Thornton Chase was an American officer of the United States Colored Troops during the American Civil War. He is commonly recognized as the first believer in the Bahá'í Faith of Occidental background.
Background
James Brown Thornton Chase was born on 22 February 1847 in Springfield, Massachusetts. His parents, Jotham Gould Chase and Sarah Cutts S. G. Thornton Chase were New Englanders of English stock and Baptist religious background. His father, a wealthy businessman, was also a singer and an amateur scientist. The death of Thornton's mother eighteen days after he was born profoundly shaped his subsequent development. Jotham remarried three years later, and the couple soon adopted three girls, but Chase and his stepmother seem not to have bonded. Chase described his childhood as "loveless and lonely," with "neither mother, sister nor brother." The inner vacuum he felt apparently set him on a quest for love that culminated in his mystical interests.
Education
For four years, from age thirteen through age sixteen, Chase lived in Newton, Massachusetts with the Reverend Samuel Francis Smith, a prominent Baptist clergyman. In July 1863 Chase was accepted to Brown University, but instead of attending he enlisted in the Union Army to fight in the Civil War.
After the war, Chase attended Brown University but dropped out before completing the second semester. He returned to Springfield, where he worked for his father's timber business as a salesman.
In early 1864, just before his seventeenth birthday, Thornton James Brown Chase went to Philadelphia for one month's training in a school for officers for black infantry units. By May Chase was second‑in‑charge of one hundred men, Company K of the Twenty‑sixth United States Colored Troops. On July 5 and 7 the unit fought two battles in South Carolina, south of Charleston; Chase was slightly wounded by an exploding cannon, permanently injuring the hearing in his left ear. By war's end, he had been promoted to captain and headed his own company.
After the war, Chase returned to Springfield, where he worked as a salesman for his father's timber business. Chase started his own specialty lumber business in Springfield, directed the choir of the First Baptist Church, and served as an officer in one of the city's musical organizations.
Chase started his own specialty lumber business, directed the choir of First Baptist Church, and served as an officer in one of the city’s musical organizations.
In 1872 Chase's business failed. Unable to obtain work in Springfield, Chase moved to Boston, where he obtained a meager living through singing and acting. In 1873, in the midst of loneliness, poverty, and a sense of failure, Chase had an experience of God’s love, of love "unspeakable," of "absolute oneness." The experience pulled him back from the brink of destruction, renewed his hope, and set him on a religious search.
When employment opportunities in Boston proved inadequate, Chase moved to Fort Howard (Green Bay), Wisconsin, where he taught school for a time; then he moved to Chicago, where he acted in one of the city’s better‑known theaters; subsequently, he obtained teaching and music jobs in Kansas. Finally, he settled in Del Norte, Colorado.
Chase apparently was devastated by the divorce. Sources indicate that he went into the Colorado mountains for a time, wandering in search of gold and silver. He remarried on 6 May 1880 and settled in Pueblo. Once again he became extremely active in music, directing a succession of musical and theatrical groups. He invented and patented a prospector's pick. He began to publish poetry in local newspapers and magazines; one poem focuses on Jesus's love for humanity, thereby highlighting Chase's devotion to Jesus.
Chase earned his living in various ways, as a journalist, an actor in Denver, and as an operator of a music store. In 1888 he was hired by the Union Mutual Life Insurance Company as an agent and soon became the manager of their entire Colorado operation. In 1889 they promoted him and moved him to their Santa Cruz and San Francisco offices. On 28 June 1889 Chase’s only son, William Jotham Thornton Chase, was born. In California Chase continued his religious search. He even combined it with his work; in 1893 he published a booklet called Sketches that explains why people should purchase life insurance for themselves, using biblical and religious stories to illustrate its major points. The booklet reveals Chase as a religious seeker familiar with all the major religions.
About 1893 Union Mutual transferred Chase to Chicago, the headquarters for all company operations west of the Appalachian Mountains. One day in early 1894 Chase was writing a poem about God when a business colleague entered his office. The colleague was intrigued by the poem and told Chase about a man who was teaching that God had recently "walked upon the earth." Chase investigated and discovered that the teacher was Ibrahim Kheiralla, a Bahá’í from Beirut who had recently come to the United States. Chase and a small group of Chicagoans began to study the Bahá’í Faith with him. Chase indicates that June 5, 1894, was a crucial date for the class; probably it was the day the class began. By 1895 he had completed the class and become a Bahá’í. At least three other Americans completed the class and accepted the new religion before Chase, but subsequently, the three left the Bahá’í Faith. Thus Chase should be considered the first American to become and remain a Bahá’í, and not the first American Bahá’í per se.
Classes on the Bahá’í Faith were organized in Chicago, and later in Enterprise, Kansas; Kenosha, Wisconsin; Ithaca, New York; New York City; Philadelphia; and Oakland, California. By 1899 about fifteen hundred Americans had become Bahá’ís, seven hundred in Chicago itself. Chase himself taught a class on the Faith, wrote numerous letters to interested seekers, and taught the Faith widely during his frequent travels for his company.
In 1899 American Bahá’í pilgrims returned from a pilgrimage to Akka and they brought to the United States knowledge of the Bahá’í organizational system. Chase became one of the leading organizers of the Chicago community, first in November 1899, when the community elected new officers, and then in March 1900, when the community elected a ten‑member "Board of Council." Chase was one of the 1899 officers and a member of the 1900 board. When Ibrahim Kheiralla became increasingly alienated from the Bahá’í community in 1899 and 1900 Chase was one of the leaders of the effort to reconcile Kheiralla with the other American Bahá’ís. When reconciliation became impossible Chase was a leader of the effort to organize the Bahá’í Faith independently of Kheiralla.
In 1900 and 1901 `Abdu’l‑Bahá sent `Abdu’l-Karím-i-ihrání, Hájí Mírzá Hassan-i-Khurásání, Mírzá Asadu’lláh, and Mírzá Abu’l-Fal to the United States to deepen the Bahá’ís. Chase arranged for the latter two to stay in the Chicago Bahá’í Center, and moved into the center with them when his wife had to go east for a year to handle legal matters connected with the death of Chase’s stepmother in Springfield. Chase acquired a deep understanding of the Bahá’í teachings during his time with the Persians.
Chase soon emerged as the principal organizer of the Chicago Bahá’í community. In May 1901 he coordinated an election that replaced the Board with a new consultative body, which was first called the Chicago House of Justice, and then the Chicago House of Spirituality. By 1902 Chase was serving as chairman of the House of Spirituality, an office he retained until moving out of Chicago in 1909. Chase had learned about the Bahá’í principle of consultation from the Persian teachers and emphasized its importance, thus becoming the first American Bahá’í to champion it. Chase also wrote many circular letters that the House of Spirituality sent to Bahá’í communities throughout the United States and Canada, informing them of Bahá’í Holy Days and the fast, thereby establishing their observance in North America.
Chase's writing experience proved useful in the effort to edit and publish Bahá’í literature. Chase and four other Chicago Bahá’í businessmen founded the "Bahais Supply and Publishing Board" in 1900; in the fall of 1902, it was legally incorporated as the Bahai Publishing Society. It soon emerged as the principal publisher of Bahá’í literature in the English‑speaking world and became a major force behind the standardization of the spelling of Middle Eastern Bahá'í names and terms. Chase was the principal editor of the society’s literature and one of its principal financiers. The society published several early Bahá’í pamphlets written by Chase.
In 1907 Chase was able to go on pilgrimage. Though Chase was able to be with `Abdu’l‑Bahá in Akka for only three days, the experience transformed him. `Abdu’l‑Bahá, highly impressed by Chase's qualities, conferred on him the title thábit, "steadfast."
On returning home Chase wrote an account of his pilgrimage, which was published under the title In Galilee in 1908. The short work gives a detailed and poignant description of `Abdu’l‑Bahá’s home and family in Akka, as well as a moving description of `Abdu'l‑Bahá Himself. The work remains one of the most important examples of the genre commonly known as pilgrim's notes. Chase then turned his thoughts to an introductory book on the Bahá’í Faith. Published as "The Bahai Revelation" in 1909, this work was one of the most comprehensive and accurate introductions to the Bahá’í Faith written by an early American Bahá’í. It continued to be reprinted until the 1920s. The work emphasized the Bahá’í Faith and its teachings as a vehicle for personal spiritual transformation.
In late 1909 the Union Mutual Life Insurance Company, concerned about the quantity of time Chase was spending on his religious activities, decided to transfer Chase to Los Angeles, hoping that a location remote from Bahá’í activity would decrease his opportunities to serve his religion. Chase considered resigning from the company, but at age 62 another job was impossible to find, and he had to support his wife, his son in college, and his elderly mother‑in‑law. Consequently, Chase had no choice but to accept the new position, even though it paid much less. However, Chase still traveled extensively for his company as far north as Seattle and as far east as Denver, and these travels gave him opportunities to visit the rapidly developing Bahá’í communities of the Mountain and Pacific states. He also returned to writing poetry, primarily in the Bahá'í Faith. He helped to organize the Los Angeles Bahá'ís; in 1910 they elected their first governing board, and Chase was a member. They also established their first monthly meetings.
In 1882 Chase moved to Denver and joined the local Swedenborgian church. Swedenborgianism emphasized a metaphorical interpretation of the Bible and stressed a mystical approach to Jesus and Christianity; thus its Christianity was much less doctrinal that the Baptist Church of Chase's childhood. After five years, however, the Denver church was wracked by doctrinal disputes, and about that time Chase abandoned it and all other Christian churches. He initiated a broader religious search and began to read a wide variety of books about religion.
He became a follower of the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, the great Swedish mystic. He wasn't fully content with this and eventually fell away. However, he always maintained a belief that the 'Day of God' was concurrent; he was determined to follow this quest and find a new "word of God."
Thornton first heard of the Bahá'i Faith through William F. James. He was told of a man who was proclaiming that God: "walked upon the earth." A meeting was arranged with Dr. Ibrahim Khayru'lláh, the one who had made this claim. Thornton chase later wrote about his introduction to the Faith as follows:
"In the month of June 1894, a gentleman in Chicago desired to study Sanskrit, in order to further pursue his search into ancient religious teachings. While seeking an instructor he met a Syrian (Ibrahim Khayru'lláh) who had come to Chicago from Egypt a short time before, and who told him of the Bahá'i Movement... As the statements of the life and teachings of Bahá`o'lláh and his son Abbás Effendi, the 'Greatest Branch', otherwise known as 'Abdu'l-Bahá, accorded with the declarations of numerous sacred prophecies, and with the agelong expectations of mankind, it was deemed of value to investigate those claims as far as possible. Other seekers for truth become attracted to the study of matters, with the result that five accepted the teachings as true during the year 1894."
That same year, Thornton Chase became a Bahá'í and because his insurance work allowed him to travel extensively, he partook of the opportunity to spread the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh.
Thornton Chase eagerly received new information that was being unfolded by the Master and recognized the importance of the Administrative Order. At this same time, many others were falling away from the Faith because of difficulty in accepting the teachings and leadership of 'Abdu'l-Bahá.
Interests
Philosophers & Thinkers
Emanuel Swedenborg
Connections
On May 11, 1870, Chase married Annie Elizabeth Allyn While Chase. Searching for meaningful work, Annie and the two children remained in Springfield with her mother, waiting for him to settle and support his family. Finally, in the mid-1870s, she moved back to Rhode Island and in March 1878 sued Chase for divorce. He begged her to reconsider, but the court granted her petition. She remained in Newport, Rhode Island, where she died in 1918. Chase's older daughter, Sarah, married in 1895 and had five children before dying suddenly in 1908. Chase's second daughter, Jessamine, who never married, became a schoolteacher and musician, like her father. She died in 1947.
In 1880 Chase married Eleanora Francisca Hockett. Chase's only son, William Jotham Thornton Chase, was born in Santa Cruz on June 28, 1889.