I checked Conley for Masonic membership, and turned up nothing.
However, Riter was a Mason.
West70
JoinedPosts by West70
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87
To: Barbara Anderson -- Re: First WatchTower President
by West70 ini am primarily posting this to barbara anderson, but obviously everyone is welcome to correct or comment on my remarks as they see fit.
mrs. anderson, i realize that trying to cover all bases in your pending russell bio would be impossible, but i do hope that you will be able to include a section on the first president of the watch tower society, william h. conley.
i hope that you have had a chance to research conley with some degree of thoroughness, so as to dispel some of the half-truths that some bible students and jws try to promote (such as that conley's age and health caused his inactivity with russell after 1881).
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West70
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WBTS Loses Recent 2005 Federal District Court Case In Puerto Rico
by West70 inhas this 2005 federal court decision been previously posted?
jehovah's witnesses lose facial challenge to puerto rico controlled access law .
in an opinion that has recently become available, the federal district court in puerto rico last month rejected a facial constitutional attack by jehovah's witnesses to the commonwealth's controlled access law.
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West70
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Charles Russell, Alleged Child Abuser
by Farkel inin the thread about whether charles russell was gay or not, a topic was brought up that i believe deserves a new thread.
as card-carrying apostates we all need to be careful about our information.
even one mistake, whether intentional or not, gives dubs the chance to jump up and say, "see those apostates lied about that thing.
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West70
There was only 16-7 years difference in age between Russell and Rose Ball, and Russell made the point more than once that Rose was very young looking.
Maybe the nut didn't fall far from the tree.
When Russell's 64/5 year old father, Joseph, married Maria's younger sister, Emma, she was only 23. -
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WBTS Loses Recent 2005 Federal District Court Case In Puerto Rico
by West70 inhas this 2005 federal court decision been previously posted?
jehovah's witnesses lose facial challenge to puerto rico controlled access law .
in an opinion that has recently become available, the federal district court in puerto rico last month rejected a facial constitutional attack by jehovah's witnesses to the commonwealth's controlled access law.
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West70
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87
To: Barbara Anderson -- Re: First WatchTower President
by West70 ini am primarily posting this to barbara anderson, but obviously everyone is welcome to correct or comment on my remarks as they see fit.
mrs. anderson, i realize that trying to cover all bases in your pending russell bio would be impossible, but i do hope that you will be able to include a section on the first president of the watch tower society, william h. conley.
i hope that you have had a chance to research conley with some degree of thoroughness, so as to dispel some of the half-truths that some bible students and jws try to promote (such as that conley's age and health caused his inactivity with russell after 1881).
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West70
From an 1889 Pittsburgh area magazine:
RITER & CONLEY.
Riter & Conley.-Manufacturers of Blast Furnaces, Iron Buildings, Bridges, Boilers, Oil Tanks, etc.; 55 & 56 Water Street.-The hive of industry which the city of Pittsburgh presents to the world of today, could scarcely have been pictured to the most extravagant visionary in the early days of its existence, and while in this limited space it would be impossible to trace the rise and progress of those elementary operations which led up by degrees to her present important position as a commercial and manufacturing metropolis, a brief notice of one of its most prominent firms and its agency in the development of the immense iron interests for which Pittsburgh has an honored and world-wide reputation may afford some idea of the many causes which have established her present greatness. The house now conducted by Riter & Conley was established in 1866 by Mr. James M. Riter, who was succeeded in 1873 by the present firm, consisting of Thomas B. Riter and Wm. H. Conley, under whose energetic and enterprising management the business has steadily increased and the scope of its operations extended until the products of their skill are found in almost every civilized country on the face of the globe. The plant occupied by their works covers an area of about one acre, upon which are erected commodious one and two story buildings equipped with improved machinery and special devices necessitating the employment of not less than six hundred skilled workmen in the various departments. The specialties produced here are blast furnaces, rolling mill stacks, converters and ladles for steel works, boilers and oil tanks, roof frames, iron mill buildings, iron bridges and every description of copper work. Both members of this representative firm are skilled in mechanics, practically familiar with the most minute details of the business in which they have been so long and successfully engaged, and to the management of which they devote their personal attention.
Kinda makes one wonder why today's WatchTower Society would not be proud of these accomplishments by its very FIRST PRESIDENT?
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87
To: Barbara Anderson -- Re: First WatchTower President
by West70 ini am primarily posting this to barbara anderson, but obviously everyone is welcome to correct or comment on my remarks as they see fit.
mrs. anderson, i realize that trying to cover all bases in your pending russell bio would be impossible, but i do hope that you will be able to include a section on the first president of the watch tower society, william h. conley.
i hope that you have had a chance to research conley with some degree of thoroughness, so as to dispel some of the half-truths that some bible students and jws try to promote (such as that conley's age and health caused his inactivity with russell after 1881).
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West70
An 1888 project:
The Cameron Iron & Coal Company was chartered December 7, 1886, with the following named directors: W.M. Bunn, J.H. Heverin, Thomas R. Elcock and H.H. Bingham, of Philadelphia; G.S. Middlebrook and F.C. Miller, of Port Richmond, N.Y.; W.B. Shore, of New York City; C.L. Brooke, of Manhasset, and G.N. Knox, of Brooklyn, N.Y. The capital stock was $1,000,000 in 10,000 shares, of which $100,000 were in the hands of Treasurer Alexander Grant, at date of charter. The borough of Emporium donated twenty acres on the river front, purchased from the Philadelphia & Erie Land Company for $3,500. The blast furnace is seventy-five feet high and sixteen feet in diameter of bosh, and supplied by two upright blowing engines of five-foot stroke, and seven-foot diameter blast cylinder. The blast is heated by three Siemens Cowper fire-brick stoves, each seventy feet high and eighteen feet diameter. The company own 6,000 acres of coal land and some iron lands. The Emporium, furnace was opened November 26, 1888, C.B. Gould being accorded the honor of applying the torch. So soon as the fire was kindled, Manager Hunt ordered the whistle to be blown as the signal for work, and this great industry was an accomplished fact. Mr. Fleming is the present manager. Work on the 100-coke ovens near the chutes was begun in November, 1888, by contractor Philip T. Hughes, who erected the fire-brick work at the furnace. The iron work was built by Riter & Conley, of Pittsburgh,
and the air-pumps and engines, of which there are two of 100-horse power each, were made by the Scott foundry of the Beading Iron Works. The boilers are of the Heine Safety invention, and of these there are two batteries of four each. There is not a more modern plant of the kind anywhere, and every department of the business is characterized with enterprise so genuine that it never fails to attract the most favorable comment. The company are making 110 tons of metal per day, and the mixture they use is composed of Lake and Centre county (Pa.) and Wayne county (N.Y.) ores. -
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To: Barbara Anderson -- Re: First WatchTower President
by West70 ini am primarily posting this to barbara anderson, but obviously everyone is welcome to correct or comment on my remarks as they see fit.
mrs. anderson, i realize that trying to cover all bases in your pending russell bio would be impossible, but i do hope that you will be able to include a section on the first president of the watch tower society, william h. conley.
i hope that you have had a chance to research conley with some degree of thoroughness, so as to dispel some of the half-truths that some bible students and jws try to promote (such as that conley's age and health caused his inactivity with russell after 1881).
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West70
Here is an edited excerpt regarding Riter & Conley's role in the building one of the largest grain elevators of the time period:
The Great Northern Elevator was built in 1897 for the Great Northern Railway Line and designed by Max Toltz, American Society of Civil Engineers, and Bridge Engineer of the Great Northern Railway. Toltz designed the general and detail plans of the steel construction and also acted in the capacity of consulting engineer during construction. Newcomb Carleton, of Buffalo, as consulting electrical engineer, designed the electrical plant, which was installed under the direction of Albert Vickers, electrical engineer. The elevator machinery was designed by D.A. Robinson of Chicago, Illinois who supervised construction.
The contractors for the main body of the steel work were the Riter-Conley Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The Penn Bridge Company of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, furnished the material for and erected the marine towers. The structure was built as an all steel elevator "of the future" and had at the time an unusually great storage capacity of 2,525,890 bushels. The Great Northern elevator consists of a house, cupola, and transferring apparatus, the principal elements of a grain elevator complex. Its distinctive features are the cylindrical steel tanks with hopper bottoms, mounted on columns, which take the place of the usual rectangular wooden bins; the elaboration of the conveying and hoisting appliances and their operation by electric power; and, finally, the use of steel for the entire structure except for the brick walls, enveloping the house.
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87
To: Barbara Anderson -- Re: First WatchTower President
by West70 ini am primarily posting this to barbara anderson, but obviously everyone is welcome to correct or comment on my remarks as they see fit.
mrs. anderson, i realize that trying to cover all bases in your pending russell bio would be impossible, but i do hope that you will be able to include a section on the first president of the watch tower society, william h. conley.
i hope that you have had a chance to research conley with some degree of thoroughness, so as to dispel some of the half-truths that some bible students and jws try to promote (such as that conley's age and health caused his inactivity with russell after 1881).
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West70
Here is an edited Bio sketch of a "John Seaver" who worked for Conley from 1884 to 1896. This sketch provides a glimpse at the quality of R&C's employees, R&C's product line during the interested time period, etc:
Seaver, John W. 26 patents in sampled years, some joint with Wellmans. Assignees at issue:
Wellman-Seaver Engineering Company (1 patent in 1898, 4 in 1900, 2 in 1902, and 2 in 1903);
Wellman-Seaver-Morgan Engineering Co. (4 in 1903, 2 in 1905, and 1 in 1907). Patents included inventions for a gas producer, shipbuilding crane, furnace filling, blast furnace charging, and ore storage and delivery. Was a principal in a firm that bore his name and to which he assigned many of his inventions at issue.
1897-8 Cleveland Directory: vice president of the Wellman-Seaver Engineering Co. (engineers and contractors, bessemer and open-hearth steel, etc.)
1906-7 Directory: chairman of the board of Wellman-Seaver-Morgan
Seaver was born in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1856 and then moved with his parents to Buffalo, New York. At the age of 13, he took a job in the machine shop of the Shepard Iron Works, attending school in the evenings. Five years later he moved to the Howard Iron Works, which designed and built marine engines. He was promoted to Assistant Superintendent at the age of 20. After a stint in the partnership of Seaver & Kellogg, where he built the first steel railroad cars in the U.S., be took a position with the Kellogg Bridge Works and then, in 1880, became chief engineer of the Iron City Bridge Works in Pittsburgh.
In 1884 he assumed the same title at the Riter-Conley Co. and earned a reputation designing blast furnaces, steel works, oil refineries, and other industrial structures.
In 1896 he joined Samuel T. and Charles H. Wellman to found Wellman-Seaver Engineering (later Wellman-Seaver-Morgan), assuming the position of vice president. The firm operated extensive plants in Cleveland and Akron, manufacturing ore and coal handling machinery, car dumpers, hoisting engines, water power, steel plant and railroad equipment, and other heavy machinery. He remained a director of that firm until his death in 1911, but in 1906 joined a consulting practice with James E. A. Moore.
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87
To: Barbara Anderson -- Re: First WatchTower President
by West70 ini am primarily posting this to barbara anderson, but obviously everyone is welcome to correct or comment on my remarks as they see fit.
mrs. anderson, i realize that trying to cover all bases in your pending russell bio would be impossible, but i do hope that you will be able to include a section on the first president of the watch tower society, william h. conley.
i hope that you have had a chance to research conley with some degree of thoroughness, so as to dispel some of the half-truths that some bible students and jws try to promote (such as that conley's age and health caused his inactivity with russell after 1881).
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West70
As noted above, it appears that Charles Taze Russell would have just as soon William H. Conley would have remained unknown to his 1894 followers, but Conley's letter was probably seen as "support" that Russell did not want to let slip by during the 1894 controversy. Even then, Russell failed to identify Conley as the Society's FIRST PRESIDENT.Conley would be unknown to today's JWs but for the brief, unelaborated statement of fact found in the Proclaimers book. It was likely included solely so that such a notable fact could not be pointed out as missing from the WT history book.
So that readers can get some "feel" for who Conley and his Company were during the early Watch Tower Society time period, and the role that this FIRST WATCHTOWER PRESIDENT played in the economic development of not only the United States, but also foreign customers, I am going to post whatever fragments of history I can find which shed light on such. Readers can then make their own assumptions and speculations from such.
Here's one regarding Riter & Conley's role in the first major oil pipeline:
"In addition to the railroad above mentioned, Beaver is traversed by the Tide-Water Pipe-Line, the features of which, as factor in distributing an important commodity of the state, are of an entirely different character. The economy and convenience of transporting petroleum from the wells to shipping points by means of pipe-lines was realized by proprietors of oil-wells at an early period in the development of the oil region of Pennsylvania. Until 1880, however, no pipe-line of any extent had been successfully operated. In that year, the Standard Oil Company practically demonstrated the feasibility of transporting crude petroleum long distances through iron tubes, the principle being to take advantage of the action of gravity upon the flowing liquid whenever possible, and surmount the obstacles of varying elevation by powerful force pumps when necessary. With the object of lessening the expense of transporting oil to distributing points on the sea-board, the Tide-Water Pipe Line Company in 1882 secured the right of way for a pipe-line from Rixford, in McKean county, to Tamanend in Schuylkill, a distance of one-hundred and eighty miles. Notwithstanding the violent opposition of rival corporations, the enterprise was successfully consummated in the autumn of the same year. The course surveyed enters Columbia county after crossing the Muncy hills, passes several miles north of Jerseytown and about the same distance south of Buckhorn, crossing the Fishing creek and Susquehanna at the mouth of the former stream. The course of Catawissa creek is followed through the townships of Main and Beaver. The mains are six inches n diameter, the cost of construction aggregating six-thousand dollars per mile. Although involving this enormous expense, the financial success of the enterprise may be inferred from the act that it has reduced the cost of oil transportation to one-twentieth of the former freight charges. A telegraph line connects the office of the general superintendent at Williamsport with the several pumping stations along the route. These are located at Rixford, McKean county; Olmstead, Potter county; County-line and Muncy, in Lycoming; and Shuman's, in Columbia. The distance between the last named two is one-hundred miles; between Shuman's and Tamanend, the terminus of the line, seventeen miles. Owing to the presence of a considerable elevation between Shuman's and Tamanend, the pumping apparatus is there constructed on a larger scale than at Muncy. The altitude to be surmounted, and not the distance, determines the amount of force necessary to propel the stream of oil. Shuman's pumping station is situated in Beaver valley, near the line of the Catawissa railroad. The buildings and grounds comprise an area of five acres. The plant consists of an oil tank, furnace and boiler, a steam engine and pumping apparatus. The oil tank is thirty feet high and ninety-five feet in diameter; wrought-iron plates, a half-inch in thickness, and a canvass roof enclose an air-tight compartment with a capacity of thirty-five-thousand barrels. The two pumps are capable, respectively, of elevating fifteen-thousand and ten-thousand barrels of iol in twenty-four house to an altitude of one-thousand three-hundred and twenty-five feet, the vertical distance from Beaver valley to the summit. A battery of three "Riter and Conley" boilers,
and a "Murphy smokeless furnace" generate the power which performs this work, while the machine which applies it is a Holly engine of three-hundred horsepower. By means of an elaborate system of gauges, the superintendent is enabled to compute with mathematical exactness the amount of work performed by every pound of coal or gallon of water consumed. The buildings throughout are equipped with every appliance of convenience and comfort. Cleanliness, order and discipline are everywhere apparent, the results of a rigid personal supervisoin by Mr.
F. G. Laner, who has now (September, 1886) been superintendent for several years. The ceaseless whirr of the machinery is the only disturbing element in the quiet of the surrounding neighborhood. -
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WBTS Loses Recent 2005 Federal District Court Case In Puerto Rico
by West70 inhas this 2005 federal court decision been previously posted?
jehovah's witnesses lose facial challenge to puerto rico controlled access law .
in an opinion that has recently become available, the federal district court in puerto rico last month rejected a facial constitutional attack by jehovah's witnesses to the commonwealth's controlled access law.
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West70
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