Just ran across a Russell Apologetic site that I think people will find interesting as well as informative.
Ron Day writes:
Charles Taze Russell never “expected” Christ to return in 1874. Before 1876, Russell had rejected the date setting of the Second Adventists. In 1876, he accepted Barbour’s conclusion that Christ had returned in 1874. Yes, he died in 1916, still holding to the belief that Christ had returned in 1874.
Until 1904, Russell accepted Barbour’s belief that Armageddon (the time of trouble) had begun in 1874, and that it was to end in 1914. He rejected this in 1904, about ten years before 1914. In 1904, he came to understand that the time of trouble begins after the ending of the times of the Gentiles.
Russell, however, never believed in the kind of Armageddon that is preached by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. He did not believe in the idea that Armageddon was to eternally destroy millions of unregenerated men, women and children. He believed that it was a period of chastisement of the nations preparing them for the blessings to follow.
Russell was not buried beside a replica of God’s Witness in Egypt. No such replica existed when Russell was buried in the Rosemont Cemetery. Rutherford authorized the construction of such a monument a few years after Russell died.