The Passing of Thornton Chase

In its issue of October 16, 1912 (Volume 3, No. 12), the Star of the West gave its opening pages to Thornton Chase, who had died in Los Angeles on September 30, 1912. Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on February 22, 1847, he had become a Bahá'í in 1894, and 'Abdu'l-Bahá called him the first American believer.

The issue printed a poem he had written in 1911, El-Abha, and a letter from the friends in Los Angeles describing his passing. He had recently come home from a business trip north, to San Francisco and Oakland, Portland, Seattle and, they thought, Victoria and Vancouver, holding meetings wherever there were believers and giving the Message for the first time in San Jose. At one place he held thirteen meetings in fourteen evenings. On that trip he had twice been in hospital. On Thursday, September 26, the Los Angeles friends learned that he was seriously ill and had been operated on that day at Angeles Hospital. On the Saturday 'Abdu'l-Bahá, then travelling across the country, was reached by wire, and He sent word that He was coming West and, if it were God's will, would see him soon.

On the evening of Monday, September 30, twenty friends gathered at his home for a prayer service. They had hardly come in when the telephone rang with the news that he had just passed away. A prayer for the departed was read, the friends sang "Nearer, My God, to Thee," and they left, the letter said, with "a great stillness upon each soul."

The funeral was held on October 4 in the chapel of Pierce Brothers. His friend Frank G. Tyrrell, an attorney, read a sketch of his life. As a youth Chase had lived in the family of Rev. Samuel F. Smith, author of "America." At seventeen he joined the army and served in the last year and a half of the Civil War, rising from second lieutenant to captain. After the war he studied at Brown University, and he made his career in insurance, becoming superintendent of agencies of the Union Mutual Life Insurance Company, with headquarters in Chicago. About two years before his death he had moved to Los Angeles. He was buried in Inglewood Cemetery.

'Abdu'l-Bahá reached San Francisco at the beginning of October. Mírzá Maḥmúd-i-Zarqání, who travelled with Him, recorded Him saying there that He would not visit Los Angeles at all were it not for the purpose of visiting the tomb of Mr. Chase. On Saturday, October 19, He went with several of the friends to Inglewood Cemetery. He spread bouquets of flowers over the grave, chanted the Tablet of Visitation facing the Holy Land, recited a prayer in Arabic for the departed, and spoke of Chase's services, steadfastness and forbearance. Before leaving He placed His forehead on the grave and kissed it. Two days later, as He prepared to leave Los Angeles, He told the friends:

Go every year to visit the grave of Mr Chase on my behalf, for he was a sanctified soul; his station will be known later.

A retelling based on the Star of the West, Volume 3, No. 12 (October 16, 1912), on the passing of Thornton Chase, and on Mahmúd's Diary (October 1912) for 'Abdu'l-Bahá's visit to his grave. For the fuller account, see the originals.

Editors, S. O. T. W.. (1912). *Star of the West*. Bahai News Service. https://bahai.works/Star_of_the_West/Volume_3/Issue_12/Text