Thornton Chase
Thornton Chase was a distinguished officer of the United States Colored Troops during the American Civil War, and the first western convert to the Baháʼí Faith.
Chase was born in Springfield, Massachusetts to parents of English background and Baptist religion. After being schooled for college by Rev. Samuel Francis Smith he instead enrolled as an officer in the American Civil War serving with two regiments of United States Colored Troops, mostly in South Carolina, where he was wounded. For his service Chase was included on the Wall of Honor of the African-American Civil War Memorial completed in 1997. After the war he worked as a businessman, performed as a singer, and was published as a writer of prose and poetry while living in several states after leaving Massachusetts. He married twice and fathered three children.
Long a seeker in religion, when he was nearly 50 he joined the Baháʼí Faith in 1894–1895—almost as soon as possible in America—and is commonly recognized as the first convert to the religion of the western world. After having organized concerts and businesses in his earlier days, he advanced the organization of communities of the religion especially in Chicago and Los Angeles, serving on early assemblies and publishing committees, the first national attempts at circulating news and guidance for the religion, and an elected national council. He also aided in the founding of other communities, gave talks for the religion in many places including Greenacre in Eliot, Maine, in the northeast and Seattle in the northwest, and authored early books on the religion including an account of his Baháʼí pilgrimage in 1907 and an introductory review of the religion in 1909. During his journeys to the West, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, then head of the religion, singled Chase out and identified his gravesite as a place of religious visitation. Ultimately Chase was named a Disciple of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. Collections of his papers began, posthumous articles by him were published, biographical articles about him appeared and his place in the history of the religion in America was contextualized. In 2002 a full biography on Chase was published by Robert H. Stockman and websites have had entries about him since. In 2020, a film on his life was produced by Misaq Kazimi and Sam Baldoni titled Steadfast.
Early life
He was born James Brown Thornton Chase on 22 February 1847 in Springfield, Massachusetts to parents who traced their family back to Britain, and Baptist religion. His father was Jonathan, or Jotham, G and mother Sarah C. G. S. Chase. His father was a singer, amateur scientist, and wealthy businessman, and was a descendant of Aquila Chase who migrated from Chesham in 1630 and of many other colonial families. Chase's mother, who was of similar pedigree, died about two weeks after he was born, an event that profoundly shaped Chase's subsequent development. Chase's father remarried three years later and the couple adopted three girls. But instead of being raised at home the United States 1850 census shows that he was living with a foster family in West Springfield at the three years old. Chase himself describes his childhood as "loveless and lonely," and from it he pursued a personal mystical relationship with God.For four years, aged thirteen to sixteen, Chase lived in Newton, Mass., with the well known Baptist Rev. Samuel Francis Smith. In July 1863 Chase was accepted to Brown University but soon was off to serve in the Civil War.
Civil War service
Just before his seventeenth birthday, in early 1864, Chase traveled to Philadelphia to attend the "Free School for Military Tactics", which was set up to graduate potential officers specifically for black infantry units. He passed the government officer exams in April. The school opened around December, 1863. Attendance at the school was strictly segregated, but it did pass over 400 students through while 21 blacks attended an auxiliary school, and received positive comments from Lincoln's secretary of war, Edwin McMasters Stanton. The school also helped train troops - eleven African American regiments were raised in one year, and were supported by several abolitionists.By May, 1864 Chase was first lieutenant of Company K, second in charge under the captain, with 100 men. of the 26th Regiment Infantry U.S. Colored Troops. He claimed to be 19 years old, but was in fact only two months past his 17th birthday. A company would normally be 60 to 80 privates, a wagoner, 2 musicians, 8 corporals, 4 sergeants, 1 first sergeant, 1 second and 1 first lieutenants, and 1 captain. About 1000 men, the regiment was mustered and practiced on Rikers and Hart Islands and would have received its "colors" on March 26, 1864, however, a severe storm struck. On July 5 and 7, the unit fought two battles south of Charleston, S.C. in and around John's Island, especially around Fort Pringle; two officers were wounded during battles in South Carolina during this first deployment – Chase was wounded by an exploding cannon, permanently injuring the hearing in his left ear, and the other was the commander of the regiment who was killed December 17, 1864. Chase is listed returning to New York in November as "James B Chase".
Richard Walter Thomas, black scholar of race relations, observed that the relationship between white and black soldiers in the Civil War was an instance of what he calls "the other tradition": "… after sharing the horrors of war with their black comrades in arms, many white officers experienced deep and dramatic transformations in their attitudes toward blacks." We do not know Chase's personal views, but in 1865 Chase started service in another black soldier unit. He was promoted to captain and commanded Company D of the 104th United States Colored Infantry. That unit was organized at Beaufort, S. C., April–June, 1865, and did guard duty at various points in South Carolina through February, 1866. Meanwhile news of the surrender of Lee and days later of the assassination of Lincoln arrived in late April. Chase's resignation from the military was accepted November 7, 1865, in Beaufort, SC, and thus honorably discharged. However, because of the manner of his resignation from service, he was later denied pay for returning home which was restricted to being discharged from service by the military - though he was given "in kind" travel back to New York.
Nearly two decades later, he contributed a poem to a magazine noting the dying off of the Civil War veteran, with the poem "Lo! The Ranks are Thinned and Thinning". Lines of it were used in veteran memorials. Robert Stockman, a scholar on Chase, draws attention to two stanzas of the poem as having a biographical tone to them:
Image:AACWMemorialJamesBChase26.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|left|Names from the plaque on the African American Civil War Memorial of the 26th Regiment, USCI, James B. Chase on 13th line near left
For his service in U. S. Colored Troops and U. S. Colored Infantry regiments, his name was included as "James B. Chase" among the 7000 white officers on the Wall of Honor at the African American Civil War Memorial.
Marriage and employment
Chase began to attend Brown University in September 1866, and was elected class secretary, but left school before completing the second semester. He returned to Springfield, where he worked for his father's lumber business – and joined the Mendelssohn club. On 11 May 1870 he married Annie Elizabeth Allyn of Bristol, Rhode Island, and they had two children: Sarah Thornton and Jessamine Allyn. Chase's activities in work in society multiplied: he started his own specialty lumber business, directed the choir of First Baptist Church, and served as an officer in one of Springfield's musical organizations, and performed in a local concert.In 1872 Chase's business failed. Unemployed, he moved to Boston leaving his wife and children, where he obtained a meager and unsatisfying living as an actor and singer. In 1873, amidst the Panic of 1873 and subsequent Long Depression and its privations, Chase described having what he called a mystical experience of God's love, of love "unspeakable," of "absolute oneness," which set him on a path of renewed hope in a religious search. Not finding sufficient work to support him and his family in Boston, Chase moved to Fort Howard, where he taught school. The first high school graduates of the city ever were in 1875. He moved to Chicago briefly and then he moved to Kansas with teaching and music tutoring jobs and was visible in the local newspapers in 1879 in a regional music convention. However the school broke up. Next Chase settled in Del Norte, Colorado as an early mining town but was not successful. Meanwhile, Annie remained in Springfield living with her mother and their two daughters, waiting for her husband to provide his family support. However in March 1878 she moved back to Rhode Island and filed for divorce. He wrote a certified letter responding, and despite family pressure to reconcile, Annie persevered and the court granted the divorce. Chase had little to do with the family after that. Annie lived the rest of her days in Newport, Rhode Island, dying in 1918. Chase's older daughter, Sarah, married in 1895 and had five children before dying suddenly in 1908. Chase's last daughter, Jessamine, never married and became a school teacher and musician; she died in 1947. A letter from some family in New York looking for him was published looking for him some years later in South Dakota. Meanwhile he met and married Eleanor Francesca Hockett Pervier on 6 May 1880 and they settled in Pueblo, Colorado.
Once again he became active in music. He returned to Kansas for a concert in mid-February, 1881, held despite a blizzard stranding rail travelers. He bought an advertisement for music students in the March. In May Chase assisted in the production of two concerts in Pueblo, and also took various jobs over the summer/winter, while continuing in music performances. 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. He also had some success in mining. He invented and patented a prospector's pick in 1881. In October 1883 newspaper articles mentioned his pursuing gold mining, and in December he hoped to open a mining company named "Amity Company". A mine of his was producing well decades later.
In early 1882 Chase served on a city government committee investigation of setting up lead works in Pueblo as its secretary. In later 1882 Chase moved to Denver and was noted contributing poems to local papers. He was also visible singing at various events the end of that year and into the next, known as a "leading basso".
He was called one of the leading poets of Pueblo in 1884. A brief mention in 1885 says both he and Mrs. Chase went into the mountains for the summer. He joined the local Swedenborgian church in 1883, attached to its emphasis of a metaphorical interpretation of the Bible and stressed a mystical approach to Jesus and Christianity and its sense of Christianity was much less doctrinal that the Baptist Church of Chase's childhood. However he didn't like the church's view on the Virgin birth of Jesus, and the Denver church was wracked by doctrinal disputes five years later. 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; Chase read James Freeman Clarke's classic Ten Great Religions, later said he had taken an interest in Hinduism and for a time accepted the idea of reincarnation.
In the summer of 1886 Chase was mentioned in theatrical productions in Denver. In March 1887 he was hired by the Union Mutual Life Insurance Company as an agent and soon promoted as manager for all of Colorado. In June 1888 they promoted him again and moved him to their California office where he was listed as "superintendent" for the company. The move was noted back in Pueblo, and his career lauded. On 28 June 1889 Chase and Eleanor had a son, William Jotham Thornton Chase. Chase 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. According to Stockman, it reveals Chase as a religious seeker familiar with all the major religions. His wife was visible in the Santa Cruz community up to 1892. Thornton Chase was visible entertaining at a reception in April, 1893.