Joseph Franklin Rutherford - Death and Burial

Death and Burial

About age 70, Rutherford underwent several medical treatments for cancer of the colon. This included an operation on November 5, 1941 some two months before his death which found "carcinoma of the rectal sigmoid" and was given less than six months to live. Rutherford died at Beth Sarim on January 8, 1942 at the age of 72. Cause of death was "uraemia due to carcinoma of the rectum due to pelvic metastasis."

A Watch Tower Society staff member said of the announcement of Rutherford's death, "It was at noontime when the family was assembled for lunch. ... The announcement was brief. There were no speeches. No one took the day off to mourn. Rather, we went back to the factory and worked harder than ever."

Rutherford's burial was delayed for three-and-a-half months due to legal proceedings arising from his desire to be buried at Beth Sarim, which he had previously expressed to three close advisers from Brooklyn headquarters. According to Consolation, "Judge Rutherford looked for the early triumph of 'the King of the East', Christ Jesus, now leading the host of heaven, and he desired to be buried at dawn facing the rising sun, in an isolated part of the ground which would be administered by the princes, who should return from their graves." Based on his claims that resurrected biblical characters would live at Beth Sarim, Rutherford concluded that it was appropriate that his bones be buried on the property.

The legal problem arose because Beth Sarim was not a legally zoned cemetery. Witnesses collected more than 14,000 signatures for two petitions—one supporting his burial at Beth Sarim, another for a second preferred site on a nearby Watch Tower Society property named Beth-Shan—that Rutherford's dying wish might be granted. Consolation condemned San Diego County officials for their refusal to grant a permit for Rutherford's burial at either property, stating "It was not the fate of the bones which they decided, but their own destiny. Nor is their blood on anyone else's head, because they were told three times that to fight against God, or to tamper with His servant's bones even, would bring upon them the condemnation of the Lord. ... So their responsibility is fixed, and they followed the course of Satan."

Speculation that Rutherford was secretly buried at Beth Sarim has been called "private rumor", 'frequently disproven', and "myth". The May 4, 1942 issue of Time magazine noted Rutherford's burial at Rossville, New York, on Staten Island; a private burial plot for Watch Tower branch volunteers is on Woodrow Road. In 2002, a caretaker at the immediately adjoining graveyard answered an inquiry about Watch Tower's graveyard by noting, "I couldn't tell you who is buried on it because it has absolutely no markers or headstones".

Rutherford was succeeded by Nathan Homer Knorr as president of the Watch Tower Society.