from outside of the Baháʼí population. Early history The first mention of events related to the history of the religion in the United States appears to be the 1845-6 echo of the Nov 1845 London Times story relating events of the Báb upon return from pilgrimage, whom Baháʼís hold as a direct precursor akin to the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus. In America this was printed in April 1846 in the Boon Lick Times based on an article in the NY Mirror. A mention in 1850 followed. The first academic paper on the religion was a letter written to the American Oriental Society which was holding its meeting in Boston and the library of materials was held at the Boston Athenæum. The letter was originally published as part of the minutes of the Society in The Literary World of June 14, 1851, as an untitled entry whose first quote is "notice of a singular character, who has for some years past played a prominent part on the stage of Persian life" dated February 10, 1851 by Dr. Rev. Austin H. Wright. It was subsequently also published in a Vermont newspaper June 26, 1851. In 1893 Rev. Henry Harris Jessup addressed the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago with the first mention the Baháʼí Faith itself in the United States - and published in the Chicago Inter Ocean and manuscript. Anton Haddad, the first Baháʼí to come to America was already in the country. First community Following Haddad, Ibrahim George Kheiralla came to the US and settled in New York where he began to teach "Truth Seeker" classes. He visited Charles Augustus Briggs and others, as well as the Syrian community in New York however in 1894 Kheiralla moved on to Chicago following the interest fostered by the World's Columbian Exposition's World Parliament of Religions. One of the early converts while Kheiralla was in Chicago was Thornton Chase, who had read the presentation about the Baháʼís at the Exposition, and is generally considered the first Baháʼí convert in the West. Other individuals had converted, but none remained members of the religion. Later students of Kheiralla's included Howard MacNutt, who would later compile The Promulgation of Universal Peace, a prominent collection of the addresses of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá during his journeys in America. Both men were designated as "Disciples of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá" and "Heralds of the Covenant" by Shoghi Effendi. Another student of