Mary Jane Russell

This adds nothing to truth history really, but solves a little mystery. Who was Mary Jane Russell?

The Allegheny cemetery has a Russell family plot. Originally purchased by James Grier Russell (an Uncle of Charles Taze Russell who died before he was born) it was designed for ten graves in two rows. In the event, only nine family members were buried there. They included CTR’s father and mother and three siblings in the front row nearest the road, and then in the row behind some of his uncles and aunts, Sarah, James, Charles Tays, and the subject of this essay, Mary Jane Russell.

Below is an extract of a document from the cemetery records.

This document obviously dates after 1897 when the last recorded interment of Joseph Lytle Russell took place. The missing grave nine on this list was for Thomas Birney Russell, who died aged 5 in 1855.

The burials took place from right to left on the site, but this list has recorded them from left to right, hence Mary is first on the list. We note that she died in 1886.

Due to the discovery of a family history document dictated by the former Sarah Russell (one of CTR’s many cousins) and known as Aunt Sarah Russell Morris, we now know a little bit more about her.

Most of the Russell family (CTR’s father and uncles and aunts) travelled from Ireland to America. The only exception known was Aunt Fannie Russell Harper, who stayed in Ireland and died in 1867 aged 55.

We know that Mary Jane was probably born as the child just before Fannie (Harper), so perhaps around 1811. We do not know when she made the trip to America, but it is likely she went to New Jersey or New York where her older brother Alexander settled. She never married, and Aunt Sarah’s comments suggest that Mary Jane was not her most favorite person.

 “Mary Jane whose “hobby” was cats; she kept house for her brother Alexander after his wife’s death; later she lived alone in Pittsburgh, and died there. She was peculiar and very strict; she thought much of pedigree, etc.”

So when Alexander’s wife Margaret died in 1853, Mary Jane went to live with him. We assume this arrangement lasted until Alexander’s death, sometime between 1872-1875. Alexander was mentioned as a beneficiary of Charles Tays Russell’s will in 1872, but by the time the bequests were distributed in 1878 his share was divided between his surviving children. The distributions document noted that Alexander, named in the will as brother of the deceased Charles Tays had died before the decedent.

Charles Tays’ will made special provision for Mary Jane.

Fourth, I will and bequeath to my sister Mary Jane three thousand dollars which I direct my executors to put to interest for her during her lifetime and at her death I desire that it shall be equally divided among the heirs mentioned in this will.

By the time of the distributions in 1878, Mary Jane’s address was Allegheny City, Penn.

Moving forward in time there were problems with caring for her as she grew older. A document dated September 2, 1886, shows that the bequest had been insufficient to care for her, and permission was given to dip into the capital to cover the deficit. This was arranged with Joseph Lytle Russell as executor of the Charles Tays will and Cornelia Davenport, a daughter of Alexander, who lived in Brooklyn, New York.

The document in full reads:

Whereas the late Charles T. Russell, who died in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, in 1875, bequeathed three thousand dollars ($3000) to his executors in trust, to pay the interest to his sister, Miss Mary Jane Russell, during her lifetime , and, upon her death, to distribute the principal equally among “the heirs mentioned in this will”; and whereas through the inability of his executors to collect certain debts that were due to the estate of the said Charles T. Russell, deceased, the said fund was reduced from three thousand dollars ($3000) to fourteen hundred and eighteen and 51/100 dollars; and whereas the fund so reduced could not be made to yield more than six percent interest, about eighty five dollars per year, and whereas the said Mary Jane Russell is now very aged and infirm and has constantly required more than the amount of the interest of said fund to maintain her, and whereas now much more, she is in need of comfort and attention in her closing years; and whereas it has been found needful to extract certain debts for her maintenance and may require additional debt therefore in the future; Therefore we, Stephen H. Davenport and Cornelia S. Davenport, his wife, in consideration of the premises and of our dollar (?) in hand paid to each of us, the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, hereby authorize J. L. Russell, acting executor of the will of the said Charles T. Russell, deceased, to use as much of the principal of the said fund, in addition to the interest, as may be required, in his judgment, to pay the necessary expenses of the said Mary Jane Russell and the debts that have been extracted for her maintenance. And we hereby release and forever discharge the said J. L. Russell, his executors and administrators of and from such part of our share of the said as he shall so expend. It being understood that the balance of said fund not required for the above mentioned purpose shall be distributed in accord with the terms of the will of the said Charles T. Russell, upon the death of the said Mary Jane Russell.

Witness our hands and seal this second day of September AD 1886.

Stephen H Davenport  seal

Cornelia S Davenport  seal

74 Hicks Street

Brooklyn, NY

The Davenports lived very near what would become the Brooklyn Tabernacle, and in fact worshipped there when it was the Plymouth Bethel. Cornelia did not long survive Mary Jane, she died on October 23, 1888.

The document was dated September 2. As shown by the cemetery register at the head of this article, by September 6, Mary Jane was dead. So she was buried in the family plot in Allegheny Cemetery. No headstone was provided.

It should be noted that Mary Jane (CTR’s Aunt Mary) lived in Allegheny during the time that ZWT started, through Food for Thinking Christians, and up to Divine Plan of the Ages. One wonders what she might have made of it all?

BSM, EP and PP

When the Watch Tower moved from Pittsburgh to Brooklyn in 1909 their long-standing series of tracts Old Theology Quarterly was discontinued. It was replaced by a new monthly series that for a while went under three different names, People’s Pulpit, Everybody’s Paper, and the name that stuck, Bible Students Monthly.

The first title was People’s Pulpit and Volume 1 number 1 covered the opening of the Brooklyn Tabernacle. Soon some were issued as Everybody’s Paper, which rearranged the contents slightly to allow the back page (in whole or in part) to be used to advertise a public lecture – often an overprinted local one (or even scrawled in handwriting in the blank space at times).

Both series were soon being called Bible Students Monthly and this title was added officially. Many of the early issues were released with this masthead as volunteer matter, but not the first one as this was dated material. The frequent reprinting of certain issues, along with a slight re-jigging of minor content, makes the series a bibliographic nightmare; although as shown in the graphic above, the main article remained the same for all three series titles.

By the beginning of 1913 Bible Students Monthly had won out as the title. The series in America ended at the beginning of 1918, when the new series Kingdom News was introduced. However, in other lands, the title continued for longer. A 1921 issue of BSM from London survives. A 1923 issue of People’s Pulpit from Australia survives, which is really curious since the masthead still shows the Brooklyn Tabernacle – which was long gone to the IBSA by this time.

By 1924 the Bible Students Monthly title had been adopted by a British movement that had separated from the IBSA.

The Ross Libel Case

Slightly revised from material first written in 1988.

The Toronto Globe, April 2, 1913, page 2

In 1912, J J Ross, a Baptist clergyman in Canada, published a booklet “Some Facts about the Self Styled Pastor Russell.” It attacked CTR over a number of issues, including his marital problems, his business ventures and his ordination and education or lack of same.

CTR sued Ross, but the indictment got no further than the magistrates court. As a result, Ross published an expanded booklet with extracts from the court transcript, claiming that he “won” and CTR “lost”. The accusations made in this booklet, especially over whether CTR could read or understand Biblical Greek have been re-circulated down to this day. Opponents of CTR accuse him of perjury. Others reading the limited transcript available see a far more innocent explanation; one given by CTR at the time.

Regrettably, the full transcript of the key hearing, where CTR was cross-examined by George Lynch Staunton, is not currently available. Staunton’s copy does not appear to survive, nor that of J J Ross, and the one owned by the Watchtower Society was lost for many years, then reportedly rediscovered, then apparently mislaid again.

While it might give many interesting historical morsels in CTR’s testimony, it probably covered similar ground to other trials of the day involving CTR. The transcript of the Brooklyn Eagle trial over “miracle wheat” still exists for example. And this can be seen by examining how the newspapers of the day reported the Ross proceedings.

What is noteworthy is that the reporters in court never picked up on any accusations approaching perjury. Any reference to CTR’s ability to read Greek, be it letters or language, was so peripheral it didn’t merit comment. In their minds the accusations made by Ross focussed more on CTR’s marital difficulties and ordination – subjects already raised by newspapers such as the Brooklyn Eagle (mentioned above), from where Ross’s original booklet admitted he had obtained most of his material. And crucially, the newspapers of the day explained why Ross was not found guilty. (One must always remember that in law it was Ross who was the defendant, not CTR).

The answer is given very clearly in the cutting at the head of this article. And it reflects what CTR himself said by way of explanation at the time.

When later asked about the case, CTR made his defence in the Watch Tower, September 15th, 1914, pp. 286-7 (reprints page 5543). This was a reproduction of a letter published in a newspaper in Trinidad, apparently in answer to Ross's second booklet. The key part is as follows:

(all underlining mine):

'I am quite familiar with the slanderous screed issued by Rev. J.J. Ross. In Canada they have just two laws governing libel. Under the one, the falsifier may be punished by the assessment of damages and money. Under the other, criminal libel, he is subject to imprisonment. I entered suit against Rev. Ross under the criminal act at the advice of my attorneys, because, as he had no property, a suit for damages would not intimidate him nor stop him. The lower court found him guilty of libel. But when the case went to the second judge he called up an English precedent in which it was held that criminal libel would only operate in a case where the jury felt sure that there was danger of rioting or violence. As there was no danger that myself or friends would resort to rioting, the case was thrown out. I could still bring my action for financial damages but it would be costly to me and impotent as respects Rev. Ross.'

(CTR then discusses at some length the issues raised on Biblical languages and ordination and presents his side of the case).

So CTR states he was advised to try for criminal libel, but because of an English precedent relating to resulting 'rioting' and 'violence', it was thrown out. The English law (obviously governing Canada at this time) is put simply in Reader's Digest Family Guide to the Law (1971 edition) page 675: (underlining mine):

'Libel is normally a civil wrong - what the law calls a 'tort' -·but it can be also a criminal offense if the prosecution shows that the libel caused, or was likely to cause a breach of the peace. Such prosecutions are rare because the person libelled normally prefers to seek damages in a civil action; for even if someone is found guilty of criminal libel the person defamed does not get any damages.'

In discussing how certain rare circumstances allow for criminal libel of the dead, it states:

'If the dead person is libelled in such a way that his relatives are understandably angered into a breach of the peace, the writer might be prosecuted for criminal libel.'

So the key point in law is, will the one libelled be likely to cause a breach of the peace, or will his relatives?

This is backed up by Stones Justice Manual, 1985 edition, Section 4-5671. After the definition of criminal libel, and various decisions on whether or not the dead could be so libelled, we have the British precedent to which CTR referred: (underlining mine):

(quote) Lord COLERIDGE CJ, directed a grand jury at Berkshire Assizes, Reading, February 1889, that there ought to be some public interest concerned, something affecting the Crown or in guardians of public peace, to justify the recourse by a private person to criminal libel by way of indictment. If either by reason of the continued repetition or infamous character of the libel a breach of the peace was likely to ensue, then the libeller should be indicted: but in the absense of such conditions, a personal squabble between two individuals ought not to be permitted by grand juries, as indeed it was not permitted by sound law to the subject of criminal indictment, and he invited them to throw out the bill, which, in accordance with his suggestion, was done (33 Sol Jo 250).

In summary – if no breach of the peace was actually caused by, or threatened by, the one libelled, a private individual bringing a charge of criminal libel would have it thrown out – irrespective of the merits of the case. Had CTR brought a civil action against Ross it may have been a different result. This is what he did with actions against the 'Washington Post' and Chicago 'Mission Friend' where both cases were decided in his favour. The issue of CTR’s 'divorce/separation' was common to all cases.

The whole object of the exercise was to silence Ross, and CTR wrote to him while the case was pending offering to withdraw the suit if Ross would discontinue his (quote) "injurious slanderous course". (See Watch Tower, October 1st, 1915). On this occasion the strategy backfired!

In hindsight it would appear that CTR received flawed legal advice to go for the rare charge of criminal libel, rather than civil libel as before.

In the Watch Tower for October 1st, 1915, when answering a question about why he, CTR, took someone to court, when Jesus didn't, he stated about the Ross case: "We are not certain that we did the wisest and best thing – the thing most pleasing to the Lord in the matter mentioned."

Spot the Difference!

Above is a famous slide from the Photodrama of Creation along with two postcards advertising the Photodrama production.  A set of 40 postcards was advertised in The Watch Tower in 1917 (see the reprints page 6077) – and many readers will have seen these sets. They are probably reproduced online somewhere as well. The complete sets I have seen have always been numbered 1-40.

However, the two colored cards above are numbered 44 and 47b.

Can you spot the difference?

What makes it more curious is that the  square picture at the start of this post is the actual slide as used in the Photodrama. This is different again. This original is reproduced in the scenario and would later be reproduced again in a motto postcard numbered L-9 – one of the Lardent series. The Lardent postcard is not as colourful and the circle is a bit smaller but it is the same picture.

So why did they keep on redrawing (not always very successfully) this particular picture? One can perhaps understand there being a copyright issue with the original picture as used in the Photodrama but why do two different versions for the postcard series?

It is not the most important research question in the world, but a curiosity. And while we are discussing the actual Photodrama postcard series, does anyone have details of any other Photodrama postcards higher than 40? There is 47a which has a woman on a veranda overlooking a paradise scene with animals entitled PAX, but apart from that and 47b reproduce above, I have never seen others higher than 40.

Addenda

I am grateful to Brian who (in the comment trail) pointed out that the above pictures do not include the original. The original portrayed below was painted by William Strutt (1825-1915) in 1896, entitled: “Peace, and a little child shall lead them.” This was based on Isaiah 11 and in the original the animals from left to right are in the order as described in the scripture. A lithograph from the original painting was widely marketed.

When Strutt died his gravestone carried the inscription “The Painter of Peace.” His original copyright for the picture had gone by the time of his death, but one suspects the lithograph was still under copyright, hence the various attempts at pastiche to portray the same scene.

The original painting was donated to Brecon Cathedral in South Wales in honor of a local dignitary. It can still be seen there today.