Who Are Those Guys? - part 1

by Jerome

East face of the pyramid showing the names of Grace Mundy, Lorena M Russell, John Perry, H L Addington and Flora J Cole.

There’s a famous line in the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Butch and Sundance are being chased by an unknown posse, who are only seen in the distance to begin with. The line that almost becomes a mantra throughout this sequence is “Who are those guys?”

It is a good enough opening line for this article (the first of two) which is about a group of people who have remained unknown and for any sufficiently curious, somewhat mysterious, for around one hundred years. Hopefully, in some cases, it might rescue their stories from obscurity.

In the Rosemont United Cemetery in Ross Township, Allegheny, there is a burial plot originally intended for Watch Tower supporters who either worked at their headquarters (Bethel) or who travelled from congregation to congregation (Pilgrims) or who acted as colporteurs along with their family members. CTR in his will specified that he should be buried in this cemetery, and the idea was for others close to him and his work to be buried nearby in the years ahead.

Previous articles on this blog have dealt with the actual site with a pyramid at its center – covering its history, the number of plots planned and how this was revised, who actually are buried there today, and also the mystery of the hidden box of publications sealed inside the pyramid that, alas, is there no longer. This article deals with those whose names were originally inscribed on the monument. For all the grandiose plans, only nine names ever made it on the pyramid sides.

This article may be considered a work in progress, because while some of these individuals were easy to trace, others were very illusive. Other researchers may be able to add to this information, and I would be happy to have their comments, and even publish a revised article (with acknowledgments) if sufficient extra material comes to light.

This first article deals with the five individuals whose names are recorded on the east face of the pyramid as shown in the photograph at the head of this article. They are listed under the carved heading Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Below is a plan of the complete lot where they are interred (Section T – lot 33) which also shows where CTR and his sister are buried (in their case, actually in Section T – lot 35). The plan shows where the five graves are in relation to each other at the far corner of the whole site. (All the Bible Student burials, apart from CTR’s, appear to be working from the extremities of the site inwards.)

 

 

Grace Mundy

Grace Mundy was buried in the same row as CTR, but at the furthest corner of the site. According to her death certificate she died on December 4, 1914, aged 25, and the interment took place on December 8. She was the first to be buried on the Society’s site. Sadly, she made the front page of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle when she was fatally injured.

The Eagle for December 4, 1914 carried the heading, WOMAN IN FLAMES RUSHES INTO STREET – Miss Grace Mundy Perhaps Fatally Burned – Neighbors Beat Out Fire.

The story tells how the street was greeted by a “flaming apparition” as Grace rushed into the street, and several bystanders were burned trying to extinguish the flames. Grace’s father was away at the time, her mother was ill in bed, and she had been cleaning feathers in the kitchen in their home on the fourth floor of 539 Throop Avenue, using gasoline. She got too near the stove and the fluid ignited and set fire to her garments. She managed to get down three flights of stairs and out into the street but was severely burned. She was taken to St John’s Hospital, where she died.

The story makes no connection with the Bible Student movement, but the death certificate confirms that this is the Grace who was the first to be buried at the Society’s plot. She may have been a colporteur, and her parents, Peter and Sarah, may have been too. They had lived in Throop Avenue for three years at the time of the accident. They were not mentioned by Menta Sturgeon when he detailed who was part of the regular Bethel family in January 1913. (See trial transcript Russell vs. Brooklyn Eagle, 1913). The 1910 census has the family living in New Jersey, with the father a carpenter and Grace’s younger brother, George, a machinist in an auto factory. Grace was born in Missouri, and the census has her down as a step-daughter, with the original surname of Wilson.

The trail ran cold for me at this point. However, Grace and/or her family must have been heavily involved in the work of the IBSA for her to be given the ‘privilege’ of being the first to be taken all the way from New York to the United Cemeteries in Pittsburgh. No other family members were to be buried near her.

Lorena May Russell

A year went by without any further interments, and then two happened in quick succession in December 1915. The pyramid records the death of Lorena M Russell. She was living and working at Bethel, but was not listed there when the New York census named all the regular inhabitants on the snapshot day of June 1, 1915. According to her death certificate she was 40 when she died. She is named as Lorena on the pyramid, Lorna on her death certificate, and Laura in her obituary (see below). Even with this information, there are just too many L Russells around in the records to track her history with any certainty, but her death was mentioned in the St Paul Enterprise, the unofficial Bible Student newspaper of the day. No connection with CTR was ever suggested.

A letter from J H Coyle (John Coyle who worked in the Bethel laundry in 1915) dated December 17, 1917, read:

“Dear Brothers in Christ – Perhaps it would interest many to note that Sister Laura May Russell of the “Bethel” died December 11. Funeral service by our dear Brother Rutherford in which he noted her fine Christ-like characters, the largeness of heart and nobility of soul, the warmth and graciousness of her spirit and her earnest devotion and tender love to the Master and disciples. Pilgrim Rutherford lovingly called attention to the fact that our departed sister had the great honor of being the first from Brooklyn “Bethel” to meet and greet the Risen Master, even as did Mary of old.”

Two things we might glean from this. Lorena, Lorna or Laura was sufficiently well known in the Bible student community to make such a letter have any point, and also it shows that J F Rutherford was in Brooklyn (or at least as a Pilgrim travelled to Brooklyn) in December 1915.

John Perry

On December 13, 1915, John Perry died – our third name on the east face of the pyramid. The same letter from John Coyle continued:

“Two days later brother John Perry of “Bethel” also died. Funeral by Pilgrim Van Amburgh. His discourse was touching as he reviewed the faithful, devoted and blessed consecrated life of this very dear and saintly brother. Brother Perry had finely wrought qualities of heart that endeared him to all at the home. Like a shock of wheat he was fully ripe, and he has gone to meet the Saviour whom he loved so well!”

John Perry was listed in Menta Sturgeon’s January 1913 list as part of the Bethel family, and he was also in the June 1915 New York census at the Columbia Heights address. He was 70 years old at the time, and while many of his companions told the enumerator they were a missionary, evangelist, or minister of the gospel, John put himself down as a helper, and his occupation - housework.

We learn more about him from a letter in the January 7, 1916 SPE which gives his history. It was written by W H Bradford (Wesley Haven Bradford, who wrote several collectible booklets).

Before becoming a Bible Student, John Perry had been “a horse dealer in the vicinity of Bismarck, North Dakota, a very rough and profane man, not able to read or write, although a shrewd and successful horse raiser and trader, and possessed of a small fortune accumulated in trade.”

The account tells how he came in contact with “the teachings of Pastor Russell and was at once under conviction of them. He was unable, however, to read either the Studies in the Scriptures or the Bible itself, being illiterate...So he began on a task that most men of his age would despair of at the start. He used the Bible and the Divine Plan of the Ages as his text books, and actually learned to read from them.” He moved to Chicago where he became an active volunteer (and where Bradford first knew him). “He sold out his interest in the horse business, and...gave the proceeds to the Bible House for the furtherance of the Light.”

Bradford’s account concludes: “He was very clear on all the essential doctrines, being able to quote Scriptures fluently to support them, and it was impossible for men of education or argumentative skill to tangle him up. I have often thought, when pondering on such a life as Brother Perry’s, What hath God wrought! The Divine Potter indeed hath power out of ordinary clay to fashion a vessel unto honor. In the light of such a life, who should not have faith?”

One gets the picture of a rough diamond who donated his assets to the cause and was probably given a home at Brooklyn Bethel as part of that arrangement.

H L Addington                             

 

In his day, Henry Lawrence Addington was probably one of the best known of the names on the pyramid. Other than CTR, he was the only person named on the pyramid to receive an official obituary in the Watch Tower magazine.
 

Addington served as a Pilgrim and as his itinerary was regularly listed on the back page of the Watch Tower magazine. In both June 1919 issues it notes that he was booked to speak at Mansfield, Ohio, on July 4. He was killed en route to that speaking engagement.

 

His obituary was published in the July 15, 1919, Watch Tower on page 217 under the heading: “Sown in Weakness, Raised in Power.” It reads (in part):
 

“Brother H L Addington, member of the office staff and also of the Pilgrim force, suddenly finished his course on the morning of July 4 at Mansfield, Ohio, when he and four other friends, three from Cleveland and one from Mansfield, were killed by a special Pennsylvania train. Eight friends were seated in an autocar and were being driven to picnic grounds nearby, where meetings were to be addressed by Brother Addington during the day. Five friends were killed practically outright; three were injured.”
 

The obituary noted that Addington symbolised his consecration in Pittsburgh in the spring of 1914 and joined the Bethel family in February 1918.
 

The accident was reported in the July 5, 1919, New York Sun as “Five Die in Motor Crash - Pastor is Among Victims on Way to Bible Students’ Picnic” and also in both the Loudonville, Ohio, newspapers, the Advocate and Democrat, on July 7, 1919 – headlines “Five Killed” and “Another Awful Auto Accident.” They all misspell Addington’s name and initials as the Rev. H A Haddington. He was 38.
 

Apparently the level crossing gates at the East Fourth Street crossing of the Pennsylvania railroad at Mansfield were not down, and as the car attempted to cross it was hit by a special train taking fight fans from Pittsburgh to Toledo. The gateman hadn’t seen the signal from the next station of the train’s approach, and neither had he heard it. He was arraigned on the charge of manslaughter and at the preliminary hearing it turned out that he was (quote) “quite deaf.”

 

Before becoming a Bible Student, records shows Addington to have been born in Darke County Ohio, some sources gives 1881, others 1882. He married Edith C Woolley (or Woodley) in June 1909. (It was Edith’s second marriage and she married a third time after Addington’s death, and lived until 1945). The 1910 census shows Lawrence and Edith living together in Allegheny, Pittsburgh and him working as a telegraph operator.

 

Flora J Cole

 

The final name on the east face of the pyramid is that of Flora Jane Cole. There is a link here to the present today for, as we shall see below, her son James was mentioned in a modern Watchtower magazine in 2012. Flora died in Manhattan, New York on June 8, 1919, aged 70. George Swetnam’s 1967 article about the pyramid gives her age as 78, but this is a misreading of a by now none-too-clear inscription. She was buried next in the row of women that started with Grace Mundy and Lorena M Russell.
 

Flora was born about 1849, and as Flora J Loomis married John Cole in 1870. In the 1880 census, John is an engineer, and they have three young sons, James, Herbert and Alfred. Eldest son James was born in Kansas in February 1872. In the 1900 census, Flora is a widow living in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, with two sons, James, an electrician, and Alfred a book-keeper. By the 1910 census we find just Flora and James together in lodgings in Detroit City. They both now give their trade or profession as colporteur and the general nature of their business as Bible studies.
 

In Menta Sturgeon’s January 1913 list, a Mrs Cole was part of the Bethel. Moving forward to the June 1, 1915 New York census, Flora J Cole is still listed as living at Bethel. Her relationship to the rest of the family is “helper” but her occupation is “missionary.” That would identify her as a colporteur.

As noted above, Flora’s son James has been mentioned in Watchtower literature in very recent years. The February 15, 2012, Watchtower magazine, had a feature article “It Made Me a Little Conspicuous.”  It described a contraption used by colporteurs called the Dawn-Mobile. This was designed by James. It was a frame with two wheels attached, one in front of the other, which could be fixed to a suitcase. It enabled colporteurs to transport large amounts of literature to people. It was especially appreciated by female colporteurs and the Watch Tower actually offered these free to women in full-time colporteur work - see for example WT June 15, 1908, reprints page 4195.

James Cole from a 1915 convention report

 

There is an entertaining article in the 1908 convention report from Cincinnati, Ohio (pages 79 and 80), where James Cole (with A H Macmillan as helper) demonstrated the new Dawn-Mobile to the colporteurs at their special meeting. While “Dawn-Mobile” was the official title, nearly everyone at the time called it the “Cole-Wagon.”

The Cole-Wagon 

So Flora J Cole was James’ mother. And hers was the last name to be found on the east face of the pyramid. When James eventually died he was buried in California. You can find him on the Find a Grave site.

If the stated plan had been followed all of the above would have had small grave stones, 12 inches long by 6 inches high. However, no stones for any of the above five now exist. Still, their names are preserved on the pyramid.

 

The next article in this series, when ready, will discuss the remaining individuals remembered on the north and south sides of the monument: Charles T Russell, John Milton Coolidge, Arabella Mann and Mary Jane Whitehouse.

 

ANALYSIS OF A PHOTOGRAPH

There is quite a lot of detail in this photograph, which obviously shows the gravestone for Charles T Russell and nearby, the Pyramid monument erected by early 1920. The photograph likely dates from that year or very shortly thereafter. The pyramid was designed to have engraved on pages on all four sides the names of all those buried on the Watch Tower Society’s plot. There was even a plot reserved for J F Rutherford originally. However, the plan was quite soon abandoned, as noted in an earlier article on this blog, probably because the center of activities returned to Brooklyn in 1919 and then stayed there until very recent times. There was little point, and a lot of unnecessary expense, in shipping bodies all the way back to Pittsburgh unless the families had a direct Pittsburgh connection.

Directly center in the photograph is the farmhouse, which became the office for the United Cemeteries, with J Bohnet in residence for a short time. (Bohnet is pictured in one of the photographs in the post just before this article). This farmhouse was pictured from a different angle when the cemetery company really got going in 1909, and that photo is also in the previous post. In quite recent years this area has been covered with a Masonic building, causing delight for conspiracy theorists. They cannot seem to get their heads around the fact that the Watch Tower Society sold off this land in the early 1920s and has had no input on its use since then.

Then, almost in the centre, a little way down and to the right of the pyramid (looking down the hill) are two small grave markers. They are most likely for Bible Students Arabela Mann and Mary Jane Whitehouse, both of whom had died and were buried here before the pyramid was completed. These specific markers (of white marble and a foot wide and six inches high) are no longer visible today, perhaps having been covered over with grass. However, the two names are engraved on the pyramid, along with a few others, and a rough plan of interments shows this to be where they are buried. Most visitors to the pyramid miss this, probably because they are not looking for them. Also, because of the way the stone has weathered, and the way the light catches the monument, these engravings can easily “disappear.”

One final point to note: In front of the former farmhouse are a whole cluster of graves. Visitors to the site will look in vain for these today. Were the monuments destroyed or were those buried reinterred elsewhere? The answer is neither. Apparently the cemetery company sold monumental masonry – as do many such companies today. These were simply sample stone on display for purchase by future occupants and/or their families.

Who Are Those Guys? - part 2

by Jerome

Charles T Russell and John Coolidge on South face of pyramid
(old picture)

 

Arabella Mann and Mary J Whitehouse on North face of pyramid
(modern picture)

 

 

 

The first article in this series (see September 22) reviewed the history of the five persons named on the east panel of the pyramid memorial in the center of the Society’s main plot in the Rosemont United Cemeteries.

In this article we will examine the remaining names – two on the north panel and two on the south. There are no inscriptions on the west panel.

The panel facing south is headed Dead With Christ and contains two names, Chas T Russell and John M Coolidge.

 

Charles Taze Russell

 

Right at the top is the inscription Chas T Russell, age 64. He died on October 31, 1916, and his burial took place on November 6, 1916.  His current grave marker further up the hill from the pyramid dates from the same time as the pyramid itself, late 1919, early 1920. The installation was complete when it was written up in the The New Era Enterprise for February 10, 1920.

 

I trust that most readers of this blog will already know his history, and will also know that his sister Margaretta R Land (died 1934) is buried in an unmarked grave next to him. Her name was given in various ways over the years, but Margaretta R Land is how she gave her name in the 1930 census and how it is listed in the cemetery records.

 

 

CTR and his sister, Margaret Land, in 1907

John M Coolidge

John Coolidge’s name is quite easy to miss because it is right at the bottom of the south page that is headed by CTR’s name. The reason simply is the location of the grave. CTR is buried in what is now Section T – lot 34 – grave A1, and John is right at the end of the same row in what is now numbered grave D2.   He has the distinction of being the only one (other than CTR) to have a surviving grave marker.

John Milton Coolidge was born in February 1876 in Massachusetts. He was married for a short time to Emma Eliza Phillips (married in Utah in 1898, but she died in 1899). He obviously lived at some point in Canandaigua, county seat of Ontario County, NY, because the Ontario County Journal gave a one line notice of his death -  at New York City, Jan. 2, John Milton Coolidge, formerly of Canandaigua, aged 38 years. (The death certificate gives January 4).

He was not in the 1913 list of Bethel residents provided by Menta Sturgeon, nor in the 1915 census of Bethel. However, a 1915 listing has him serving as a deacon in the New York City Ecclesia.

John’s death certificate states that he was living at 320 Beekman Avenue, The Bronx, at the time of his death. (This is a block of apartments built in 1910). The certificate says that he died of cerebrospinal meningitis at the age of 40 on January 4, 1916. (If the above birth date is correct that should probably be age 39, although the newspaper announcement gave age 38 and the pyramid inscription repeats the death certificate with age 40). His burial in the United Cemeteries plot was on January 6. His occupation was given as electrician.

All I can establish about him is that he was an amateur poet, somewhat along the lines of Gertrude Seibert. His death and funeral are not mentioned in the SPE (St Paul’s Enterprise) but a few months later a letter dated April 22, 1916, was written from Brooklyn by Mrs Anna H Brooks. It was eventually published on page 4 of the August 29, 1916, issue. She wrote:

“The accompanying poem written by our dear departed Brother Coolidge, has been so helpful to us at Bethel and vicinity, that we desire to share it with all the dear Enterprise family. It was read at his own funeral, and now we will be so glad to see it in our favorite newspaper.”

The poem was entitled “What of To-day?” and modern readers can always skip down this page if it is not to their taste.

We aim to do good in the “after while.”

  What good have we done to-day?

We would bring to each lonely one a smile,

  But what have we brought to-day?

We would give to Truth a greater worth:

And to steadfast Faith a grander birth,

And bless the fallen ones of earth.

  But what have we done to-day?

We will be so kind – “when we’re over there”

  How kind have we been to-day?

Our dear Lord’s likeness we there shall wear.

  But whose have we worn to-day?

We will share His joy and His glory too;

Rejoice and praise Him the whole day through,

And do all the Father would have us do.

  But what are we doing to-day?

Overcome, we must, to with Him share.

  Have we overcome aught to-day?

We will serve all His dear ones with tender care,

  Have we served them so to-day?

Gentle and loving and kind as a dove,

Manifesting the Heavenly Love,

Showing the Spirit from above.

  But how have we done to-day?

We’ll sympathise fully with others then.

  But how are we doing to-day?

We’ll think e’er we speak and not condemn,

  But what are we doing to-day?

We wish to prove worthy of “the call”

And help all mankind up from “the fall”

That the Glory of God may be known to all.

  Are we practicing this to-day?

  Composed  by J.M. COOLIDGE

 

Another one from John Milton Coolidge

 

And now we turn to the north face, which contains two names, Arabella Mann and Mary J Whitehouse.

 

Arabella Mann

Some internet transcripts give Arabella’s age at death as 86. However, the only death recorded in Kings, New York (the area including Brooklyn) with a subsequent burial at United Cemeteries, is Arabella L Mann, who died 28 May 1916 aged 66. Trying to decipher the difference between a 6 and an 8 on a discolored and weathered pyramid seems to have caused the discrepancy.

Arabella Mann was born c.1849-1850. (One source says December 1849). The 1900 United States Federal Census has Arabella L Mann living in Middlesex, Massachusetts, aged 50. She was born in New Hampshire, and had been married for 28 years (i.e. since c.1872), but there are no husband or children with her on census night. Her occupation is Music Teacher. City directories also place her on her own in Massachusetts in 1899 (Boston) and 1907 (Everett). By the 1910 census she is back in her home state of New Hampshire at Plymouth, Grafton, aged 60, as a boarder and a widow with no occupation listed. The Atlantic Reporter volume 80, page 366, reviewed a legal hearing held in New Hampshire in 1911 involving a widow named Arabella L Mann claiming back wages owed to her late husband, one George G Mann, who died March 17, 1908. This could be the same Arabella.

If she were a sometime colporteur, then moving about would be par for the course. By 1915 she is in the Brooklyn Bethel. The name is incorrectly rendered in the schedule as Anna L Mann. No other family members are with her. She is aged 66 and gives her relationship to the rest of the family as “helper” but her occupation as “missionary.” That would tie in with colporteur work.

Perhaps the biggest point to note about Arabella is that she appears to be no relation to William Imrie Mann. It would have been nice if a connection could have been made with WIM, who wrote for the early ZWTs and was a Society director until 1892. However, WIM left CTR and associated with John Paton and William Conley. It was this Mann who reported Conley’s death in the pages of Paton’s World’s Hope in 1897. Just the year before, CTR had railed against those who, as he saw it, were guilty of “evil surmising and slanders and envy” – and Mann was first on his list. (See Russell vs. Russell 1906, exhibit 2, letter from CTR to ‘My dear wife’ dated July 9, 1896). So it seems unlikely that Arabella was a relative. William Imrie was born in Scotland, whereas Arabella was born in America, although I do not have any information on her husband or maiden name.

Mary J Whitehouse

Mary Jane Whitehouse died in the Pittsburgh area in June 1916. There was a brief announcement of her death in the Pittsburgh Press for June 24, 1916. It reads:

WHITEHOUSE  – On Friday, June 23, 1916, at 1.25 a.m., Mary Jane, beloved wife of Herbert E Whitehouse (née McAdams) in her 63^rd year. Funeral services at her late residence, Rear 382 Boquet Street, Oakland, on Sunday June 25^th at 2.00 P.M. Interment private.

Mary Jane McAdams married Herbert Edward Whitehouse c. 1877 to become Mary Jane Whitehouse. Both were born in England but grew up in America. Two of their children featured in Watch Tower history.

The most well known was Laura Mary Whitehouse. She was born in Pittsburgh in 1878, and in the 1900 census she gives her occupation as a clerk. This was most likely in the Bible House, because she was invited with two other women to give their names to a company called Logan, Land and Whitehouse, in connection with buying goods at wholesale rates for a short-lived commercial enterprise called the Solon Society. When asked about why she allowed her name to be used, in cross-examination at the Russell vs. Russell 1907 hearing, she answered:

“I knew these gentlemen that belonged to the Solon Association, and I understood them to be thoroughly honest, honorable and reliable, and that there would be no responsibility upon myself, and so I permitted my name to be used in that way...Mr Russell broached the subject to me, but it was not compulsory at all; he didn’t say that we had to or needed to; he just simply asked us if we would like to.”

Laura’s mother was to be buried on the pyramid site, as was the mother of Alice Land, another one of the Logan, Land and Whitehouse triumvirate. Alice’s mother was CTR’s sister, Margaretta, mentioned above.

Laura married Albert Ernest Burgess, who, like her, grew up in Pittsburgh. He became a well known Pilgrim speaker and was one of the names mentioned in CTR’s will. By the 1910 census they have been married one year and are living in Brooklyn Bethel.

Another daughter of Mary Jane and Herbert Whitehouse was Estelle Belle Whitehouse who married Isaac Francis Hoskins on January 16, 1908. The two are also together in Brooklyn Bethel as a married couple in 1910, with the suggestion (assuming the enumerator completed the form correctly) that she had lost two children by then. Isaac Hoskins was one of the four directors replaced by J F Rutherford in 1917.

Laura and Estelle Whitehouse in 1907

Mary Jane Whitehouse’s husband, Herbert, died in 1931, having spent his last few years living with the Hoskins in New York.

So those are a few details about the nine names on the pyramid.

In order of death the nine were:

 

And then, no sooner was the pyramid erected and the names inscribed by early 1920, than the whole plan was abandoned

 

But any visitors to the site, or any interested in this footnote to history, should now have a bit more information to go on.

 

United Cemeteries Revisited

by Jerome

The United Cemeteries burial plot where CTR is interred has featured on this blog on several occasions in the past. Back in 2014, after visiting the area in person, I was able to write a series of articles covering the cemetery’s history, the history of the pyramid monument (including the infamous break-in) and also the history of the people whose names are inscribed on the pyramid’s sides. Also the claim by conspiracy theorists that CTR was a freemason because - shock, horror – there is now a Masonic temple on the site has also been discussed in detail in the past by both me and others.

However, since finding a couple more photographs hidden away on a hard drive, this article will go over some of this history briefly again. And it may be of interest to new readers who have not delved back into this blog’s own past.

Using the United States Investment Company, the Society purchased farming land formerly belonging to a Margaret Wible in 1904, with the intention of forming a cemetery company. It would be a commercial venture, but a percentage of the profits would go towards their religious work. There was already a cemetery adjacent owned by the Roman Catholic St Philomena Church, so the change of use was logical. Plat maps of the 1890s show a farm and land belonging to Margaret Wible, with the St Philomena Cemetery to the south.

When CTR wrote his last will and testament in 1907 he asked to be buried here. A special area of the cemetery came to be known as the Bethel plot, and was to be reserved for full time workers, either in Bethel or as pilgrims or colporteurs.

Our first picture was taken in early November 1916 and shows a view down the hill across the special “Bethel” cemetery area.

Two small grave markers can be seen on the grass. These are for Mary Jane Whitehouse and Arabella Mann, who were both interred in June 1916. Their graves mark the end of the special Bethel plot. The land in front, while still belong to the cemetery company, was not part of the Bethel plot. Looking further down the hill you can see a large house. This was the original farmhouse, now occupied by J Adam Bohnet, who was cemetery manager in 1916. He’d lived there for some years, and had earlier used the surrounding farmland to grow “miracle wheat.”

In front of the house on the right of the picture you can see some substantial grave stones clustered together. You will not find these today because this was apparently a collection of monumental masonry for purchase from the cemetery company.

So in 1916 CTR died and arrangements were made for his funeral. The next picture shows the grave being dug.

You can just see the head of someone in the bottom of the grave. The group of men include J Adam Bohnet on the far right. Bohnet’s distinctive bald head is covered over by a hat. The small graves stones for Mary Whitehouse and Arabella Mann are shielded in the picture by the group. Below them is the house along with the sample grave markers.

Our next picture takes us forward to very early in 1920. The pyramid monument has been erected in the center of the Bethel plot. This is covered in some detail in the New Era Enterprise newspaper for February 20, 1920, which reproduces this photograph.

This photograph, taken near dusk, appears to have been taken from the location of CTR’s grave. Looking down the hill, you can still see the two small grave markers for Whitehouse and Mann. It looks like the lights are on in the house.

However, the house no longer belonged to the Society. In December 1917 the whole cemetery, with the exception of the Bethel plot and a couple of other small areas, was sold off to what was now called the North Side Catholic Cemetery Association. J Adam Bohnet no longer lived in this house. After a short spell in Brooklyn he would spend the next decade as a Pilgrim loyal to the IBSA travelling across the country.

Once the pyramid monument was installed, no further names were inscribed on it. Apart from two further burials – Charles Beuhler in 1925 and Margaretta Russell Land (CTR’s sister) in 1934 – the site fell into disuse until the Society started selling off plots in the 1940s.

Our next picture dates from November 1991.

The site looks a little neglected, although that might just have been the time of year when the picture was taken. You can see CTR’s grave, the pyramid monument, and assorted grave markers both inside and outside of the Bethel plot. The two little grave markers for Whitehouse and Mann have now disappeared. So has the farm house. The land opposite is just scrubland, with just a few possible graves near the path.

In 1994 the Catholics (rebranded as the Catholic Cemeteries Association of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, Inc.) sold off this waste ground to the Masons. The documents from October 1994 show they sold 42.40 acres of land to the Masonic Fund Society for the County of Allegheny for $610,000. The Masons then built their shiny new Greater Pittsburgh Masonic Center there.

Our final picture (taken in 2014) shows CTR’s grave, the pyramid and the Masonic buildings in the distance.

It must be stressed to any who persist in linking a Masonic conference center with CTR’s grave that the land was sold to the Catholics in December 1917. The Catholics appear to have done nothing with it until selling it on in 1994. So there is absolutely no connection with CTR and the Society’s burial area. But when did facts ever get in the way of conspiracy theorists?

There are numerous pictures of the area showing it as found today. The one reproduced above is my own, but had to be cropped because I appear in the original. Being of a naturally shy and retiring nature I decided to edit it accordingly.

Update on United Cemeteries

Most readers interested in Watch Tower history will already know about the changes made in the United Cemeteries in the last twelve months. Earlier posts on this blog detailed the damage done to the pyramid monument in the center of the site, and how after just over one hundred years the decision was taken to dismantle it.

I now have photographs from a source I can freely copy with permission. So thanks to Jim H, and here is what has recently happened on site.

The first picture shows the pyramid as it was in 2014, when I personally visited the site and took the photograph. On the right you can see the site after the monument had been taken down, with just the concrete base left. CTR’s grave marker is at the top of the picture.

Where the pyramid once stood nine flat grave markers have been installed. Here you can see the scarred land after the original concrete base for the pyramid was removed. Again, you can see CTR’s grave marker at the top of the picture. No doubt the grass will soon grow over the barren areas.

Below is a close up of the nine markers. These modest stones are similar to those found at the Society’s current burial site at the Watchtower Farms Cemetery in Walkill, Ulster Co. They give the names exactly as they appeared on the original pyramid sides, along with the ages of the Bible Students concerned.

The figures, A-1, etc. refer to the actual grave numbers in the original plots.

William Morris Wright and Charles Piazzi Smyth

by Jerome

William Morris Wright (1848-1906) was one of many Bible Students well-known in his day, but now largely forgotten by readers. He is remembered, if at all, for correspondence found in Volume 3 of Millennial Dawn, Thy Kingdom Come, which has prompted this article. Many letters from him appear in ZWT from 1887. He worked in insurance and had the Allegheny Bible House as his base for the last few years of his life. He was a director of the Watch Tower Society from September 19, 1901 to his death on April 3, 1906 (thanks Bernhard).

Wright had a particular interest in pyramidology and when he learned that CTR was devoting a chapter of Volume 3 of Millennial Dawn to this subject, he asked permission to copy the manuscript pre-publication, to send to Charles Piazzi Smyth. Smyth, the former Astronomer Royal of Scotland, was one of the leading proponents of pyramidology. CTR agreed and Wright typed out the manuscript. Smyth received it and responded positively. CTR was so pleased with the response that an edited version of Smyth’s letter appeared in Volume 3 when published in 1891.

By one of those strange moments of serendipity, Smyth’s original letter has recently been rediscovered. A correspondent, Brad S., purchased it along with Wright’s copy of Smyth’s seminal work on the Great Pyramid. The book has Wright’s own name in the front. It is assumed that the collection originally came from one of Wright’s descendants, but as yet it has not been possible to trace the trail back.

Smyth’s original letter to Wright dated December 21, 1890, was on one piece of paper, folded in two, making a total four pages. The original envelope (to the insurance company where Wright worked) is reproduced below, followed by the complete original letter.

If you enlarge these photographs and examine them carefully you can see that the original letter has some subsequent notations on it. Some just extend what is written for the typesetter, for example ‘1st ass. pass.’ becomes ‘first ascending passage’ and another hand has added England at the top. ZWT readers might not recognise the address CLOVA, RIPON (also printed on the back of Smyth’s envelope above) as being in Britain. CLOVA was the name of Smyth’s house in RIPON in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Some are rough alterations and deletions made by Smyth himself as he scribbled away in those pre-word processor days. But the main one was a large cross on page two. This was an edit made in the ZWT office before the letter was published. (Wright was often in Pittsburgh where CTR was based – so either man could have made that decision and written on the original letter).  I am therefore copying the text of the entire letter below. Where a line is through the text, this appears to be Smyth’s own edits. Where the text is in red, this is what Smyth wrote originally that was then deleted before the letter saw publication. The remainder is exactly as was reproduced in Thy Kingdom Come on page 312 in most editions. It doesn’t add a lot to our understanding but is interesting now that the handwritten original has come to light after nearly 130 years. It makes you long for what else may still be out there – somewhere - to be re-discovered.

Clova, Ripon, England, Dec. 21, 1890

Wm. M. Wright, Esq.,

     Dear Sir: I have been rather longer than I could have wished in looking over the invaluable MS. so-called of your friend, C. T. Russell of Allegheny, Pa., but I have now completed a pretty careful examination, word by word. And that was the least I could do, when you so kindly took the pains to send it with such care between boards by registered parcel, with every page flat, and indited by the typewriter in place of the hand.

     At first I could only find slips of the said typewriter, a letter here or a letter there, so glaringly a mistake that it seemed a needless meddling on my part to take any notice of it. Yet exactly such little things often escape an author’s eye and enter into a very solemn book greatly to the prejudice of some particular part of it, as see on p. 4 line 5 ab imo a very terrible case of the perversion of the most cherished and sacred part of the meaning of the book and all its objects, by the introduction of the little word “of” where doubtless the author had with his own hand written “by”.

     Other little things I have noted in pencil but as I progressed through the pages, the powers, the specialties and the originalities of the Author came out magnificently; and there were not a few passages I should have been glad to take a copy of for quotation, with name, in the next possible edition of my own Pyramid book. But of course I did nothing of that sort, and shall wait with perfect patience and in most thankful mood of mind for when the author of Scripture Studies shall choose his own time for publishing. So I merely remark here that he is both good and new in much that he says on the chronology of various parts of the Pyramid,

especially the First Ascending Passage and its granite plug; on the Grand Gallery, as illustrating the Lord’s life; on the parallelisms between the King’s Chamber and its granite, against the Tabernacle and its gold; and generally on the confirmations or close agreements between Scripture and the Great Pyramid, well commented on in p. (15) 2.

     In the meanwhile, it seems that I am indebted to you for your kind gift of long ago of the first two volumes of Scripture Studies. I did not at the time get further than the first half of the first volume, finding the matter, as I thought, not quite so original and new as I had expected. But after having profited, as I hope, so much by a thorough reading of this advanced pyramid chapter of the third volume, I must take up the first two volumes again, de novo.

     The parcel will go back between its boards, registered. I remain, with many thanks,

     Yours respectfully,

     C. Piazzi Smyth

As noted in the letter, Smyth returned CTR’s manuscript. He made a few notes on it and CTR commented in Thy Kingdom Come on page 311 in most editions: “We thank Bro. Wright and Prof. Smyth for their kindness, and have followed the corrections indicated; which, however, only three in all, we were pleased to note were not of special importance. Only one of the criticisms was upon measurements, and it showed a variance of only one inch, which we gladly corrected.”

Smyth and Wright continued to write to each other. Two shorter letters from Smyth to Wright have survived from 1893. They refer to a serious accident Wright suffered. He was badly injured in a railroad accident in 1893 and in those pre-X ray days was never diagnosed or treated properly. He remained in considerable pain for the rest of his life.

Smyth died in 1900 and fittingly a pyramid monument was erected in the graveyard of St John’s Church, Sharow, near Ripon.

Photo credit Julia & Keld

Wright became one of the original trustees of the Rosemont Mount Hope and Evergreen United Cemeteries (as was CTR) established in Pittsburgh in April 1905. Sadly he was one of the first to require its services when he died on April 3, 1906. His funeral from the Bible House chapel was mentioned in ZWT for April 15, 1906 (reprints p. 3765).

His obelisk is just up the hill above the main Society plot where CTR is buried.

This photograph is looking up the hill to where the lesser known Watch Tower cemetery area is located. A closer look shows the Wright name and gives his dates.

The next photograph is looking at the monument from the other side, now looking down the hill.

Wright’s name is on the other side in this picture. You can see that this monument is alongside one of the narrow roads through the cemetery. Just out of shot to the right of this picture further down the hill is the Society’s section of graves with of course its own pyramid.

There is only one name on Wright’s obelisk. It was obviously intended for the whole family, but they would live elsewhere and were buried over a hundred and twenty miles away in Erie Cemetery, Pennsylvania. To confuse researchers there is a memorial stone for William there as well. However, his death certificate clearly shows United Cemeteries as his final resting place.

(When researching this article I contacted Bernhard to confirm Wright’s dates as a Watch Tower director. Bernhard sent so much biographical material on Wright that it deserves its own article, which hopefully will appear on this blog before not too long).