October 1917 | Petrograd

"The job (ten ofus now) was to set up some semblance of Hut work with the Russian forces at thefront and we were whole-heartedly abetted by the Kerensky government. Passes on the railroad were freely granted and all our mail and supplies and what-not were given military transport. We were made officers in the Russian army and the last state papers that Kerensky signed, so I later found, were our commissions! Luckily, I never got mine in my pocket, nor on my shoulders that of a 'Polkovnik'—or colonel. After Karensky fled from Petrograd in October, and continuing for many months, the most unhealthy thing in that part of the world was to be a Russian officer! They were the mark of suspicion and attack on all hands. I have gone places in a flannel shirt and my overalls where no officer could go because I was an American 'Tovarish.'"
--from "Tovarishi: Jesse Halsey Russia Memoir"

“The saint in overalls”

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25 May 1912 | Brooklyn Daily Eagle

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The Rev. Jesse Halsey of St. Anthony’s, Labrador, one of Dr. W. T. Grenfell’s right-hand men, is just now on a visit to New York in the interests of the Grenfell mission. After a ten days run with the dogs he reached the coast and sailed for Boston in a small sailing craft, arriving there three weeks ago. He departs again in a few days for Labrador. Mr. Halsey, after two years in Princeton, graduated from Union Theological Seminary in 1910. He distinguished himself in his theological course and had excellent opportunities for work in the States, many influential Presbyterian pulpits being open to him. He elected, however, to go to Labrador. Here he has done “a man’s work,” not only doing the usual duties of pastor and preacher, but donning his overalls and working whenever occasion required as carpenter, plumber, and odd-jobber. “The saint in overalls” is the name bywhich he is known by his Labrador colleagues. Mr. Halsey is married and has one child. He will preach on Sunday for the Rev. Gwilym O. Griffith of the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church, who was a fellow student of his at Princeton. On Sunday evening he will give an illustrated address on the work of the Grenfell mission.

The Overall Movement

April 26, 1920 | The Cincinnati Enquirer