Maria 1 - Maria Russell and Millennial Dawn

On March 14, 1938, The Tampa Bay Times (Florida) carried the obituary of Maria Frances (Ackley) Russell, the wife of CTR, who had outlived him by over 20 years. Several other Florida newspapers carried the same story. The surviving relatives included some Packards (descendants of her sister Emma), the Raynors (descendants of her sister Laura) and the Ackleys (descendants of her brother Lemuel). There were no living descendants of her other sister, Selena Barto. Maria was the final survivor of her generation of Ackleys.

The obituary specifically claimed that Maria had been co-author of the early editions of Millennial Dawn with her husband Charles T (Deacon?) Russell. This article will examine that claim. But first we need to cover quite a bit of background.

Maria had married CTR (Charles Taze Russell) back in March 1879. Well over a year later, her younger sister, Emma, married CTR’s widowed father, Joseph Lytle Russell. Maria was to assist her husband in his religious work, although the extent and nature of that help was to be disputed later on.

Writing in 1906, after a lengthy separation had been put on a legal footing, CTR described his marriage as he saw it. In Zion’s Watch Tower (ZWT) for July 15, 1906, he wrote under the heading: THIRTEEN BLISSFUL YEARS:

“The starting of the paper (ZWT) was delayed until July, 1879, and this left me for several months continuously at Allegheny, where, in addition to the usual meetings, I conducted several series of meetings in the interest of the public in this vicinity.

Considerable numbers were brought in contact with the Truth at this time. Amongst others was a Maria Frances Ackley, who became my wife within three months of her first attendance at these meetings, which was the beginning of our acquaintance. The Truth seemingly appealed to her heart, and she assured me it was what she had been seeking for many years --the solution of perplexities of long standing. For thirteen years she was a most devoted and loyal wife in every sense of the word.”

This would take us through to the first half of the 1890s. During this time, CTR gave Maria a number of roles. He made her a director and secretary-treasurer of the incorporated Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society in 1884.  She wrote articles for ZWT. She managed correspondence for the paper until Rose Ball was trained to take over. And in 1894 he sent her out as a speaker to represent him in concerns discussed in A Conspiracy Exposed (1894). This speaking tour was reported to be highly successful. When they were in harmony CTR rightly called her (as above) “a most devoted and loyal wife in every sense of the word.”

Maria could be a feisty character by all accounts, used to handling responsbility from her long years of keeping order in the classroom. In her school career in the 1870s there had been at least one issue. The Pittsburgh Daily Post for 19 January 1878 relates how she was accused of assaulting a pupil. When CTR’s sister Margaretta and her four children were given shelter by CTR in 1887-1888 there was friction between the two women (See Russell vs Russell 1906 page 229 – all references hereafter taken from the typed transcript rather than the Paper Book of Appellant for 1906 and then the typed transcript for 1907). When Rose Ball became a member of the Russell household there was a suggestion that Maria sometimes worked Rose rather hard and made her cry (1906 – page 134).

The implications may be unfair, but Maria comes over as strong-willed, and as the perceived roles of women and wives evolved in society in general, one can start to undertand the issues that would affect the Russells’ marriage in the 1890s.

As CTR saw it, in the 1890s Maria started to change. Influenced by two of her sisters Emma and Laura, she increasingly espoused newer views on women’s rights.

The issue of women’s rights was featured prominently in a series of articles in the July 1893 double issue of Zion’s Watch Tower. The title of the series was ‘Man and Woman in God’s Order.’

There is no author given, but it is hard to imagine that Maria did not have some hand in this series. It started by stating that Paul’s words had often been misunderstood and “fostered a spirit of doubt as to his divine inspiration, and thus proved a stepping stone to Infidelity. Such doubts having once gotten control of the mind are apt to lead to the extreme of so-called Woman’s Rights – forcing some to an extreme on that side of the question as others have gone to an extreme on the opposite side: making women mere slaves, drudges or entertainers for men – or erroneously supposing that the apostle so taught.”

The series endeavored to steer a balanced course between the two extremes in society.

In this era, the legal system along with cultural norms of the day had long disadvantaged women, but the times they were a’changing.  Maria’s stance on women’s rights hardened and problems arose as a result. In 1906, at the time she was embroiled in legal action against CTR, she crystallized her views in a small book The Twain One (based on the “twain becoming one flesh” in the KJV rendering of Mark 10 v.8).

The Twain One quoted liberally from John Stewart Mills’ The Subjection of Women. For an assumed Christian readership it had a strong message – wives were in subjection to their husbands but only if they judged them “fit.” The Bible’s counsel about women not being teachers and remaining silent in the congregation did not apply to the church in general. And a favorite role model in the book for Maria was Sarah who had no compunction about telling Abraham what she thought. When Maria lived out this conviction in practice, as CTR saw it, there were problems. For example, he related how on one occasion in the 1890s she took over his study and prevented him from working for a whole morning while insisting that she read to him then and there three articles she’d just written on Solomon (1906 – page 162). Then after the midday meal she continued the dialog by following him into another office in Bible House where they now lived.  Maria’s attorney did not challenge this discription. In the 1880s they lived in a large house on Clifton Avenue, but according to a history marker near the site in Pittsburgh they moved into Bible House in 1894. In Clifton Avenue there was room to breathe and for issues to dissipate, but in the confined living quarters of Bible House such a scenario was far less manageable. 

As CTR told it, problems really came to the fore when as editor he made slight changes to her ZWT articles. He insisted he never changed the sense, but Maria disagreed. When she wrote material that he flatly disagreed with then he refused to publish it – as sole editor that was his perogative. This was indicated in an exchange between Maria’s counsel and CTR in the 1906 hearing (page 161).

Q.  About the only trouble you had with your wife over the editorship of this paper was as stated by your wife, that she wanted the articles to go out as she had written them, and you wanted them changed to meet your views?

A.  No, sir; that wouldn’t be a proper statement. The proper statement would be this, that I never conceded that she had an editorship in the paper. I was the editor of the paper all the time. I never conceded anything else. But as long as she was in harmony with me I would read over – if she wrote an article I would read it, and if I found it satisfactory, or nearly so, I might make a change of a word or two, but it would not be my intention to make the article read the opposite of what it was written.

The situation was never resolved and just got worse. He refused to accept her articles for the last six months they were together, and finally in November 1897 Maria left him and Bible House and never went back.

She first went to Chicago to visit her brother, Lemuel, a lawyer who could no doubt provide legal advice. On returning to Pittsburgh she went to live with her sister Emma at 80 Cedar Avenue, in the house Emma inherited after her husband Joseph Lytle Russell died. When tenants moved out of the adjoining house in the duplex, Maria moved in next door to number 79. CTR paid the taxes on this property and supplied some furniture. He also visited her a few times but this soon ceased. They could just have continued quietly living at separate addresses. It was a large house with ten rooms and she let out rooms to boarders – one account suggests she had six living there at the time problems kicked off.

The way events played out showed there were disagreements about money between the Russells (father and son) and the Ackley sisters. Maria and Emma had married into the Russell family and both had financial concerns. Emma was well provided for by her elderly husband Joseph Lytle Russell, but when he made a new will towards the end of his life, which included additional bequests to his surviving children there were difficulties. An attempt was made to claim that he was not of sound mind. In October 1897 the three witnesses to his last will and testament had to sign that Joseph was of “sound mind and memory” before he died in the December.

In the case of Maria, she had gone from single schoolteacher on a modest salary to wife of a prosperous merchant. They lived well. We have already indicated that their house on Clifton Avenue was large enough to accommodate CTR’s sister and her four children in 1887-1888. Later Charles and Rose Ball came to stay. The Russells had staff, including a gardener and a live-in maid, Emily (1906 – page 178). But as more resources were put into the ministry work of Zion’s Watch Tower Society, Charles and Maria moved into quarters in Bible House in 1894. As already noted, this would have required considerable adjustment and it was around this time that troubles in the marriage really came to the surface.

CTR’s assets were eventually donated to the Watch Tower Society, and as he stressed, this was something both he and Maria had agreed on originally. In exchange he received a small allowance, board, lodging and expenses, along with voting shares as president of the Society. This allowed him to both continue and defend his life’s work. For an estranged wife who no longer believed as he did, this was not going to end well. She would want a piece of the pie, and he would want to protect his religious work. He viewed some of Maria’s financial claims as a direct attack on what he held dear.

In the 1900s it all got worse and spilled out into public view. In 1903 Maria put her financial concerns into print and circulated them. She now claimed in writing that she had been co-writer with CTR of the first few books in the Millennial Dawn series. She was owed.

An article in Zion’s Watch Tower lit the fuse. It was in the 1 November 1902 issue and entitled “Insanity of the Doukhobors.” It discussed the Russian immigrants now in America and Canada and the issues of their assimilation. The key message was “conscience is a dangerous thing unless instructed by God’s Word and thus guided by the spirit of a sound mind.” A mix of targets followed the Doukhobors including militant vegetarians and Seventh Day Adventists. But then CTR wrote:

“As an illustration of a misguided conscience and its baneful effect in social affairs

we mention the case of an editor's wife. She at one time took pleasure in assisting him in his work. By and by a deluded and misguided conscience told her that God wished her to be editor in chief and publish what she pleased. When the editor demurred that he dare not abandon his stewardship, the deluded conscience told its owner that she should no longer co-operate, but more, that she should break her marriage covenant in deserting her husband and home, and that she should say all manner of evil against him falsely, until such time as he would yield to her the liberties of the journal – which her conscience told her was God's will.

The moral of all such lessons is, "Be not wise above what is written." "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,--rightly dividing the Word of truth."

CTR would later testify that this could apply to a dozen men he knew, but admitted he’d had Maria in mind. He’d mentioned no names but Maria took it very personally. She produced a 16 page booklet in response entitled Readers of Zion’s Watch Tower and Millennial Dawn: Attention! in which she certainly named HIM.  She sent it to everyone she could think of. In it, she stated that she was “not receiving a dollar…from the literary work so largely hers.” (bold print mine).

In this booklet, Maria acknowledged that CTR’s message contained truth. Since she was claiming to be co-author of his books she could hardly do otherwise, but “the fact that some hold the truth in unrighteousness does not invalidate the truth now any more than of old. Though the scribes and pharisees whom Jesus described a whited sepulchres, full of all manner of uncleanness, held and taught the divine law, that law remains as pure today as if they had never touched it. And so it is of all truth that is God’s truth.”

It was hardly conciliatory.

This very personal attack was funded by Maria running a lodging house in the Cedar Avenue property. It prompted immediate action. CTR took the Cedar Avenue house back and put his sister, Margaretta, in charge of it. Maria could have stayed there on a proper legal basis; she was offered her own room and full board, but perhaps understandably she simply chose to move back next door with her sister, Emma. As noted above, Maria and Margaretta had lived under the same roof in earlier years but the two women just hadn’t got along. The change of control of the property was messy and reported on a daily basis by the Pittsburgh newspapers of the day. At one point one of Maria’s lodgers declared his wish to spend the rest of his life with her, and this all must have been the final nail in the coffin of any prospects of reconciliation between the parties.

Maria then went to law to seek a legal separation and lawfully establshed support. The case came for trial in 1906, and there was a subsequent hearing in 1907 to try and increase the alimony.

It might be useful at this point to establish just exactly what Maria was after. It was not to end the marriage. A complete divorce would not have provided her with material support, and would probably have gone against her religious convictions. Maria likely believed the only scriptural grounds for divorce was adultery (Matthew 5 v.31) and she would specifically stress that this was not charged (1906 – page 10).

What she went for and eventually obtained was officially called a mensa et thora.

For the details we have to go to the Villanova Law Revew Volume 15, issue 1 (1969) article 8, entitled Grounds and Defenses to Divorce in Pennsylvania and written by Robert A. Ebenstein.

A mensa et thora means divorce from bed and board, and is normally abbreviated as a.m.t. This is in contrast to what would be understood as a complete dissolution of a marriage called a vinculo matrimonii (abbreviated to a.v.m.). Ebenstein wanted the law changed to remove a.m.t. from the statute books. He wrote on the limitations and problems with it. “Divorce a.m.t. is only available to the wife; and unlike the situation in divorce a.v.t. the libellant need not be an innocent and injured spouse. Also, the parties to divorce a.m.t. cannot remarry since they have been granted what is in effect a legal separation…The only reasons for choosing a legal separation would appear to be vindictiveness, a desire for alimony, and to encourage a later reconciliation.” It was also noted that some with religious objections to divorce might choose this route.

This type of separation Maria went for could only be sought by the wife, not the husband; crucially she did not have to prove her own absense of fault, and if granted, neither party was free to re-marry. As acknowledged by Maria above, the scriptural grounds for a full divorce did not apply, so that just left the three possible reasons for the action, vindictiveness, alimony or potential reconcilliation. The way things went down indicates alimony as the main motivating factor.

However, legally the terms of a mensa et thora are quite clear. Neither party could remarry. In that sense, they were still married to each other, and this is how Maria was presented to the world up to and including her own obituary. Ebenstein presents such a case as “in effect, a legal separation.”

So Maria’s objectives were financial.

There may have been a secondary concern, the desire to publish her own books, but that was hampered by monetary concerns. This exchange (1907 – page 138) explains:

Q.  Have you written for publication anything since you and Mr Russell separated?

A.  Yes, sir.

Q.  What was it?

A.  I have written one book, and I have others on the way, but I have not the means to publish it.

Did Maria want to establish herself as an independent theological voice? Perhaps. But as discussed in Zion’s Watch Tower for 15 July 1906 (reproducing some of her correspondence) she’d previously suggested that CTR was the “faithful slave” of Matthew 24 v.45.  However, since the “twain (were) one” she too would be part of that “slave” – that is, until CTR disagreed with her. Then she revised her opinion and CTR became “the evil slave.” One wonders, theologically, where that left her.

Nonetheless, looking at her statements and actions, her chief motivation still seems to be pecuniary, both to publish her own materials as well as live in reasonable comfort. The Dawn books were selling in the millions. She was entitled. This was shown by the wording of the complaint she put in writing in 1903.  Quoting again, she was “not receiving a dollar…from the literary work so largely hers.”

The 1907 hearing was therefore all about money. What resources did CTR have personally as opposed to what was now donated to the Watch Tower Society and untouchable? What level of alimony could she claim? To maximise her petition, Maria tried to establish that first - CTR still had plenty of personal assets, and second - that she had been an integral contributor to his financial success – obviously not as a successful merchant, but as a writer. She said they had worked together on the Millennial Dawn series and her imput was at least equal to his and in some cases a lot greater. He said the ideas and theology was his alone, that “she had no knowledge of the subject, because it was new to her” (a quote we will return to later). But he recognized that she gave him valuable assistance.

We can note his own acknowledgement of this in the original preface of The Plan of the Ages, which stayed in place for about the first ten years of publication from 1886.

So Maria rendered valuable assistance which was readily acknowledged. He called her “his help-meet – to whom (he was) indebted for valuable assistance rendered in this connection.” However, the foreward – never disputed at the time - plainly describes one author, not two. Maria never disputed that at the time.

As for the subject being “new” to her, we must remember that when they married after knowing each other for less than three months, Maria had come from a Methodist Episcopal background. CTR, however, had spent the previous ten years with his own Bible study group, and had been greatly influenced by the Age to Come and Advent Christian movements, including individuals like Jonas Wendell, George Stetson, George Storrs and Nelson Barbour. Maria never knew any of these men. Their influence in varous ways fuelled the message in the fledgling Zion’s Watch Tower, as well as material like Object and Manner of Our Lord’s Return which pre-dated Maria, as did articles in magazines like Storrs’ Bible Examiner and Barbour’s Herald of the Morning. Maria’s contributions tended to be devotional rather than doctrinal. While CTR’s theology would continue to evolve in some of the details, he would seem justified in claiming authorship of the main IDEAS promoted in Millennial Dawn.

To maximise her claim for alimony, Maria was to make four basic claims in court which at worst were patently false, or at the very least, showed a faulty memory of events.

First: she claimed that the idea for Zion’s Watch Tower had been a joint venture between husband and wife from the very beginning, and even before they were married. Second: that generally only she and Charles had written for the paper. Third: that her name had been on the title page of the volumes originally. Then of course fourth: the claim that she had personally written at least half, and in some cases more, of the first few volumes of Millennial Dawn.

In reality, on the first point, CTR had announced the proposed advent of his paper in Barbour’s Herald magazine in February 1879. Allowing for the time it would take to go from composition to print this could well have been written before CTR ever met Maria in the latter half of December 1878.  But it is true that they were in unison once the need for a new paper became apparent and a proposed companion paper soon became a rival.

But then, the second point, describing the new title, Maria made the claim (1907 – page 119) that it was normally just she and CTR who wrote for the paper. Her actual words:

“Mr Russell and I were the ony ones that ever wrote for it, except for a few who wrote occasionally…There were very few other articles except his and mine that were ever admitted to the paper.”

Just one look at the early ZWTs shows this to be completely untrue. The masthead from the very first issue had CTR as the sole editor and listed the main regular contributors.

This continued for some time, and Maria’s name is no-where to be seen. The regular contributors often signed off their articles with their initials, but the first appearance of any reference to “Sister Russell” or “Mrs C T Russell” is not until the January-February 1882 issue, although she may have provided anonymous copy before then. But so much for: “Mr Russell and I were the ony ones that ever wrote for it.”

Continuing to over-egg the pudding (as the British might put it), the third claim Maria made was that her name had been on the title page of the Millennial Dawn volumes, the ones she maintained she had co-written. The exchange wth her counsel (1907 – page 121) went as follows:

Q.  Did your name appear upon the title page of either of these publications?

A.  Of all of them, unless they have been taken off in recent years. I have not seen the recent editions.

This can be easily checked and her name no-where appears on any title page of any edition of Millennial Dawn. Come to that, neither did CTR’s name appear on any title page, but ony in the foreward reproduced above, which gave credit to Maria’s assistance.

Then fourth, there was the main claim that she had written over half of the first few volumes of Millennial Dawn. So as well as general alimony, maybe royalties could be added to the payoff.

As one would expect there was quite a different viewpoint between Maria and Charles on this. In the first hearing of 1906, Maria had suggested her major role, but it was in the 1907 hearing that both parties expressed how they saw matters. Maria first (page 120-121):

Q.  Who wrote the Millennial Dawn?

A.  Well, the books were written by myself and Mr Russell, all that Mr Russell wrote was submitted to me for examination; I laid the plans for each of these volumes, and I can testify that at least one-half of the work, and I think more, is mine.

CTR was quite adamant that the situation had been different (1907 – page 243):

Q.  Did she write any of the volumes?

A.  None of the volumes.

Q.  Did she write any of the chapters?

A.  She labored in connection with myself on some of the chapters, among other things, but she had no knowledge of the subject, because it was new to her….She co-labored in the arrangement, she read the proof and examined my manuscript, perhaps.

When asked why he had not corrected Maria’s similar claims in the 1906 hearing he replied that he had not been asked anything about it.

It should be noted that after Maria left, CTR continued writing: there were to be two more thick volumes of Millennial Dawn retitied as Studies in the Scriptures, a Photodrama of Creation scenario, nearly twenty more years’ worth of articles for Watch Tower and Bible Students Monthly, and innumerable newspaper sermons. He was highly prolific, without any input from Maria at all.

There is just one line of argument left to perhaps try and establish the reality. What might an analysis of writing styles show as to authorship? Interestingly, it was CTR himself who suggested readers could check this out for themselves. Continuing in the above cross-examination he said (1907 – page 244):

“If anyone will compare Mrs Russell’s new book which she published a few years ago with the Dawn, they will see a very different style in every sense of the word.”

CTR had bought a copy of Maria’s book The Twain One, and a 1906 review in the Pittsburgh Leader by “a minister” was based on an interview he had given about it.

But, dismissing CTR’s suggestion, at least one critic has tried to make the comparison in Maria’s favor. Back in the early 1970s a detractor of CTR published his own analysis of the first four volumes. The conclusion reached was that the standard of writing in volume four showed a considerable drop in quality when compared with the first three. The writer came to the ‘obvious’ conclusion – without help from Maria, CTR really struggled with volume 4.

There is one problem with this, and it is a BIG ONE.

In the hearing Maria claimed that while she wrote over half of volumes 1-3 she actually wrote THE WHOLE of volume 4 by herself (apart from just one chapter).  From 1907 – page 121:

“Of the fourth volume I wrote the entire volume except one chapter, but when seven chapters of that had gone to the printer, Mr Russell took offense and never wrote the balance of it; he finished it himself, so that is the way the fourth volume ended.”

So much for analysis.

In fairness, CTR acknowledged this in part. Volume 4 was made up from many quotations and Maria had kept the cuttings files. But he, CTR, had made the final decision as to what was used. The numerous quotations from different sources would also give an uneven feel to this volume, no matter who compiled it. In commenting on Maria’s words (1907 – page 213-214) he responded:

“I heard Mrs Russell’s testimony and noted in particular her reference to the fourth volume of the Millennial Dawn, her remark that a considerable portion of it, probably one-half, was her work…I answer that Mrs Russell did do considerable of the forepart of the fourth volume, because this is nearly all of it, the collection of clippings which we had been collecting for some years, and the large part of it, the report of the congress of religions held in Chicago, at the World Fair. I have no desire to belittle in any manner the assistance rendered me by my wife, but could not agree with her statement. I would have preferred to have said nothing on the subject but since it seems necessary to answer her, I would say that much of her work is of a kind that is done in nearly any office, proof reading, and the work of an amanuensis…At the time of Mrs Russell’s association with me, she was very willing indeed, and in very full sympathy with me, especially during the time of the first three volumes, and I have no doubt she would have been glad to have done a great deal more than she did do.”

We note that CTR gave Maria a certain amount of credit in this comment, while again explaining how he understood their previous working relationship. And in the 1906 hearing (page 112) he had been asked about her abilities:

Q.  Mrs Russell, I believe, is a very bright, intellectual woman, is she not?

A.  Yes, sir.

So what are we to take from all of the above? Maria assisted in the preparation of the first few volumes of Millennial Dawn; that is not in dispute. As to how much she assisted, both she and CTR saw it differently. But the volumes were always presented as his work not a joint work, although she was given fulsome credit for the help she gave in the original foreward. When they were in harmony she never disputed how matters were presented. His key argument – which is still valid – was that he was responsible for the content, because, as quoted above: “she had no knowledge of the subject, because it was new to her.”

After the hearings and the awarding of alimony, Maria could have just quietly got on with her life, but that was not to be. Sadly she continued to attack her husband on every possible occasion she could.  In the Russell vs. Brooklyn Eagle (Miracle Wheat) court case of 1913 she appeared for the Eagle, although her testimony was so inconsequencial it can only have been designed to cause her husband embarrassment. In the Ross libel case which shortly followed it, she is described as contacting the Ross camp and offering to travel to Canada to volunteer her services. (See The Victoria Daily Times for 23 January 1013). When she was interviewed in the Brooklyn Eagle for 6 May 1914 about a local Bible Student convention she was asked about rumors of possible reconciliation. Her response was unequivocal: “To seek…reconciliation and live with him was out of the question.” And even though she attended CTR’s funeral as his wife, the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper showed she still hoped to get more from his estate. The Eagle for 29 November 29 1916, carried the byline:

Note that she is clearly “the wife” who inherits a $200 bank account, but who also engages a lawyer to protect what she considers “her interests.” The text simply defines these as her “property rights.”

In due course in 1907, Maria was awarded her alimony – which settled on $100 a month. But she never did get any “royalties.” It could be argued that as sales of volumes often made a loss in endevours to spread the message, and as all proceeds went back into the work of the Watch Tower Society, that CTR never gained personal royalties either.

Maria's subsequent history is detailed in the blog article below: Maria – The Later Years.

At the end she owned a house in beautiful surroundings in Florida, and her last will and testament left substantial bequests to family members and friends. When the house last came on the market in the early 2020s it was valued at over one million dollars.

Ultimately, Maria didn’t do too badly.