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Sylvester Baxter, 1889.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Sylvester Baxter (1850-1927,) a New Englander with a pedigree on both side which stretched back to the original Puritan settlers, was born on February 6, 1850, in Yarmouth, Massachusetts.[2]<\/a> Though he would spend most of his life in Malden, Massachusetts, he always regarded himself a \u201cson of the Cape.\u201d When Baxter was born, his father was an active Freemason.[3]<\/a> He attended several schools on the Cape (public and private) until he turned seventeen. When he was twenty-one, he left the Cape and moved to Chelsea, Massachusetts (a suburb north of Boston adjacent to Malden.) He wanted to attend the architecture school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but could not afford the tuition.[4]<\/a> Instead, he found work as a reporter on The Boston Advertiser<\/em> in 1871. He was joined by his friend, Edward Page Mitchell (the future-editor of The<\/em>\u00a0New York Sun<\/em> who had several encounters with the Theosophists during the Lamasery days.)[5]<\/a> Baxter remembered, \u201cMitchell and I had started almost together as reporters on the Advertiser<\/em>. We shared the same bed in a hall bedroom on Bullfinch Street.\u201d[6]<\/a> Baxter gravitated toward art as his specialty, and contributed poems to The Atlantic<\/em>, Galaxy<\/em>, The Century<\/em>, and other magazines.<\/p>\n American universities at this time did not have a systematic course of graduate study, so in 1875 Baxter joined the group of young American men who went to Germany for higher education, studying at the universities in Leipzig and Berlin. He wrote extensively about German civics, and attended cultural events like the Wagner festival at Beyreuth. He then went to London with Frank D. Millet (just before Millet went as a journalist to the Russo-Turkish War in 1879.) When Baxter returned to America, he joined The Boston Herald<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Walt Whitman. (wiki<\/a>)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Baxter met Walt Whitman<\/a> in April 1881 during the poet\u2019s second visit to Boston, \u201cbeginning a friendship that [would] always form one of the pleasantest memories of [Baxter\u2019s] life.\u201d Of Baxter, Whitman would state: \u201cSylvester is a quiet, sane, agreeable make of man\u2014don\u2019t get into flusters, don\u2019t indulge in bad tempers about humanity\u2014yet is radical, too, if not revolutionary, and looks for some shake-up in the social order before long.\u201d[7]<\/a> Whitman had been invited to Boston to read his paper on Lincoln by John Boyle O\u2019Reilly and some younger admirers connected with the Papyrus Club. As a member of The Boston\u00a0Herald<\/em>\u00a0staff, Baxter was asked to write an article on Whitman\u2014\u201cnot an interview, but one of those personal sketches of literary and public persons that had become a feature of [The Boston Herald<\/em>.]\u201d Baxter writes:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Whitman was strongly impressed by the growth of Boston, not only materially but in the higher aspects. He compared the change to the facts revealed by Schliemann in his excavations, where he found superimposed remains of cities, each representing either a long or rapid stage of growth and development, different from its predecessor, but unerringly growing out of and resting on it. \u201cIn the moral, emotional, heroic, and human growths (the main of a race in my opinion), something of this kind has certainly taken place in Boston,\u201d he wrote [\u2026] The contrast with the Boston that he knew on his two former visits must indeed have been remarkable. It was then in the last stages of its hereditary and traditional Puritanism; it was now the least Puritanical of all the great American cities so far as the native social element, that which distinguishes them as American, was concerned. The ferment of its intense radicalism, generated by its very Puritanism, had liberalized, and transformed it.[8]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Working for The Boston Herald<\/em>, Baxter traveled as a correspondent to Mexico and the American Southwest. In the decade after the Civil War, the financial interests of Boston were focused on the railroad developments beyond the Mississippi. The image of the Arizona Territory had changed from one of backwardness to one of promise. The Rev. Edward Everett Hale, \u201cdean of literary Boston,\u201d was among those who championed further scholarship on the region.[9]<\/a><\/p>\n Here there is an overlap with Theosophical Society history. In 1878 Blavatsky\u2019s critics attacked her scholarship on the Toda people of the Blue Hills.[10]<\/sup><\/a> Charles Sotheran responded with a testimony of Major Alfred R. Calhoun (Chief of the U.S. Government Survey of the 35th Parallel.)[11]<\/sup><\/a> As Sotheran pointed out, Calhoun had encountered \u201ca similar caste among the Zuni Indians of Arizona [\u2026] who were as white as himself, and with blue eyes and fair hair.\u201d These people were regarded as sacred and \u201cset apart from birth with a religious veneration.\u201d[12]<\/sup><\/a> In 1881 Baxter met with the anthropologist, Frank Hamilton Cushing, who was then living among the Zuni of New Mexico.[13]<\/a> While staying with Cushing, Baxter learned of a Zuni legend concerning these fair-skinned people:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Many of the beards were of a pale Scandinavian blonde, while the hair was of the same color in a number of instances. Perhaps these might have represented mythological characters who were albino. But the albinos had no beards. Is it not possible that they may point back to a time when a light haired and bearded race existed in America?[14]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/sup><\/p>\n A few months later, in February 1882, Cushing made waves in America by hosting a delegation of Zuni in Boston, where they performed their rituals for the benefit of Boston city leaders, clergy, and Harvard professors.[15]<\/a> Baxter writes:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n A memorable day was spent at Harvard University. A visit to the Peabody Museum of Archeology resulted in the discovery by Mr. Cushing of a close relation between the religion of the Incas of Peru and that of the Zunis. That afternoon there was an athletic tournament by the Harvard students in the gymnasium, at which the Indians were fairly beside themselves with delight at the performances. They maintained that the dents must be members of a \u201cGrand Order the Elks,\u201d an athletic order of the Zunis, since to achieve such skill, they must be inspired by the gods.[16]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cEvery aesthetic person knows that the further back in the world\u2019s history we go, the better do things become,\u201d The New York Times<\/em> mockingly stated. \u201cBoston has something better than early English or even the Italian Renaissance. It has the Zuni religion.\u201d The age of the Zuni was inferred by their \u201cstrange and mystic\u201d rituals, suggesting a time for the start of their civilization that was at odds with contemporary scientific consensus.[17]<\/a> The article added:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n If Col. Olcott and Mme. Blavatsky had stayed in the United States, instead of going to India in search of the true faith among the Brahmins, they might have found a religion more truly bric-\u00e0-brac than anything they will discover in Bombay. As it is, Boston has secured this inestimable boon, and is at this moment in possession of a faith as ancient, if we may believe the missionaries, as the American continent.[18]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Coinciding with the arrival of the Zuni, Ignatius Donnelly published his popular, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World<\/em><\/a>, in which he claimed for America the lost kingdom mentioned by Plato.[19]<\/a> On March 18, 1882, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle<\/em> devoted several columns to a review of Atlantis<\/em>, and suggested that the Cushing\u2019s research on the Zuni gave credence to Donnelly\u2019s North America-Atlantis theory.[20]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe First Sight Of The Atlantic, At Boston.\u201d From Baxter\u2019s \u201cAn Aboriginal Pilgrimage<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n In August 1882 Whitman arrived in Boston and wrote to Baxter asking him if he could \u201cfind him a quiet boarding-place where he could stay several weeks while he was overlooking the publication of the complete edition of his poems by the house of James R. Osgood & Company.\u201d Baxter found him a pleasant room in the Hotel Bulfinch, \u201cand during the two months of his stay felt himself comfortably at home.\u201d Baxter describes some incidents he experienced with Whitman at this time:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n An episode that gave Whitman rare pleasure was a visit to Concord as a guest of Frank B. Sanborn, meeting Emerson for the first time after many years. It was delicious autumn weather, and that evening many of the Concord neighbors, including Emerson, A. Bronson Alcott, and Miss Louisa M. Alcott, filled Mrs. Sanborn\u2019s back parlor. The next day, Sunday, September 18th, he dined with Emerson and spent several hours at his house. He also visited the \u201cOld Manse,\u201d the battle-field, the graves of Hawthorne and Thoreau in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, and the site of Thoreau\u2019s hermitage at Walden Pond. Another pleasant incident was a roadside chat with Dr. William T. Harris, the scholar and philosopher, as he halted in front of his house on the drive back from Walden Pond. This Concord visit is charmingly described in \u201cSpecimen Days.\u201d[21]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Baxter would write enthusiastic reviews of Whitman\u2019s work in the Herald<\/em>, and raised money to support the \u201cgood gray poet,\u201d in his twilight years in Camden, New Jersey.[22]<\/a> Baxter became interested in Theosophy in spring of 1885 (along with a few other people who \u201ccasually discovered that they had mutually had an interest in Theosophy.\u201d) Informal meetings were held until the end of that year. Baxter officially joined the Theosophical Society on December 17, 1885[23]<\/a> Ten days later (December 27, 1885) a provisional charter was granted by the American Board of Control for the creation of a Theosophical Branch in Malden, Massachusetts.[24]<\/a> Assistance was given by Arthur Gebhard and two Bostonians who belonged to the Rochester T.S., Charles R. Kendall, and Hollis B. Page.[25]<\/a> George D. Ayers was among the founding members.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Sylvester Baxter, 1885.[26]<\/a><\/p>\n George David Ayers (1857-1933) was an \u201cexceedingly nervous gentleman with bushy, red whiskers.\u201d[27]<\/a> Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Ayers was \u201cdescended on both sides from early colonial stock.\u201d When he was eighteen-months-old he was taken by his parents to Malden, Massachusetts, where he would live the majority if his life. He received his early education at Malden public and high schools, where he graduated in 1874. He entered Harvard College in 1875, where his main interests were philosophy and political economy. On leaving college in 1879, Ayers entered the Harvard Law School, where he graduated with the degree of LL.B. in 1882. He continued his legal studies in Boston in the office of William Gaston, the former Governor of Massachusetts. Ayers was admitted to the Suffolk Bar in February, 1883, and in March of that year he began active practice alone in Boston. He wrote numerous papers on politics, economics, and was active as a speaker in the Cleveland campaigns (of 1884 and 1888.)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n George D. Ayers.[28]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In January 1885, he married Charlotte Elizabeth, they would have one child, a boy also named David. Later that year he formed a co-partnership with George Clarendon Hodges under the firm name of Ayers & Hodges (later Ayers, Hodges & Day by the admission of Stanton Day.) It was at this time that Ayers became actively interested in the Theosophical Movement in 1885, when he joined the Malden Theosophical Society as a charter member, on December 17, 1885.[29]<\/a> It was said that Ayers would charge someone \u201cfor every five minutes you talk with him on legal subjects,\u201d but on the subject of Theosophy, he would talk \u201cby the hour and charge you nothing.\u201d[30]<\/a><\/p>\n Baxter would make the claim that Whitman was a Theosophist, and told him as much.[31]<\/a> \u201cEven the Theosophists claim me. How much of me is going to be left for myself after all the claims of the radicals are satisfied?\u201d Whitman would state. \u201c[Baxter] is one of my cordial, truest friends\u2014an out and out assenter to the Leaves<\/em>: radical, progressive, with lots of look ahead. Baxter has gone off into Theosophy: all our rebels go off somewhere.\u201d[32]<\/a> (Whitman already had connections with the Theosophists George Chainey and Gopalrao Joshi<\/a>, the latter whom he met at the time of the creation of the Malden T.S.)\u00a0Baxter wrote to Whitman on December 6, 1886:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I have been thinking very often of you lately, and wishing that something might be done to lighten life for you. The nation is deeply in your debt for the services you rendered in the war, not to mention its deeper debt to you as a poet which will be appreciated more and more as the years go on [\u2026] Some of us, friends of yours here, are proposing to organize, on a broad and simple basis, a Whitman Society, to promote an interest in and study of your works. I believe it may accomplish much good [\u2026] In the December number of\u00a0The Path<\/em>, a magazine published in New York, is one of a series of articles on \u201cPoetical Occultism.\u201d[33]<\/a> This one is devoted to some of your poems and is partly written by me, partly by my friend W. Q. Judge.[34]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Another Boston Theosophist, Cyrus Field Willard (1858-1942,) would meet Whitman at this time. Born in Lynn, Massachusetts, Willard moved with his family to South Boston in 1866.[35]<\/a> He received his early education at the Bigelow Grammar School, becoming fluent in German. After his schooling he worked as a reporter for The Boston Globe<\/em>.[36]<\/a> It was a field which he believed had a responsibility to moral uplift.[37]<\/a> Willard states that he was \u201ca friend and pupil of [W.]Q. Judge since 1886,\u201d and attended the meetings at [Helen] McCoy\u2019s house on West Newton St.,\u201d but because of his night work on The Boston Globe<\/em>, he \u201ccould not be present at the meetings of the Branch very often.\u201d[38]<\/a> (Despite his early involvement, Willard did not join the Theosophical Society until December 1889.)[39]<\/a><\/p>\n Proficiency in German allowed Willard to attend socialist meetings in the Boston, gaining an insight into the emerging political trends.[40]<\/a> This is alluded to in an interview he had with Walt Whitman that was published in the December 1887 issue of The American Magazine<\/em>.[41]<\/a> Willard predicted that Boston would soon have a Democratic mayor. The four reasons why he believed so provide insight into the political environs into which he would delve with the Nationalist Club:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n First, the Democratic organization is rapidly approaching perfection; second, the so-called temperance party is crazy to sting the Republican bosom that warmed it; third, a long lease of power has bred bitter factions in the Republican camp. Fourth\u2014and most important\u2014the Labor Party and the party of Progressive Socialism are rapidly increasing. The city of Boston today is simply honeycombed with subterranean societies, who don\u2019t yet know quite all they want, but are bound in the near future to get some things.\u201d[42]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Willard would come to regard Socialism as \u201cthe instrument to bring about Universal Brotherhood.\u201d[43]<\/a> His political leanings would also influence his cousin, Frances Willard, founder of the Women\u2019s Christian Temperance Union (who interviewed Blavatsky herself in the 1870s.)[44]<\/a><\/p>\n Baxter, meanwhile, had embarked on the Hemenway Expedition with Cushing.[45]<\/a> He recorded a narrative of the expedition in the pamphlet, The Old New World<\/em><\/a>. With regard to this expedition, Blavatsky would state that Baxter was \u201cdoing good theosophical and anthropological work.\u201d[46]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n John Ransom Bridge.<\/p>\n From The Boston Sunday Globe<\/em>. (Boston, Massachusetts) September 17, 1893.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In 1887 John Ransom Bridge (1858-1904,) replaced C.R. Kendall as the Boston Branch President.[47]<\/a> Described as a tall, handsome, man with a big, black, beard, Bridge had dark lines under his eyes, and a repose that was unmistakably \u201cdistingue.\u201d[48]<\/a> \u00a0Born in Oneida, New York, Bridge was reared a Baptist, but believed since childhood that \u201che had existed before.\u201d[49]<\/a> His early years were spent in his native state of New York, and before deciding on college, he went out West to work a year on a sheep ranch on the Rio Grande. When he returned to the East, he found work setting type on The Hornellsville Times<\/em> (Hornellsville, New York.) He then became editor of The Hornellsville Tribune<\/em> (Hornellsville, New York.) In 1879 he enrolled in Union College (Schenectady, New York,) but transferred to Harvard College in 1882, joining the class of 1884. After taking his degree at Harvard, Bridge entered the business world. He had an office in the Studio Building (110 Tremont Street) where he opened a \u201cschool supply\u201d business as well as a teachers\u2019 agency known as the Eastern Teachers Institute. He was also a book publisher, but this line of work was primarily relegated to the topics of teaching and education, such as The New England School Guide<\/em>[50]<\/a><\/p>\n It was said that the Boston T.S. \u201cdiscouraged the childish desire for mere phenomena,\u201d and spent their time discussing ethical problems, \u201cseeking each in his own soul alone the solution of the Sphinx\u2019s riddle.\u201d[51]<\/a> Bridge\u2019s letters to W.Q. Judge during this period seem consistent with that reporting. Judge writes to him at this time: \u201cIt would seem wise to be acquainted with these before hazarding acceptance of such tales or attempting trials of our own.\u201d[52]<\/a> At this time Herbert Richardson was Vice-President, and Edward Noyes (one of the founders of the Malden Branch) was named Secretary.[53]<\/a> Dr. Ami Brown, who joined the Society in 1875, was another important member.[54]<\/a> Another \u201cbig\u201d name was United States District Attorney, George M. Stearns<\/a>, who joined the Boston Branch five months after prosecuting Alexander Graham Bell for fraudulent patents. (Bell won the case.)[55]<\/a> Their meetings were held in the Parker Memorial Building on Berkeley Street.[56]<\/a><\/p>\n From 1888 until her death, Bridge had \u201cconsiderable correspondence\u201d with Blavatsky. The letters of which Bridge described as \u201calways interesting, generally bizarre, showed a keen knowledge of human nature, particularly its weakness, and an utter contempt for Blavatsky worship; though for the \u2018cause\u2019 she apparently was always ready to sacrifice anything and anybody, herself not excepted.\u201d[57]<\/sup><\/a> On the question of masters and adepts, she gave Bridge the following advice for finding them: \u201cAdepts here, adepts there\u2014please oblige me and look well into your boots tonight to see whether you will not find, perchance, an adept stuck to the soles somewhere.\u201d[58]<\/a> A letter from Blavatsky from September 1888 seems to continue along the lines which he presumably asked Judge.[59]<\/sup><\/a> In response to a protest against \u201ctying the society to her apron-strings,\u201d Blavatsky wrote to Bridge:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n So far as the \u201cFounders\u201d are concerned, depend upon it they will do their best to obstruct any tendency to \u201chero-worship.\u201d [\u2026] The first patient upon whom the prescription worked was my colleague Olcott, who at the beginning was quite ready to forget the Cause for the production of phenomena, the \u201cGrand Principle\u201d for the miserable personality he almost worshipped, as the Master\u2019s agent. And he is so thoroughly cured that now he is as ready to dress my hair with a curry-comb as he was ready before to kiss the hem of my Tibetan Robe.[60]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Looking Backward. (wiki<\/a>)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In the late 1880s a science-fiction \u201cSocial Gospel\u201d novel appeared in the form of Edward Bellamy\u2019s<\/a> Looking Backward<\/em><\/a> (1888,) a Utopian Rip-Van-Winklesque story set in the year 2000 which told \u201cthe progress of the last one hundred years.\u201d[61]<\/a> Highly influential, it inspired \u201cNationalists\u201d clubs across America which aimed to create the semi-Socialist civilization portrayed in the book.[62]<\/a> Willard was instrumental in creating the first National Club<\/a> in the United States. On June 28, 1888, Willard wrote to Bellamy: \u201cI have been thinking that it would be a good idea to organize an association to spread the ideas contained in your book. What do you think of it?\u201d Bellamy replied, \u201cGo ahead by all mean and do it if you can find anybody to associate with.\u201d With this encouragement, Willard and fellow Theosophist, Sylvester Baxter, set out to organize a Nationalist Club in Boston.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Edward Bellamy. (wiki<\/a>)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n By August, the club was well under way. Personal affairs prevented Willard from committing fully to the group, and Sylvester Baxter, a participant on Hemenway Expedition with Cushing, was not even in the city.[63]<\/a> The small group, faced with disintegration, merged with General A. F. Devereux\u2019s Boston Bellamy Club in September 1888. A new group was formed to \u201crevolutionize the social fabric,\u201d of America.<\/p>\n A committee consisting of Cyrus Field Willard, Gen. A. F. Devereux, Sylvester Baxter, Rev. W. D. P. Bliss, and Charles E. Bowers was formed, who named the group the Nationalist Club of Boston, and adopted a Constitution and Declaration of Principles at a meeting on December 8, 1888.[64]<\/a> On December 15, 1888, officers were elected. Edward Bellamy, who was present at this meeting, was elected first Vice President. George D. Ayers was the first President.[65]<\/a>\u00a0 (W.D.P. Bliss found the club to be too secular and organized another club in 1889 called the Society for Christian Socialism.)[66]<\/a> By January 1889 the club had fifty active members.[67]<\/a> Of the elected officers, at least five were known Theosophists (Ayers, Bridge, Willard, Baxter, Noyes.) Charles Bellamy, Edward Bellamy\u2019s brother, would charter the Springfield T.S. (Springfield, Massachusetts,) on July 10, 1891.\u00a0[68]<\/a> Another officer, Edward Stanton Huntington, would join the Theosophical Society in 1890, and write the Theosophically-themed work, Dreams of the Dead<\/em><\/a> (1892.)[69]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Nationalist. (iapsop<\/a>)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Willard, who would write a regular column for the organizations journal, The Nationalist<\/em><\/a> (1889-1891,) also wrote about Nationalism for Theosophical journals.[70]<\/a> An article in the March 1889 issue of The Path<\/em> makes an explicit case for the harmonious connection between the Nationalists and the Theosophical Society. Baxter (writing under the name \u201cSylvanus\u201d) writes:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n It is a favorable omen that the pioneer Nationalist Club has been organized in Boston, the birthplace of the American Nation, and also of the movement that resulted in the abolition of negro slavery. When industrial slavery is abolished, human freedom will first be realized. It is also significant that several earnest Theosophists should have been drawn to the movement at the start, and there encountered others theosophically inclined. The change may be nearer than many think. The end of a cycle is at hand. The wheel of evolution is revolving rapidly now. It may be observed that the end of the Kali Yuga, and the dawning of the age whose conditions shall evolve the Sixth Race upon our continent, have not been predicted for the distant future. Changes, for which scores of centuries have slowly been preparing, may be accomplished in a few swift flying years when the conditions are once ripe.[71]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 J.R. Bridge writes in Lucifer<\/em>:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n What the Theosophists expected was to use the enthusiasm aroused by Mr. Bellamy\u2019s book, Looking Backward<\/em>, as a means of sowing broadcast the idea of universal brotherhood and the organic unity of all mankind. In the accomplishment of this work, preacher and Dives alike came to their aid. For months the doctrine of brotherhood and the nationalization of industries was labored over in nearly every paper and pulpit in the country. The end is not yet. It does not matter that the most of this labor was adverse criticism. Seed has been planted, much of which in distant time must bear a bountiful harvest. Thoughts lie dormant, sprout, and grow, as do seeds and plants in what we are pleased to call the natural world. Thus does opposition sometimes work for the very end it opposes. So also, says an old occult doctrine, does everything return to its source, the significance of the circle, as priest and plutocrat may discover, when too late, of their efforts to retard the mighty wheel of social evolution. How strange that the lessons of history, like the past experiences of the individual, so plain to be read, should be ignored until the hand of Fate has written the judgment in fiery letters and the day of reconsideration is past.[72]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ayers, already a member of the Executive Committee of the Young Men\u2019s Democratic Club of Massachusetts, was an ardent supporter of the principles laid down by the Nationalist Party, and in 1889 and 1890 was first President of the Nationalist Club in Boston.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Sidney Webb (wiki<\/a>)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Another member of the Nationalist Club that deserves attention was the Rev. William Dwight Bliss<\/a>. Born in Constantinople of American Missionary parents, Bliss fell under the spell of Fabianism during his many trips to London. When Sidney Webb<\/a> and Edward Pease spent twelve weeks in America in the autumn of 1888, they found Bliss to be a zealous supporter. Bliss would be carefully prompted by Sidney Webb (who attended the December 15, 1888 meeting of the Nationalist Club incognito.)[73]<\/a> Given the timing, one can\u2019t help but notice a certain pattern. Earlier that summer, before coming to America, Sidney Webb attended the same Fabian Society meeting with Annie Besant, and George Bernard Shaw, which resulted in the Match Girl Strike<\/a>.[74]<\/a> Besant, an avowed Socialist, would famously join the Theosophical Society in 1889. Bliss would come to be regarded as the founder of Fabianism in the United States. As mentioned above, Bliss found the Nationalist Club to be too secular, and organized another club in 1889 called the Society for Christian Socialism. Though an Episcopalian, Bliss operated an interfaith mission parish in 1892, the \u201cBrotherhood of the Carpenter,\u201d where laborers could discuss practical social efforts.[75]<\/a> As Bliss stated: \u201cWe especially invite those who do not believe in the Church, be they rich or poor.\u201d At these meetings, Bliss would hold \u201cBrotherhood Suppers,\u201d providing cheap meals. But, as Bliss noted, people called the movement \u201ctoo socialist for the Christians and too Christian for the socialists.\u201d[76]<\/a> In 1894 an ex-Methodist divine, and Christian Socialist named Herbert Casson would establish the Labor Church in Lynn, Massachusetts, inspired by Bliss\u2019s model.[77]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Arthur Burnham Griggs (1856-1899,) another name associated with the Nationalist Club, was born in Mansfield, Connecticut, to Dr. Oliver B. Griggs and Anne E. Griggs.[78]<\/a> A tall, stout, young man who wore \u201cscholarly spectacles,\u201d he received his early education at the Highland Military School (Connecticut.)[79]<\/a> In speech Griggs had an abrupt, business-like tone and address.[80]<\/a> He joined the Theosophical Society of the Arya Samaj in 1878\u00a0 when\u00a0 he was just twenty-two years old.[81]<\/a>\u2019[82]<\/a> (Griggs was also a Mason, and for many years a member of Willimantic Lodge, Connecticut.)[83]<\/a> It was said that Griggs was one Blavatsky\u2019s earliest and best friends, and that Blavatsky \u201cwas like a mother to him.\u201d[84]<\/a><\/p>\n For some time Griggs was the town clerk and treasurer of Windham, Connecticut.[85]<\/a> By the 1880s, however, he was working as an agent for the American Electrical Manufacturing Company of New York, which had been responsible for illuminating the Statue of Liberty since its dedication.[86]<\/a> Griggs\u2019s name does not feature predominantly in Theosophical literature until the fall of 1888, when he joined his friend, John Ransom Bridge, in his investigation of Hiram E. Butler<\/a> and the G.N.K.R.[87]<\/a><\/p>\n At the same time the Nationalist Club was being established, the scandals surrounding Hiram Butler\u2019s Society Esoteric was raising eyebrows in Boston. After reading Butler\u2019s The Call To The Awakened<\/em>, Bridge and his friend, Griggs,\u00a0 set out to investigate the matter. They received a letter from Blavatsky on January 1, 1889, in which she repudiated the G.N.K.R. as a \u201cbumptious piece of charlantry and a humbug on the face of it.\u201d Blavatsky\u2019s decree of disapproval was sufficient enough for Bridge and Griggs to visit Butler and put an end to the matter.[88]<\/a><\/p>\n In 1889 Griggs was elected President of the Boston Branch of the Theosophical Society (a position he would keep until 1892.)[89]<\/a> Under his leadership, the Branch had a period of steady growth. This \u201crenewal of Boston\u201d was \u201cdue distinctly to [Griggs\u2019s] energy,\u201d The Path<\/em> noted.[90]<\/a> It was Griggs who formally charged Dr. Elliott Coues of \u201cun-Theosophic conduct,\u201d on June 11, 1889. Judge officially sent a copy of the charges to Coues in a registered letter, notifying him of the date when the Executive Committee would be prepared to hear his defense. During the intervening time no reply was received, and the Committee, having considered the charges, adjudged them sustained, by a unanimous vote, and expelled Coues from the Theosophical Society on June 22, 1889.[91]<\/a> When Bridge elected to resign from the Presidency of the Boston Branch, it may have been due to some jealousies on the part of Griggs, his successor. In the summer of 1889, Bridge sent a private letter to Blavatsky in which he hinted that she should make Griggs a Councilor of the Esoteric Section (E.S.) instead of him as Griggs seemed \u201cjealous of him.\u201d[92]<\/sup><\/a> Regarding his involvement with Theosophy at this time , Willard writes: \u201cI backed [Arthur] Griggs to take our rooms on Boylston St. and helped to elect Griggs as President of the Boston Branch and we elected Crosbie as Secretary [in 1889.]\u201d[93]<\/a> His talks before the Theosophical Society Branch meetings during this period focus on the dangers of hypnotism. \u201cPregnant of evil as it is, it must be popularized, even at the risk of running modern society on the rocks of black magic,\u201d he stated.[94]<\/a><\/p>\n In July 1890 the Boston Branch moved to a 40\u00d720 room on the second floor of 66 Boylston Street.[95]<\/a> It was decided to hold regular public meetings every Thursday evening on such subjects as hypnotism, white and black magic, thought transference, electrical differentiation, karma, reincarnation, the work of Sanskrit and Hindoo writers, and other similar matters will be discussed.[96]<\/a><\/p>\n It was at the Hotel Boylston where a memorable Theosophical Convention with Annie Besant was held in April 1891.[97]<\/a> Willard writes: \u201cI was there in the capacity of a member of the Boston Branch [\u2026] as well as a representative of The Boston Globe<\/em> on which I held an editor\u00adial position whose duties then precluded my being a delegate as I had been before [\u2026][98]<\/a> It was during this Convention that Willard (and others) allegedly witnessed W.Q. Judge shape-shift before their eyes.[99]<\/a> Days after the Convention, on May 7, 1891, Griggs married Sarah \u201cSadie\u201d Tape.[100]<\/a> Blavatsky died the following day. Sadie recollects: \u201c[Griggs] had a chart of the stars for [the wedding] date and it said that he would die of kidney trouble in eight years [\u2026] He knew he was going to die, but he said, \u201cNever mind, I\u2019ll come right back to you.\u201d[101]<\/a> In 1892 Griggs \u201cwent out\u201d of the Theosophical Society. The details of this even remain unclear, but Cyrus Field Willard\u2019s testimony gives us a bit more insight:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n When Griggs \u201ckicked out\u201d in 1892 and Judge came over from New York to settle that trouble he blowed me up for not stop\u00adping it; he asked me who we wanted as President, and I said \u201c[Robert] Crosbie is as good as anyone.\u201d He said then, \u201canyone you people here want is satisfactory to me.\u201d So at the next meeting of the Branch I nominated and had Crosbie elected as President of the Boston Branch.[102]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 1892 Baxter was made the first Secretary of newly-established Metropolitan Park Commission of Boston. His work envisioned an \u201cEmerald Metropolis,\u201d whereby Boston would integrate its public green-spaces holistically into the urban schema.[103]<\/a> It was said that Boston\u2019s subway system owed its existence more to Baxter\u2019s \u201ckeen and ardent championship than to any other cause.\u201d[104]<\/a> In 1893 he would marry Lucia Millet, the sister of Frank Millet.[105]<\/a><\/p>\n For some years, beginning in the early 1890s, Bridge was associated with fellow Theosophist, E.I. K. Noyes, in bond dealing and investment securities under the firm name of Noyes & Bridge (53 State Street, Boston, Massachusetts.) In 1893 he severed that partnership and to create the firm of J. Ransom Bridge Co. His correspondence with The Boston Globe<\/em> suggests Bridge was concerned Gold standard, and the global banking system in general.[106]<\/a> On April 25, 1894, Bridge married Emma Frances Desmais Bugbee, and the two lived for some time in Boston\u2019s Tremont Building.[107]<\/a> In 1899 Bridge was \u201cinstrumental in exposing the Keeley motor fraud, in the interest of the public.\u201d<\/p>\n Ayers\u2019s law practice continued to developed primarily along the line of real estate matters, but in 1891, having lost his abstract books in the fire that destroyed the Sears building, he became Resident Attorney and Agent for the Lawyers\u2019 Surety Company of New York. (He resigned a year later.) \u00a0He was President of the Malden Branch from October 1891 to January 1894, when he declined re-election to become the President of the New England Theosophical Corporation when it was incorporated in November, 1893. From its headquarters at 24 Mount Vernon Street, Boston, Ayers launched a campaign that saw the successful propagation of Theosophy throughout the States of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The summer of 1894 William James consulted Ayers for insight into the Theosophical understanding of \u201cpersonality,\u201d while writing his entry, \u201cPerson and Personality,\u201d in Johnson\u2019s Universal Cyclopedia<\/em> (1895.)[108]<\/sup><\/a> A week after corresponding with James, Ayers would be among the first lecturers at Sarah Farmer\u2019s Greenacre Conference.[109]<\/sup><\/a> By 1895, the Theosophists in America desired autonomy from the international organization. Ayers was instrumental in drafting the resolutions for secession. Cyrus F. Willard writes:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n It was George Ayers who suggested the historical sketch of the Theosophical Society from data he turned up in preparing his legal opinion and it was Louis Wade who read it and was put on the Committee on Resolutions in place of Crosbie, who as President of the branch where the convention was held was by custom entitled to the position. It was Ayer on whom Judge depended in that convention. It was Ayer, after Judge called the convention to order, who nominated Buchman as temporary chairman. It was Ayer \u201cof Boston\u201d who was put on credentials. It was Louis Wade of Malden Branch of which Ayer had been President who was put on the important Committee on Resolutions, whose report with legal opinion of George Ayer, was the all-important business of that convention, that caused the convention to declare its autonomy and the election of Judge as President for life.[110]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Returning to the overlap between Socialism, Christianity, and Theosophy, in Boston, it was in the summer of 1895 that Bliss\u2019s influence is felt directly. When Ernest T. Hargrove lectured in Massachusetts in the autumn of 1895, he spoke before an \u201cintelligent audience\u201d at Casson\u2019s Labor Church in Lynn, Massachusetts.[111]<\/a> On the day of his arrival, Leoline Leonard and six other Theosophists decided to band together to devote their energies to giving a practical presentation of Theosophy to the working classes. Opportunities would be sought to lecture on Theosophy before labor organizations of all kinds. The Branch meetings would take the form of a training class, in which questions of the day would be discussed in the light of Theosophy, Socialism, Nationalism, and all the other solutions of social evils would be considered (as well as their limitations.) Their application for a charter was approved on September 30, 1895, under the name Beacon T.S.[112]<\/a> Leoline was named Vice President.[113]<\/a> James F. Morton, Jr. was named President, and Minnie Wade was named Secretary.[114]<\/a> The Beacon T.S. was soon renting a room in Pressmen\u2019s Hall \u00a0(45 Eliot Street,) a building which labor unions, and working men\u2019s clubs, used for their meetings.[115]<\/a> Though different schemes were presented and considered, the most promising was the Sunday night \u201cBrotherhood Suppers,\u201d where cold cuts, tea or coffee, and cakes, were served. During these night, free to the public, a discussion would be held of any subject chosen for the evening.[116]<\/a> This plan was advocated by Leoline who was inspired by a similar project conducted by Bliss (who published A Handbook of Socialism<\/em><\/a> that same year.) [117]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Eliot Street & Columbus Ave. (Source: Wiki<\/a>)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In January 1896, Charlotte Elizabeth Ayers died.[118]<\/a> A month later W.Q. Judge would also die. That summer a global \u201cTheosophical Crusade\u201d was announced at the Tremont Temple (a Boston theatre.) In the days leading up to it, Ayers would tell the press:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The great Masonic body is a part of the Theosophical Movement, and will be called upon to help \u201cthe widow\u2019s son\u201d\u2014the Orphan Humanity\u2014just as they were called upon to help, and did help that branch of the Theosophical Movement which inaugurated the American\u00a0 Revolution. A High Mason gave Lafayette, for future use in the United States, a seal, which never, as yet, has been used. The design is that of the reverse side of the US great seal. It is a pyramid whose capstone is removed, with the blazing eye, in a triangle over it, dazzling the sight; above it are the words, \u201cthe heavens approve,\u201d while the underneath appears the startling sentence, \u201ca new order of ages.\u201d Adepts are instrumental in inaugurating the American Revolution in this land of the \u201cnew race,\u201d and adepts are behind scenes now, setting in motion the forces which will inaugurate \u201cthe new order of ages,\u201d which even now is near at hand.[119]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n After Judge\u2019s death, Griggs\u2019s name, once again, features in the Branch Activities of the American Section, most frequently as a Theosophical lecturer in Providence, Rhode Island.[120]<\/a><\/p>\n In 1897 Willard became involved with Eugene Debs\u2019s (1855-1926) Social Democracy Party, and worked as Debs\u2019s private secretary.[121]<\/a> He then became secretary to the colonization committee that sought to find land for the socialist colony in the American West that had \u201cbeen one of Mr. Debs\u2019s pet projects.\u201d At the Social Democracy Convention (Chicago) in 1898 the party was split on the colonization question, and at the conference, and the plan was officially abandoned.<\/p>\n By 1898 the Theosophical Society in America was fractured by infighting. Ayers would join the largest of the splintered groups led by Katherine Tingley, leading was then known as Universal Brotherhood Lodge No. 114.[122]<\/a> Griggs was not a supporter of the Universal Brotherhood during the \u201cschism\u201d of the American Section in 1898. It was said that \u201cthe Tingley trouble made him very sad. He didn\u2019t want to see the ranks split up so.\u201d[123]<\/a> One of the last public lectures he delivered was titled, \u201cTheosophy, What It Is, And What It Is Not,\u201d which he presented two weeks before his death.[124]<\/a> Griggs died of Bright\u2019s Disease on May 19, 1899, at Bellevue Hospital, New York.[125]<\/a> His final moments are remembered by Sadie:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n When he was getting unconscious, I asked him if he could see the Madame [Blavatsky] and he gasped \u201cYes.\u201d That was the last he said to me.<\/p>\n I know he is coming back to the earth; how soon I cannot tell. He died in convulsions, so by that I know he will have a better body. It is my own sincere belief that he will have the body of a woman. That will not make any difference, when I die, I may come back in the body of a man. Of course, in the future life we will be man and wife just the same. That makes me bear my grief calmly. He will be back soon; he told me so, and I believe it. The madame has already come to see me and told me it was alright. She is with me all the time, and he will be soon, too.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t make any difference what sort of a body a person comes back in after death. If they have lived as Mr. Griggs lived, they come back in a better body. He believed that, too, and always said that it was nothing to die.[126]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Griggs\u2019s funeral was held on May 22, 1899, at Fresh Pond Crematorium.[127]<\/a> Almost immediately after his cremation, Tingley\u2019s group gloated over his death, intimating that he \u201cfell dead in the street\u201d because he \u201cforsooth, and did not believe in [Tingley.]\u201d[128]<\/a><\/p>\n In 1901 Bridge became a member of the Boston Stock Exchange.[129]<\/a> He began having \u201cstomach trouble\u201d around this time, an illness which would ultimately result in his death. On December 4, 1904, Bridge died suddenly at his home, 1462 Beacon Street, in Brookline, Massachusetts.[130]<\/a><\/p>\n That same year (1901,) Willard and 125 others later purchased three hundred acre tract of land near the west channel of Puget Sound (Washington) where they established the Burley Colony.[131]<\/a> (This may have been informed by W.Q. Judge, who believed that \u201cSeattle had been built on the site of an ancient and great city,\u201d and that \u201cthe Puget Sound neighbourhood would become, in time, one of the most important centres in the United States.\u201d)[132]<\/a> Willard writes:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I still regarded Socialism the instrument to bring about Universal Brotherhood on the material plane, I was enthusiastic and no movement is successful without enthusiasm. The idea was to colonize the state of Washington, and elect the Senators and Congressmen. I believed in the feasibility of the plan because by having a place somewhere where socialist agitators could be fed, they would not be starved into silence as so many had been.[133]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Willard left after two years, and moved to Point Loma where he worked for the Tingley Theosophical Society until he died in Los Angeles in 1942.[134]<\/a><\/p>\n Though records of Baxter\u2019s overt involvement with the Theosophical Society diminishes over time, its influence can be seen in his writings. His 1904 history of the Holy Grail, written as a companion piece for Edwin A. Abbey\u2019s frieze paintings in the Boston Public Library, being one such example.[135]<\/a><\/p>\n We find Ayers teaching law at the University of Nebraska in 1905.[136]<\/a> In 1913 he became Dean of the Law School at the University of Idaho. His tenure there ended in 1917 when the State Board of Education removed him from his position without citing a reason. Many suspected it was because he was \u201cperhaps too outspoken in expressing [his] opinions of men high up in politics of the state.\u201d[137]<\/a> Ayers subsequently formed a new law firm in Spokane, Washington, in September 1917.[138]<\/a> He lived the remainder of his years in that city, dying in 1933.[139]<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n SOURCES:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Hinsley, Curtis M. \u201cBoston Meets the Southwest: The World of Frank Hamilton Cushing and Sylvester Baxter.\u201d In The Southwest in the American Imagination: The Writings of Sylvester Baxter, 1881\u20131889.<\/em> (eds.) Hinsley, Curtis M; Wilcox, David R. The University of Arizona Press. Tucson, Arizona. (1996): 3-36.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; NARA Series:\u00a0Passport Applications, 1795-1905<\/em>; Roll #:\u00a0205<\/em>; Volume #:\u00a0Roll 205 \u2013 01 Oct 1874-31 Dec 1874<\/em>. Ancestry.com.\u00a0U.S., Passport Applications, 1795-1925<\/em>\u00a0[database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> This detail above all seemed to have the most lasting impact, writing in the 1920s Baxter recollects: \u201cHe was the first master of Fraternal Lodge when it was reorganized after long inactivity in consequence of the anti-Masonic agitation, and transferred from Barnstable Village across the Cape to Hyannis. He was the first high priest of Orient Chapter of Hyannis. Sylvester Baxter Chapter of West Harwich was named in his honor. He was a prominent member of Boston Encampment (now Commandery) of Knight Templars.\u201d [Hinsley, Curtis M. \u201cBoston Meets the Southwest: The World of Frank Hamilton Cushing and Sylvester Baxter.\u201d In The Southwest in the American Imagination: The Writings of Sylvester Baxter, 1881\u20131889.<\/em> (eds.) Hinsley, Curtis M; Wilcox, David R. The University of Arizona Press. Tucson, Arizona. (1996): 3-36.]\n<\/p> [4]<\/a> Haglund, Karl. Inventing the Charles River<\/em>. MIT Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts. (2002): 120.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Mitchell writes: \u201cTwo of my earliest local assignments impressed me with the disadvantage, first of excessive professional zeal, and secondly, of knowing too much. The other cub reporter was Sylvester Baxter, now one of the few remaining veterans of Boston journalism of that date, and well-known subsequently not only as a poet of delicate fancy but also as a pioneer in the movement for a Greater Boston and in the practical development of the splendid park system which grew out of the metropolitan expansion.\u201d [Mitchell, Edward Page. Memoirs Of An Editor: Fifty Years Of American Journalism. <\/em>Charles Scribner\u2019s Sons. New York, New York (1924): 78.]\n<\/p> [6]<\/a> Hinsley, Curtis M. \u201cBoston Meets the Southwest: The World of Frank Hamilton Cushing and Sylvester Baxter.\u201d In The Southwest in the American Imagination: The Writings of Sylvester Baxter, 1881\u20131889.<\/em> (eds.) Hinsley, Curtis M; Wilcox, David R. The University of Arizona Press. Tucson, Arizona. (1996): 3-36.<\/p>\n [7]<\/a> Hinsley, Curtis M. \u201cBoston Meets the Southwest: The World of Frank Hamilton Cushing and Sylvester Baxter.\u201d In The Southwest in the American Imagination: The Writings of Sylvester Baxter, 1881\u20131889.<\/em> (eds.) Hinsley, Curtis M; Wilcox, David R. The University of Arizona Press. Tucson, Arizona. (1996): 3-36.<\/p>\nWHITMAN<\/h2>\n
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AYERS<\/h2>\n
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LOOKING BACKWARD<\/h2>\n
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