page_title: Thomas Breakwell
section_title: United States
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas Breakwell / Early life / United States
caption_attribution_description: Cotton Exchange, New Orleans, La. Shows the old Cotton Exchange building at the downtown lake corner of Carondelet and Gravier Streets, New Orleans that was demolished before the construction of the present building in 1920. To right the Denegre Building and Hennan Building are seen.
context_page_description: Thomas Breakwell was the first Englishman to become a Baháʼí and the first to make the pilgrimage to ʻAkká. He was also the first western Baháʼí to give the Huqúqu'lláh contribution to the head of the religion. He was taught the Baháʼí Faith by May Bolles in the summer of 1901 in Paris, went on Baháʼí pilgrimage to meet ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in ʻAkká that same summer. At ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's request, Breakwell took up permanent residence in Paris, where he worked enthusiastically to teach the religion and help develop the Paris Baháʼí community. Thomas Breakwell died of tuberculosis on 13 June 1902, not quite a year after joining the religion.
  From the Baháʼí perspective, the significance of Thomas Breakwell's life lies not in his material or professional accomplishments, but rather in his spiritual capacity. His purity, detachment and intense devotion were noted by a number of those who met him, most significantly and most keenly by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá himself. In 1955 Shoghi Effendi, then head of the religion, described Breakwell as one of the "three luminaries of the Irish, English and Scottish Baháʼí communities".
context_section_description: About 1888/9 Breakwell immigrated to the United States. Breakwell testified it was in May 1888 but a passenger manifest for the SS City of Paris shows him arriving 8 May 1889, in New York city bound for Illinois at age 16 arriving with 8 pieces of luggage as a second cabin passenger.
   He later testified he lived in Chicago two years and then moved to New Orleans, around the time of the 1892 New Orleans general strike and the 1893 Cheniere Caminada hurricane. Amidst the New Orleans of the 1890s, Breakwell appears staying at the Hotel Denechaud "from Chicago" in September, 1893.
   He does not appear in the city directory until 1894. It shows him employed with Flower, King & Putnam at 214 Gravier and residing at 212 Carondelet, both in downtown New Orleans. The Flower, of Flower, King & Putnam, was Walter C. Flower.
   Flower was of a plantation family which was in cotton production and who was also involved with the March 14, 1891 New Orleans lynchings of 11 Italians and would go on to be mayor of New Orleans from 1896 to 1900. The intersection of Gravier and Carondelet was the New Orleans Cotton Exchange. Breakwell would later remark that his employment depended on the trade of cotton and child labor such as in the textile mills of the time at which he felt sorrow.
  1894 would also mark some concerns of Breakwell mentioned in later years – it is uncertain if he knew of these developments at the time which led him to further explorations later or if they were just not mentioned or if he forgot these had happened. First there was an article on the Baháʼí Faith published in The Times-Picayune in later January outlining the religion in positive terms and spoken of on the basis of the memorial of the death of Baháʼu'lláh. The source is not stated but he was staying at the Hotel Royal. It might have been one of the new boarders published a few days before. The article was echoed in other newspapers in the country for months. Accounts of his interests later do mention theosophy, (though which kind of it, is not defined.) 1894 was the year of new activity of theosophy in New Orleans. In February Anna Eva Fay came to town, followed by Constance Wachtmeister,
   and on 1 May an association was formed, which began to hold meetings, and advertise. It is not stated when this happened in later accounts but Breakwell reported that there was a three-month period when he felt "I was continually in communion with God." Regardless, late in 1894 Breakwell was visible at a Christmas party of the Sunbeam Club as the "ideal" Santa Claus. Breakwell was similarly visible in the city directory in 1895, and the earlier article about the Sunbeam Club article repeated. The 1895 New Orleans dockworkers riot took place that spring. Breakwell is also noted taking a return trip from England on the SS New York in August classified as a stenographer. This position with Flower, King & Putnam allowed him enough income and vacation time to visit his family in England and to travel in Europe.
  While Flower served in office as mayor, in 1898 Breakwell sought and received US citizenship the same day. One of the witnesses produced to vouch for Breakwell was John S. Waterman. Waterman was an organizing member of the New Orleans chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, as well as private secretary for Mayor Flower.
  Mid-February 1899 was a time of extreme weather in New Orleans with the Great Blizzard of 1899 which produced an all-time record cold wave and with 3" of snow on the ground when normally it is between 50 °F (10 °C) and 80 °F. Another notable event in New Orleans was the Robert Charles riots. And as a new-ish citizen, the first elections he could have voted for were the elections in Louisiana of the 1900 United States elections. For Breakwell 1900 also marked a change in employment – now he worked for W. C. Craig & Co., still working in the main trade of the era of cotton, at 822 Gravier as a bookkeeper. W. C. Craig was a family connection with the Flower family of Vicksburg, Mississippi, with links to Louisiana but was mainly in North Ca
caption: The New Orleans Cotton Exchange building c. late 1890s
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