Origin from 1909
In 1909, thirty years after Charles Taze Russell founded the Watch Tower movement in 1879, already recorded here, and eight years before Joseph Rutherford was elected president of the Watch Tower Society in 1917, also recorded here, Russell moved the Society's headquarters from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Brooklyn, New York, judging the larger city a stronger base for expanding the international preaching work. The Society purchased a former Plymouth church building at 13 to 17 Hicks Street, formerly known as the Beecher Bethel after the clergyman Henry Ward Beecher who had owned it, along with the residence at 124 Columbia Heights, dedicating the properties on 31 January 1909 and naming the combined complex Bethel, from a Hebrew word meaning House of God. On 6 September 1909, hundreds of Bible Students, as Jehovah's Witnesses were then known, toured the new headquarters on a day the Society called Reception Day, with Russell personally greeting visitors. To operate under New York law, Russell had his legal counsel Joseph Franklin Rutherford incorporate a separate New York entity, the People's Pulpit Association, on 23 February 1909. From its new Brooklyn base the Society's newspaper sermon distribution work grew rapidly, reaching some two thousand newspapers within a short time, and Brooklyn remained the Society's international headquarters for more than a century afterward.
Facts
Dates
StatusEstablished marks the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society's move of its headquarters to Brooklyn in 1909, a specific dated milestone between Charles Taze Russell founding the Watch Tower movement in 1879 already recorded here and Joseph Rutherford being elected president of the Watch Tower Society in 1917 also recorded here. Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Charles Taze Russell directly: "In 1909, thirty years after Charles Taze Russell founded the Watch Tower movement in 1879, already recorded here, and eight years before Joseph Rutherford was elected president of the Watch Tower..."
This source names Joseph Franklin Rutherford directly: "To operate under New York law, Russell had his legal counsel Joseph Franklin Rutherford incorporate a separate New York entity, the People's Pulpit Association, on 23 February 1909."
This source names Pennsylvania directly: "headquarters from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Brooklyn, New York, judging the larger city a stronger base for expanding the international preaching work."
This source names Pittsburgh directly: "moved the Society's headquarters from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Brooklyn, New York, judging the larger city a stronger base for expanding the international preaching work."
Occurred In
Spread Event Of
Adds a specific, dated milestone in Jehovah's Witness history between Charles Taze Russell founding the Watch Tower movement in 1879 and Joseph Rutherford being elected president of the Watch Tower Society in 1917, both already recorded here: the Society's 1909 move of its headquarters to Brooklyn, the international base it kept for more than a century.
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