  The evidence points to Samuel Leigh.

Samuel Leigh connects to “Brother Spears” through a shared occupation.  The 1880/81 Directory lists a number of people with the last name “Spear” but only one with the name “Spears,” and thereby we might make the connection. James Spears was a glass cutter, living on Carson Street. It may be no more than coincidence that Samuel Leigh and James Spears worked in the same industry, but I am inclined to believe these are the two we seek. There isn’t enough evidence to say with surety. James Spears drops out of the directories not long after, either moving away or dying. As much as one wishes for more detail, it seems not to exist.

 [photo here]

The Ohio River at Cincinnati. Note the One Man Steam Launch.

Positive Response and Adverse Reaction

            Reaction to the tract was immediate and mixed. The Buffalo, New York, Daily Courier of August 19, 1881, commented: “Within a day or two past large numbers have been distributed in this city of a tract entitled ‘Food for Thinking Christians; Why Evil was Permitted, and Kindred Topics.’ … Its contents are of a character to command the attention of intelligent Bible students.”

            Others were far less commendatory. In Newark, New Jersey, the American District Telegraph Agency caused considerable confusion by prematurely dropping off bundles in front of churches and leaving them untended or asking that they be handed out to parishioners. The New York Sun reported that “men in carriages left packages containing 100 copies or more at the churches, with the request that they be given out to the people. At some churches they were distributed, but in most instances the sextons showed them to the ministers, and were told by the latter to keep them, which they did. At [South] Park Presbyterian Church the pamphlets were left on the stoop, and were then taken to the Second Precinct police station. No clergyman could find out from whom the pamphlets came.”[15]

[photo here]

South Park Presbyterian Church – Library of Congress Photo 

            At The House of Prayer, a “High Church” Episcopal parish, its rector Dr. Hannibal Goodwin[16] “intended to burn the books, but concluded he had no right to do so.”

Someone took the matter to The New York Sun which duly reported:  

Shortly before the close of the morning service in the House of Prayer, an Episcopal church in Newark, on Sunday morning, two men drove up to the church in a carriage and called the sexton out. They showed him about 300 small pamphlets and asked him to hand them to the people as they left the church. As tracts and pamphlets on church doctrine are frequently distributed in the church parish, Mr. Marshall, the sexton, consented to do what the men asked. He and a boy carried the pamphlets to the rear porch and laid them upon a chair.

 

The sexton then began to have misgivings, and as soon as the rector, the Rev. H. Goodwin, had passed from the church into the choir room the sexton showed him one of the books. Mr. Goodwin at once stopped their distribution, but not before about thirty had been carried away by the congregation. In the evening he referred to the matter in church, and said he would have the pamphlets burned. He asked that those that were carried away be also burned. They were filled, he added, with fanaticism and rank heresy.

 

Last evening Mr. Goodwin said the book was a conglomeration of strange views about evil, the resurrection, and various Scripture topics. He has heard that copies were left in a similar way at St. Paul’s and St. Stephen’s churches last Sunday, and that at the latter they fell into the hands of the people.[17]

 

When the messenger service boys showed up a week later to reclaim the books and circulate them as intended, he refused to give them up “until ownership was proved.” It was the only way of halting, at least temporarily, the circulation of material to which he objected. He made the affair part of his sermon that Sunday, August 14, 1881, saying that “he admired the zeal of the owners of the books and thought their impudence was grand.”

            The premature delivery caused difficulty elsewhere too. The messenger boys were rebuffed. The New York Sun reported that “at several churches they were told that there were no books there, and when they undertook to give them out at other churches they were hustled away, or ‘booted off,’ as some of them expressed it.”

Agustus M. Bergner[18] (spelled Burgner in the 1880 Census), one of the pillars of the infant Newark ecclesia, retrieved the books from the police station, returning them to circulation. A reporter from The New York Sun traced him to his residence: “He frankly said he had been engaged in circulating the pamphlets,” The Sun reported, “and was willing to talk on the subject.”

 

Being ushered into the dining room, this reporter ascertained that a religious meeting was in progress in the parlor. Mr. Bergner is about 40 years old, with a fair face and light hair and beard. He is of medium height and has clearly cut and rather handsome features.

 

“I belong,” he said, “to a company of Christians who have no common name. We are not Second Adventists, as has been inferred from the pamphlet, and we are not the ‘Holiness’ or ‘Higher Life’ sect. … We are opposed to the teaching of the churches on several points. What they teach about hell and immortality is nonsense. There is no hell. There will be eternal life for those who serve God; the wicked will also be resurrected and have a second probation during the millennium. But you can’t understand our doctrine unless you read the pamphlet; about which so much fuss is made. … To-day I went to the Park Presbyterian Church and the Belleville Avenue Congregational with 120 copies, and the people eagerly took every one. I went to the Park Presbyterian because of the minister’s audacity in putting them out on the stoop last Sunday without first reading one. … I am told that in the Sunday school of the Fifth Baptist Church the superintendent wrote on the blackboard: ‘Food for Thinking Christians. Take one,’ and the children received them.

 

 [photo here]

Hannibal Goodwin – Library of Congress Photo

 

            The Sun reported that six thousand copies had been sent out on August 7^th, with the misdirected delivery, and that twenty thousand more would be delivered at church doors in New York City on the 14^th. The Kingston, New York, Daily Freeman reported that 54,000, copies were distributed in the New York City and Newark area on the 14^th.[19]

            The controversy in Newark was picked up by other papers and reports of it, sometimes garbled, made their way into print far outside Newark. The Cleveland, Ohio, Leader carried a report as did The Chicago Tribune in its August 18, 1881, issue.

Puck, an American humor magazine, quipped: “Some tramps who got hold of one of the four hundred thousand copies of Food for Thinking Christians, were disgusted on opening the book to find no cold meat in it.”[20] Puck’s squib was spread through the press as well.[21] Another attempt at humor appeared in The Cheyenne Transporter, a semi-monthly published in Darlington, Oklahoma, “in the interest of Indian Civilization and Progress.” The September 10, 1881, issue reported: “A little girl accompanied her father to church in Bangor last Sunday. She is a bright child, but was unable to understand the tract presented to her when leaving the Church, entitled, ‘Food for Thinking Christians, Why Evil was Transmitted [sic] and Kindred Topics.’ The child was tired when she returned to her home and told her mother to take that ‘food’ (the tract) and give her some ‘milk.’”[22]

            The New York Daily Tribune of August 18^th carried a brief explanatory paragraph datelined Pittsburgh the day before saying: “‘Food for Thinking Christians’ – a free pamphlet, of which 400,000 copies have been distributed to all the principal churches of all the large cities, and which has excited widespread comment, some ministers fearing it was an infidel work – is a publication by a tract society of this city, and is designed to counteract infidel teachings and tendencies and to promote interest in and study of the Bible.”[23] With a snipe at clergy who demanded fees for every service, The Kingston, New York, Daily Freeman reported:

 

The gospel is remarkably free in Newark, New Jersey. Yesterday, as the people assembled at or dispersed from church, they were handed a pamphlet entitled “Food for Thinking Christians” … The pamphlet had been issued by an entirely new sect … which does not believe in hell, but expects a resurrection of both the good and the wicked, the latter to have a second probation during the millenium. [sic] … The pastors of the churches, not knowing the contents of the harmless documents, treated them as something incendiary, but it was found on reading them that there was nothing dangerous about them. They were as free from nihilism and dynamite as from hades. The only suggestion pertinent to the appearance of such a pamphlet is that there are already a great many more religions in this country than can be lived up to.[24]

 

The Newark disturbance resulted in a personal interview with Russell and a subsequent article in the August 18, 1881, Chicago Daily Tribune. The article quoted Russell as saying that his instructions had not been followed by ADT messengers and that they did “not expect an assistance of this kind from the churches.”  They had no creed, Russell told the reporter, adding that they weren’t a church. The article described him as “a very respectable business man of this city.”

The New York Daily Graphic, in its usual clipped fashion reported: “Fifty thousand copies of pamphlets distributed at church doors, wherein doctrines of hell and eternal punishment are declared to be nonsense. Man in Newark says an association without a name has put up $30,000 to popularize these views. Pamphlet is addressed to ‘thinking Christians’ and based on the Bible. Maintains that evil in world is part of divine plan to sift out good people from bad. Good people go straight to life everlasting and bad people sleep in death until millennium, when they are given another chance. If they don’t do better then they are diffused in universal chaos or annihilated. Who can say faith is death when $30,000 can be raised to propagate such theories?”[25]

While the Newark incident was the most widely reported, generating the most column inches, there were other indignant and forceful reactions. In Philadelphia Henry R. Percival, a Protestant Episcopal clergyman, preached a series of sermons entitled “Infidelity: Against a Book Entitled ‘Food for Thinking Christians.” The first in the series was preached in late February 1883, “to a large and appreciative congregation.”[26]

Not all church-door tract distribution received a negative reaction. That Watch Tower teachings resembled those of their contemporaries in many areas gained them admittance to some churches. Though it comes from a later time, the comments of James M. Gray, a clergyman who opposed Russell, probably apply here too:

 

The zeal of the movement not infrequently shows itself in the distribution of such literature at meetings … either within the hall if liberty be granted or at the street doors as the audience is dismissed. Page after page of it may be read revealing no serious errors in the light of the Word of God until finally one comes upon something startling in its almost pagan strangeness as compared therewith.[27]

 

With the October/November 1881 issue of The Watch Tower, Russell could report that the initial press run of three hundred thousand copies, “though very large,” was not “sufficient and it was increased to 500,000 copies” in the United States. Another three hundred thousand were published in the United Kingdom. Russell or a representative approached “the principal paper of New York City” and the manager “agreed to send a copy of the tract to their entire list of subscribers.” Papers in Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia followed suit. He left the papers un-named “to save them inconvenience.”

A special edition of Food in “newspaper shape” was printed for the purpose, “and as such it constituted the September number of The Watch Tower.” This accounted, he explained, for the increased size and change of shape of the September Watch Tower. He arranged for Food to be distributed as newspaper-sized inserts with various weekly and monthly journals that appealed to rural readers, hoping to “reach many Christians in country districts.” Over four hundred thousand copies were distributed in the U.S. and U.K. as supplements to secular journals.[28]

Russell was reluctant to name the papers that circulated Food for Thinking Christians to his order. If there is any implication that the papers circulated it out of the goodness of the managing editors’ hearts, it is false. Russell provided the tracts, of course, and paid the mailing and delivery expense. The New York City paper was the Tribune. A payment of $404.90 ensured the delivery of one hundred thousand copies. Other papers circulating Food were The Chicago Inter-Ocean (90,000 copies), The Chicago Tribune (10,000 copies). The Western Rural, a weekly published in Chicago but with a wide circulation through out the American mid-west, circulated twenty-three thousand copies. Another journal meant for rural distribution, The Farm Journal of Philadelphia, circulated thirty-six thousand copies at a cost of $171.65. Massachusetts Ploughman, another rural weekly, and New England Farmer were also used.[29]

The extent of the work surprised Russell and his associates. They hadn’t planned on anything approaching the circulation that resulted:

 

The work has been so much greater than we had anticipated, and seemingly was impelled by an unseen hand and at such a special time, too, that we cannot doubt that it is all of the Lord, and it is probably designed as a ripener to some grains of “wheat,” to prepare them as a part of the “first fruits” of the wheat or spiritual harvest--members of the Bride of Christ; and also, one of the many instruments to be used in the overthrow of “Babylon” and the deliverance of God’s children within her. But while an unseen hand seemed to impel the onward progress of the work, another unseen hand seemed at work seeking to thwart our purposes, but “if God be for us, who can be against us?” In his strength one could chase a thousand opposers, and two put ten thousand to flight.[30]

 

            The reaction of clergy wasn’t entirely negative. “A few clergymen said he was right, and, with gladness, joined with him in the work. The greater majority of the clergymen, instead of explaining these Scriptures to the people and helping them, began a cruel and systematic persecution.”[31]

            William R. Coovert, [alternately spelled Covert] [32] a clergyman with the Church of God (Winebrennerites), challenged Russell to a debate. Coovert saw himself as an expert debater, and printed copies of several of his debates are available. He was less than stable and was involved in the Harlem Commons Swindle, serving for a while as manager of the syndicate claiming damages from New York City. He issued false claims about the involvement of prominent men, changing his story as every false claim was exposed.[33]

            He eventually went insane. Heavily involved in a controversy among the Order of Solons, a fraternal order, he demonstrated “pugilistic qualities” by slugging “Ex-supreme Secretary [G. A.] Mundorf.” He called in a reporter from The Pittsburgh Press to make a statement, and the reporter found him delusional and rambling:

 

When a Press representative entered the hotel, he was informed by the clerk that Mr. Covert had a vision during the night and was very much wrought up over something … Mr. Covert was found in an excited state of mind. His hair was disheveled and great drops of sweat were standing on his forehead. He was walking the floor in an excited manner, and papers and manuscripts were scattered in confusion about the floor.[34]

 

He had a spotty reputation among his own denomination, being admired as a debater but was also seen as a “vehement and disturbing.” A denominational history charitably calls him “a man of indefatigable energy, but of a volatile and flighty fancy.”[35] Why Coovert remained in favor with the Church of God despite his involvement with questionable activities, his pugnacious behavior, and his mental instability is unknown.

            Coovert challenged Russell through the pages of The Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Dispatch, “to discuss in a public debate the Creed of the Church of God, which is the inspired revelation known as the word of God.”[36]  The History of the Church of God reports that “‘Mr. R failed to come to time,’ so Covert published him in the Pittsburg [sic]’Times’ as having virtually ‘conceded that my position is true.’”[37] Given Coovert’s known instability, it is not surprising that Russell failed to debate him. Coovert was content to declare victory without an actual debate, setting a pattern for others in the general community to which the Church of God belonged. Decades later various Disciples elders would follow suit, declaring victory over J. F. Rutherford without a word of actual debate passing between them.[38]

---

[1]               As with Russell’s Object and Manner, a startling amount of nonsense has been written about Food for Thinking Christians. For example John Butterworth (Cults and New Faiths, 1982) wrote: “Russell gathered a group of friends together to study the Bible regularly and published their interpretations in a magazine, Food for Thinking Christians, later replaced by the bi-monthly Watchtower.” Jim Willis (The Religion Book, 2004) has Russell publishing it in 1879. Amost nothing Willis says is accurate. Why people write such obvious nonsense and why others buy it is one of life’s mysteries.

[2]               Tower Tract Society Organizational Document dated February 1881. Handwritten manuscript.

[3]               Untitled Article: The Buffalo Daily Courier, August 19, 1881. Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society’s ledger book names Burr Printing of New York City as one of the printers. We know of one payment of $699.70 made to them. Another payment of $249.60 was made to S. W. Green’s Sons, another New York printer.

[4]               Hand & Ellsworth did business at 51 Beekman Street in New York City. Their paper mill was located near Peekskill, New York. They went bankrupt in 1884, caught up in the financial hard times of the mid-1880s. – Paper Merchants Suspend, New York Times, July 25, 1884.

[5]               Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society Ledger Book, a handwritten accounts book.

[6]               Churchgoers Astonished, The New York Sun, August 15, 1881.

[7]               “Mr. Russell is … probably 35 years of age, nearly six feet in height, and of a pale, thoughtful cast of countenance.” – A New Sect, Chicago, Illinois, Daily Tribune, August 18. 1881.

[8]               Russell’s passport application dated June 24, 1891.

[9]               In the Vineyard, Zion’s Watch Tower, October/November 1881, page 5.

[10]             C. T. Russell: They Kingdom Come, Watch Tower Society, Allegheny, Pennsylvania,  Millennial Dawn, Volume Three, 1902 edition, page 367,

[11]             View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, January/February 1882, page 1.

[12]             View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, January/February 1882, page 1.

[13]             1873 Directory of Pittsburgh and Allegheny City, G. H. Thurston, page 323; 1873/4 Directory, page 43.

[14]             1878 Directory, page 373.

[15]             Churchgoers Astonished, The New York Sun, August 15, 1881.

[16]             Hannibal Goodwin (1822-1900) is best known for his invention of celluloid film, making motion pictures possible. His fight with Eastman Kodak ran on for decades and wasn’t settled until after his death.

[17]             Left at Church Door, The New York Sun, August 10, 1881.

[18]             Agustus M. Bergner was born in Stockholm about 1839 according to the 1880 Census. He is listed as a “cutlery dealer” in the census and in a 1900 Newark City Directory. He was briefly president of the Women’s and Children’s Mutual Benefit Association, which offered inexpensive life insurance. It failed to meet New Jersey State requirements and was closed by order of the New Jersey Secretary of State. (City and Suburban News, The New York Times, May 20, 1884.) He seems not to be mentioned in Zion’s Watch Tower, but his wife Jennie Bergner is. See the article “Out of Darkness and into His Marvelous Light,” Zion’s Watch Tower, August 1, 1893, page 238. Bergner served in the Navy, probably the Civil War. The name Agustus M. Bergner appears in a list of “soldiers and sailors” whose address was sought. The last known address for him in the list was Brooklyn, New York.( See The Washington, D. C., National Tribune, April 17, 1899.) He was a mate on the American Navy’s screw frigate USS Wampanoag during its first sea trails. – Naval Intelligence, New York Herald, April 18, 1868.

[19]             The Gospel is Remarkably Free in Newark, The Kingston, New York, Freeman, August 15, 1881.

[20]             See the August 31, 1881, issue, page 432

[21]             An example of this appears in The Chester, Pennsylvania, Daily Times, September 10, 1881. This was also reprinted in Puck’s Library No. X: Tramp, Tramp, Tramp! Being Puck’s Best Things about the Great American Traveler, Keppler & Schwarzmann, New York, 1888, page 19.

[22]             She Preferred Milk, The Cheyenne Transporter, September 10, 1881.

[23]             The Origin of a Tract, New-York Daily Tribune, August 18, 1881.

[24]             Untitled Article: The Kingston, New York, Daily Freeman, August 15, 1881.

[25]             New York Daily Graphic ,August 15, 1881.

[26]             Philadelphia Enquirer, May 3, 1883. Percival (c. 1854 -. Sep. 22, 1903) was twenty-nine and not yet famous for his writing. A short obituary published in The New York Times of September 24, 1903, says: “He was an extensive writer on theology, many of his books being used as standard works in nearly all of the Episcopal Seminaries of this country.”

[27]             J. M. Gray: Satan and the Saint, Bible Institute Colportage Association, Chicago, 1909, pages 69-70.

[28]             In the Vineyard, Zion’s Watch Tower, October/November 1881, pages 4-5.

[29]             Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society Ledger Book, a handwritten accounts book kept per the original agreement between the principals.

[30]             ibid.

[31]             Kingdom News, as quoted in “Kingdom News Being Sent Out,” The Watertown, New York, Daily Times, May 3, 1919.

[32]             Coovert was born December 17, 1853, in Fayetteville, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Mercer County, Pennsylvania.  He was married three times. Covert was enrolled at the Edinboro State Normal School, but did not graduate. In 1872 he moved to Wappello, Iowa and was ordained at Harmony, Iowa, in October 1874. He attended Grove City College, but did not graduate. He was pastor of the Townsend Street Church in Pittsburgh from about 1880-1886. He was a member of the Prohibition Party. There is some indication that he spent the first few years of his religious life associated with H. V. Reed and The Restitution and the last few years in association with the SDA church. An article signed “Wm Covert” appearing in the Lake Union Herald, a Seventh-day Adventist Journal, of January 27, 1915, makes this possible. We’re uncertain if this is the same person.

[33]             Claiming New-York City Lands, The New York Times, August 22, 1885; Harlem Commons, The New York Times, June 17, 1886; The Harlem Commons Heirs: One of them Declares that a Swindle is Being Attempted, The New York Times, June 9, 1886; The Harlem Commons: Roscoe Conklin Said to be Retained, The New York Times, June 17, 1886;

[34]             His Mind Impaired: Rev. Covert Succumbs Under a Mental Strain, The Pittsburgh Press, December 8, 1892. See also Pittsburgh Dispatch, December 31, 1892, page 10; The Rev. W. R. Coovert Seriously Ill, The New York Times, December 9, 1892.

[35]             C. H. Forney: History of the Church of God in the United States, Churches of God, 1914, pages 209, 715.

[36]             Quoted by Forney, History of the Church of God, page 206.

[37]             Forney, page 206.

[38]             For a rather stupid and silly example see O. C. Lambert, Russellism Unveiled, Firm Foundation Publishing House, 1940.  See also the letters from John A. Hudson to J. F. Rutherford as published in the second edition of Russell-White Debate, Old Paths Book Club, no date, appendix.