Over the past several months, I have received several emails from a reader who believes that they have uncovered a previously unknown aspect of the life of George Storrs - that Storrs was a Druggist. I ignored this reader's assertion for months due to the volume of crank emails I receive, but mainly because the reader would not provide any evidence for their beliefs. Now, the reader has finally emailed enough info that I feel that the inquiry is at least worth posting so as to allow other researchers to dig into this possible new discovery.

The reader has repeatedly asserted that George Storrs placed ads for various patent medicines in the pages of THE BIBLE EXAMINER magazine in the issues of the late 1840s and 1850s. Having no way to verify such, I suspected that at most that Storrs may have merely sold advertising space to outsiders.

However, the reader finally sent me info from a late 1840s BIBLE EXAMINER advertisement for "Dr. Drake's Panacea".

The advertisement states:

"Prepared only by STORRS & CO., Druggists, No. 21 N. Sixth Street, Philadelphia."

This advertisement also states:

"Each bottle has the signature of Geo. F. Storrs".

This ad certainly contains new info in that I have never seen anything which would indicate that our George Storrs had a middle name starting with the letter "F".

Doing a web search using it turned up nothing.We do know for a fact that our George Storrs lived in Philadelphia in the late 1840s, and it is doubtful that he would run an ad for a business owned by a second George Storrs living in the same city.

A web search on "Dr. Drake's Panacea" turns up nothing on that exact name, but there were several hits on a "Dr. Drake's" Cough Remedy sold a decade or so later. Those webpages make note that this later product was opium based, as was typical for the time period.

The reader also sent me a link to a webpage which contains signatures from a Petition sent to Congress in 1854. That Petition contains this signature:

George Storrs Druggist 228 Eighth Avenue New York City

I'm not going to directly link that webpage, but you can find it from this excerpt:

"Samuel F. B. Morse began petitioning the United States Congress in 1839 to fund a project to demonstrate the practical benefit and use of the electromagnetic telegraph. Many members were somewhat skeptical of the project’s feasibility. It seemed to them to involve ethereal, occult forces and to require an impossible “action at a distance.”

"...

"The first telegraphic trial was held in 1844, and it was a success with its first message—“What hath God wrought?” Indeed, according to the newspapers of the time, it seemed like He had wrought the “annihilation of time and space.”

"After the “spirit rappings” began a few years later, many spiritualists convinced themselves that the invention of the electromagnetic telegraph had been an omen—perhaps engineered by the spirit of Benjamin Franklin via the mind of Samuel Morse—to announce and presage the establishment of an even greater wonder, a “spiritual telegraph” between Heaven and Earth. They thought of the “ether,” that served as the “medium” of these communications as an invisible, subtle reality that could be investigated scientifically—and harnessed like the electromagnetic force.

"Leading spiritualists decided to propose to Congress the investigation of spiritualistic phenomena by a Congressional committee that they hoped would fund a scientific demonstration and perhaps a prototype of a “spiritual telegraph.” They expected Congressional skepticism at their proposal. And they found that. Their petition made its way to Congress along with other petitions, such as one asking for a repeal of the Missouri Compromise.

"The petition drive was organized by spiritualist leaders based in New York City. They would subsequently form the Society for the Diffusion of Spiritual Knowledge. Notable among them were the publishers and editors of the spiritualist newspaper The Spiritual Telegraph, Charles Partridge and Samuel Byron Brittan. To obtain signatures for the petition, Brittan and Partridge sent copies of the petition to their newspaper subscribers, asking them to solicit signatures. Partridge and Brittan also secured the help of ex-Senator Nathaniel P. Tallmadge, who had become an ardent spiritualist, to sponsor the petition and to find one of his former colleagues to introduce the petition into Congress for its consideration.

"At the beginning of 1854, they entrusted the petition to Senator James Shields, who introduced it to the attention of the Senate. As Emma Hardinge explained later, however, the Senate declined to refer it to any committee, but rather voted to table it, without further action, effectively voting to ignore it." END EXCERPT

Regarding George Storrs, we know that he moved from Philadelphia to NYC sometime around 1850-2, so this signature could very well be by our George Storrs. That plus the fact that I don't ever recall running across a second George Storrs in Philly or NYC during these time periods while doing web research.

The owner of this webpage points out petition signers included just about anyone who was interested in researching spiritualism - not just spiritualists, so noone should go off the deepend about Storrs also being a spiritualist.

The webpage owner also notes that some of the people's names and initials may have been mis-transcribed. Given such, readers may be interested in some other signer's names - including those from Pittsburgh.

The corresponding reader further believes that George Storrs's entry into the Druggist business is related to Storrs's brief friendship and partnership with Dr. John Walsh in the latter 1840s.

Reportedly, it was sometime around 1848-49 that Walsh moved to Philadelphia and started working as Assistant Editor on the BIBLE EXAMINER. At the same time, Walsh also was affiliated with a Philadelphia Medical School. It is unclear whether Walsh was a student, teacher, or even possibly an owner, but it is thought that he already was a Dr. prior to coming to Philly. This school taught Eclecticism, which taught the use of plant-extracted medicines.

Is it possible that George Storrs attended this school, or was trained by Walsh?

At any rate, the correspondant states that several internet writers are incorrectly publishing info about Walsh, including incorrect info about Walsh's relationship to the "Life and Advent Union", which Storr's presided over from 1863-71.

The reader states that Walsh was originally a Virginia Baptist turned Campbellite turned Millerite, whose friends included Dr. John Thomas - the founder of the Christadelphians.

It even was John Walsh who John Thomas chose to re-immerse him in 1847. It was that 1847 re-baptism of Thomas which many Christadelphians mark as the point that Thomas finally broke from Campbellism and started his own Christadelphianism.

Walsh may have even taught at a Richmond, Virginia medical school which Thomas presided over in 1847-8. The reader states that Dr. John Thomas was a personal friend of George Storrs, and probably introduced Storrs to Walsh, or vice versa.

The reader states that Walsh and George Storrs fell out over the issue of whether the "wicked dead" would be resurrected. It seems that both men eventually flip-flopped on the issue. Walsh flipped in the mid-1850s when he returned to Campbellism, and Storrs flipped in the early 1860s, when he helped form and ran the "Life and Advent Union". Thus, internet websites that state that Walsh had anything to do with the "Life and Advent Union" are wrong. The confusion may have resulted from Storrs later using and quoting from materials authored by Walsh back in the 1840s.

This reader also provides this regarding Dr. John Thomas's alleged "personal friendship" with George Storrs:

Reader states that Thomas and Storrs likely met for the first time and became friends back in late 1843 or early 1844. It was during that time period that Dr. John Thomas, who spent that time in Louisville and Cincinnati, dabbled with the Millerites. Also, at that time, George Storrs was traveling and preaching with the Millerite Tent that spent time in Cincinnati and Louisville and cities inbetween on the Ohio River.

Both Thomas and Walsh, as well as several of Thomas's followers, had articles and letters published in the BIBLE EXAMINER in the late 1840s. It is unknown whether Thomas published Storr's materials in his own magazine due to many missing issues.

John Thomas also visited with George Storrs in Philly in September 1847, with Thomas also preaching to Storr's congregation.

Reader further states that it was when Dr. John Thomas left the Virginia medical school in 1848 to spend a couple years in England that his associate Dr. John Walsh moved to Philadelphia to work with George Storrs and attend or teach at the Philly medical school.

Having taken some time to pursue some of Readers assertions:

George Storrs's son by his second wife Martha was named "George F." He was born in 1826. Since the date of the start of the patent medicine advertisements in BIBLE EXAMINER were sometime in the late 1840s, that would have made the son in his early 20s, which would allow for the limited schooling required in those days.

However, the fact that the Ad seems to have made a big deal of the bottles having "Geo F.'s" signature would seem to point to our George -- the father. There is nothing that points to the son having any particular name recognition, thus it is still possible that our George was also a "Geo F".
Even if not, there remains the possibility that "Storrs & Co" was financed by the father.

There is also the question as to whether the son was still living with his parents in Philly in the late 1840s and early 1850s, and whether he would have moved with them to NYC in 1852?

Also, there is the Petition signature around 1854, which shows "George Storrs" as the "druggist". If both father and son lived in NYC at the same time, it would seem sensible that the son would have used his "F." initial to distinguish himself from his high profile father; especially in the case of signing a Petition regarding something as controversial in the father's area of expertise (religion)as spiritualism. If this was in fact the son's signature, it certainly wasn't very sharp on his part to have not used his initial.

This was omitted from the email summaries above:

George Storrs moved from Philly to NYC in Spring 1852. Dr. John Thomas moved to NYC in Fall 1852, after having returned to Richmond, Virginia from England in Fall 1850. Its anybody's guess whether there was a connection.

However, by Summer 1853, Thomas and Storrs were battling each other in the pages of their respective magazines over the issue of baptism by immersion -- Thomas for, and Storrs against.

Storrs did not receive light on this topic until after Thomas died in 1871. Sometime around 1874, Storrs finally was re-baptised by immersion, and started promoting such, which led to his immersing Charles Taze Russell and family.