Many
years ago I did an article on J F Rutherford’s first book. It can be found
reprinted on this blog if you use the search terms “J F Rutherford’s first
book.” However, a later article was
written that added a few details. This is posted here.
In
1895 the Boonville Advertiser, the official paper of Cooper County, gave away a
free 128 page book entitled Laws of Missouri - Business Manual. The author and
compiler was one J F Rutherford of the law firm of Wright and Rutherford.
The
book is not dated as such, but one of the advertisements for the Cooper
Institute announced that its 26th year of operation would begin
on Tuesday, September 3, 1895, so we can reasonably assume that the volume came
out earlier that year.
In
the main, only the right hand pages contained text, the left hand pages
contained full page advertisements for the various services available in a
rural area. There are thirteen law firms in the area for example, but top of
the list is Wright and Rutherford, with offices in the Windsor Block. There is
a glowing endorsement of Rutherford in the Publisher’s Preface:
“THE
ADVERTISER has had Mr J F Rutherford, one of the leading members of the
Boonville bar, to compile and arrange the laws herein. His fitness for such
work is a guarantee of its usefulness to the farmers and businessmen.”
The
table of contents shows the scope of legal matters that Rutherford covered.
One
might note such subjects as Conveyance of Real Estate, Divorce and Alimony,
Mortgages and Deeds of Trust, and Wills are covered. Knowledge in some of these
areas would make J F Rutherford very useful to CTR when he became the Watch
Tower’s legal counsel.
Of
course, there is nothing whatsoever theological in this volume; Rutherford’s
first foray into scriptural interpretation would not come until 1907 with the
publication of Man’s Salvation, from a Lawyer’s Viewpoint. But still, for
completionists, this is a volume to obtain. As you can tell from the grainy
opening picture, alas, I do not have an original.
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