A doctor's visit resulted in a quick trip to the hospital for surgery. So, if there are unresolved questions on the blog, or you've sent me an email that I haven't answered, be patient. I am home, but I am leading a very restricted life for at least the next two weeks.
When I was a young man, I thought growing old would make me wise. I'm afraid all it did was bring infirmity.
While I am up and able to type this, I should note that I still need material relevant to Maria Jourdan Westmoreland, later Maria Washington, especially if it relates to her preaching and mission work in Atlanta, Georgia between 1894 and her death in 1900.
Friday, April 5, 2019
Monday, April 1, 2019
Mary Jane Russell
(reprinted)
This adds nothing to truth history really, but
solves a little mystery. Who was Mary Jane Russell?
The Allegheny cemetery has a Russell family plot.
Originally purchased by James Grier Russell (an Uncle of Charles Taze Russell
who died before he was born) it was designed for ten graves in two rows. In the
event, only nine family members were buried there. They included CTR’s father
and mother and three siblings in the front row nearest the road, and then in
the row behind some of his uncles and aunts, Sarah, James, Charles Tays, and
the subject of this essay, Mary Jane Russell.
Below is an extract of a document from the cemetery
records.
This document obviously dates after 1897 when the
last recorded interment of Joseph Lytle Russell took place. The missing grave
nine on this list was for Thomas Birney Russell, who died aged 5 in 1855.
The burials took place from right to left on the
site, but this list has recorded them from left to right, hence Mary is first
on the list. We note that she died in 1886.
Due to the discovery of a family history document
dictated by the former Sarah Russell (one of CTR’s many cousins) and known as
Aunt Sarah Russell Morris, we now know a little bit more about her.
Most of the Russell family (CTR’s father and uncles
and aunts) travelled from Ireland to America. The only exception known was Aunt
Fannie Russell Harper, who stayed in Ireland and died in 1867 aged 55.
We know that Mary Jane was probably born as the
child just before Fannie (Harper), so perhaps around 1811. We do not know when
she made the trip to America, but it is likely she went to New Jersey or New
York where her older brother Alexander settled. She never married, and Aunt
Sarah’s comments suggest that Mary Jane was not her most favorite person.
“Mary
Jane whose “hobby” was cats; she kept house for her brother Alexander after his
wife’s death; later she lived alone in Pittsburgh, and died there. She was
peculiar and very strict; she thought much of pedigree, etc.”
So when Alexander’s wife Margaret died in 1853, Mary
Jane went to live with him. We assume this arrangement lasted until Alexander’s
death, sometime between 1872-1875. Alexander was mentioned as a beneficiary of
Charles Tays Russell’s will in 1872, but by the time the bequests were
distributed in 1878 his share was divided between his surviving children. The
distributions document noted that Alexander, named in the will as
brother of the deceased Charles Tays had died before the decedent.
Charles Tays’ will made special provision for Mary
Jane.
Fourth, I will and bequeath to my sister Mary Jane three thousand
dollars which I direct my executors to put to interest for her during her
lifetime and at her death I desire that it shall be equally divided among the
heirs mentioned in this will.
By
the time of the distributions in 1878, Mary Jane’s address was Allegheny City,
Penn.
Moving forward in time there were problems with
caring for her as she grew older. A document dated September 2, 1886, shows
that the bequest had been insufficient to care for her, and permission was
given to dip into the capital to cover the deficit. This was arranged with
Joseph Lytle Russell as executor of the Charles Tays will and Cornelia
Davenport, a daughter of Alexander, who lived in Brooklyn, New York.
The document in full reads:
Whereas the late Charles T. Russell, who died in the city of
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, in 1875, bequeathed three thousand dollars
($3000) to his executors in trust, to pay the interest to his sister, Miss Mary
Jane Russell, during her lifetime , and, upon her death, to distribute the
principal equally among “the heirs mentioned in this will”; and whereas through
the inability of his executors to collect certain debts that were due to the
estate of the said Charles T. Russell, deceased, the said fund was reduced from
three thousand dollars ($3000) to fourteen hundred and eighteen and 51/100
dollars; and whereas the fund so reduced could not be made to yield more than
six percent interest, about eighty five dollars per year, and whereas the said
Mary Jane Russell is now very aged and infirm and has constantly required more
than the amount of the interest of said fund to maintain her, and whereas now
much more, she is in need of comfort and attention in her closing years; and
whereas it has been found needful to extract certain debts for her maintenance
and may require additional debt therefore in the future; Therefore we, Stephen
H. Davenport and Cornelia S. Davenport, his wife, in consideration of the
premises and of our dollar (?) in hand paid to each of us, the receipt of which
is hereby acknowledged, hereby authorize J. L. Russell, acting executor of the
will of the said Charles T. Russell, deceased, to use as much of the principal
of the said fund, in addition to the interest, as may be required, in his
judgment, to pay the necessary expenses of the said Mary Jane Russell and the
debts that have been extracted for her maintenance. And we hereby release and
forever discharge the said J. L. Russell, his executors and administrators of
and from such part of our share of the said as he shall so expend. It being
understood that the balance of said fund not required for the above mentioned
purpose shall be distributed in accord with the terms of the will of the said
Charles T. Russell, upon the death of the said Mary Jane Russell.
Witness our hands and seal this second day of September AD 1886.
Stephen H Davenport seal
Cornelia S Davenport seal
74 Hicks Street
Brooklyn, NY
The
Davenports lived very near what would become the Brooklyn Tabernacle, and in
fact worshipped there when it was the Plymouth Bethel. Cornelia did not long
survive Mary Jane, she died on October 23, 1888.
The
document was dated September 2. As shown by the cemetery register at the head
of this article, by September 6, Mary Jane was dead. So she was buried in the
family plot in Allegheny Cemetery. No headstone was provided.
It should be noted that Mary Jane (CTR’s Aunt Mary)
lived in Allegheny during the time that ZWT started, through Food for Thinking
Christians, and up to Divine Plan of the Ages. One wonders what she might have
made of it all?
Friday, March 29, 2019
Another reseacher ...
Another researcher is seeking a copy of The Divine Plan of the Ages in Mandarin. Can you help?
Peace (or Spot the Difference)
(reprinted and revised version)
A casual visitor to Brecon in South Wales, UK, might
be tempted to visit the Brecon Cathedral, parts of which go back over nine
hundred years. One of the exhibits in it, dedicated to a local dignitary, is a
painting called “Peace, and a little child shall lead them.” The artist was
William Strutt (1825-1915) although the caption in the cathedral only names the
donors! It was painted in 1896. The picture was based on Isaiah 11 and the
animals from left to right are in the order as described in scripture.
This has a connection of sorts with the Photodrama
of Creation. Here is one of the original slides from the Photodrama. This was
reproduced in the scenario, and was also later used by Frederick Lardent in his
Bible Student motto card series, as card number L-9. The motto card is not as colorful
and the circle is a bit smaller.
The Photodrama spawned a series of postcards. A set
of 40 cards was advertised in The Watch Tower in 1917 (see reprints page 6077).
Many readers will have seen these sets and they are probably online somewhere
as well. Although the set was numbered 1-40, a couple of later numbers have
been discovered. Below are cards 44 and 47b.
Looking at all the reproductions above, these are actually
four different pictures. It’s a case of spot the difference.
Why did they keep on redrawing (not always very
successfully) this particular picture? It may have been a copyright issue
originally. Strutt complained before he died that his own copyright had expired
and he was making no money from the picture. However, a lithograph of the
picture was widely marketed and numerous homes had it on their walls. Perhaps
that version was still under copyright. However, it still doesn’t explain the Society’s
repeated attempts at pastiche to portray the same scene.
It is not the most important research question in
the world, but a curiosity. And while we are touching on the official
Photodrama series, does anyone have details of any other Photodrama postcards
higher than 40? There is a card numbered 47a which has a woman on a veranda overlooking
a paradise scene with animals captioned PAX, but apart from that and 44 and 47b
reproduced above, I have never seen any others higher than 40.
When the original artist Strutt died his grave
marker carried the inscription “Painter of Peace.” A highly prolific artist in
his day this was to be his main legacy.
Thursday, March 28, 2019
Maria 'worser and worser'
Her handwriting seems to have gotten worse the longer she wrote. Can we interpret this one?
Click on the image to see entire.
Click on the image to see entire.
A reminder
The contents of this blog are covered by international copyright. You may not reproduce it elsewhere without permission.
Yet another extract from Maria's letter
I think I have a headache from working on this bit. Can you translate it? Click on the image to view the entire scan.
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
More on Maria
(expanded slightly from a blog comment)
("Mrs Nobles took an ax...")
In
summer 1895 Maria became involved in a cause célèbre in the Nobles murder case. An Elizabeth Nobles
encouraged a black farm worker, Gus Fambles, to kill her husband. It was a
particularly gruesome crime, Gus used a hatchet and Elizabeth was accused of
finishing the job before they buried the body – one newspaper claimed while he
was still alive.
Both
were found guilty and sentenced to death. The thought of a white woman and a
black man being hanged together caused consternation and a campaign was started
to save her. Maria added her thoughts in the Atlanta Constitution for August
11, 1895.
Billed
as “Mrs Maria Jourdan Westmoreland, the well known writer and missionary” her
comments basically covered women’s rights and responsibilities. She was not
against the death penalty, but if Elizabeth was to be spared then surely Gus
should be spared also.
She
argued: “If women desire to usurp the place which God, in His infinite wisdom
has seen fit to accord to man by making him ‘the head of the woman,’ why, then
to be consistent, they must use the prerogative of men, not only in commonplace
every day affairs, but if convicted of murder, they must be content to die like
men for the privilege.”
After
justifying capital punishment by reference to scripture, she argued (with a fine
flourish of alliteration): “If the death sentence on Mrs Nobles is commuted to
life imprisonment, then a similar clemency must of necessity be extended to her
accomplice, the poor, forlorn, forsaken, forgotten, and seemingly friendless
negro, Gus Fambles.”
She
said that if Mrs Nobles was reprieved she would raise funds for a new trial for
Gus. She concluded: “Clemency for one means clemency for both.”
The
matter rumbled on through various courts until 1897 when just before the
scheduled execution, Mrs Nobles was reprieved. She died in prison in 1916. It
was too politically sensitive to hang Gus Fambles without her, so he was
reprieved as well. He died in prison in 1914.
One
other point to add on the Westmoreland story. While it would be wrong to
automatically link suicide with mental breakdown, it should be noted that
Maria’s first husband Dr Willis F Westmoreland died in the State Mental Asylum,
and her son Dr Willis F Westmoreland Jr shot himself in 1935.
Saturday, March 23, 2019
Maria's letter as I have it now ... not complete.
Corrections? I can't leave this up many days because of undertakings with the archive that owns it. The date is uncertain. Can anyone capture it. It would be on the page with the cross writing.
You think I could be so rude as not to answer your sweet letter. The very day I received it I answered it & thanked you for your kind help in thinking of me & also for your quotifying [?] criticism. Will says he has not enjoyed a visit home so [? nicer] for many years & your kind wish to have me there with him was deeply appreciated by me, I can assure you. His stay with you and Joe was particularly & especially enjoyed & he said you left no stone unturned to add to his pleasure. Accept my thanks & we hope to have you [and] the children with us this summer.[?] And we can keep that place for a summer resort when we get the [?]ship & the [?] house.
Woman’s Hospital
49th St & 4th Ave.
Unreadable Date
49th St & 4th Ave.
Unreadable Date
Dear
Sister Mary,
You think I could be so rude as not to answer your sweet letter. The very day I received it I answered it & thanked you for your kind help in thinking of me & also for your quotifying [?] criticism. Will says he has not enjoyed a visit home so [? nicer] for many years & your kind wish to have me there with him was deeply appreciated by me, I can assure you. His stay with you and Joe was particularly & especially enjoyed & he said you left no stone unturned to add to his pleasure. Accept my thanks & we hope to have you [and] the children with us this summer.[?] And we can keep that place for a summer resort when we get the [?]ship & the [?] house.
But
ill-health has kept me so long an enforced idler that now I must be up &
doing something [?] if possible, to make up for lost time. Besides I have been
too happy & too much in love to write. Not but that I am happy still as
still in love, but not at the same tempestes furioso temperature – or else
I should be dead. Undoubtedly genius, talent, or by whatever name you call it
thrives best in attics as in poverty. And those who think they can coquette
with the muses in slippered luxury & at such time as suits their
self-indulgence & sweet fancy, will never [?, crossed out] [where, crossed
out] reach the dizzy heights where Homer soared, or write their names on fame’s
eternal scroll. George Eliot said: "Genius meant daily labor." And so
it does. In point of fact, was every any-thing accomplished without hard,
daily, persistent & consistent work? [??] I know a "[??], genius,
lunatic, fanatic" re re re in this city of Bohemians, who has enough real
genius or divine afflatus, to make half a dozen poets & half a dozen more
brilliant musicians - besides which he is the finest reader of English I have
ever heard. What he has accomplished? Nothing! Who has ever heard of him? No
one, except a few nobodies for whom he makes pastime. And why? He has too much
genius, never sticks to anything two days in his life. For my part - from
childhood up I have led such a busy life, that I am wretched when idle. Indeed
"doing nothing" is the task as difficult for me, as rolling the stone up the hill, then down again was to Sisphus [sic]. And looking at it from
another point of view, I think it wicked to lead a life of idleness &
believe, as firmly as I believe in my God, that we must render an account of
talents given & not used. Indeed the parable of the talents is one of the
most forcible in all the teachings of the sweet, but lowly Nazarene. My Rector
used to say that I was born with as distinctive a mission as any one he had
ever known - & that mission was to teach though my writings, the right
& the wrong, the follies & weaknesses of human nature - He also said I
possess a rare combination, which at the same time as recognizing all the light
& shadow of right & wrong, felt a broad sympathy for all the foibles of
humanity - I once hoped all this was true, prayerfully, & in the sight
& fear of God, accepted, through numerous trials, sufferings &
tribulations, the awful responsibility. After accepting the rôle, I went forth
as the knights of old, with spear drawn & helmet down, confident in my own
ability – not only to battle for my brothers & sisters, but hopeful of my own
capacity to win the fight. - that they wounded me to the core, is also, true,
for like all persons of fervid imaginations, I am morbidly sensitive. But alas!
L’hommes propose – mais Dieu dispose! Then came troubles thick and fast –
heart-aches – oceans of tears – poutings – the tearing asunder of all home
times – the uprooting of all I had done. Then attacked by foes within and foes
without – with no strong but loving hand to guide me, much as a father might
have done – I fell like a tree blasted by the lightning – obliterated – paralyzed
amidst the ruins of all the beautiful home and dreams that I myself had
created. Then my courage forsook me, for griefs do make cowards of us all, and
I lost all hope of every doing ought again – lost all confidence in my own
capacity to accomplish any-think. Those ones – the inhumanity of man – make
cruel ship-wreck of so many lives. But my entire with-drawl from the busy world
and painful scenes – my life of peace and quiet and prayer and reflection in
the mountains – My beautiful life with one who loves and appreciates me, has
confidence in me, bids me again hopeful and again buckle on the armor of old.
So once more I take up the broken thread and shall bravely with the help of God
try once more to re-write this Penelope web and so all things come to those who
wait. Shall hope that like the heroic goddess of old I too shall be rewarded by
waiting – hoping and praying. Now, my dear sister, you really must pardon this
long and personal letter – For nothing was further from my intention than to
write such a letter when I began. It has slipped unconsciously from my pen. Read
it. Take it for what it is worth – throw it in the fire – forget it! As [?] as
I read Will’s daily letter this a.m. in which he told me Bro. Joe has written him
you had never received a reply to your letter,
Another Maria Washington to transcribe
click to view entire scan. My thanks to everyone who's worked on this.
Monday, March 18, 2019
Our Princess
Rachael de Vienne
November 24, 1977 –
March 18, 2019
Rachael died this evening. She complained of dizziness and a
headache after dinner. She wanted a box of family memorabilia she kept in an upstairs
closet. On the third step she grasped the banister, said, “oh,” and collapsed.
Her two youngest daughters were with her. She said, “I love you.” And died.
This is not unexpected, though the circumstances are a
surprise. I will be away from the blog for a few days.
Rachael felt especially close to a few of our blog readers,
though she had no hope of ever meeting them. Among these are Roberto, Bernard, Stéphane
and “German Girl.”
Undertakings, Obligations and a Historian’s Ethics.
Undertakings,
Obligations and a Historian’s Ethics.
Several have asked about the
fragments of letters I’ve posted to the blog. These are from the two
repositories of Washington family papers and relate to Maria Jourdan
Westmoreland-Washington. One came from the New York Public Library archive. It
is posted to their web site and available to all. The others come from the
Tennessee State Library and Archive. We have ‘obligations’ connected to these. The
archive is open to researchers. However, the State Library retains certain
legal rights, with these comes the obligation to researchers to not pass on
what the library owns. You can, at fifty cents a page obtain scans. We elected
to purchase only those documents that we were certain were relevant, doing so
because of cost.
I can ethically post small extracts
of documents here, but eventually they must come down. The staff, especially the
director of the archive, were exceptionally helpful, more helpful than most institutional
libraries we’ve contacted.
Some years ago I discussed the New
York Public Library’s George Storrs archive with a member of the Watchtower
Society’s editorial staff. He suggested that it was only marginally relevant.
Photocopies cost three hundred dollars at the time. Relevance is determined by one’s
approach. The Watchtower Society does not approach their history in the same
way that an academic writer does. I did not have, and still do not have, the
spare three hundred dollars, but we managed to put together a cogent and
accurate picture of Storrs for Separate Identity, volume one.
I have always found the ephemera of history
helpful. A turn of phrase, a sentence, a detectable attitude leads to
connections. This is true of the Washington archives I’ve mentioned above.
Sometimes we acquire things, usually
as scans or photocopies, that the owner is willing to share with us but only on
the promise that we will not share it with others. It is better to see these
things than refuse. Such is the case with a recent acquisition. This poses
challenges. We find things that move our research forward, but I am reluctant
to cite something another writer cannot see. Usually we find a path to another
resource that we can cite and that conveys the same information. A sharp eye
might let you see examples in volume one of Separate Identity.
Sometimes we find an example of the
same material in another archive. Then we can use it without compromising a
promise. This is the case with a booklet published by M. F. Russell. We do not
cite that in S. I., but if I live long enough to write the next book, On the
Cusp of Fame, it will be important.
Recent donations to our work have
allowed us to see not just the Washington archives but a pile of letters and
documents, newspapers and clippings, a rare booklet not available on Google
books, and two books. We had as an imperfect photocopy one of the books, and I
cite it in volume one of S.I. It’s recently been republished, and you
can buy a copy for about forty-five dollars and postage. An original appeared
on ebay. We contacted the seller and he lowered the price to match the POD
reprint. We now have the book as an original from 1843, and with that we can
read the entire text. We may cite it again in volume three where it becomes relevant
again.
G. W. Green was a Storrs and Barbour associate.
This tract came to us through your donations.
Because of ‘undertakings’ between
myself and the person who owns the letters and other papers, I cannot share any
of it on the blog. You will see results though. And the newspapers and
clippings are public domain. We purchased the originals. And they are ours to
do with what we wish. The newspapers contain interesting, useful things. We’ve
just started sorting and reading. But thus far we’ve found a letter from Jonas
Wendell explaining his work; a letter from the pastor who followed Stetson at
Edinboro, Pennsylvania, detailing internal difficulties; a short article about
the nature of ‘the work’ in Chicago in the 1890s, and assorted other comments
on events then current. We would not have this without the contributions you’ve
made. I am thankful for your support.
Before I forget it [I’m becoming
forgetful in my old age], the papers explain a comment found in the Bible
Student history of the work in Australia. A man mentioned there wrote a weekly
letter back home; these were published. This will become a footnote in volume
two of S. I.
Saturday, March 16, 2019
More to transcribe. Click on image to view entire.
Sorry, but my old eyes do not work as well as they once did. Can we transcribe this? Anyone? Same letter as before. The pages are mixed up.
Friday, March 15, 2019
Russell Family History
About a year ago I homed in on Fannie Harper, Joseph Lytle’s
younger sister, who never left Ireland. Through sites like Ancestry, Find My
Past, Find a Grave etc. I traced the line forward but was unable to make
contact with modern descendants. (This has often worked for many figures in
Watch Tower history, yielding family details and the Holy Grail, photographs –
but alas, not this time.) Using the Ulster Historical Society I tried to go
back a further generation or two. I eventually received a 15 page report that
showed how hard they’d worked to uncover so little. However, if anyone here
would like a copy of this report to see if they can make more from it, please
contact me back-channel.
Recently I have been concentrating on one of Joseph Lytle’s
older brothers, Alexander, who lived in New York. I traced his family down to
include a daughter who was a missionary for a conventional organization in
Turkey for 38 years. Another daughter worshiped at the Plymouth Church in New
York long before it became the Brooklyn Tabernacle. And this time I made contact
with one of Alexander’s descendants (by marriage). Indirectly from her I
obtained a document written by one of CTR’s cousins - although I doubt he ever
met her – that supplied a huge amount of detail. (I have sent copies to Bruce and
Rachael.) I am currently continuing to double-check what I can to make sure
that before I go into print myself I am as accurate online as I can be in the
circumstances.
Two articles are planned in due course, but here are just
two tasters. First, Joseph Lytle Russell was one of thirteen children, although
not all survived into adulthood. Second, the first few of the Russell family to
come to America made their home in New York. Moving to Pittsburgh and Allegheny
came later. This gives a new geographical focus for continued research.
Thursday, March 14, 2019
I can read most of this ...
but not all of it. Can you transcribe it? [click on the image to view entire document.]
Monday, March 11, 2019
Saturday, March 9, 2019
Temporary - A work in progress
Can you add to this story?
This was reprinted with approval in The Alexandria, Virginia, Gazette and Virginia Advertiser of October 29, 1873 under the heading Petty Coat on the Rostrum. The Savannah Advertiser said: “Mrs. Westmoreland, a Southern woman herself, ought to have a better knowledge of the sentiments of her own sex in the South. If Mrs. Westmoreland herself should undertake a canvass of the South under the banner of Mesdames Stanton and Livermore, she would fail to win over to her cause a sufficient number of women to start even a first class sewing society.”[13]
[33] Totten
receives unfavorable mention in a more recent Watchtower publication. See: Do
You Believe Everything You Read, Awake! November 22, 1970, page 5. In
1890 Totten started publishing Our Race: Its Origin and Destiny, a
quarterly, to promote his Anglo-Israelite theories. N. Goodrick-Clarke [Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics
of Identity, New York University Press,
2002, page 235] suggests that Anglo-Israelitism came to America through Totten.
This is, of course, false.
The
Church in Mariah’s House
There
are several points in our narrative where this history would be appropriate. It
appears here because it illustrates the nature of fledgling congregations and
the path taken by some newly interested. We are without a real start to this
account and do not know the end. It is brought to us through an article in The
New York Sun. The article, written without a byline, alternates between
simple reporting and snide, nearly vulgar, insulting comments. The article
focuses on Maria Jourdan Washington – better known to history as Maria[h]
Elizabeth Jourdan Westmoreland – describing religious meetings held in her
home.
Mariah
Jourdan was born in Georgia, October 10, 1838, to Warren Jourdan and Mary
Johnson-Thornton. The Thorntons and Jourdans were prominent politically,
espousing ‘states rights’ in the pre-war years, and they were wealthy. Both
Mariah and her sister Madeline were educated at Baptist-sponsored Southern
Female College at La Grange, Georgia, and both were accomplished writers.
Mariah was an expert musician as well. In 1856 she married Willis Furman
Westmoreland [June 1, 1828 – June 26, 1890], a surgeon of note. He was ten
years her senior, not uncommon in this era.[1] A
biography says:
Loveliness of person and precocity of mind were her
gifts from nature. It was a rare thing for one to pass the thoughtful little
beauty without prophesying a brilliant future for her. Even in tender childhood
she gave unmistakable evidences of that genius which has given to the literati
those essays which have appeared from time to time in the columns of “Scott’s
Monthly,” and the “Ladies’ Home Gazette,” both periodicals published in the City
of Atlanta, the home of Mrs. Westmoreland.
With Maria Jourdan, music was a passion. Having been
so fortunate as to have always enjoyed the tuition of skilful masters, she
early became a proficient in the art, and, unlike most married ladies, she has
never thrown aside her favorite amusement, but devotes much time to
familiarizing herself with 'the various operas, etc., her rendition of some of
which is worthy a Strakosch or a Verdi. Her touch is exquisite and thrilling,
her manipulation wonderful. Nor should we fail to speak of her beautiful
improvisations, which so often charm and delight the home circle. Hour after
hour have we seen her under the inspiration, as it were, of Orpheus, while
strain after strain of the most Witching music would be borne upon the air,
ravishing the ear, melting the heart, and causing the eye to grow liquid, and
the lip to quiver with emotion. On such occasions Mrs. Westmoreland is
transcendently charming. The rapt look she wears; the deeply sad expression of
her large, dark, and lustrous eyes; the heightening color, the classic brow,
where “thought sits enthroned” – all, all combine to form a picture over which
artists would delight to linger. Her manners are fascinating – not indeed free
from that hauteur peculiar to high-bred Southern women; but she commands
without repulsing. She is a brilliant colloquist, her conversations abounding
in wit, repartee, and pleasantry.
Mrs. Westmoreland is endowed with a high order of
intellect, excelling, when at college, in mathematics and the languages. She
also early evinced a preference for the study of the classics, and her mind is
richly stored with stories and legends – of those real and mythical personages
whose marvelous deeds and glorious achievements have been sung from time
immemorial.[2]
Maria’s
married life was as lively as it was in her youth. She fostered a “literary
club.” The biography quoted above says:
She was also the founder of a “literary club,” whose
members convened once a week at her residence on Marietta Street. On these
occasions, private theatricals were performed, and poems read or delivered,
each member being compelled to contribute something for the amusement and
edification of the “club.” These weekly reunions were replete with interest and
information, and happy they, indeed, who formed one of this charmed circle.
This
seems effusive, but given her known history, it appears accurate. We can trace
some of her travels and know something of her subsequent history. The American
Civil War interrupted her home life. She gave birth to her first child, a
daughter, on December 20, 1860, the day South Carolina seceded, and in honor of
that they named her Carolina. Her husband joined the Confederate medical corps,
eventually being promoted to the rank of general by Jefferson Davis.
Maria
“was devoted to the cause of the South, and toiled unremittingly, through heat
and cold, rain and sunshine, during those terrible years of blood and carnage
from which we have but emerged,” wrote her biographer. She wrote two plays, A
Soldier’s Wife and The Soldier’s Trials, both performed in the
Atlanta Athenaeum. “The proceeds, which were munificent, were donated to the
destitute wives and children of those brave Atlantians who were battling so
manfully for our cause on the historic soil of the ‘Old Dominion.’” [The Old
Dominion is Virginia.] Her biographer wrote that:
The first evening the play of ‘The Soldier’s Wife’ was
presented, the Athenaeum was crowded almost to suffocation: the order and
decorum observed on that occasion was wonderful, and bespoke at once the high
regard and appreciation which the Atlanta public felt for the dramatic
neophyte. The emotion evinced by that vast audience was deep and unfeigned; and
every eye shed a tear and every bosom heaved a sigh over the stricken wife who
had abandoned herself to sorrow, in the hourly expectation of the news of the
condemnation of her husband, who had deserted the army, and fled to his home
and little ones to preserve them from starvation. The play was a decided success,
and the youthful follower of Aeschylus left the Athenaeum amid the
congratulations of many sincere and loving friends.
The
war challenged, as it did for many women, Maria’s view of women’s rights and
responsibilities. In Southern culture as in most of the United States,
“respectable women” did not become actors. The Civil War changed that, and
Maria with other ‘respectable’ women acted in her plays. Her view of women’s
responsibilities and rights would evolve, and we will consider that in not many
paragraphs.
Writing
plays to fund relief work was not her only act in support of the Southern
cause. She and a Madeline V. Bryan, crafted “the first public symbol of
Confederate authority in Atlanta,” a flag for the Customs House.[3] Maria
called together prominent women, her social peers, on April 17, 1861, five days
after the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter. They organized into a
soldiers’ aid society, their first task being to scrape lint for bandages.
Since the Confederate government did not furnish uniforms, they turned to
making shirts, pants and socks for soldiers. They named themselves The Ladies’
Soldier’s Relief Society, drawing “many young women of high social standing”
including Mary Clayton whom some of our American readers will remember form
their history reading.[4]
Contributions in money and “in kind” came to “the Ladies,” and Maria duly
reported them in detail.[5]
When General Sherman approached Atlanta, Maria, in late term pregnancy, fled.
Post-War: 1866-1879
In
addition to novel writing, Maria wrote a series of articles for The Atlanta
Constitution using the fictional persona of Aunt Tabitha, “dispensing
advice to a younger female relative.” Her articles often dealt with women’s
issues. She condemned fornication, rampant in post-war Georgia. She advocated
educating women. She advocated the admission of women to the University of
Georgia, though to no avail. Women were not admitted until 1918. Maria said
that “women’s economic advancement would occur when they gained access to
education.” The Southern press saw her as a radical ‘women’s rights’ advocate,
but she was not. She suggested that “women were not yet ready to become voters,”
but she saw the day when suffrage would come as near.[6] In
July 1872 she addressed the graduating class of the Southern Female College at
LaGrange, her alma mater. The Christian Index, a religious paper
published in Atlanta, reported: “Mrs. Maria J. Westmoreland ... read a splendid
essay. Subject, ‘What shall our Women
do?’ It was filled with good sense,
sound reasoning, and practical advice.”[7]
Maria
turned to novel writing producing Hear-Hungry, published by G. W. Carleton
& Co. of New York. Maria traveled to New York to consult with her
publishers. Wendy Venet, in her stellar book, says she was accompanied by her
husband.[8] Her stay was short, but she returned to New
York in the fall of 1873, planning to stay the winter. She brought her two
children with her, but her husband remained in Atlanta.
Her
original intention, a bow to Southern prejudice, was to publish anonymously.[9] Maria’s
first novel, Heart Hungry, tells us much about her views of religious
practice. The heroin is Maud Livingstone, an oppressed orphan. Her foster
parents mistreat her out of guilt. Her foster mother, wrote Maria, “was a
living representative of a certain class, who are saints in public, and vipers
in private life, and with much external religion, her woman’s unwomanly heart
entertained no spark of sympathy for this motherless girl.” Oppressed Maud
dealt with dark thoughts, vanquishing them “by the consciousness of the sin of
indulging them, and taking up her cross again.” Toward the novel’s conclusion
Maria wrote: “should it not be the duty of every good and true citizen to put
down all such attempts, since religion is the foundation of virtue and the
strongest support of society; the friend of the helpless; the sacred guardian
of the marriage rite; the faithful sentinel upon the light-house, that,
descrying danger, gives the alarm, and then throws its protecting arms around
the weary and the doubtful?” In time, Maria would question the efficacy of
religion as usually practiced, but in 1872, this was her firm belief. A second
novel followed in short order, and the first was dramatized.
When
in New York City, Maria lectured at the Union League Club. The New York Home
Journal reported: “Mrs. Maria Jourdan Westmoreland, the Southern authoress,
made a successful debut as a lecturer before a cultivated and
fashionable audience.” Her subject was “Shots at Social Myths.” She was,
reported the Home Journal, “equally severe upon both sexes, firing whole
broadsides of satire and sarcasm at the ‘moral’ of men and the insincerity and
gossiping tendencies of women.” Her lecture was “well received ... its keen
hits and brilliant points being warmly applauded.” The Home Journal
described Maria as a woman of culture and extensive reading, adding: “In
presence, manner and personal appearance she possesses all the elements of
popularity. When so many plain-looking lecturers appear in public, it is
refreshing to see one who is endowed with beauty and wit.”[10]
The lecture was also reported in The New York Post which
described her audience as “eminently intellectual” and in obvious sympathy with
Maria. It reported that she made pointed comments on the Cuban situation: “The
lecture included several sharp and timely hits ... at indisputable realities
... especially to Burriel and the problem of the ever-faithful isle.”[11]
The “isle” was Cuba and Burriel a devious, rather stupid Spanish General. On
October 31, 1873, the United States flagged Virginius was captured by
the Spanish warship Tornado and brought to Santiago de Cuba. Included
among its crew were Cuban revolutionaries, but there were also Americans,
Europeans, Africans and British citizens. Some of the prisoners were only
thirteen. The crew were tried before a Spanish naval court and sentenced to
death as “pirate prisoners.” On November 4th, General Juan N.
Burriel ordered the execution of the four insurgent generals captured on board
the Virginius. Three days later, thirty-seven more members of the crew,
including Joseph Fry, the American captain were killed. General Burriel stopped
the executions when the H. M. S. Niobe arrived, sent to stop the
execution of British citizens.
image
Advertisement for Maria’s
Lecture.
New York Herald, November 23, 1873 – Triple
Sheet Edition.
Late in 1873, Maria addressed a
Women’s Conference held in New York City. The Southern press reproduced an
extract from the New York Herald:
Mrs.
Maria Jourdan Westmoreland came to the platform, and looking like Titian’s
high-born dames, said, in a sweet and low, but distinct voice, that there was a
great necessity for close union between the women of the North and the South.
She hoped that lecturers would be sent through the South in order to awaken the
ladies of that section to immediate action. Mrs. Westmoreland further stated
that she would gladly give any lecturers letters of introduction to the first
people of the South in order to further the common object. Mrs. Westmoreland
spoke on the condition of the Southern women; she said she knew them well
enough to know that if the papers of this Congress had been read in the South,
it would so rouse them that they would not be quiet until they had the ballot
Reaction from the Southern press was immediate and
negative. The Nashville, Tennessee, Union and American said in response
that “Southern people will readily encourage ladies in their efforts to achieve
fame in the genial walks of literature, but they have no patience with ‘crowing
hens.’” The Union and American writer – the report lacks a byline –
quoted The Augusta Chronicle and Sentinel as saying:
It need hardly be said that Mrs. Westmoreland, in
expressing the views with which she is credited above, does not represent the
women of the South. In one section of the Union, at least, women are contented
to be women – they have no desire to drag their dainty skirts through the
filthy mire of politics; no ambition to figure among roughs and rowdies at the
polls. They have a higher and more noble mission to perform. They run not after
strange goads, but worship at the altars of the fireside and the family circle.
We would advise the Women’s Rights women to stay at home and not undertake
missionary work in the South. Even Mrs. Westmoreland’s letters will not open to
them the doors of Southern people – and their lectures will not pay the gas
bills and hall rent.[12]
The Lynchburg, Virginia,
Republican commented:
In assuming the breeches, [the writer means men’s
pants] we are sure Mrs. Westmoreland speaks only for herself, for we think she
greatly mistakes the sentiment of the Southern woman if she supposes that they
are “heart hungry” as herself for the ballot, and that they are ready to rush
into a revolution to secure it in order that they may exhibit their prowess in
a scuffles at the polls on election day with their dusky fellow citizens, Mrs.
Dinah Johnson and Mrs. Phillis Brown.
This was reprinted with approval in The Alexandria, Virginia, Gazette and Virginia Advertiser of October 29, 1873 under the heading Petty Coat on the Rostrum. The Savannah Advertiser said: “Mrs. Westmoreland, a Southern woman herself, ought to have a better knowledge of the sentiments of her own sex in the South. If Mrs. Westmoreland herself should undertake a canvass of the South under the banner of Mesdames Stanton and Livermore, she would fail to win over to her cause a sufficient number of women to start even a first class sewing society.”[13]
There is strong indication that
Maria’s speech was misrepresented by a hostile press. An April 1874 press
report said: “Mrs. Maria J. Westmoreland has finished a lecture which she calls
the ‘Daughters of Eve,’ in which she very properly takes the ground that
woman’s widest field lies within the sacred precincts of home.”[14]
It is possible that she held both to the viewpoints reported in the press.
There is some indication she did. But we think the northern newspapers quoted
in the south exaggerated Maria’s speech. The best indication that the press
misrepresented her speech is found in The New York Daily Graphic: “Mrs.
Westmoreland is ‘defended’ by an enthusiastic Savannahan, who declares she said
nothing about the rights of the ballot in the recent Convention.”[15]
Maria responded through an open
letter to the Southern press. Unfortunately it survives, as far as our research
shows, in a brief quotation:
I
did not say I hoped lecturers would be sent through the South. I said that I
hoped they would go, and with letters of introduction which I would gladly give
them. I knew they would have a happy and perhaps a lucrative time, and I knew
that a few women at least would be delighted to know that women were
accomplishing so much ... Why are these attacks constantly made upon me, and by
my own people? Is it because they hate me personally? It cannot be for anything
I ever did to them, for my house, heart and well-wishes have ever belonged to
my people, and an unkind word from them is always answered by my tears. Is it
kind, is it liberal or charitable for them to try to draw down a woman who is
trying honestly and by hard labor to support herself and two children?[16]
The newspaper that quoted this
suggested that she should have sought better association than the Women’s
Conference and was paying just consequences for failing to do so. The
criticisms are all from men, many of whom resented Reconstruction and sought to
preserve pre-war culture.
In
mid-December 1872 she was engaged to lecture by the Fraternals, a newly-formed
society whose goal was help for indigent women, of whom there were many in New
York City. The New York Sun described them as “chivalrous order of
gentlemen,” saying: “It had been found by investigation that there is not in
New York a place where a moneyless woman who preserves the respect of the
world, can go for lodging except to the free but uncomfortable shelter of a
police station; although there are numerous benevolent houses of refuge, to
enter which would stamp her with infamy. Mr. Dooly mentioned the case of a
woman who had walked the streets all night as the best thing to be done.”[17]
Their goal was to found comfortable housing throughout the city. Maria was
drawn to this type of work, and agreed to lecture to help raise funds. The
Kingston, New York, Daily Freeman noticed her impending lecture. It would
be accompanied by illustrations, and “she allows any gentleman in the audience
to come up on stage and learn how the thing is done.” The writer snidely
observed that Maria was “rather ancient” (she was thirty-eight) “and not a very
comely piece of anatomy – indeed rather angular – she don’t illustrate much.”[18]
The accuracy of this report is uncertain. What is certain is that the editor of
the Freeman was as illiterate as he was rude. The Daily Graphic held
a differing opinion: “Mrs. Westmoreland
is a very handsome woman, and – is it impertinent to say? – probably has a
large acquaintance with her theme.”[19]
Maria’s portrait
Maria
Westmoreland in 1873.
Her
audience was “fashionable and appreciative ... [and] seemed to keenly enjoy the
racy and piquant witticism of the lecturer.” The New York, Daily Graphic,
just quoted, added that “her selection of a subject last evening was a ‘happy thought.’
All men appreciate ‘kisses’ from rosy lips, whether given or talked about,
especially when the theme is handled with a rare blending of delicacy, wit and
sentiment.[20]
Favorable
impressions of Maria’s lecture resulted in invitations to repeat it in Boston
and Washington, D.C. In February 1874, Maria took her “Kisses” lecture to
Willard Hall in Washington, D.C. The Washington, D.C., Star declared
that Maria’s lecture would be the “literary event of the week.” It came at an
appropriate time, St. Valentine’s Day. “Judging from the number of tickets
disposed of, the fair authoress will be greeted by a brilliant and fashionable
audience.[21] A newspaper article
described her as “a beautiful representative of the ‘Sunny South.’” It said
that the “attractive character” of her subject resulted in a “large and
cultivated audience.” After a short concert, she was introduced by Henry Stuart
Foote, former governor of Mississippi, “who read a letter from the Hon. Alex.
H. Stephens regretting his inability to attend on account of sickness.”[22]
Maria returned to her Georgia home
sometime near August 1874, the New York Daily Graphic announcing that
“Mrs. Maria J. Westmoreland is occupied at her home in Georgia writing a
psychological novel, which is likely to excite a profound sensation.”[23]
She delivered her “Kisses” lecture to an Atlanta audience the press described
as “large and distinguished.” One report tells us that she planned a summer
tour of resort areas.[24]
In 1880 her publisher reissued her second novel, Clifford Troup¸ with a
new title, Drifted Together, and issued anonymously.[25]
The Eighties
Maria
fades from newspaper notice in the 1880s. Venet’s take on this was:
She largely faded from view by the end of the 1870s.
Although the two novels went through several editions, critics panned them, and
speaking engagements appear to have dried up. Her marriage may have collapsed,
for Maria did not attend her daughter’s Atlanta wedding in 1882, and she is not
buried next to Willis, who died a much-respected member of Atlanta’s medical
community in 1890.[26]
Maria’s
marriage deteriorated. If we re-read her open letter to the Southern press, we
find her asking: “Is it kind, is it liberal or charitable for them to try to
draw down a woman who is trying honestly and by hard labor to support herself
and two children?”[27]
When her husband, Willis Westmoreland, returned to Georgia after their joint
visit to New York City, he stopped supporting her and their children. Willis,
though respected as a physician, was volatile, ready to threaten a duel, and
just as ready to run off to Arkansas to avoid it.[28] He deteriorated mentally to the point of
commitment to the State Insane Asylum at Milledgeville, Georgia, where he died
June 26, 1890. At some point the children returned to their father’s care.
Maria and Willis lived separately, and then divorced. By the 1880s, we find her
living in West Virginia and married into the Washington family. In 1882 she
married William Lewis Washington [1844-1902], a man of some wealth and a
colonel in the Confederate Army.
They
were in New York City by 1887, and a letter from her to Richard Watson Gilder,
the publisher of Century Magazine, seeking an appointment exists,
apparently to further her literary career. A follow-up letter dated June 18,
1887, also exists showing that she had an appointment with Robert Underwood
Johnson at Century Magazine. We do not know the result.[29]
William
quickly tired of Maria. In a letter written in 1890 he discussed their divorce
proceedings, saying that Maria should be “placed in a lunatic asylum.” In a
separate letter he wrote that Maria was “an opium eater” and not responsible
for her actions. We have no basis upon which to judge this true or false and
are left with merely reporting it. Letters between Maria and other members of
the Washington family suggest that they held a kinder view of Maria. [30]
William quickly went through two more marriages, which probably reflects more
on him than any of his wives.
W. L. Washington photo here
It is
to this period we must assign her exploration of alternative religions. She
wrote a biography, printed in very limited numbers and which we could not
locate.[31]
What remains of this story is found in the December 13, 1891, New York, New
York, Sun, which reported that she “has been a member of almost every
religious denomination and a disciple of all manner of strange vagaries
including spiritualism, theosophy and Christian science [sic].” This is typical
Sun innuendo and insult, a type of insult the Sun directed at
anyone religious but out of the ordinary. Maria told the Sun reporter
that she had sought the “truth of religion” for forty years which takes us back
to 1851, her twelfth or thirteenth year. Serious questing usually takes place
in more mature years, though it can begin quite early.
The Nineties
After
separating from W. L. Washington, about 1890, she moved from their shared
quarters in the Park Avenue Hotel to a rented, older Greek Revival house at 179
McDougal Street, in the Washington Square area.[32]
She
became interested in the near return of Christ, reading Charles A. L. Totten’s
prophetic speculations. Totten was a retired army officer, a British Israelite
proponent, and believed Christ would return in 1899.[33]
She read Russell’s Plan of the Ages. We do not know the circumstances. A
group of wealthy, somewhat prominent widows and matrons resident in New York
City promoted the book; principal among these was Viola Gilbert whom we profile
in volume three of Separate Identity. She and Maria were social peers.
It is possible, even likely, that Maria was introduced to Russell’s writings
through Gilbert. We simply do not know.
However,
Maria was impressed and traveled to Allegheny to meet Russell, returning with his
photo and a determination to preach. The insinuating, insulting, rather vulgar Sun
reporter wrote:
photo
Maria’s Calling Card – New
York Public Library Collection.
She has been searching for the truth for forty years,
and, as she says, only succeeded in gathering a flock of hungry parasites, who
fattened off her substance and pretended to have all manner of faith in her.
Not until a year ago did the truth come to her, and since that time she has
been preparing to open a campaign for the saving of the world, which will end
before many years.
The truth came to her with the aid of a certain
Charles Russell – a big-eyed, unctuous-looking man, if his picture does not
flatter him. Mr. Russell lives in Allegheny, Pa., and is responsible for a good
deal more than this church in the house of Maria.
Mr. Russell has written some of the largest and
dullest books in the world to prove that the millennium is at hand. He preceded
Totten; is more voluminous and more wearisome, if possible. He is spending all
his time at the propagation of his ideas about the millennium, and runs a
publishing house in its interests.
Maria thinks exceeding well of Russell and is inclined
to adopt his plan of the end of the world, although she is still flirting with
Totten and may yet go over to him. Russell says the first trumpet sounded in
1878 or thereabouts, and that the millennium will come in 1914. He is a good
deal agitated about this, but not so much agitated as is Maria.[34]
She
told the reporter that for weeks after “the truth was revealed to her she ...
ran about the streets telling everybody, policemen, beggars, street walkers.”
She went to the “big churches,” asking “embarrassing questions of the ministers
as they descended from their handsome pulpits.” Failing to receive satisfactory
answers she traveled to Allegheny, “and there got the powerful call to start a
church.” She invited previous acquaintances to her meetings. The reporter
described them as “the best people of New York – the worldly, be-diamond,
décolleté people” of New York City.
The Sun’s
reporter was a modernist who, as did most of his ilk, responded to fervent
belief with ridicule. Despite this, much detail penetrates the fog. At the time
of this report, Maria was teaching what she found in The Plan of the Ages.
If she was persuaded by Totten’s Anglo-Israelitism, she was not the only Watch
Tower adherent to be so. Russell saw the issue as irrelevant to the times. The
Sun suggested that she had “an entire [sic] new system of theology, and
talks about the Presbyterians and Methodists and the rest in a most startling
way – She thinks the wicked are to be instantly killed off, instead of burned
or tortured with remorse. She thinks – but if you care to know all that she
thinks go see her.” The public was invited to come on Fridays to discuss and
debate. Maria used what she saw as a New Testament pattern, calling the group
who met with her The Church in Maria’s House, and alternately, according to the
reporter, The School of Christ. Probably the reporter misunderstood the phrase
“school of Christ.” From The Sun’s article we pull this:
Maria is endeavoring to return to the Apostolic Church
in every way. Her method of expounding the Scriptures is novel and, to one
unfamiliar with any but the orthodox standards most startling. She is well
educated and isby no means absurd in her talk. She can reason with adroitness
and subtlety, and she has an amazing flow of language. She is quick tempered
too, and, as she regards it as inspired do not hesitate to show it when her
view are called into question.
As we
observed in the previous chapter, meetings could be contentious. Those held in
Maria’s house were. The Thursday meetings for ‘the church’ were described this
way:
If you should happen to strike the church in Maria’s
house of a Thursday afternoon you will hear in all probability voices raised
high in argument. There will be swinging word-blows exchanging in the shrillest
tones and the most vigorous language a well-strained Anglo-Saxon vocabulary
affords. This will be Maria driving home the truth as it is revealed to her.
“Sometimes,” she will explain, “the Lord gives it to me to speak the truth with
wonderful power. I do not spare words. I tear my adversaries in pieces. The
woman who came to combat me had to her bed, and many do not get over a visit
for days. Oh, the truth is mighty.
Despite
the controversies, Maria’s mission reached some. Two students attending The
Union Theological Seminary who testified that “Maria has taught them more in a
few lessons than all the professors at Union have ... in the time they have
been going there.” The Sun article was designed to discourage contact
with Mrs. Washington, to ridicule her, but it did not succeed. Maria turned to
a forum with which she was very familiar, a salon. Using as a pattern her
youthful literary salons, she promoted Millennial Dawn teachings among her
social peers, holding two meetings a week, one for visitors and one for those
who saw themselves as part of the “little flock,” the 144,000, heaven bound
congregation.
photo here
Park Avenue Hotel – About
1900.
William and Maria Washington
Took Rooms Here in 1887.
Russell
was in New York City in November 1892 “in response to the urgent solicitations
of the friends in and adjacent to” the City. He
‘preached’ in the morning at Cooper Union on the subject “In Our Days.” In the
evening he spoke at Hardman Hall on “The Restitution of All Things” and again
that night on “The Millennium and Its Day of Preparation.” Maria Russell
accompanied him. An announcement in Zion’s Watch Tower said: “Notice is given thus publicly and in season, that
readers from surrounding places may attend, if they can make it convenient.”
Russell said, “Private meetings will be held elsewhere on Monday.” Russell used
the phrase “in response to urgent solicitation” as a code word for the need to
address troublesome issues among the brethren. We do not know what the issues
was or where the private meetings were held, or how they affected Maria
Washington.
We
believe, based solely on circumstantial evidence, that Maria attended the Watch
Tower convention held in Chicago in 1893. Late in life Maria was described as
having an angular face. A comparison of her known portrait with the large
format group photo taken at the convention leads us to tentatively identify her
in that group. In any event, she was in Chicago in October 1893 with a small
but organized group of evangelizers. The Chicago, Illinois, Inter-Ocean
reported on her work:
Mrs. Maria J. Washington and her associates in
evangelistic work are meeting with great success in the neighborhood of the
World’s Fair.
The meetings are largely attended and numerous conversations
are reported. Services will be held at four centers in the vicinity of the
exposition today, Mrs. Washington having the assistance of an energetic
volunteer band of workers numbering over twenty. ....
Mrs. Washington is a lady of means who devotes all her
time and energy to religious work, devoting particular attention to the rescue
of the fallen and abandoned. Not many years since she occupies a very prominent
place in society at the National capital. She is the widow of a gentleman who
belonged to the family of the illustrious Washington. She surrendered her
fashionable environments and associations to give herself up to the labors of
charity among the poor and lowly. Her efforts have been most fruitful, a rare
and peculiar magnetism of manner enabling her to win friends with ease. She has
labored in New York and in some of the southern cities, but will make Chicago
her home for some time to come.[35]
In
Chicago, as in all of America’s larger cities, women faced the problem of
earning a living wage “under conditions which would make it possible for her to
escape illness and prostitution.” Chicago was at the center of labor reform.
Maria found congenial company with which to pursue the issue. The
Inter-Ocean and other papers described her as a widow. In fact she was not,
but was twice divorced. We do not know if the papers were being polite to a
well-doing woman or if Maria misrepresented herself. Care for poor, abandoned,
under-class women was Maria’s interest since the Civil War years. Despite
Russell’s suggestion that the work of God’s people lay elsewhere, she
persisted. While this was contrary to advice as found in Zion’s Watch Tower,
Russell observed that others followed this path, and it did not break
fellowship. His view was that because Christ was present, social issues
would soon be solved by his kingdom.
Maria
returned to Atlanta early in 1894, leaving no discernable impression on Chicago.
Her message remained a socially conscious one. [continue]
The
Atlanta Constitution of April 26, 1894, reported that she established a “rescue
mission for the redemption and saving of fallen women.” She gave a series of
public lectures on religious topics that were well attended, and, though the
events were free. Her November 25th lecture was entitled “Go Sin No
More,” and a special invitation was extended to “old friends specially and the
public generally.” After her lecture she asked for an “offering” to support her
rescue mission.[36]
Maria
may have abandoned major portions of Russellite belief. The Atlanta
Constitution reported her as giving a series of lectures in DeGive’s Opera
House. According to the December 2, 1894, Constitution¸ she attracted
large and appreciative crowds. Her lecture for that night was “The Lord’s
Second, Personal and Imminent Coming.”[37] If
Christ’s return was imminent, it had not yet occurred. While noting this, we
should draw conclusions cautiously. Advertisements from Russell’s own lectures
and those of Watch Tower missionaries used similar language.
In
1897, Maria wrote to E. F, Cheatham, one of the extended Washington family
asking him to escort her daughter, Carolina, and a friend to the theater.
Proper ladies did not go alone, even in 1897. She wrote that she was happy in
new life as a missionary but barely able to pay bills. She asked for a loan.
The loan was granted, and her son, W. F. Westmoreland, Jr., sent a letter of
thanks for Cheatham’s kindness. Maria died in 1900 and is buried in Atlanta.[38]
Maria
represents several we know and probably many of whom we know nothing who
accepted all or parts of Watch Tower belief, but rejected Russell’s call to
focus on Kingdom work. An example is Keim who sought immediate remedies to
human ills through “Christian Socialism,” yet remained on the fringes of Watch
Tower congregations. Maria’s path was barely within what The Watch Tower
advised. In 1881 Russell suggested that true Christians preach Christ, but that
they also visit the sick, finance the Lord’s work, are willing to “sacrifice
reputation” and suffer “the reproach of the world and a degenerate nominal
church.”[39] In this volume of Separate Identity we
meet a number who continued to belong to fraternal lodges, the Grand Army of
the Republic, a Union veterans’ organization, and who continued to participate
in community affairs. Maria’s journey is similar. She sought immediate
remediation of the poor, as far as she was able, expending her fortune in this
work. She sought to rescue prostitutes, many of whom were mere children. We
think Maria’s story is representative and important because of that.
[1] W. F. Westmoreland’s biography: H. A. Kelly: A
Cyclopedia of American Medical Biography, Philadelphia, 1912, volume 2,
page 494ff. Mariah’s family and biography: The Living Female Writers of the
South, Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger, Philadelphia, 1872, page 188ff;
Ida Raymond: Southland Writers: Biographical and Critical Sketches of the
Living Female Writers of the South, Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger,
Philadelphia, volume 1, 1870, page 447ff.
“Dr.
Willis F. Westmoreland was born in Fayette county, [sic] Ga., June 1, 1828. He
studied medicine in the Georgia Medical College, in the Jefferson Medical
College, and the medical department of the University of Nashville, Tenn. He
graduated at the Jefferson Medical College in 1850. He also spent three years
in Europe, principally in Paris, in making himself proficient with the
principles of his profession. He first settled in Fayette county, [sic] and in
1851 removed to Atlanta. His specialty is surgery. He is a member of the American
Medical Association, of the Georgia Medical Association; was its president in
1873, and of the Atlanta Academy of Medicine. He was one of the original
founders of the Atlanta Medical and Surgical Journal in 1855, and ever since
has been a contributor to medical literature. From 1854 he has been a professor
in the Atlanta Medical College.” – W. P. Reed: History of Atlanta, Georgia¸
D. Mason & Co., Syracuse, New York, 1889, page 312.
[3] S. C. Clayton: Requiem for a Lost City: A Memoir of
Civil War Atlanta and the Old South, Mercer University Press, Macon, Georgia,
1999, page 67.
[4] W. H. Venet: A Changing Wind: Commerce and Conflict
in Civil War Atlanta, Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, 2014,
page 49.
[5] Contributions Received by the “Ladies’ Soldier’s Relief
Society” for the Atlanta Hospitals, The Southern Confederacy¸ April 10,
1862.
[6] We have drawn heavily from W. H. Venet’s excelling
book, A Changing Wind: Commerce and Conflict in Civil War Atlanta, Yale
University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, 2014, page 215.
[7] T. H. Stout: Southern Female College, The Christian
Index, July 11, 1872. The Index was a Baptist publication.
[10] Shots at Social Myths, New York Home Journal as
reprinted in The Atlanta Constitution, December 2, 1873.
[11] Mrs. Westmoreland’s Lecture, New York Evening Post
as reprinted in The Atlanta Constitution, November 30, 1873.
[12] A Georgia Authoress in a New Role: The Nashville,
Tennessee, Union and American, November 2, 1873.
[16] The letter is quoted in part in: An Indignant Woman, The
Nashville, Tennessee, Union and American, November 26, 1873.
[18] Current Topics, The Kingston, New York, Daily Freeman¸
December 17, 1873. Kingston is about ninety miles from New York City. Few
likely to attend would have read the Freeman.
[25] J. L. Whitney: A Modern Proteus: Or a List of Books
Published Under More Than One Title, F. Leypoldt, New York, 1883, page 70.
[27] The letter is quoted in part in: An Indignant Woman, The
Nashville, Tennessee, Union and American, November 26, 1873.
[31] The title as announced in The Atlanta Constitution,
is The Growth of a Soul: A Testimony for Jesus in Three Parts – Part I. Old
Faith. Part II. Unfaith. Part III. Faith.
[33] Totten
receives unfavorable mention in a more recent Watchtower publication. See: Do
You Believe Everything You Read, Awake! November 22, 1970, page 5. In
1890 Totten started publishing Our Race: Its Origin and Destiny, a
quarterly, to promote his Anglo-Israelite theories. N. Goodrick-Clarke [Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics
of Identity, New York University Press,
2002, page 235] suggests that Anglo-Israelitism came to America through Totten.
This is, of course, false.
[35] Their Labors Rewarded: Mrs Maria J. Washington and
Associate Evangelists Meeting with Success, The Chicago, Illinois,
Inter-Ocean¸ October 8, 1893.