by Jerome
(Addenda
– part 2 of 3)
The
research in this article is going to concentrate on CTR’s activities in the
decade of the 1870s.
CTR
joined his father in the haberdashery business, but we know that there were numerous
other commercial ventures attempted. Some of CTR’s later ones were to be
detailed in A Conspiracy Exposed and Harvest Siftings (1894).
One
early business venture was as music publishers and dates from 1872. This was
known in Separate Identity volume 1, which reproduces the one known piece of sheet
music on page 333. It is reproduced again here.
The
piece was published by J. L. Russell & Son, Pittsburgh Music House, 85
Fifth Street, in tandem with other music publishers. The full words and music
can be accessed from the Library of Congress website for any who wish to see
what it is like.
The
piece was written by the Rev. Dr. I. C. Pershing (lyrics) and G. Blessner
(score). Both worked at the Pittsburgh Female College. The Pittsburgh Female
College (founded 1854) had a good reputation at the time, and was linked to the
Methodist Church.
Israel
C. Pershing (1826-1898) became principal of the college around 1860 and
remained so until 1886 when he was accused of fraud. Gustave Blessner
(1808-1888) was head of music in the 1870s, and had a long career in writing music
for everything from the Sacred (To Thee We Pray – 1879) to the less than sacred
(Silly Dilly Dally Dolly – 1872). A lot of his music can still be accessed
today. One of the less than sacred oeuvre, Nanny’s Mammy (1850) starts off…
A
spinster of uncertain age
(But
somewhat past the middle stage)
Who
thought herself extremely sage…
There
are shades of Gilbert and Sullivan here. Blessner’s greatest modern claim to
fame is probably that he wrote the music for the first known song to have the
word “Blues” in the title: “I have got the blues today” (1850). The chorus goes:
I
was the gayest of the gay
But
I have got the blues today.
It
is about a singer who gets drunk. Of course in these instances Blessner wrote
the music but was not the lyricist. Still, one wonders if his music lessons
with the straight-laced-ladies-only M.E. College were sometimes rather fun,
Returning
rather hastily to The Evening Prayer the piece was dedicated to the Rev. Bishop
M. Simpson (1811-1884) who was president at one time of the M.E. Church
Missionary Society.
The
Pittsburgh Female College had a choir and there are various reports in Pittsburgh
newspapers of concerts the college performed, but not alas any news of the
premiere of Evening Prayer. A copy of the music published by the Russells was
sent to the Pittsburgh Daily Post which briefly mentioned it on December 16,
1872.
Commercially,
this seems to have been a short lived venture, in tandem with other music
publishers. No other sheet music published by the Russells has yet been found,
and it may be that this was the only piece they published locally for a local
college and a local choir who performed it. However, having said that, forty
years after the event it was still viewed as worthy of mentioning in a court
case.
The
case was the famous 1913 Russell vs. Brooklyn Eagle trial, generally known as
the “miracle wheat” trial. In a review of Russell’s various business ventures,
W E Van Amburgh included a music business. The reference is in the transcript
on page 320, section 959.
Van
Amberg (sic) did not become a director of the corporation until 1901, and this
exchange took place in 1913, both events decades after the 1872 music
publishing. He would have had no first-hand knowledge of Russell’s stores. Yet
out of all of Russell’s past business ventures it is interesting that the music
store should still be referenced.
As
the 1870s wore on, the religious side of the Russells’ lives came more to the
fore.
We
already know from Volume 1 about the meetings held in a “dusty dingy hall” (Quincy
Hall) in Leacock Street. They were initially a mixed group, allowing their
meetings to be billed as both Advent Christian (Advent Christian Times for
November 11, 1873 for George Stetson) and Age to Come One Faith (The
Restitution for November 5, 1874 for George Clowes). George Storrs visited them
in 1874 and became friends with Joseph Lytle Russell.
Running
parallel with these meetings and no doubt with some overlap of personnel (like
Charles’s father Joseph and sister Margaret) was an independent study group,
which would eventually outstrip the original. In Harvest Siftings (1894) CTR
described this as “myself and a few other truth-seekers in Pittsburgh (who)
formed a class for Bible study.”
A
brief first hand description of how this developed by the mid-1870s has now come
to light.
A
local Minnesota newspaper The St Paul Enterprise (later The New Era Enterprise)
began publishing Bible Student news, and by 1914 had evolved into an unofficial
Bible Student newspaper. It ran through to the late 1920s, and as such is a
marvellous historical resource. Letters, testimonies and obituaries in its
pages provide much information on the past, including a brief description of
those 1870s Bible study classes from someone who was there.
The
occasion was the 1922 Cedar Point Ohio convention. One who attended was Thomas
Hickey who had known Pastor Russell back in the 1870s and who was interviewed.
From our perspective today the interview is tantalisingly brief. Hickey was a
Welshman who had come to America from Tredegar in South Wales. The coal, iron
and later steel industries were staples of South Wales, but like many others with
skills in those industries Hickey emigrated from Wales to Pennsylvania, specifically
Pittsburgh. Coming from that part of the Welsh valleys, Hickey’s religious
background would probably have been one of the many strands of Methodism.
According to the Wales-Pennsylvania project, at one point
one-third of the population of Pennsylvania was Welsh, and even today there are
200,000 people of Welsh ancestry in the State.
From the original Welsh Quakers moving to Pennsylvania, there were soon floods
of industrial workers from Wales - slate quarrymen from the North, and from the
South coal miners and iron workers, whose skills would be welcomed in
industrial centers like Pittsburgh. At the time Hickey lived in Pittsburgh
there was a large Welsh St David’s Society there, which still flourishes today.
Hickey was listed in the 1870 and 1880 Pittsburgh census
returns
as a puddler, the name for a specialized furnace worker who converted pig iron
into wrought iron. By 1880 his family was wife, Gwennie (Gwendolyn), and seven
children. Between those two dates he attended
early meetings with Charles Taze Russell.
Reviewing the Cedar Point Ohio convention, the New Era
Enterprise for December 26, 1922, page 2, billed Hickey as “the only one now
living who was a member of Pastor Charles T. Russell’s first little class in
Allegheny.”
Transcribing the above account in full from the Enterprise it
reads as follows:
(quote)
Among the thousand attending the convention is the venerable
Thomas Hickey, of Newcastle, Pa. He is the only one now living who was a member
of Pastor Charles T. Russell’s first little class in Allegheny.
He relates that the first convention held was in a building
on Federal St., Allegheny, when less than a hundred were present. This was
about 1875. The first testimony meeting was held in 1876 in the home of Brother
Russell, when six consecrated hearts were present. This gives an amazing
contrast when compared with this great convention of over 12,000, with many,
many times that number at home all over the world.
In listening to Mr Hickey relating his experiences, it can be
seen that this movement grew, not by any organized effort, but simply and
spontaneously by a gathering together of consecrated Christians to study their
Bibles as their hearts yearned to do.
“Charlie would give them little talks,” he said, “and after
awhile he began to go around and speak here and there. When they started to
call him Elder Russell, the question arose as to what would be the proper title
for their minister. When they asked Brother Russell, he answered simply, ‘We
will just go on without any name, for are all one in Christ Jesus.’”
Mr Hickey said he never expected to attend such a convention
as this one, and considers it the greatest privilege of his life.
(end of quote)
We have to accept that this is anecdotal evidence from an old
man about events nearly fifty years before. We don’t know how good his memory
was, or how accurately he was reported by the Enterprise writer, but it gives
us a flavour of those early times.
A search in Zion’s Watch Tower for the early years provides a
number of references to a “Brother Hickey” but these were all for Samuel I
Hickey, a former Presbyterian minister, who had quite a high profile early on.
All we have for Thomas Hickey is this interview and his subsequent obituary in
his local paper.
The above obituary comes from the New Castle News, January
14, 1927, and firmly identifies Thomas as an active member of the International
Bible Students Association. One wonders how many of his surviving five
children, fifteen grandchildren and seventeen great-grandchildren continued in
the same religious persuasion.
Part
3 to follow – The Strange Case of Alfred Eychaner
Watch this space.
