Thornton Chase, Baháʼí Leader

 

Thornton Chase, 1900.

 

Most of the time when I research on Ancestry I start with a person already in the family tree and build upward and outward. But occasionally I find somebody I think (or hope) might be on our tree, usually because of a common surname, and I look for a connection. Recently, while researching our 3rd cousin 6x removed, Salmon Portland Chase—more on him later—I found a Wiki page dedicated to the Chase family. Among the famous Chases was James Brown Thornton Chase, better known as Thornton Chase, the first Western convert to the Baháʼí faith, and because we have Baháʼí family members, I wanted to find a connection.

 

It wasn’t so difficult, though we’re related by marriage, not blood. Thornton Chase is the 2nd cousin 4x removed of the husband of our 7th great-grandaunt. He was born 178 years ago today, February 22, 1847, in Springfield, Massachusetts. His mother Sarah Cutts Storer Gookin (Thornton) Chase died two weeks later, and his father Jonathan Gould Chase put him with a family in West Springfield. Later, from the ages of 13 to 16, Thornton was a foster child in the home of  Rev. Samuel Francis & Mary White Smith of Newton, Massachusetts. (Earlier, in 1832, Rev. Smith wrote the lyrics to “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” aka “America.”)

 

You can learn about Thornton Chase’s remarkable life online, but here are a few historical items that caught my attention. In May 1864, at the age of 17, he lied that he was 19 to accept a commission as a first lieutenant in the 26th US Colored Infantry Regiment, Company K. (Only white men were allowed to be officers in the US Colored Infantry.) He was wounded in Charleston, South Carolina, that July when a Union cannon exploded. Though the hearing in his left ear was permanently damaged, he continued to serve. In early 1865, he was promoted to captain of Company D of the 104th US Colored Infantry, also located in South Carolina, where he served until November 7, 1865, seven months after the end of the war.

 

 

After the conflict, Chase entered Brown University, though he never graduated. In the years that followed, he started a lumber business (that later failed), taught music school, produced concerts in the west, wrote and published poetry, sold insurance, and went on a long spiritual journey.

 

Thornton Chase (seated right, with mustache) in Cairo, Egypt, 1907.

 

In 1893 he became aware of the writings of Baháʼu'lláh, founder of the Baháʼí faith, and two years later joined the religion. He was instrumental in establishing the Baháʼí House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois. The faithful broke ground in 1912, the year Chase died, but it was not finished and dedicated until 1953.

 

 

The Baháʼí House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois, today.

 

Here’s a quick video bio of Thornton Chase from Baha’i Basics with Aria: