Love's Odyssey: The Life of Thornton Chase
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Robert Stockman, Love's Odyssey: The Life of Thornton Chase, bahai-library.com.
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Love's Odyssey:

The Life of Thornton Chase

Robert Stockman

1999/2001

single page

chapter 1

Contents

Preface

Introduction

1 A Farewell

2 New England Roots

Part One: Religion is Life (1847-1894)

3 Childhood Years (1847-63)

4 The Civil War

5 Postwar Years

6 Vision

7 Wilderness

8 Pueblo

9 Denver

10 California

Part Two: Life is Love (1894-1909)

11 The Search Ends

12 Early Years as a Bahá'í (1895-98)

13 Years of Testing, 1898-1900

14 Leadership

15 Organizer

16 Pilgrimage

17 A New Name

18 The Bahá'í Revelation

19 Los Angeles

Part Three: Love is God (1910-12)

20 Final Years (1910-12)

21 Thábit

Appendix: The Thornton Chase Papers

See also: Notes on the Thornton Chase Papers

See also a PDF of the published book: stockman_chase_first_american_bahai_scan.pdf [39 MB]

PREFACE

I approach the subject of this biography with more than just academic or
historical curiosity for the life of an important man, now long dead, or pious
interest in the first American convert to my religion. Circumstances have tied
my life to Thornton Chase's in some unexpected ways. First, there is a series
of parallels between our lives.[1] Second, Chase life has exerted a
powerful influence on my own career and intellectual development. One result
of my research on Chase's life was my discovery that the study of old documents
and newspapers was fascinating and that it better suited my talents than
research in geology, the field I had been studying. One day in late December I
realized that if I knew the date of death of Thornton's father, I could find
his obituary in the Springfield Republican and thereby acquire
considerable biographical information. Consequently I ran the half mile to
Springfield City Hall to look up his death certificate. While running back to
the public library, it occurred to me that I had never run while doing
geological research. I realized that research in history excited me much more
than research in geology. I began to think seriously about changing my
career.

As a result, in the spring of 1980 I experienced a mild career crisis. To
help resolve it I decided to say a particular prayer in the
Bahá'í prayerbook every day. I chose the one that includes the
passage "brighten my eyes by beholding the hosts of divine assistance
descending successively upon me from the Kingdom of Thine Omnipotent glory"
because it seemed best to describe the nature of the help I needed.[2]

Partly as a result of saying the prayer and partly because I came to
believe that research in history of religion suited my talents better than
scientific research, I applied to and later attended Harvard Divinity School to
study the history of religion in the United States. Chase's tutor, it turned
out, was an alumnus of Harvard, as was Chase's great-great-grandfather.

After resolving my career crisis by making the decision to pursue a
doctorate in the history of religion, I continued to say daily the prayer that
I had used. Later that year, in the summer of 1980, I learned that
`Abdu'l-Bahá had revealed the prayer specifically for Thornton Chase, at
his request.

The project, as originally conceived, included a large section detailing
the history of the American Bahá'í community. The history
subsequently became the two-volume work The Bahá'í Faith in
America, Volume One, Origins, 1892-1900, and Volume Two, Early
Expansion, 1900-1912. Writing them became my first priority. The
biography was drafted in the spring and summer of 1987, but the need to
complete my doctoral dissertation, then the demands of my job, delayed the
editing over a decade.

Separating the biography of Thornton Chase from the history of the early
American Bahá'í community has been difficult because the two
stories are thoroughly interwoven. Thornton Chase was the most prominent
American Bahá'í and the community's leading writer, speaker, and
organizer. His papers provide the most complete picture of the community
available. Thus Thornton Chase, inevitably, is the most prominent figure in
any history of the community to 1912. The Bahá'í Faith was
Chase's main priority, and thus the main events of the American
Bahá'í community play a dominant role in shaping Chase's life.
In the two volumes of history, I have related the events dominated by Thornton
Chase as they shaped the American Bahá'í community and have
touched upon Chase's personality and past only as they were relevant to the
events themselves. In the biography I have mentioned the events of American
Bahá'í history only as they affected Chase personally. This
distinction is sometimes artificial but is necessary; otherwise, details
relevant to Chase but not to American Bahá'í history, or relevant
to American Bahá'í history but not to Chase, would be so
intermixed that creating a coherent story would be difficult.

As a result, this work focuses on the life of a man. He was a man who was
highly introspective in his letters and essays. Chase saw living as one great
spiritual act; as he once succinctly put it, "Religion is Life, and Life is
Love, and Love is God."[3] Thus
a key subject this book will examine is the delineation of Chase's vision of
true life, of living, and of love, and how that vision changed during the
different stages of his life.

The theory and practice of psychoanalysis, as described by Erik Erikson in
his classic Childhood and Society and as applied in his brilliant
psychobiographies Young Man Luther: a Study in Psychoanalysis and
History and Gandhi's Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence
have provided tools useful in studying Thornton's life.[4] Developmental psychology, as it has
unfolded over the last twenty years, also provides powerful conceptual schemes
for examining the life of an individual, especially one as introspective and
reflective as Thornton Chase. It has tentatively identified certain patterns
of development through which all human beings pass, patterns that help to draw
many conclusions about Chase's life even when the data are meager. Throughout
the book, when helpful, theories of developmental psychology will be used to
examine the nature of Chase's personality and his growth. No psychological
theory has yet been accepted as an exhaustive model for the nature of human
beings--indeed, such a universal theory may not be possible--hence my treatment
of Thornton Chase should not be regarded as complete. A composition by
Bahá'u'lláh, the prophet-founder of the Bahá'í
Faith, called The Seven Valleys provides a description of spiritual
development as a series of seven stages; they fit Thornton's spiritual
development well. However, it should be noted that Bahá'u'lláh's
seven stages are an entirely different description of human development than
the stages described by developmental psychologists and, unlike the latter,
need not occur in a certain order.

Any biography seeks to reveal the private character of its subject as well
as the individual's public persona. The surviving sources make this
particularly difficult, in the case of Thornton Chase, because the two purges
of his papers after his death sought to destroy items of a "private" nature.
(See Appendix One for a detailed discussion of the history of his papers.)
Consequently, little information is now available on Chase's Civil War
experiences, his racial and political attitudes, the dynamics of his marriage
and family life, and other intimate aspects of his life. The biography has
refrained from speculating about his moods and feelings, leaving it to the
reader to speculate about Thornton's personal reactions to events in his
life.

To understand Thornton Chase, one must understand the basics of the
religion to which he committed himself. Throughout the second part of the
book, which deals with Chase's Bahá'í life and activities, there
is considerable information about the Bahá'í Faith. For those
who seek a summary, the book contains an appendix that gives basic information
about the Bahá'í religion.

This book will use the standard system for transliterating words of Arabic
and Persian origin used by the Bahá'í Faith. The only exceptions
will be words now so common in English that they have become English words
(such as Iran, Tehran, Baghdad) and the names of those Middle Easterners who
came to the United States, settled, learned English, and adopted a legal
spelling of their name that differs from the standard Bahá'í
transliteration.

Since the 1920s, the Bahá'í Faith has had a system whereby
translations of the Bahá'í scriptures into English may be checked
for accuracy and approved, and thereby become official and authoritative
translations. Such translations often do not exist for texts quoted in this
book. The reader need only check the citation, which gives the name of the
translator and date of translation, to determine whether the translation may be
considered authoritative.

Several people provided information and guidance without which this book
would not have been possible. Dr. Sharon Parks at Harvard Divinity School has
been my principal source of guidance about psychology and human development.
Dr. William Hutchison has guided me through the history of religion in America,
not only providing information but also pressing me to ask the significant
questions. Dr. Betty J. Fisher, chief editor of World Order magazine,
has encouraged me and served as a source of wise counsel. Drs. John Walbridge
and William Maxwell both read the manuscript and made numerous suggestions for
its improvement.

The descendants of Thornton Chase deserve special thanks. The members of
the family descended from Chase and his first wife have been unstintingly
generous with their time, their family photographs, and their memories. I
particularly thank Mr. Charles Lawton and Mrs. Margaret Hansen for their
assistance. Charles has been particularly helpful in catching errors of
spelling, infelicities of style, and nuances of interpretation.

The descendants of Chase through his second wife not only took a stranger
into their homes but also provided him with more Southern hospitality in a week
than he could have imagined receiving from anyone in a year. All have been
generous with their family heritage and have provided most of the photographs
that illustrate this work. Among the generous donors are Thornton Chase
Nelson, F. Langley Nelson, Michael Nelson, Lavinia Morris Chase, W. March Boal,
Louise Boal, Fred L. Nelson, and Joyce Nelson.

Numerous others provided information and documents that were crucial in
assembling this biography. Among the institutions are the Boston Public
Library; the Brown University Archives; the Chicago Public Library; the City
and County of Denver, Colorado, court records; the Colorado State Historical
Society Library, Denver, Col.; the Connecticut State Library, Hartford, Conn.;
the County Clerk's Office of Del Norte County, Col.; the Dartmouth College
Archives; the Denver Public Library; the Harvard University Archives; the
Harvard University library system; the Hampshire County, Mass., court records;
the Hilton Head Historical Society, Hilton Head, S.C.; the Library of Congress;
the Los Angeles County, Cal., court records; the National Bahá'í
Archives, Wilmette, Ill.; Newport, R.I., City Hall; the Pennsylvania State
Historical Society Library, Philadelphia, Penn.; Providence, R.I., City Hall;
Providence Public Library; the Redwood Library, Newport, R.I.; the Rhode Island
State Historical Society Library, Providence, R.I.; Rockefeller Library, Brown
University; Saint Stephen's Episcopal Church, Providence, R.I.; South Carolina
State Historical Society Library, Charleston, S.C.; Springfield, Mass., City
Hall; the Springfield Public Library; the Suffolk County, Mass., court records;
and the United States Government Archives, Washington, D. C. Individuals who
provided information, answered questions, or assisted my work include R.
Jackson Armstrong-Ingram, Ruth Colville, Roger Dahl, Patricia Gorman, David
Gould, Bill and Marie Griffith, Craig Holman, Harmon Jones, Richard Hollinger,
Brenda Kepley, Firuz and Joan Labib, Sophie Loeding, Taraz Martinez, Kenneth
Mullen, Robert H. Peeples, Erich Reich, Patricia Riley, Dean and Donna
Stansbury, Edna True, Lewis Walker, Isabelle Windust, and Ed Wuhlschleger. My
gratitude to them cannot be expressed adequately by words. My greatest thanks,
however, go to Thornton Chase for having left the documentation necessary for
reconstructing his life and for having been the exemplary Bahá'í
that he was.

INTRODUCTION

`Abdu'l-Bahá's praise of Thornton Chase (1847-1912) clearly
indicates that Chase is one of the most significant figures in American
Bahá'í history. In addition to giving him the title
thábit, "steadfast"--one of the most significant
spiritual titles to which a Bahá'í can
attain--`Abdu'l-Bahá designated Chase's grave a place of pilgrimage,
revealed a tablet of visitation (a prayer to say in remembrance of him), and
decreed that his death be commemorated annually. Few Bahá'ís
have received all three honors. `Abdu'l-Bahá said Chase's "worth" at
present "is not known" but "will be inestimably dear" in the future. He added
that Chase's services "will ever be remembered," that his books "will be
studied carefully by the coming generations," and that Thornton Chase's station
in the future "will be known."[5]
Although `Abdu'l-Bahá is not known to have designated Thornton Chase a
Hand of the Cause of God,[6] His other statements signify that Chase
attained to an exceptionally high spiritual station.

One is at a loss to think of another American Bahá'í of
Thornton Chase's generation who possessed his capacities. He was exceptionally
even-tempered and mild-mannered man. No criticism of him has yet been found.
He is not known to have engaged in extended controversy with anyone. His
capacity to love anyone, even those who disagreed with him, is repeatedly
demonstrated in his words and actions.

Where efforts to develop American Bahá'í organization from
1900 to 1912 are concerned, no one is comparable. He is perhaps the only
individual before 1912 who had a thorough understanding of the
Bahá'í concept of consultation. His service as chairman of the
Chicago House of Spirituality probably accounts for the great success of that
body, the only well-functioning Bahá'í consultative body in the
Western world during Chase's lifetime. Records show that Chase was the chief
instigator of many of the House's activities; he suggested most of the
activities that it initiated and then wrote the letters and proposals or did
the negotiating necessary for the activities to be carried through to a
conclusion. All these achievements suggest that Chase deserves the title of
premier American Bahá'í administrator of the Heroic
Age.[7]

Chase's job took him on a three- or four-month tour of much of the United
States every year. As such he was probably the most traveled American
Bahá'í. In a day before the American Bahá'ís had a
national organization and therefore a sense of belonging to a national
community, Chase's traveling made him by far the most widely known American
Bahá'í on the continent.

Chase's essays and letters also demonstrate his great capacity. At a time
when Bahá'í literature was scarce, Chase probably had a more
thorough understanding of the Bahá'í teachings than did any other
Westerner. He had read--indeed, he edited for publication--most of the works
that were available in English. His major work, The Bahai Revelation,
was the only substantial book on the Bahá'í Faith written by an
American before 1912. Chase also wrote a second book describing his pilgrimage
to the Holy Land to meet `Abdu'l-Bahá, who was at that time the Head of
the Bahá'í Faith. The only other American to have written more
than one book on the Faith before 1912 was Arthur Dodge.

But most remarkable of all was Chase's profound grasp of the spiritual
essence of the Bahá'í Faith: the individual's effort to know and
worship God and the struggle to know oneself. The Bahai Revelation is
the only significant contribution to mystical literature written by a
Bahá'í to date. Perhaps Chase deserves the title premier
American Bahá'í mystic as well.

Chase underwent forty-seven years of preparation before accepting
Bahá'u'lláh as a divine messenger. This part of his life has
never been described in Bahá'í publications in any detail because
little was known. Recent research, however, has uncovered quite a large
quantity of documents in non-Bahá'í archives describing those
years. As a result, a nearly complete spiritual portrait of Chase can now be
reconstructed for most of his life. The documents shed considerable light on
the development of Chase's understanding of love, a concept that singularly
dominated his poetry, essays, books, and letters to individuals, and that
ultimately served as the integrative principle in his understanding of the
nature of one's relationship to God and the world. The documents also illumine
the fierce tests to which Chase was subjected and the victories to which he
attained. As a result, future generations can now study Thornton Chase's life
as a shining example of how to live, to love, and to worship one's
Creator.

Footnotes

[1]New England Yankees both, our
Puritan ancestors arrived on these shores only two years apart and settled in
towns twenty miles apart. My grandmother and Chase's stepmother both lived in
Hartford, Connecticut, and were it not for the ten years separating their
residences, it is quite likely they would have met, as both were uppermiddle
class and active in their respective Protestant churches. I grew up twenty
miles from Springfield, Massachusetts, Chase's native city, and first heard of
the Bahá'í Faith across the river from Springfield in West
Springfield, a town where Thornton lived as a child. I received my
undergraduate education at Wesleyan University, a few miles from Chase's
stepmother's parent's home, and then went to graduate school at Brown
University, where Thornton himself had been a student. My office there looked
out over the backyard of the Saint Stephen's Episcopal church, which stood
sixty feet from my desk; where, I later learned, Chase was married in 1870.
The first place outside of New England where I have resided is greater Los
Angeles, in the summer of 1976; Chase lived there three years and died there.
One of the highlights of my sojourn was a visit to Chase's grave in Ingleside.
Subsequent to my research on Chase I moved to the Chicago area, another place
where he spent a large portion of his life.
[2]Bahá'í Prayers: A Selection of
Prayers Revealed by Bahá'u'lláh, the Báb, and
`Abdu'l-Bahá (Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá'í Publishing Trust,
1982) 57-58.
[3]Thornton Chase to Mrs. A. M. Bryant (copy), 30
November 1908, 3, TC.
[4]Erik Erikson, Childhood and Society (New York:
W. W. Norton, 1963); Erik Erikson, Young Man Luther: A Study in
Psychoanalysis and History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1962); Erik Erikson,
Gandhi's Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence (New York: W. W.
Norton, 1969).
[5]Star of the West 3.13 (4 Nov. 1912):
14-15.
[6]A Hand of the Cause of God is an individual who has
been recognized in the Bahá'í Faith for having special spiritual
qualities. Only the three heads of the Bahá'í Faith
(Bahá'u'lláh, `Abdu'l-Bahá, or Shoghi Effendi) were
empowered to give an individual this designation.
[7]The "Heroic Age" is the period of Bahá'í history
from 1844 to 1921, when the Bahá'í community had little
administrative structure and the Bahá'í community was often
dominated by major personalities. It was followed by the "Formative Age" (1921
to the present) when Bahá'í administrative institutions were
created and became strong and the Bahá'í community was
established worldwide.

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-- Love's Odyssey: The Life of Thornton Chase (Used by permission of the curator)