Charles Taze Russell

Charles Russell married Maria Frances Ackley on 13th March 1879. The couple separated in 1897 and divorced in 1908.

Russell was accused of immoral conduct with a much younger woman named Rose Ball in the year 1894. He was also involved in another controversy related to the sales of a strain of wheat named "Miracle Wheat" which he sold for $60 per bushel, an exorbitant price for wheat at the time. His use of Masonic Symbolism attracted controversy as well.

During his later years, Russell’s health started to deteriorate. He became ill with cystitis during his final tour around the United States, and passed away on October 31, 1916 near Pampa, Texas, at the age of sixty-four. He was buried in Pittsburgh at Rosemont United Cemetery.

Charles Taze Russell was born on February 16, 1852 to Scottish-Irish parents in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in the US. He was the second of the five children of Joseph Lytel Russell and Ann Eliza Birney. His mother passed away when he was only nine.

His family lived in Philadelphia for a while before shifting to Pittsburgh. There they became members of the Presbyterian Church. Charles’ father owned and ran a haberdashery store where he made Charles his partner when he was in his early teenage years.

When Charles was thirteen, he left the Presbyterian Church and joined the Congregational Church. He was an ardent Christian and used to frequently write Bible verses on fence boards and city sidewalks whenever he could.

As he entered his late teens, he began questioning Christianity in general and even studied up on various other religions as he had several unanswered questions. In the year 1870, when he was 18, he attended a presentation by Jonas Wendell, who was an Adventist Minister. Although he still had a lot of skepticism in his mind after listening to the speech, he felt convinced that the Bible was the word of God.

By the time Charles Taze Russell was twenty, he had left both the Presbyterian and the Congregational Churches as he simply could not reconcile with the idea that a literal and eternal hell could exist despite God’s mercy being omnipotent.

With his father and several acquaintances, he established a group that undertook a thorough and extensive analytical study of the Bible. They researched into the origins of the Christian doctrine, creed, and tradition.

They concluded that certain doctrines of the established churches, like the trinity, hellfire and soul-immortality were not truly substantiated by the scriptures. Some of Russell’s own ideas focused on the imminence of the rapture and the second advent of Christ.

In 1881, Russell founded Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society with Mr. William Henry Conley. At the time Conley was the president and Russell was secretary-treasurer. The same year, Russell published his first work called ‘Food for Thinking Christians’; it was a 162-page pamphlet. Subsequently, the society was legally incorporated in 1884 and Russell was appointed president before the name was changed to ‘Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society’.

The society had hundreds of local members with followers all over New England, Ohio and the Virginias. The members and followers annually re-elected Russell as their head and commonly referred to him as ‘Pastor Russell’.

Charles Taze Russell is best remembered as the author of ‘Studies in the Scriptures,’ a series of publications intended as a Bible study aid. It became immensely popular and over 20 million copies of the study aid were printed and distributed around the world during his lifetime. The work was also translated into several languages.