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Saturday, June 22, 2019

Partial, rough draft of chapter for comment

Posted for comments. Please make one; they're helpful. Usual rules: Do not share off the blog. Do not rely on a rough draft. They change as better information comes my way. If you can improve this in anyway, please do so.


The Letters

            To avoid making an already complex chapter more detailed than need be, we will limit ourselves to letters from or to believers and interested persons living in Minnesota and Michigan. From these we can document how The Watch Tower’s prompting to evangelize found practical expression.

Minnesota

            One of the first attempts to evangelize in Minnesota was by a resident of Yankton, Dakota Territory. [Now Yankton, South Dakota] While we know the names of some adherents active in Yankton in later years, we cannot identify this person. Nevertheless, his (or her) letter reveals someone motivated to share a message that changed their life – that freed them from what they saw as God dishonoring doctrine:

I never shall be able to sufficiently praise God for the light we have received. Three days ago I received five more “Foods,” which are being fed to hungry souls, some being sent to Minnesota, Montana, Iowa, &c., to those who will prize them, read and distribute to others. Some we have heard from are bearing glorious fruit. How quickly holy souls receive and believe when they see the precious truth of God! How ashamed we are and abased before God to think we have dishonored his word all these long years; but glory, honor and praise to Him who, in answer to prayer, has enlightened our minds with the truth. Our hearts are full of praise day and night that it has reached our ears. And now we want everybody to know the truth. Let us keep humble and fully consecrated.[1]

            Food for Thinking Christians reached an Advent Christian missionary who was on a preaching tour of Kansas. He described himself as a “preaching member of the Minnesota Conference of Christian Adventists” but said he was leaning toward Age-to-Come views rejected by that church. In a letter to Russell, he explained:

I have long been leaning toward the age-to-come views, much as one would grope in the dark – seeing much truth in it; but with the light I had, could not make all points harmonize. It remained for your September number of “Watch Tower” to supply the missing link. I am thankful to God for it. I received it (humanly speaking) by the merest accident, but I believe it was sent of God.

Now, dear brother, I would like a few copies of “Food for Thinking Christians.” I will treat and place each one as though it were pure gold. I want to send one to my brother, a minister, and to others. I am anxious to do all I can. Am very poor, but if God blesses will contribute to your Tract fund.[2]
           
            In 1888 a lone adherent living in Fillmore County, Minnesota, wrote to Russell, addressing him as “Dear Sir,” rather than Dear Brother. She contributed to the Tract Fund and ordered two volumes of Plan of the Ages. This was her second purchase. She explained:

dear sir: – Enclosed you will find a money order for five dollars, which I wish to give to the Tract Society with the exception of enough to pay for two Dawns, paper covers, to lend to friends. I am very anxious to have all who will read and think, have access to those wonderful books. Those ordered came all right and were soon delivered. If circumstances will permit I shall take more orders. O, that I could only convince my own family that it is time to look into such matters. They are not opposed, but think it is not necessary. I am all alone, but none the less determined to be faithful to the end.

            While we do not know how this woman obtained her first copy of The Plan of the Ages, we see her convinced by it, and passing it on to others.
            An Oscar C. Melin, a Swedish immigrant farmer with family spread through out the upper Midwest and into Alberta, Canada, accepted the message about 1890. Writing to Russell in 1891, he reported a small group in Fargo, North Dakota: “We are a little flock here of four families, or nine members, which meet together every Sunday and try to build us up in the most holy truth.” He felt blessed by the Lord, reporting that some of them couldn’t read English. They translated for each other. They had a crop failure in 1890 and did not know how they would survive the winter. Hard scrabble farming meant that they could do little to spread the message. Circumstances changes later, and Oscar was able to preach. In 1895 Knud Pederson Hammer, a Baptist clergyman turned Watch Tower evangelist, reported: “I have just returned from Minnesota, where Bro. Melin has been preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom. Many Swedes are stepping into the light there.”[3] Members of the Melin family persisted with the Watch Tower fellowship at least to 1915, when a brief note by Fred [Fredrick] W. Melin appeared in The St. Paul, Minnesota, Enterprise.[4]
            An un-dateable event that probably occurred in the decade of the 1890s was recounted in a letter to The Herald of Christ’s Kingdom, published in its July 15, 1927, issue: “It was the tract, “Where Are the Dead?” that brought the Truth to my attention. I found it laying in a seat in the waiting room of the Great Northern Railroad at Willmar, Minn. Finding that tract was the turning point of my life, and wonderful indeed are the blessings that have followed it.” The letter was signed “H. J. H.” from Minnesota, leaving us with no firm identification.[5]

Michigan

            There is documentable interest in the Barbourite era. Henry Liederbach wrote to Barbour in 1878, saying that Herald of the Morning readers were scattered all over the state, and letters from some of them appear in the magazine.[6] While Paton and his followers had left or were leaving the Watch Tower fellowship in 1882, others in Michigan continued to further the Watch Tower message, believing that it represented life-saving truth. A letter from Stanwood, Michigan, a village of about 150 in 1880, expressed both determination to circulate Food for Thinking Christians and optimism at the result:

The “Foods” you sent me have been distributed and are doing good work for the blessed Master. A number have been brought to the light through reading them. The truth is setting us free in this section, and we feel in our hearts that it has been instrumental in God's hands in doing much for us. The question with me has been how to present this truth to others in the most effectual manner. I am trying to speak to the people every week two or three times, but I feel my incapacity to such an extent that the cross is heavy at times. I have often thought I would not speak any more in public until I was better qualified if I could have my own way about it. What shall I do, who is sufficient for these things? ... Praise the Lord for his mercy endureth forever. Yours in hope of being one of the Bride company.[7]

            While we might presume that Russell’s Stanwood correspondent was an adherent of perhaps some year’s standing, a letter from Reed City came from a new reader. Late in 1883 he was sent a sample copy of Zion’s Watch Tower either directly by a friend or through a name referral. He found the paper exactly fitting his needs:

Last week zion’s watch tower was sent to me, and I find it just the paper I want. Brought up in the strictest sect of United Presbyterians, I find this new message is like cold water to my thirsty soul, and I wish to learn more of the glad tidings.

Enclosed find one dollar for one years subscription and for the rest send me as many copies of the October number as you can, I want to send them to my friends to whom it will prove glorious news.

I am studying my Bible with new interest and it is wonderful that I have been so blinded to Gods glorious promises all these years. I shall trust to clergymen no longer for I find them small help in time of need.

I am truly grateful to the unknown one who sent me your paper. It is just what I have gone mourning for, for years, not knowing God was preparing “deliverance to the captives.” May he bless you in the good work.[8]

            As we discussed in Chapter One of this volume, the October 1883 Watch Tower was a special issue, sent as a sample copy on name-referral. It was a missionary number, meant to bring recipients into the Watch Tower faith. In this case it worked. As with most of these letters, we do not know final outcomes, but we can note that this writer found the clergy inadequate. He was not alone; it was a common feeling in the post Civil War era.
            Another letter from Michigan found a place in the December 1883 Watch Tower. The letter came from Corunna, a mid-sized for the era community of about fifteen hundred souls. Its author had requested tracts and liked what he or she read:

Twice you have responded and sent me of your literature, which I have read; at first with some fears of becoming entangled, but now with a confidence of being led in the right direction: and having a craving desire to study with you Gods Word, I subscribe for the zion’s watch tower one year.

Your reading matter has made my Bible many times clearer and dearer, even in a short time, and I thank God for seeing even through a glass darkly.

            Food for Thinking Christians and sample copies of The Watch Tower offered free tracts. The Corunna citizen responded to the offer – twice – though with trepidation, fearing entanglement with one of the many non-traditional sects of that era. Instead of his fear coming to fruition, he found increasing clarity. He believed he was beginning to understand the Bible in ways he had not previously.
            By the publication of Plan of the Ages in 1886, there were several small fellowships in Michigan, and at least one active colporteur. The Grand Rapids Telegram-Herald of October 23, 1887, reported:

A religious book is at hand in the form of a little volume entitled “Millenial [sic] Dawn,” the first of a series on the “Plan of the Ages.” The author, Charles T. Russell, has endeavored to obtain original ideas of the truths of the Bible, going directly to the fountain head. Those who are interested in the Scriptures will be interested in the results of the author’s researches. The book bears the imprint of Zion’s Watch Tower, Pittsburg. [sic] An agent is selling it in this city.

            A very small fellowship existed in Benona, Oceana, Michigan. Oceana County was a sparsely populated farming area on the coast of Lake Michigan with a mix of Scandinavian, British and German immigrants. Thomas West Brewer, Sr. [Born c. 1843] was a Nova Scotia born immigrant and the son of British immigrant parents. Thomas and Mary Ann Brewer immigrated to the United States from Ontario in 1871 and were in Benona Township sometime before the birth of their first child in October 1873. At the time of their immigration they were members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.[9] We do not know when or how they came into contact with Watch Tower theology, and it is useless to speculate. However, judging by the fact that Russell attached Brewer’s signature to his letter as printed in Zion’s Watch Tower, we can presume he was well-known to readers.
            Without presenting numbers, he reported Memorial [Annual Communion Observance] attendance for April 7, 1887. There were “a few of us here who are rejoicing in the freedom wherewith Christ hath made us free,” he wrote. He quoted from Galatians 5:1 where Paul says that to be a child of God one must be freed from bondage to sin. For Watch Tower adherents in the Russell era, this included belief that they had been set free from slavery to false churches.
            Plainly, his letter as printed in The Watch Tower is part of a series, though this is the first to appear in print. They met “once a week for studying, praise and prayer.” He reported that they continued “to be denounced by the blinded worshipers of the ‘image.’” This is a reference to Revelation chapter thirteen. Russell-era interpretation of the phrase “image of the beast,” was that it referred to denominational systems, false theologies worshiped in place of God. Despite religious opposition, Brewer felt that God was with them, writing that “the truths we proclaim are becoming more manifest in the sight of men, as from God.” Brewer reported finding among the Swedish immigrants “a movement” similar to their own:

A family of them rented a farm joining mine. They are good pious people. I paid them a visit after they had become settled, and learned that they in common with numbers of their countrymen here had discarded sects and sect names, salaried ministry, etc., etc. They believe that where two or three meet, there is the true Church, and every one is encouraged to use his or her own talents as the Lord has endowed them. The Bible and the Bible only is their rule of faith and practice. I found that from a study of Scripture they have discovered many truths similar to those we rejoice in.

Mr. B ____, the head of the family, was highly interested in the account I gave him of our Church with no name, but Christian. He would like to have a sample copy of the swedish tower; he can speak but not read English. I believe my dear Brother this is the very class (the meek) which it is our privilege to feed, and Mr. B ____ may desire to spread the truth among his countrymen.[10]

            We cannot identify the Swedish dissenters. Adherence to the Lutheran Church was mandated by law in Sweden. Dissenters, some of whom held to some Lutheran doctrines, fled to American and populated portions of the upper Midwest. For instance, Fredrick Olaus Nilsson, expelled from Sweden in 1850 for violating the Conventicle Act for preaching against infant baptism, was active in Minnesota. He seems to have otherwise held to standard Lutheran doctrine. Laestadians had beliefs somewhat similar to Watch Tower adherents and were particularly well-represented in Michigan and Minnesota. They stood separate from the existing Scandinavian Lutheran churches. But ultimately the Swedish believers in Benona Township, Michigan, are a mystery.

[1888 letter here]

            We do not know if the Brewers maintained their faith, but what slight evidence exists suggests they did. It appears, though on conflicting evidence, that the Brewers eventually moved to Virginia. But because evidence, primarily a census of Civil War veterans, conflicts with Federal Census records, this is uncertain.
            As observed several times in this volume of Separate Identity, some Watch Tower readers read opposition journals, principally Paton’s World’s Hope. Mid-year 1887 an “M. T. G.” from New Buffalo, Michigan, ordered four paper covered copies of Plan of the Ages also asking for “a few copies of the Watch Tower.” This was in response to claims made in Paton’s magazine. Russell addressed them in the March 1887 Watch Tower, and M.T.G. found his rebuttal satisfying: “I have been taking the World's Hope nearly a year, and I know that it claims that the Second Death brings life and salvation to all. I am so glad now to be fully armed on this subject by the article.” It appears she intended to loan Plan of the Ages, apparently to friends who followed Paton into Universalism.[11]
            A letter from Tuscola County, Michigan, came to Russell in late 1887. As printed in The Watch Tower it is signed W. C. W. While we wish we knew who that was, we do not. After blessings and well-wishes to Russell, the writer said:

I am fully persuaded that the time when “the very elect” should be deceived, if it were possible, is upon us. Within the past year or two I have seen quite a number of new periodicals purporting to give advanced light, pointing out unmistakably many of the errors of “Orthodoxy,” and, although somewhat garbled, many of the truths of God’s Word; and holding up the example of Jesus Christ, as the beacon to guide us up to everlasting perfection. These teachings will be very apt to mislead, and indeed are misleading many thinking Christians who are unlearned in the Word. A noticeable characteristic of these new doctrines is an ignoring of God’s ransom for the lost, but taking, for imitation, the example of our Lord’s suffering for the right, just as any general might inspire his soldiers by telling them how Napoleon’s soldiers faced death at Austerlitz or Lodi, or how Leonidas stood at Thermopylae. They thus ignore the fact that the penalty for sin is death, and that man having sinned is in death; that the laws of God are absolute and eternal, and that there is no escape from the penalty of these laws until the uttermost farthing is paid.[12]

            He was right, of course. A read-through of Peters’ Theocratic Kingdom connects one to a multitude of journals and papers, most small of circulation and now lost, that fit this description. And among adherents, Paton’s World’s Hope¸ Adams’ The Spirit of the Word, and two or three other periodicals found a readership. These fit W. C. W.’s description too. He believed the ‘flock’ could easily be deceived by “these ‘strong delusions,’” a reference to 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 which reads according to the Authorized Version: “For this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” Admittedly, this is a poor translation of κριθωσιν which means not ‘damned’ but judged. Though the meanings are similar, ‘damned’ suggested hell-fire to most Protestants.
            The thought that some were easily deceived “induced” him “to write ... now, instead of waiting ... until I could get a little money to send. I can sell a few ‘Dawns,’ to some that I have talked with.” He (or she) explained that they had “been an invalid for two years” but were some better, adding, “If you will send me ten April ‘Towers,’ I will place them discreetly; also send me ten paper-bound dawns.” They believed that there was much to do, saying, “I want the means used that will accomplish the most.”
            The April 1887 Watch Tower was a missionary number sent out as sample copies. Russell wanted to reach one hundred thousand readers with it, introducing them to what he believed were the basics of the True Gospel. W. C. W. wanted to help circulate it, believing its message to be vital.

[continue]
           

Biographies

            Though these letters as published in The Watch Tower are anonymous, we have the identities of some who connected with Watch Tower theology. We will limit ourselves to a few Minnesota and Michigan residents, allowing them to represent others with similar experience.

William Egbert Page


[1]               View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, March 1883, page 2. [Not in Reprints.]
[2]               View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, January 1882, page 1.
[3]               Encouraging Words from Faithful Workers, Zion’s Watch Tower, September 1, 1895, page 280. Members of the Melin family helped evangelize in Canada. [1979 Yearbook, page 86.] We tell K. P. Hammer’s story in another chapter.
[4]               Voices of the People, The St. Paul Enterprise, March 12, 1915. See also the February 16, 1916; January 28, 1918 issue.
[5]               Words of Encouragement, The Herald of Christ’s Kingdom, July 15, 1927.
[6]               Leiderbach to Barbour found in the December 1878 issue, page 82. Leiderbach was born in Hesse-Darmstadt in October 1832 and died in 1917. His wife Wilhelmina was born in Prussia in 1844 and died in 1877. Henry immigrated to the United States in 1852, and they were in Minnesota at least by 1865 when their first child was born. [See Census and cemetery records.] Henry was first a saddle maker, then a farmer. He met and married “Mina” Hoffman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. [Marriage record: February 17, 1853, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison; FHL microfilm 1,013,959.]  They lived in Rockford, Minnesota, where he was a farmer.
[7]               View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower¸ December 1882, page 2.
[8]               Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, December 1883, page 1. [Not in Reprints.]
[9]               Details from the 1871 Canadian census and the 1880 U.S Federal Census.
[10]             Extracts from Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, August 1887, page 2. [Not in Reprints.]
[11]             Extracts from Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower¸ July 1887, page 2. [Not in Reprints.]
[12]             Extracts from Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, August 1887, page 2. [Not in Reprints.]

Thursday, June 20, 2019

Probably Impossible but ...

Probably Impossible but ... I need help solving this mystery if possible. Thomas Brewer, a very early adherent living in Michigan, wrote to Russell in 1887, saying:

I have discovered a movement, among
the Swedes similar to ours, a family of
them rented a farm joining mine. They
are good pious people. I paid them a
visit after they had become settled, and
learned that they in common with numbers
of their countrymen here had discorded
sects and sect names, salaried ministry,
etc., etc. They believe that where two
or three meet, there is the true Church,
and every one is encouraged to use his or
her own talents as the Lord has endowed
them. The Bible and the Bible only is
their rule of faith and practice. I found
that from a study of Scripture they have
discovered many truths similar to those
we rejoice in.

I need to identify this group. I have failed thus far. Can you solve the mystery?

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Photo?

I need a clear photo of Knud Pederson Hammer. Anyone?

Friday, June 14, 2019

Better Yet ... Updated

I post extracts for comments. Please do so.


Johann Adam and Christina Doratha [Dorothea Unkel] Bohnet

            Census records indicate that both were born in 1830, but Christina’s grave marker gives her birth date as 1829. Birth location records are confused. One suggests that John Adam was born in Austria. Another suggests that they were both from Württemberg. A family tree says they were both born in Freudenstadt, Württemberg. Another family record says: “John Adam Bohnet and Christina Doratha Unkel were born in the same place in Germany, sailed on different ships from Germany to the United States and disembarked in New York City on the same day. John sometimes went by his middle name Adam. He was a blacksmith by trade. His blacksmith shop faced Carpenter Road. Christine raised flowers to sell, tulips and gladiolas.”
            Christina’s obituary says they lived “together in the same home ever since their marriage, and [they are] said to have been the oldest married couple in the state [of Michigan].”[1]  They immigrated to America in 1854, settling in Minnesota. They were on the American frontier, and their life reflected that. The 1880 United States Census verifies the family record, listing Adam as a Farmer and Black Smith. We have little record of their early years in America, but Christina’s obituary tells an interesting story: “In her early maidenhood [she] crossed the Atlantic in 39 days, in a sailing vessel, and worked as a hired girl, 16 hours every day, for $1.00 Per week, for years in a family near Ann Arbor. After supper each night during apple season she peeled and sliced a bushel of apples by hand and dried them for winter pies. On wash days she was up at 4:00 a.m. and had her wash on the line before breakfast hour.”
            We do not know their marriage date. We know something about her early married life:

She took the fleece direct from the sheep, carded it, spun it into yarn on a foot tread spinning wheel and knitted by hand all the stockings for herself, her husband and her five children as long as they attended school and she did this by the light of her home-made, tallow candles. Talk about a woman working’ she was a wonder of wonders; slight of frame and swift of movement; even up to her last sickness [at age ninety-five] she could catch a fly with her hand. She suffered without complaint. She was love and justice personified, and the generous almost to a fault, never turned away from her door a hungry beggar.[2]
           
            Johann and Dorothea became Watch Tower adherents through their son. John Adam Bohnet, their first child, was born May 11, 1858. He and his four brothers and sisters grew up in a rural community, mostly immigrant except for children and mostly Lutheran. Other than a later comment from J. A.’s pen we know nothing about their childhood beyond the expected. They were farmers and the children worked on the family farm. Wearied of farming, John left home and Minnesota in April 1883, making his way to Portland, Oregon, where he worked “four summers” brick-making. About 1887 he “engaged with a publishing concern of San Francisco.” This was King Publishing Company. He did well, and “in six months was advanced to local manager at Seattle. By 1892 he represented the company on the West Coast, opening post office boxes and advertising in local papers for book agents.

Images:
The Sacramento, California, Record-Union
June 10, 1893.

The Carson City, Nevada, Morning Appeal
May 07, 1892.

Salt Lake, Utah, Herald
July 21, 1893.

            As he told it later, Bohnet ignored sound business advice that could have led to wealth (“I could easily have become a millionaire”) but “tenaciously stuck” to his business and failed. In the biographical sketch from which much of this is taken, he does not say how he failed, though it seems to be a tendency to ignore good advice and a certain amount of poor business sense. A contemporary newspaper article fills in some details. Bohnet hired Warren C. Greenfield, a sixteen year old theater usher to sell books on subscription. Greenfield sold the books to non-subscribers at a greatly reduced price and kept the money. Bohnet had him prosecuted for embezzlement, but, though the trial uncovered a conspiracy to defraud by two young theater ushers, no money was recovered. Undeniably, Bohnet had been gullible, and it appears that he was ‘on the hook’ for nearly one hundred dollars, a huge sum in 1894.[3]
            Business failure brought a crisis of faith. “My religious proclivity suffered a shock,” he wrote, “and was downward.” We do not know what the connection was. Bohnet doesn’t tell us, though we can suggest that the crisis was building for some time. Bohnet suggests that much. When he wrote his brief biography in 1915 he was a very conservative, very religious man who regretted elements of his youth. The full paragraph from which we derive this says:

My parents being devout Lutherans, I was sprinkled for baptism in infancy, but was not confirmed in that faith. A saintly mother taught me reverence for the Lord, and, from my earliest recollection I went to him in prayer. Throughout boyhood and youthdom, [sic] however, there was little thought of living a consecrated life. My experience until maturity did not differ materially from that of other children. Ball playing, fishing and Swimming on Sundays were special delights and seemed to me not harmful.[4]

            Notice the wording. The ordinary pursuits of childhood only “seemed ... not harmful” from his adult perspective – This despite Russellite rejection of Sabbath keeping. From his adult perspective they were harmful, not befitting a consecrated Christian. Bohnet sought a unified theology, a harmony of “the different creeds of so-called Christendom,” reading “various religious works.” This was not casual reading, but reading with a purpose – his continued belief was dependent on the outcome, and he was drifting into agnosticism.
           He met and invited to his residence a member of The Social Order of United Liberals, and considered joining that group. First organized in Portland, Oregon, in October 1888,[5] It promoted what its members called “the religion of humanity.” Their constitution as printed in 1902 said:

We ... desire to unite into an intellectual, scientific, beneficial, moral and social compact Agnostics, Spiritualists, Theosophists, Materialists, Deists, Atheists, Free Religion­ists, Freethinkers, Infidels, Secularists, Positivists, Non-Conformists, Radicals, Optimists, Pessimists,  Rationalists, Transcendentalists, Reformers, Teachers, Professors, Philosophers, Scientists, Thinkers, Students, Investigators and other persons, who are opposed to superstitu­tion [sic], persecution, intolerance and unalterable creeds.[6] 

[insert historical context here]   

            Who ever it was that intended to recruit Bohnet failed to appear. Later he would feel saved from agnosticism, from a band of associates who “have no thought of God nor of things divine.” He faced a night of emotional struggle, recalling it with characteristically florid language, this way:

That never-to-be-forgotten night a battle royal waged fierce and long within my breast. Throughout those silent night-watches I wrestled within myself – or with Satan – Shall I, or not, join this Liberal band? Meditation on that struggle causes a shudder and a sigh. Fast flew the poison arrows of the wicked one urging me to join. But swifter sped the sharp, piercing darts of the Deity pointing me with sacred solemnity, “this is the way, walk ye in it.” In reverie deep, gazing at the chaste angel faces of the stars that night there arose before me visions of my childhood’s happy home and mother. Soon the wild tempest became a calm. The desire of my mother that her boy become a Christian prevailed, and I knelt silently, and at length in prayer.

            This is his retrospective. A night’s mental anguish did not cure his doubts, no matter how long he prayed. This was a temporary turning point based on memories of his mother’s religious instruction. Conviction came later through more mental struggle. He attended a “talk” at the YMCA by John H. Hector, “a noted colored preacher.” Hector had a reputation for colorful, attention-holding, occasionally humorous, motivating sermons, often two hours long. Bohnet wrote that he gave “a stirring sermon in defense of the Bible.” At its close, Hector called for the rousing hymn “Stand Up! Stand Up for Jesus!” inviting those present to do exactly that. Bohnet kept his seat, unwilling to commit to that about which he still had doubts. He recalled:

Hector Photo

Earnestly he pleaded for those still seated to “stand up for Jesus” during the singing of that familiar hymn. As though with an iron hand I seemed fastened to my seat, quivering the while under intense emotion. Vainly he pleaded. Persistently I resisted. And then as though governed by spontaneous impulse, he urge all who desired remembrance in prayer to hold up their hand. Several hands went up, but not mine. And why not? “Just raise your hand only for a moment,” he said appealingly. Then suddenly stretching both his arms far upward and outwardly he looked fixedly at me with a kindly light in his eye and said, “O won’t you lift up one hand just one moment for Jesus, when for three long hours Jesus held up two hands for you?” That was too much for me. Immediately I arose, stepped forward and took him by the hand, and said,   “God bless you, my brother.”

            As with many raised as conservative Christians, he saw this as divine intervention in his life. Hector’s words and actions were only “as though governed by spontaneous impulse.” The spontaneity was seeming; divine intervention was behind it. In reality, it was a long-practiced method, part of the emotionalism that accompanied Hector’s revivalist sermons. Be that as it may, the event had a lasting and profound effect on Bohnet. He joined the Methodist church.
            He attended first in Seattle, Washington, drawn to the Methodist Protestant Church by the spirited preaching of Clark Davis, its pastor. He though Davis was “a most wonderful preacher” and attended regularly, though he did not become a member of the congregation.[7]
            His employer made him manager for all states west of the Mississippi River. “I could go where I pleased and remain there as long as in my judgment seemed wise,” he wrote. He left Seattle for Butte, Montana. There he joined St. Paul’s Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and was appointed Bible Class leader.[8] We do not know how long he lived in Butte, but from there he moved to Ogden Utah. “My activity in church work was most pronounced” there, he wrote. “Rain or shine I never missed a service. My pew on Sunday was never vacant, and my loose change jingled merrily on the collection plate.”
            Sometime late in 1891 or early 1892 Bohnet traveled to Salt Lake City on business. When he returned after an absence of three weeks, he found the Methodist church doors closed and a note affixed to them. The minister was away on vacation, and the church would be closed for two weeks. Disappointed, he made his way home. He recalled:

I heard hymn singing in the court house. A religious service, evidently, I will enter, thought I. Immediately I was in the midst of a Presbyterian Bible class asking and answering most of the questions. Closing the meeting the leader invited me to his clothing store. While there he manifested unusual interest in me and kept talking about a religious book he had read recently and which he said wonderfully opened up the Bible to him. He wanted me to read it.

            The person who showed “unusual interest” in Bohnet was a John T. Hurst (April 15, 1862 – September 10, 1936), a dry goods merchant, the junior partner in the firm of Paine & Hurst of Ogden, Utah. He was prominent enough that Salt Lake City newspaper reported his marriage in some detail, saying that he was “most exemplary and capable.” He stood “high in the community.”[9] We have a letter from him to Zion’s Watch Tower, published in September 1, 1892, issue. Hurst explained to Russell:

We have a union Bible class once a week; and, some three months ago, every time we met it so happened that before the lesson was finished we would drift into the subject of the Millennium. One evening one of the friends said, I have a book called the “Plan of the Ages,” which a lady gave me, that may give some light on the subject. Have not read it, but will loan to you. Since then there has been a well of rejoicing springing up in my soul which I pray will be unto life everlasting. 1 Cor. 2:9, 10 comes to me very forcibly in the light of the Plan of the Ages.[10]

            Hurst enclosed a check for ten dollars, asking for a copy of Young’s Concordance, twenty copies of Millennial Dawn volume 1, ten copies of volume 2 and eight of volume 3. He intended to circulate them, either selling them or giving them away. He enclosed a post card from a friend with whom he shared the volumes. The card read: “Not for ten years of life would I have missed reading Vol. I., millennial dawn. I shall read the others as soon as I can spare moments. How truly wonderful is God’s plan! Human mind cannot grasp its fullness.” As reprinted in The Watch Tower, it was signed “J. A. B____.” – John A. Bohnet.
            Bohnet was reluctant, but considered Hurst a friend. Hurst, despite his insistence that he read the book did not have one at hand. He had loaned out his copy. Bohnet reported: “I rejoiced until he explained that another copy of it had been ordered from the East and should arrive very soon. During the following two weeks I met him almost daily, and he talked of little else but that book.” The promised book arrived about two weeks later, turning into the first three volumes of Millennial Dawn. Bohnet continued the story in his autobiographical article:

image
Seattle Methodist Protestant Church
Bohnet attended this church.

One evening I called at his store to bid him good bye, as early on the morrow I would leave for Reno, Nevada. “The book has come,” he said enthusiastically. My heart sank. And when he produced it there were three volumes instead of only the one. And I was buncoed for the three – 75 cents. I had counted on but one, and that under protest. Behold here I was being taxed for three, and he insisting “they are inseparable.”

            Bohnet tried to read Plan of the Ages on the train, but found the noisy surroundings distracting. He managed the preface and part of chapter one, before giving it up. The preface piqued his interest, and later he described his reaction to it as one of “astonishment.” After supper at his hotel, he went to his room and “began a careful perusal” of the book. “Fascination held me ... until 2:30 o’clock a. m.” he later wrote. Reading Russell’s exposition raised troubling questions. He worried that it was “too late to get into the heavenly kingdom.”
            His brief autobiographical sketch is confusing. He suggests he read only volume one of the three volume set. Yet, worries about the door to the heavenly calling, as Russell had it, would have derived from volume two, The Time is at Hand. On page 235 of that volume we find this:

The three and a half years following the Spring of A. D. 1878, which ended October, A. D. 1881, correspond to the three and a half years of continued favor to individual Jews in the last half of their seventieth week of favor. As in the type that date – three and a half years after the death of Christ – marked the end of all special favor to the Jew and the beginning of favor to the Gentiles, so we recognize A. D. 1881 as marking the close of the special favor to Gentiles – the close of the “high calling,” or invitation to the blessings peculiar to this age – to become joint-heirs with Christ and partakers of the divine nature.[11]

            This is derived from Barbour’s “Israel’s Double” doctrine which Russell adopted making slight additions to it: The timing of the events of Israel’s history correspond to the timing of last-days events. It appears to us that Bohnet read all three volumes. 
            Laying aside the books, he tried to sleep. It was fruitless. He was up again at four o’clock, and resumed reading, continuing “until the breakfast bell sounded.” He didn’t pause to consult the cited scriptures. “There was no necessity to look up scripture references for verification,” he wrote, “as I had been a Bible class leader for years and had so recently read the Bible through and was quite familiar with the cited texts.” Instead of pursuing his business in Reno, he returned to his room and resumed reading, finishing at eleven a. m.
            Bohnet cogitated “for an hour or longer,” asking himself if he had found an accurate exposition of “God’s plan” or if God had “a better one.” He compared it to his Methodist faith: “Reason informed me, surely he could have none worse. And if this is not the heavenly Father’s plan he would better adopt it, for it beats Methodism.”  That, as he described it, this was a rational process is open to question, but his conclusion was, “Embrace it therefore I must until something better can be found.” He went seeking a Methodist clergyman with whom to share his newly found faith. “Where is the Methodist preacher? I will revolutionize this town,” was his thought as he later recorded it. It was the Watch Tower’s Conditionalism that swayed him: “The dead are dead, and not alive in glory or torment.”
            He names the Reno clergyman as a pastor Brady. This is a misspelling for Bready. While there were two “Rev. Breadys” in Nevada, the one he meant was Robert H. Bready [November 30, 1845 – March 24, 1924.],[12] a “supply” preacher who served for long periods in Reno.


Photo

Robert H. Bready
Supply Pastor to the Reno, Nevada, Methodist Church



[1]               Obituary, The St. Paul, Minnesota, New Era Enterprise, December 9, 1924.
[2]               ibid.
[3]               Is it Embezzlement? The Los Angeles, California, Herald, March 1, 1894. The article names Greenfield as W. C. Greenfield. California death index gives his first name and birth date.
[4]               J. A. Bohnet: How Pilgrim Bohnet Got “Present Truth,” The St. Paul, Minnesota, Enterprise, August 15, 1915. Most of this biography is based on Bohnet’s memoir as printed in The Enterprise.
[5]               Untitled notice, The Coquille City, Oregon, Herald, November 2, 1886.
[6]               Cornelius Beal: S. O. U. L.: Address, Contract Social and Constitution of the Social Order of United Liberals, the author, Portland, Oregon, 1902, front cover.
[7]               Davis became pastor of the Seattle Methodist Protestant Church in 1885. He was very involved in the Prohibition Party until the 1896 election when he supported the Democrat candidate, William Jennings Bryan. Davis’ wife was Bryan’s first cousin. The Seattle, Washington, Republican [January 18, 1901] called him “the preaching politician.” He was, until his resignation, chairman of the Prohibition Party state central committee and a member of the national committee. He was described as an eloquent speaker. 
[8]               The Methodist Church, South separated from the main body of Methodists in 1844 over slavery. It maintained a separate existence until 1939.
[9]               Two Days Lost, The Salt Lake City, Utah, Herald, April 2, 1896. We do not think that Hurst maintained his interest. In 1894 he was an officer in the Ogden, Utah, Christian Endeavor Society. In 1896 he was elected an officer in the Ogden unit of Ancient Order of United Workmen, a fraternal organization providing insurance and other benefits to Civil War veterans. In 1910 he incorporated Hurst Realty, in Ogden. His wife was an educator, running as a Republican for the school board in 1897. Both were socially active and friends of prominent politicians.
[10]             “Out of Darkness Into His Marvelous Light,” Zion’s Watch Tower, September 1, 1892, page 272.
[11]             Russell repeated the claim that the “high calling” ended in 1881 in Thy Kingdom Come (Millennial Dawn, Vol 3), page 217.
[12]             Robert H. served the Reno Methodists from 1889-1890, and thereafter as a supply minister – That is, he filled in when the regular clergyman was away. His brother John A. Bready served the Carson City church. There is no record of J. A. Bready serving in Reno. During his term in Reno, Robert conducted successful revival meetings. [See: S. P. Davis (editor): The History of Nevada, 1913, page 575; Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church: Jackson Michigan, 1924, pages 94-96; Religious Revival at Reno, The Carson City, Nevada, Morning Appeal, February 22, 1890. Robert was born in Ontario, Canada, and immigrated to the United States in 1879. [1920 Federal Census.]

J. A. Bohnet


There are many photos of varying quality. I need a photo of him as a young man, taken sometime between 1880 and 1895. Anyone?

Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Watchtower Society and Witnesses.

Dear Brothers,

It's okay to be here. This is not an apostate site. The blog's editors are Witnesses in good standing. You do not have to anonymize, [It doesn't work anyway]. You don't have to use an alternative ISP; your point of origin will show up in our Statcounter report. Some of you, the latest from Watchtower Society of Japan, come here with research questions. Ask your question. We won't 'out you,' and we will answer your question best we can.

I do not intend to brag or exaggerate, but recent interaction with our brothers at Tuxedo Park suggests that often those who contribute to this blog know 'things' you do not. Ask. We do not bite.

Los Angeles



There is a document at William H. Hannon Library, Loyola Marymount, in Los Angeles that I would like to see. The librarians there have proved impossible to deal with via email or online chat. If one of you lives in the area and is willing to photocopy an archival document, please contact me.

Stand up for Jesus!

This hymn played an important part in J. Bohnet's life.

Newton Timothy Hartshorn

Hartshorn was a Civil War veteran, and many of his war era letters are online. He was a well known artist. And he was a bible student. He wrote, about 1915 I think, something called "Paganized Christianity."

I need a good scan or photocopy. Anyone?

Friday, June 7, 2019

I need a good photo of William M. Wright


Anyone?

An Evening Prayer and Thomas Hickey (2 of 3)


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.

Thursday, June 6, 2019

William E. Page


I need a basic biography of W. E. Page. Anyone?

Better, I think

Fixing a bad typo and additions:


John Adam and Christina Doratha [Dorothea Unkel] Bohnet

            Census records indicate that both were born in 1830, but Christina’s grave marker gives her birth date as 1829. Birth location records are confused. One suggests that John Adam was born in Austria. Another suggests that they were both from Wurttemberg. A family record says: “John Adam Bohnet and Christina Doratha Unkel were born in the same place in Germany, sailed on different ships from Germany to the United States and disembarked in New York City on the same day. John sometimes went by his middle name Adam. He was a blacksmith by trade. His blacksmith shop faced Carpenter Road. Christine raised flowers to sell, tulips and gladiolas.”
            Christina’s obituary says they lived “together in the same home ever since their marriage, and [they are] said to have been the oldest married couple in the state [of Michigan].”[1]  They immigrated to America in 1854, settling in Minnesota. They were on the American frontier, and their life reflected that. The 1880 United States Census verifies the family record, listing Adam as a Farmer and Black Smith. We have little record of their early years in America, but Christina’s obituary tells an interesting story: “In her early maidenhood [she] crossed the Atlantic in 39 days, in a sailing vessel, and worked as a hired girl, 16 hours every day, for $1.00 Per week, for years in a family near Ann Arbor. After supper each night during apple season she peeled and sliced a bushel of apples by hand and dried them for winter pies. On wash days she was up at 4:00 a.m. and had her wash on the line before breakfast hour.”
            We do not know their marriage date. We know something about her early married life:

She took the fleece direct from the sheep, carded it, spun it into yarn on a foot tread spinning wheel and knitted by hand all the stockings for herself, her husband and her five children as long as they attended school and she did this by the light of her home-made, tallow candles. Talk about a woman working’ she was a wonder of wonders; slight of frame and swift of movement; even up to her last sickness [at age ninety-five] she could catch a fly with her hand. She suffered without complaint. She was love and justice personified, and the generous almost to a fault, never turned away from her door a hungry beggar.[2]
           
            Christian seems to have been the first to adopt Watch Tower belief. Her obituary says that she was “ever a devout Christian” and that she left the Lutheran church 25 years ago” embracing “the true gospel as presented by the Watch Tower publications.” Counting backwards from her death date [1924] brings us to 1889.
            One of their sons, James A. Bonhet, became prominent in the work. Bohnet relatives lived nearby, and some seem to have accepted Watch Tower teachings. James was active by 1893. A letter from him to the Watch Tower office tells us this:

Please change tower to present address. I miss it, and would not do without it. I shall never drop this welcome visitor; rather would I do my work on one meal a day. It is food to the truth-hungry soul, I need it to sustain my spiritual being, just as I need food to sustain me physically. I hope all subscribers read and digest its precious truths as I do. How it opens up the Word of God and throws light where darkness reigned before! We cannot all uncover these hidden truths, but we can see and accept them when the due time comes for them to be known and pointed out by the Lord's servants.

I close with every kind wish to all in the tower office and all the readers of this priceless seed sower. I hand you a letter from my friend May, to whom I had the pleasure of introducing these precious truths.[3]

            The letter from J. J. May [We can’t identify him further] was appended to James’ letter. May wrote that the first three volumes of Studies in the Scriptures presented “the most wonderful explanation of the old Book that I have found in all of forty years reading and study of its teaching.” He claimed acquaintance with Joseph Addison, Thomas Sherlock, John Locke and Thomas Scott “and others of less note.” He said he owned every Bible commentary of which he had ‘ever heard of as having been published in English” during the previous twenty-five years, but nothing that I have ever read seems even to point in the direction of the straight and narrow path opened up and made plain by those three volumes.” He wrote that within the books was “a perfect and complete system” of theology that encompassed the entire Bible. And the books, he said, were ‘full of comfort.’
            James Bohnet attended the 1893 Convention held in Chicago, and by 1894 he was a part-time evangelist, holding Sunday meetings in the Midwest as he traveled for business.[4] While James is the better known of the Bohnet family, his mother and father quietly promoted the Watch Tower faith.


[1]               Obituary, The St. Paul, Minnesota, New Era Enterprise, December 9, 1924.
[2]               ibid.
[3]               Encouraging Words from Faithful Workers, Zion’s Watch Tower, September 1, 15, 1893, double issue, page 287.
[4]               Z. W. T. Tract Society Annual Report, Zion’s Watch Tower¸ December 15, 1894, page 393.