1 - An Introduction to Albert Delmont Jones

Believed to be Albert Delmont Jones c. 1900

as taken from Separate Identity volume 2

This is the start of a series of articles on the bad boy of Watch Tower history “Albert Delmont Jones” (hereafter abbreviated to ADJ). He was one of CTR’s early associates, writing for ZWT before starting his own paper Zion’s Day Star in late 1881. Within a year he had deviated drastically from ZWT theology, and the rest of his history became a cross between Icarus and Hogarth’s The Rake’s Progress.

I wrote a number of articles on him over the years and this collection reprints (with slight updates on occasion) the whole series in an approximate date order of events. It is admitted that ADJ’s post-ZWT history has little to do with Watch Tower history. But I found it both wryly amusing and sad in turn. If the reader’s focus is strictly on ZWT history then by all means pass this numbered series of articles by.

Here is the briefest summary of ADJ’s post-ZWT careeer. Zion’s Day Star became The Day Star and ceased to be Bible-centric. By the end of the 1880s, the paper was gone and ADJ was in trouble both in business and matrimony. His first wife Cassie divorced him on the grounds of infidelity.

In the 1890s he reinvented himself in St Louis as a businessman extraordinaire. He dropped the common name “Jones,” added the name “Royal” and with a flourish became Albert Royal Delmont. He was involved in a blind pool investment scheme (basically where investors invest “blind” without knowing where their money is going – not the wisest of moves). The scheme, as did most things involving Albert, ultimately went sour and there was a court case. What the newspaper account does is to tie the different names of Albert together.

So here in July 1896 we have the Albert Delmont Jones’ blind pool case. One of the main witnesses (and possible co-conspirator) is Wiliam J H Bown. He is billed as Delmont’s brother-in-law. ADJ’s ex-wife Cassie was originally Cassie Bown. So here we can see that Albert Delmont Jones has morfed into Albert Royal Delmont.

It’s interesting that William Bown is called ADJ’s brother-in-law because ADJ had married again by this time, to a young Society beauty half his age, Isabel Agnes Mulhall. The couple moved to Chicago and ADJ tried again, this time linked to a company called Albert R Jones and Co., commission merchants. (The name Delmont was dropped this time.)  A R Jones and co. were expelled from the Chicago Board of Trade according to the newspaper cutting below.

Prior to this ADJ had tried his hand at publishing again. The 1900 Chicago census has him down as Albert Delmont and occupation as editor. For a long time we didn’t know what he edited after the long defunct Day Star. We now know his new venture was called American Progress. It is not known how long it lasted as no copies appear extant.

It was only a matter of time before the marriage of ADJ and Isabel hit the buffers. Albert’s money went, and so did she. The newspaper cutting below written in popularist style has the inference that Albert’s manly charm was not the mainstay of their relationship.

For a fuller reproduction of this cutting see the article “The Many Wives of Albert” later in this series. He was still Albert Royal Delmont at this point.

A third marriage followed which has historical interest in that wife number three, after she was rid of him turned up in the infamous Fatty Arbuckle court case as Bambina Maud Delmont. For those who love trivia and conspiracy links, Arbuckle’s own third wife was Addie Oakely Dukes McPhail, the former wife of Lindsay Matthew McPhail, who was the son of Matthew Lindsay McPhail who had helped lead the new covenant breakaway from the Society c. 1909. You really couldn’t make this stuff up.

There may even have been a fourth marriage for ADJ – the evidence is circumstantial but it would have been in character.

By the end of his life the name “Royal” had gone the same was as “Jones” and he was simply listed on his death certificate as Albert Delmont. He died alone and destitute, his death certificate giving his family as unknown. He was, in fact, survived by at least two ex-wives and several children. They obviously did not know where he was, and likely did not care. Buried in a pauper’s grave, his part of the grave site was taken over by a freeway extension. Yes – as is suspected of many a disappeared gangster - ADJ is literally buried under the freeway!