The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, “Biography”
“Charles Taze Russell, known the world over as Pastor Russell, author, lecturer and minister of the Gospel, was born at Pittsburgh, Pa., February 16, 1852; died October 31, 1916. ... He was educated in the common schools and under private tutors. ... He was married in 1879 to Maria Frances Ackley. No children blessed this union. Seventeen years later they disagreed about the management of his journal and a separation followed. ... He was the greatest religious teacher since St. Paul ... He was not the founder of a new religion, and never made such claim.”
The official obituary biography published in the first issue after Russell's death, printed above his will. It is the source of the sentence about his education, of the Society's one-clause account of the separation, and of the “not the founder of a new religion” formula that the organisation still uses.
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Provenance and verification note for The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, Biography
Confidence note. Read in the Reprints volume for 1916. The Biography opens immediately after the masthead “VOL. XXXVII … BROOKLYN, N. Y., DECEMBER 1, 1916”, on the Reprints page following the marker [5995], and runs past the marker [5997]; the running head printed over it reads “(354-356)” (the second running head in this run is damaged in the OCR). Proclaimers (1993) independently cites the “not the founder” sentence as page 356 of this issue, which agrees.
Scan provenance. The Internet Archive item titled “The watch tower and herald of Christ’s presence, 1916” is the Watch Tower Reprints volume for 1916: it reproduces each issue with its masthead, and every page carries a continuous Reprints page number in square brackets together with the original magazine pages in parentheses in the running head. Read in the item’s OCR text file.
Corroborated by. src-ctr-jv-1993-p707-not-founder
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-ctr-wt-1916-1201-biography