Three sisters

 by Jerome

Important note: Grateful thanks are due to correspondent Bernhard who supplied some of the information below. Regrettably I am not able to give references in support of some dates, but I have no reason whatsoever to doubt the accuracy of the information.

The title “Three Sisters” may bring to mind a famous play by Anton Chekhov, likely inspired by the three Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne.

However, this article is going to briefly consider three who were classed as sisters within the framework of the ZWT fellowship. They all had something remarkable in common – they all served as directors of Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society (from 1894 the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society) during the time of CTR’s presidency.

If this concept is a surprise to modern readers, there are two facts about those early days that must be recognized. First, women had a much more public role in the Society’s affairs in those days. CTR’s wife, Maria, for example was an associate editor of the Watch Tower for a number of years. (See Proclaimers book footnote, page 645).

And second, it must be realized that the role of directors in those early days was mainly figurative. In A Conspiracy Exposed (pages 55-60) CTR explained that for legal reasons they needed directors, but it was always understood that matters were so arranged to allow him (along with Maria at that time) to retain control. There was no annual meeting, and elections, such as they were, took place on the first Saturday of each New Year. Hence J B Adamson in that same document complained that as a director he never made a decision. Later, Maria in the separation hearing testimony, made a similar comment about her role as secretary-treasurer. Directors would include some of CTR’s contacts in Pittsburgh and Allegheny, and in many cases, those who were on hand by living in or at least working in the Bible House. But they didn’t “direct” – they were just names on paper. As time went on, a number of members of the Pittsburgh Bible House family (and later Brooklyn Bethel family) simply stepped in and filled gaps as directors – often for quite brief times – under the administration of CTR.

So, our three “sisters” who were directors?

The first female director, was of course, Maria Russell herself. Maria Frances Ackley was born in 1850.

She married CTR in 1879 and later that year worked with him as the fledgling ZWT magazine was launched. Her sister Emma married CTR’s father, Joseph, the following year, 1880.

In 1881 Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society was formed with William Conley as president, Joseph L Russell as vice president and CTR as secretary-treasurer. On Monday, December 15, 1884 this society was legally incorporated in Pittsburgh. Maria became a director and an officer of the new incorporated Society – as secretary-treasurer. On paper this meant that she replaced CTR who had previously held that position, but who now became president of the new official arrangement.

Maria remained as secretary-treasurer in name until the annual meeting on January 5, 1895. Although no longer an officer, she remained on the books as a director until February 12, 1900 when she resigned. She was replaced by either Albert E Williamson or Clara Taylor (two new directors were required at this election).

Her subsequent history is quite easy to trace. The contemporary newspaper St Paul Enterprise in its Memorial number when CTR died gives an account of her in the funeral cortege. She later moved to Florida with her sister, Emma, and died in St Petersburg, Florida, in 1938. There is some biographical material for her on the Find a Grave site, under Maria F Ackley Russell.

The second female director was also a Vice-President of the Society for a very short time. This was Rose Ball Henninges. Early census returns list her as Rosa (rather than Rose) J Ball - but no-one seems to know what the J stood for. She and her brother, Charles, came to Pittsburgh. Charles died in March 1889 and Rose became part of the Russell household and then Bible House family. She is included in many group photographs of the day, along with a young man named Ernest Charles Henninges, whom she would marry in 1897. (He too would be a director at one point).

 

A young Rose Ball sitting in a group photo with her future husband Ernest Henninges in 1893.

Rose became a director on April 11, 1892. Two directors were replaced on that date, William I Mann and Joseph F Smith, so she replaced one of them. On January 7, 1893, Rose became Vice-President for a year, until the next year’s elections on January 6, 1894. After that she remained as a director until she resigned on February 12, 1900 (the same official date as for Maria Russell). As noted above, she was then replaced by either Albert E Williamson or Clara Taylor. 

A few years after her marriage to Ernest Henninges, Rose and Ernest travelled abroad to further the cause. They spent some time in Britain (you can find them in the 1901 UK census) and then Germany, before eventually travelling to Australia. They spent the rest of their lives there. A split occurred between them and CTR over the understanding of “the New Covenant” and they founded their own journal in 1909, which ran until 1953. Charles died in 1939, and Rose in 1950. She was survived by two sisters still living in America, Miss Lilian Ball of Buffalo, NY, and Mrs Daisy Mabee of Paterson, NJ.

As already mentioned in passing, the third female director was Clara Taylor. Clara became a director on February 12, 1900. On this date both Maria F Russell and Rose J Ball (now Henninges) resigned, so Clara replaced one of them. As already noted, the other replacement director appointed that day was Albert E Williamson.

Clara served as a director for less than a year. At the next election on the first Saturday of the New Year, January 5, 1901, she resigned and was replaced by William E Van Amburgh. He would become one of the longest serving directors in the Society's history. (Only Milton Henschel, Lyman Swingle and Frederick Franz would serve for longer).

Clara is featured in some group photographs of the Bible House family in the first decade of the 20^th century. Below is a selection from a photograph showing the mailing room c. 1907.

Clara in the Bible House mailing room c. 1907

All we know at present about Clara Taylor comes from the separation hearing Russell v. Russell from 1906.  She was called as a witness to support the testimony of J A Bohnet, and was both examined and cross examined in the case.

Her testimony shows that she was working at Bible House in 1897 before Maria Russell left for Chicago to stay with her brother, Lemuel. CTR had been called away from home and telephoned Ernest Henninges (misspelled Hennings in the transcript) to ask if could arrange for someone to stay over at Bible House so that Maria would not be left on her own. (Most workers lodged outside the building). Clara was asked and agreed, but was then told by Henninges that she no longer needed to do this because Maria had told him via the internal speaking tube that she’d made her own arrangements.  That was the sum of her testimony. But it showed that Clara worked at Bible House in 1897 before Maria left. A passing comment indicated that she had not been there the previous year, 1896. She was also still working there in 1906. And crucially for subsequent attempts to trace her, she was addressed several times as Miss Clara Taylor. So she was single at the time.

When the headquarters moved to Brooklyn in 1909, Clara apparently didn’t go. Or at least, she is not in the census returns from 1910 onwards. Whether that was due to the New Covenant controversy, or just a matter of geography and family, is not known. She may well have married, in which case the surname Taylor would disappear, making tracing her subsequent movements somewhat problematic.

So Clara remains a bit of mystery, even though she spent around ten years working at the headquarters, and was one of the three sisters who became directors of the Society in the CTR era.

More details on the unsuccessful search can be found in the comment trail.

Names from the past

From the back page of the January 1905 Solon Society Journal. Henry Weber from Oakland, Maryland (recently deceased at this time) and Andrew Pierson from Cromwell, Connecticut were both directors of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, and both served as Vice Presidents in its history. They both ran horticulture businesses.

Please remember ...

Please remember to recomend our books to your friends. We pay most of our research costs from the sale of our books. Original research is expensive. The more copies we sell, the more we can expend on costs.

Making connections

Research turns up unexpected things. We now know that W. I. Mann and W. H. Conley had a direct business connection. It's not an earth-shaking find, but every detail adds to the story.

Update!

W. H. Conley was in Philadelphia in January 1883 to hear a Faith Cure lecture. This is an important find. We found this in January 24, 1883, Enquirer.

Find a Grave

by Jerome

This article is expanded from material that first appeared on Blog 2. Its main purpose is to show photographs of headstones for people connected with the history covered in this blog. I have received permission from all the necessary contributors on the Find a Grave site to reproduce their work here. So my grateful thanks go to Sherry, Doug, Shiver, MrsJB, JennO, Duane, blt, Neil, Chris, Mojo, Joann, Kathie and Beverley. In some cases the pictures used here are alternatives to those currently found on the site, simply because I didn’t need permission to use my own photographs.

This means that you can probably assume it is OK to copy these pictures for non-commercial use if you so choose. However, I would always recommend going back to the original source on Find a Grave as some pages contain further information on the individuals. And this is not static – new material is being added all the time to this resource. What wasn’t there for me to discover today could just be there for you to discover tomorrow.

In addition, it is worth noting that there are a number of individuals connected with Watch Tower history who do not have headstones, but nonetheless have pages devoted to them on the Find a Grave site. For example, John Corbin Sunderlin has an entry, but there is no photograph of a headstone on the page (as yet). Nonetheless, you CAN find headstones along with biographical information for both his father and his son. However, in this article, apart from a couple of paragraphs on the Staten Island Cemetery where no grave markers exist as a matter of policy (see below), these have not been covered. This article is, after all, about pictures. But I recommend that you still type in your name of choice and check.

Before we actually get to the pictures, perhaps I can illustrate the value of this resource with one current example. In researching Henry Weber for a recent article, a letter was found in ZWT from 1901 written by Edna Mary Hammond which stated that her introduction to Bible Student publications was through her brother’s Sunday school teacher. This was Henry Weber. Edna is very specific; she was 10 years old at the time. Find a Grave finds – not just Henry Weber, but also Edna Mary. We know from her entry that she was born in 1873 and also where she was born. Do the math and we know that Henry was already circulating CTR’s publications in 1883. We also know from Edna’s entry and the surrounding family entries that her sister died as a Jehovah’s Witness. So we have the right name, the right family, the right place and right religious connections. All of this to give us an earlier date than previously known for Henry Weber’s Watch Tower connections.

The Russell family

 Charles Taze Russell

 Front row - markers for CTR's father, mother, and three siblings

Back row - markers for Uncle Charles, Uncle James, and Aunt Sarah

 Father - Joseph L Russell

 The in-laws - Mahlon and Selena Ackley

 The wife - Maria F Russell

The sister-in-law and step-mother - Emma H Russell

Before the Watch Tower

Henry Grew

(No grave marker known, but this is his death certificate)

Benjamin Wilson

Jonas Wendell

 George Stetson

George Storrs

Barbour family memorial

Nelson H Barbour

Some of those who went their own way

Conley family memorial

 William H Conley

"Our Pet" - Conley's adopted daughter who died aged 10 in 1881

John H Paton

 Hugh B Rice

 Arthur P Adams

Otto von Zech

Ernest C Henninges

(wife Rose Ball is buried here too but the headstone was never updated)

Post CTR

Nathan H Knorr and Frederick W Franz

Later years

As previous articles on this blog have detailed, the Society had its own burial ground at the Rosemont United Cemeteries in Ross Township, Pittsburgh. Here CTR and a few Bethel family members and Pilgrims were buried, and their names inscribed on a pyramid monument. For biographical details of all these individuals please see articles on this blog Who Are Those Guys? Parts 1 and 2 from September 2014.

However, shortly after the headquarters moved from Pittsburgh to Brooklyn for the second time in 1919, this cemetery was to all intents and purposes abandoned. It was only several decades later that the remaining graves were sold off. See article A Short History of United Cemeteries, also from September 2014.

It made more sense to have a cemetery for Bethel family workers in New York where they were now headquartered. To replace the Pittsburgh plot, a new cemetery was created on Staten Island, New York. In 1922 the Society bought 24 acres of land in Woodrow Road, Staten Island. The area is sometimes known as Rossville and also Huguenot Park. The purpose was to build their own radio station WBBR which started broadcasting in early 1924. There was also some farming done on the land, in what was then very much a rural area.

A new graveyard was established nearby in the same street, alongside an historic landmark, the Woodrow United Methodist Church. The website NYC AM Radio History when discussing station WBBR made the statement:

Judge Rutherford died in 1942 and was buried at Rossville in a Methodist cemetery within sight of the WBBR towers.

This small burial plot was used until at least the late 1960s. There are various references to this cemetery in the Society’s literature when the death of someone well-known from their headquarters staff was announced. For example, the Awake for February 22, 1952 page 26 recounts the funeral of Clayton J Woodworth, along with two other Bethel workers in a triple interment. The article reads (in part):

On Staten Island in New York City the Watchtower Society maintains a place of burial for members of the headquarters staff known as the Bethel family. How appropriate it is that the remains of these men who labored together during their lifetime, Rutherford, Van Amburgh, Martin and Woodworth, should be buried there together!

These four had all been imprisoned together way back in 1918.

The Woodrow Road graveyard was accessible to the general public. It was obviously the policy to have no grave markers. It is reported that today you can recognise the area belonging to the Society simply because it is the only section in the cemetery without headstones.

In the 1960s the Society purchased two properties at Wallkill, Ulster County, about 100 miles north of Brooklyn, NY, totalling a reported 1200 hectares (around 3000 acres). These became known as Watchtower Farms, and extensive printing operations were transferred to this area from the early 1970s onwards. A new graveyard was created on this property that is known as the Watchtower Farms Cemetery. It is a private cemetery on private land and is therefore not accessible to the general public. The custom is now to have small grave markers put down as depicted above for Nathan Knorr and Frederick Franz.

Watchtower Farms cemetery

Very few of those buried at Wallkill have photographs on Find a Grave. However, you can still check names. Currently the site lists 164 graves.  Be warned that this list is not complete, and is not error free. For example, it lists the grave of A H MacMillan as being at Wallkill, whereas the Watchtower for 1966, page 608, clearly shows that he was buried at Staten Island. The same would be true of Giovanni DeCecca who died in 1965. These two, also imprisoned together back in 1918, were probably among the last to be interred at Woodrow Road.

In conclusion, it is acknowledged that this article does not directly add much to our knowledge of Watch Tower history as such, but is designed to highlight a resource that the author has found extremely useful in recent years. The more who use it, the more it will grow, and the more useful it can be for future researchers.

W. H. Conley

We are suspending work on A. D. Jones while waiting for some photocopies. In the interim we'll move on to Conley. If  you have relevant material, now would be a good time to pass it on to us.

Separate Identity

Sales from Amazon show up slowly. Amazon is slow to pay, pays poorly, and, frankly, I detest their staff. This has become a deeply personal loathing. But after two months, they do seem to have fixed our issues, other than the unfair profit grab.

A Separate Identity’s sales rank has changed dramatically. Last month we were three-million-something in rank. Today we’re three hundred thousand and something. Because Amazon is slow to report sales, we’ve seen none of this reflected in our royalties report. If you buy our book, buy it from Lulu.com

Amazon mistreats authors. 

Our ranking on lulu has improved dramatically. This is good. But sales are still slow. We finance our research from sales. Original research is often expensive. If you like our books, tell others about them.  

We appreciate everyone who reads this blog and our books.

Mr. Schulz

Bruce can't answer your emails. He's ill and confined to bed. His youngest daughter and I are trying to take care of his affairs until he regains a measure of health. Please be patient.

Henry Weber

by Bernhard

Henry Weber has a special place in Watch Tower history. He was a director of the WTBTS from 11 April 1892 until his death on 21 January 1904 (a total of 11 years and 9 months). On Saturday, 6 January 1894 he succeeded Rose Ball as Vice President of the WTBTS, a position he retained until his death.

Henry’s German name was Heinrich, and he was born on 3 June 1835 in Klein Seelheim (Hessen), Germany. He married Katherine (Katherina) Schultz (Schutz) in 1866. She lived from Feb.1846-1929. The couple had eleven children. The names of ten are known:

Mary Weber                           1866-1954

William Weber                       1869-1935

Elizabeth Weber                     1871-1960

Katherine Weber                    1873-1960

George B. Weber                    1875-1958

Diana Weber                           1877-1971

Edith L. Weber                        1879-1970

John W. Weber                       1882- ?

Walter Franklin Weber           1884-1910

Ralph Enoch Weber                1887-1981

As so often happens with historical research, some of his children lived until quite recent times, but the opportunity to ask them about their father’s religious activities is alas, gone.

This article will address his secular history first and then his association with CTR.

Secular history

Weber was a horticulturist, and most of the material that follows is taken from The American Carnation – How to Grow It; Illustrated; by Charles Willis Ward –1903; pp. 273-274.

Henry’s father, John (Johann) Weber, was a farmer who died at the age of sixty-three. Henry Weber attended Government schools until he was fourteen years old, when he was apprenticed to a florist, and a few years thereafter was made foreman of his employer’s gardens and greenhouses. At nineteen years of age he entered the British Army, serving during the Crimean War. During his ten years’ service in the British Army he was stationed at various points in Asia, Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

In 1865 he decided to come to America, and with his brother John, who had preceded him, embarked in general farming and market gardening, at Mount Savage, Allegheny Co., Maryland. At the end of five years he sold his interest to his brother, and removed to Cumberland, Maryland, where he established a general market gardening and florist business.  In 1879, he bought a tract of land in Garrett County, adjoining the town of Oakland, where he established a florist business specialising in carnations. He became an active member of The American Carnation Society, The Society of American Florists, and other organizations. (Another source states that he was Vice President of the American Carnation Society in 1901).

Shortly after that account was published, Henry died in 1904. His business, H Weber and Sons Co. was directed after his death by son William (1869-1935). The Smithsonian Institute has a collection of business records for the company, which operated up until 1978 when the remaining greenhouses were torn down.

Bible Student history

According to the funeral discourse given by CTR when Henry Weber died, his religious background had first been as an active Episcopalian and Y.M.C.A. worker, before “he was counted of the Lord worthy to know of Present Truth.”

In ZWT for 1 June 1901 pages 190-191 (reprints page 2828) Edna Mary Hammond of Maryland relates how she came to understand “the truth.” She writes to CTR:

I was a very small child (10 years) when your publications were first introduced into our family, through the kindness of Mr Henry Weber, of Oakland, who was then my brother’s Sunday School teacher, and whose name I cannot mention without the sincerest gratitude.

Edna Mary Hammond’s details can be found on Find a Grave. She was born in 1873 and died in 1941. Her younger sister Lulu’s details (1882-1976) state that she was a Jehovah’s Witness.

So if Edna Mary was born in 1873, we would find Henry Weber circulating Bible Student publications in 1883. Edna Mary’s letter specifically singles out Food for Thinking Christians.

Henry’s name first appears in ZWT in 1887. He gave a donation to assist in the distribution of ARP tracts. From ZWT December 1887 page 8 (reprints page 989).

The March 1889 ZWT page 7 (reprints page 1108) carried a letter from Henry in which he described his colporteur experiences, selling 109 books in a little over four days, and expressing how he wished he could give his entire time to “this blessed work.” The letter is prefaced with a comment from CTR that gives a bit more of his background.

[The following is from Brother Weber of Maryland. Though a florist and gardener on a large scale, he is not seeking worldly prominence or wealth, but divine approval and heavenly riches. To do this he uses his garden, hot-houses, etc., as ways and means for honoring the Lord by spreading the truth. He is out as much as possible in the "harvest" field selling DAWN Vol. I. A man of keen business judgment and good address, he enlists his best endeavors in this highest service-- the service of God—and we believe is laying up treasure in heaven.--EDITOR.]

ZWT for 15 January 1893, page 31 (omitted in reprints) contains another letter describing Henry’s experiences and expressing regret that, unlike others, he can’t give his “entire time to this great work.”

In the special edition of ZWT for 25 April 1894, Henry Weber features quite prominently.  On pages 17-19 he actively supported CTR in the controversy involving Elmer Bryan and J B Adamson. Henry personally met with both men, the latter together with CTR, to try and resolve the problems. It got messy. Adamson wanted to get the Dawn colporteurs to sell his own publication, using the Old Theology and WTBTS mastheads, but without informing CTR. He complained about the expense he had already incurred and Weber offered to compensate him out of his own pocket. Adamson then publicly accused CTR’s “spokesman” of trying to buy him off. And on it went.

From page 40 onwards, when Elmer Bryan made his list of accusations against CTR, Henry Weber and M M Tuttle were asked by him to be present when the charges were put to CTR. They supported CTR on every point in the dispute. One incidental that came out from the discussion was that it was Henry Weber, and not CTR, who had used his contacts to organize special railroad rates for colporteurs, which was not fraud but open and above board.

In ZWT 15 December 1894 page 393 (reprints page 1746) Weber is mentioned in a list of names of those business people who were current sharing in part-time colporteur work.

In the 1890s, meetings were held at the Weber home. A letter from Henry Weber in ZWT 1 May 1895 page 112 (omitted in reprints) said in part:

DEAR BRO. RUSSELL:--At the request of the Church at Philadelphia, I met with them, after making arrangements with Bros. Gillis and Jackson to be with the little company at our house. At 2 P.M. we met to consider the subject of baptism, and at 4 P.M. we adjourned for this service to a small church building kindly put at our disposal. Four brethren and six sisters symbolized by water the burial of their wills into the will of their Redeemer and Lord. Between forty and fifty participated in the Memorial service, which was preceded by a praise and testimony meeting.

A further letter in ZWT 15 April 1896 page 87 (reprints page 1966) from Henry Weber spoke of a little company meeting at his house in Oakland to celebrate the Lord’s last Memorial supper. There were seven partakers. This suggests that this was quite a small gathering on this occasion.

Henry had a new house built c. 1898 called Seelheim, and it was probably here that a small convention was held in 1901. J.H. Bohnet attended and sent in his report as published in ZWT 15 September 1901, page 301 (omitted in reprints):

Dear Brother Russell:--To my mind the Oakland convention is the best I ever attended, due perhaps in some degree to the fact that it was in the country, amid nature's surroundings, God's own handiwork, instead of being in a city; and again, due largely to the fact that it was at Bro. Weber's home. We have much to be thankful for to the family who did so well by us all, and to the Lord be the praise for his "goodness and mercy (which) shall follow us all the days of our life." I cannot find words to express my gratitude in having been privileged to assemble with those of like precious faith on this blessed occasion…… Your brother in hope, J. A. Bohnet,--Washington.

A letter from A N Pierson in ZWT 15 October 1901, page 335 (reprints page 2897) to Henry Weber was published with Pierson’s permission, in which he thanked Weber for his hospitality at this same gathering.

“I...ask you to extend my thanks to dear Mrs Weber and the girls for all their work of labor and love, also to the boys that were kept so busy.”

Pierson met CTR at the Weber home. He would later briefly become another WTBTS Vice President. Like Weber he ran a horticultural business.

Henry Weber’s house – built c. 1898

Henry died in early 1904, and CTR travelled to his home to conduct the funeral service. The funeral report was in ZWT 1 February 1904 page 36 (reprints page 3314):

The report read (in part):

ENTERED INTO HIS REST.

PILGRIM Brother Henry Weber has passed beyond the vail, to be forever with the Lord. We rejoice on his behalf. He finished his earthly course on Thursday, January 21st, at 2.15 p.m., at his home --Oakland, Md.--and was buried on Saturday, the 23rd. A large gathering, composed of his family, friends and neighbors, was addressed by the Editor of this journal....Brother Weber left a very interesting family--his wife and one of his sons being confessors of the Lord and his Truth. For the remainder of the family we have strong hopes that the good influence of the father's character in daily life may be still stronger with them since his death – drawing them also to full consecration to the same Savior and his "reasonable service."

Henry was buried in the Weber Family Cemetery, Oakland, Garrett County, Maryland, USA. His wife, Katherine, was laid to rest beside him 25 years later. The cemetery is still in use for Weber descendants.

This photograph from the Weber family cemetery shows the headstone for Katherine Weber nearest the camera. It is most likely that Henry’s stone is the one next to her.

(Some additional material researched by Jerome)

Edward Bishop Elliott

Photograph by James Holroyd - albumen carte-de-visite, 1860s - 3 1/2 in. x 2 1/4 in. (89 mm x 57 mm) image size - Transferred from Victoria & Albert Museum, 1980 - NPG x132252
Reproduced under creative commons licence from National Portrait Gallery

Author of Horae Apocalypticae, a book of some influence.

Jerome

An article by Jerome appears on the private blog. We haven't used it much and you may not check it often. If you are a member of the invitation only blog, you will want to read his article.

The Blog

Blog readership has increased, and most visitors spend some considerable time reading older posts. This is a significant improvement. We’ve picked up new readers too. The new statcounter shows unique and returned visits. Our readership is more balanced than it used to be. Interestingly, we have almost no Canadian or Australian visitors. Readers in Europe predominately come from the UK and Italy. We also have regular readers in Russia, Germany and Austria, with scattered visits from other nations.

This map shows blog traffic from approximately 3:30 am Pacific Standard Time to 9:00 am PST. It does not show multiple visits from the same location. For instance, in that period we had six visits from the Newark, New Jersey area, each from a different IP address. Those visits show on this map as a single ‘pin.’

 

We write this blog to be read, as a resource for those interested in Watch Tower history. It seems to be drawing more interest than it ever has. This is good. Tell others about our blog. And about our books. We finance our research from book royalties and an occasional donation. The more who know about and read our books, the easier it is to move forward.

Thanks for your blog visits and thanks for buying our books.

A note from A P Adams

The New York Times, for Saturday, February 17, 1906, page 106, had a section entitled Queries, where readers could enquire about the source of literary snippets they half-remembered. Thanks to Miquel for supplying this one from A P Adams.

Ophelia

by Jerome

Acknowledgement is given to Rachael and Miquel who supplied information that has been incorporated into this article, and also to Find a Grave contributor Beverly, who gave permission for her photograph of Ophelia’s gravestone to be reproduced.

Ophelia Adams has an interesting history. For a while her name and writings featured regularly in the pages of ZWT. She wrote in support of CTR when he had his problems with S D Rogers. She actually wrote a poem called The Divine Plan of the Ages that was published in ZWT. She organized a Dawn Circle, giving chart lectures on the Divine Plan, and was praised by CTR for so doing, when there were no men prepared to help. And yet within ten years of these events, she was to get married to one of CTR’s theological opponents, Arthur Prince Adams.

At the head of this article is her gravestone. Ophelia is buried near her two husbands. The pillar in memory of her second husband, Arthur Prince Adams, is next to her; but while this is in very good condition her stone is covered in moss, and its location under a tree has not helped its preservation. The inscription reads Ophelia Browning Adams, 1856-1946, and then there is a scriptural reference at the bottom – from Ruth 1:16,17 which reads (in the King James Version):

‘And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.’

According to her death certificate, Ophelia was born on 21 February 1856, and died in April 1946.

Outside her Bible Student connections, Ophelia’s main claim to fame was that she was a prolific writer of religious poetry in her day, and some hymnals today still contain her work. She first started publishing under her maiden name Browning. A brief biography was given in the magazine Bible Training School (A Monthly Journal Devoted to the Interests of House to House Bible Work) in its issue of March 1911. Reprinting her poem Sometime, Somewhere (sometimes named after its first line: Unanswered Yet) it stated:

This poem has attracted much attention in America, and frequent inquiries have been made as to its authorship and origin. It has occasionally been ascribed to Robert Browning. It was written in May, 1880, by Ophelia G. Browning, the daughter of an American Methodist minister. In 1884 she was married to Thomas E. Burroughs, of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., since whose death a few years ago she has been married again, her present husband being the Rev. Arthur P. Adams, Beverly, Mass.

The Bible Training School magazine (which interestingly included the expression “House to House” in its by-line) was not connected with the Bible Students but was a Seventh Day Adventist publication. To be pedantic, the poem was actually written in 1879 and then first published in May 1880, in The Christian Standard, a magazine linked to the Barton Stone-Campbell movement and its subsequent offshoots. This was Ophelia’s earliest known published work. It was immediately copied in another magazine The Christian Advance and there misattributed to Robert Browning. Next, The Methodist Review wrote an elaborate article on Robert Browning and used Ophelia’s poem as evidence of his ripening spirituality! The misunderstanding eventually got sorted out.

Sometime, Somewhere aka Unanswered Yet, was also later published in the pages of ZWT in the issue for January 1, 1895. It was now entitled Pray Without Ceasing and credited to Mrs F G Burroughs. It also appeared in some editions of Poems of Dawn, when that volume was issued separately from Hymns of Millennial Dawn.

The hymnary.org website lists the history of nearly 100 of Ophelia’s lyrics from the 1880s until quite recent times. While re-titling is rife, it seems that some of her ZWT contributions are not included, so were not republished elsewhere. Some of her published poems in ZWT include Father Glorify Your Name (reprints page 1467),Faithful Over Few (page 1625), Behold the Bridegroom (1636), Pray Without Ceasing aka Unanswered Yet (1753), The Plan of the Ages (1901), and Cumbered with Much Serving (2184).

When the special musical Tower was published on February 1, 1896 with its selection of new hymns, four of them had Ophelia’s lyrics as set to M L McPhail’s music. The new hymnal entitled Zion’s Glad songs was republished and expanded on several occasions. The largest edition produced while McPhail was still an associate of CTR came out in 1908 and Ophelia’s share had now increased to a dozen hymns, lyrics by F G Burroughs, music by M L McPhail.

During her writing career she used at least five names. She seems to have started as Ophelia G Browning, then F G Browning, then on her marriage to Thomas E Burroughs as Mrs T E Burroughs, and then back to her own initials with (Mrs) F G Burroughs, and finally Ophelia Adams or Ophelia G Adams.

Not many poems were published as Browning. She married dry goods merchant, Thomas E Burroughs, in 1884. Her wedding ceremony was conducted by her father, Methodist minister, William Garritson Browning.

Once married, the name she generally used for her most prolific period was (Mrs) F G Burroughs. The F may have been a diminutive of Ophelia. According to information supplied by Ophelia’s daughter for the death certificate, the G stood – not for the family name Garritson – but Guyon. Maybe it was a nod towards the French mystic and poet Madam Guyon. Or maybe not.

At some point she came in contact with the writings of CTR and ZWT doctrine. As well as the aforementioned poems and hymns printed in ZWT between 1892 and 1897, she also wrote letters.

In the June 11, 1894 special extra issue of ZWT, page 203 (but omitted in reprints), Ophelia was one of many writing in support after the schism involving S D Rogers and others. Her letter reads:

 Then in ZWT for Dec 1, 1895 (page 279 – reprints page 1902) she had a letter published about starting a Dawn Circle in the absence of any suitable males prepared to assist.  

CTR’s following remarks praised her for her initiative. He commented: “If a sister has preeminent talents, by all means use them. You did well, too, in starting the class with a chart exposition.” He also published her poem The Divine Plan of the Ages in the same ZWT issue.

 

How long she remained in association is not known. The regular run of her poems in ZWT stopped in mid-1897, leaving the field open to Gertrude Seibert and Rose Ball Henninges. Since Ophelia was a forceful enough character for that era to start up a Dawn Circle without the assistance of men, it may be that she was sympathetic to Maria in the Russells’ marital problems. However, that is pure speculation. What it does show is that her first husband, Thomas Burroughs, was not actively involved in her religion.

 

Husband Thomas died in 1904 and as the cutting below from the Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle for March 2, 1904 shows, he left her well provided for.

 

Just over a year later, on 5 April 1905 she married Arthur Prince Adams. He was 57 and she was 49. The wedding was conducted by the Rev. A H Evans of New York.  Arthur gave his occupation as minister, and Ophelia was a housekeeper. She had probably been keeping house for her elderly father.

Some poems, old and new, were now published and re-published under her new married name, Ophelia Adams. And in 1909 the WT re-published two of her poems but under the old name of F G Burroughs (see reprints pages 4390 and 4407). ZWT transferred to New York that year. Whether that was the reason, or whether it was connected with her new life with Adams, or whether it was just coincidence is not known.

In the 1910 census her elderly father was living with them. He died later that year. Her husband, Arthur, is listed as a publisher, but Ophelia has no occupation.

Arthur P then died in 1920. Ophelia lived on until 1946. She was survived by her one daughter, Grace T Burroughs, who was then in her 50s and unmarried, and who had lived with her mother for decades. When Ophelia died I have not been able to find an obituary anywhere.

I would have liked to have interviewed her about her experiences, but alas, am nearly 70 years too late.

 

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