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(THE MILLENNIAL IMPULSE IN MICHIGAN, 1830-1860)

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AN ABSTRACT OF A THESIS

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for the degree

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of History

1967

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ABSTRACT

THE SECOND COMING
IN THE
THIRD NEW ENGLAND
(THE MILLENNIAL IMPULSE IN MICHIGAN, 1830-1860)

by Nathan G. Thomas

The millennial impulse in Jacksonian society has
been underestimated by historians who have dealt with it
chiefly in connection with William Miller and the Second
Advent excitement of 1843-44. Millerism and Mormonism, the
two most spectacular millenarian crusades of the era, were
not isolated phenomena; they were simply the most immediate
and dramatic demonstrations of a millennial belief which
was a commonly held American religious doctrine. Millen-
nialism neither began with Millerism, nor ended with the
disappointed hOpes of the Adventists in 1844. The mil-
lennial impulse, in fact, increased in the years leading
to the Civil War, and was manifested through the great moral
and social reforms of the time.

The Millennial HOpe was real to American Protestants
during the period from 1830 to 1860; the Millennium was
literal to them, a promise of God given through Biblical
prophecy which evangelical Christians believed would be
fulfilled in America. This millennial influence manifested
itself in Michigan in various benevolent organizations of

the era, such as the American Home Missionary Society,

Nathan G. Thomas
temperance and antislavery societies, and in religious
denominations, such as the Presbyterians, Universalists,
Mormons, and Adventists.

Because of the large influx of Yankee-Yorker stock
from Buffalo, New York, across Lake Erie to Detroit during
the formative years of the state, Michigan's population,
institutions, and leadership were generally established
under New England auspices and ideals. The influence of
millenarian beliefs, already inherent in American Protestant—
ism, was intensified in Michigan by the migration of former
New Englanders from the "burned-over district," the Genesee
Country of western New York where the millennial fires had
raged. Many of the emigrants had been influenced by the
millennial preaching of Charles G. Finney, Lyman Beecher,
William Miller, Joseph Smith, and other less well-known figures,
before arriving in "the third New England," in Michigan.

George Duffield, pastor of the largest single con—
gregation of Presbyterians in Michigan and head of the
Committee for Home Missions in the state, was an ardent
premillennialist, believing that Christ would come in
person before the thousand years of righteousness. The
CongregationalmPresbyterian Home Missionaries in Michigan
mainly espoused the postmillennial view that God would
cleanse society with His spirit, thus establishing the Mil-
lennium before His return at theend of the thousand years.

According to either view, however, Christ was returning in

Nathan G. Thomas
spirit or in person to establish His Kingdom. The Alphadel-
phia Association, a Fourieristic UtOpian society established
near Galesburg, Michigan, by Michigan Universalists, was
largely millenarian motivated. The Mormon Church, led by
Joseph Smith, exerted a strong premillennial influence in
the early history of the state, as did the later schismatic
Mormons, who attempted to build a Kingdom of God on Beaver
Island, Michigan, under the leadership of James J. Strang.
Seventh-day Adventism, which derived from the Millerite
Movement of 1843-44, was a premillennial church that estab—
lished its world headquarters at Battle Creek during the 1850's.
The millennial impulse was also manifested in the great social
reform movements of temperance and antislavery, taking the
form of abolition of evil and the purification of society
for Christ's coming. A fervent hope in the Biblical Mil—
lennium played an important role as a basic inspirational
force among religious men in Michigan during the Jacksonian

Period.

THE SECOND COMING
IN THE
THIRD NEW ENGLAND

(THE MILLENNIAL IMPULSE IN MICHIGAN, 1830—1860)

BY

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5
Nathan GP(Thomas

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of History

1967

 

97/0/57

67 (97 ”7

PREFACE

The importance of the millennial impulse in mid—
nineteenth century religious and humanitarian movements
has been underestimated by historians who have dealt with
it chiefly in connection with William Miller and the
Second Advent excitement of 1843-44. The two most spectac-
ular millenarian crusades of the day, Millerism and Mormon-
ism, were not isolated phenomena; they were simply the
most immediate and dramatic manifestations of a millennial
belief which was a commonly held American religious doctrine.
Historians' in their emphasis.on the two movements have
overlooked the prevalence and popularity of the Millenial
Hope among Jacksonians as a whole. Nor was the Hope limited
to the ignorant or illiterate. Evangelical Protestants
quite generally believed that Christ was returning, either
in person or in spirit, to establish a thousand year reign
of righteousness, the Millennium described in the New
Testament Book of Revelation.

Millenarians were of two general types, premillen-
nialists and postmillennialists. The premillennialists
believed that Christ's personal Second Coming would occur
before the thousand years of heaven on earth; postmillen-
nialists, probably the majority of religious men in the
period from 1830 to 1860, interpreted the Millennium to be

ii

a period of near perfection before the Second Advent
brought about by the Holy Spirit working through men.
Yet despite variant views, the agreements among mil-
lenarians were more important than their differences,
and the belief in a literal Millennium held an important
position in the minds of Jacksonian Americans. In an
age of intense revivalism and reform, the Millennial
Hope, in one form or another, was a basic inspirational
force. All Protestants considered the success of the
great moral and social reforms of the day, such as those
brought about by missionary, Bible, tract, and temperance
societies, as signs of the approaching Millennial Day.
American Protestant millennialism closely paralleled
the secular faith in science and progresswhich also char-
acterized the pre—Civil War years. Yet the Biblical Mil-
lennium was a distinct doctrine accepted only in religious
circles. Acceptance of the secular idea of progress alone
implied a strong belief in the efficacy of man's own mater—
ial and intellectual accomplishments, not God's. And
when a churchman did absorb the philosophy of progress,
as indeed he often did, his millenarian faith always placed
the Deity at the source of inspiration and success. The
true Millennium was to be God-ordained and God—given. Man
could not bring the Millennium through his own efforts,
since it was the Spirit of God working through humanity
that would purify the world and usher in the prophetic
period of peace and righteousness.

iii

When Christians spoke of a Millennium, it was not
just a philosophical figure of speech which was used to
denote the progress and perfection of society. The Mil-
lennium was a definite measure of time which meant the
Second Coming of God. Christian millenarians often ac—
cepted the secular idea of progress, however, as long as
it could be harmonized with what they thought was the will
of God or could be given scriptural justification. To those
adhering strictly to a secular View, the Millennium was
broadly construed as a future period when man's reason and
scientific achievements would reign supreme; man would
perfect the world with his own enlightened mind. Yet the
secular and the religious reformers actually sought the
same goal, since both were agreed upon the eventuality of
perfection on earth. The period was an age of expectation,
when all Americans optimistically hoped for the speedy
delivery of mankind into a Utopia of happiness and prosperity.

Michigan has sometimes been called the "third New
England" because of the predominant New England and New
York Yankee influence upon the state during the period
of 1830 to 1860. Millenarian ideas, already inherent in
American Protestant faith, moved with emigration from New
England to western New York state, where these ideas
flourished and multiplied. Mainly because of the intensity
of millennial expectations, western New York became known
as the "burned-over district," which Whitney R. Cross so

aptly described in a book by that name.

iv

In his work, The Burned-Over District: The Social

 

and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in West—

 

ern New York, Whitney Cross analyzed the movements in the

 

"storm center,“ sometimes called the "infected district"
or "burned—over district," where "religious forces were
the driving propellants of social movements important for
the whole country in that generation." He found that the
faith of such courageous non—conformists as Charles G.
Finney, William Miller, Joseph Smith, John H. Noyes, and
the spiritualist Fox sisters, derived largely from a hope
that the Millennium was within their grasp. Millerism,
"the boldest panacea of the era," was the "logical absolute
of fundamentalist orthodoxy" which had capitalized on two
generations of rising millennial enthusiasm. "All Protest—
ants," Cross wrote, "expected some grand event about 1843,
and no critic from the orthodox side took any serious
issue as basic principle with Miller's calculations” (pp.
320-321).

Cross' study of the fires of passion which raged in
the "burned-over district"is more than a local history
on the interplay of religious, economic, and social forces
in western New York, but provides a case history in the
westward transit of New England culture. As Professor Cross
realized, however, New York was only the beginning; the
Millennial HOpe would continue westward with national ex-
pansion. Farming land in the Territory of Michigan, which

for various reasons had been bypassed previously, was easily

V

accessible for the emigrant after the completion of the
Erie Canal. During the late twenties and early thirties
emigrants flocked across Lake Erie from Buffalo to Detroit
to give Michigan more of a New England flavor than any
other western territory or state.

The transfer of the millennial impulse to Michigan
can be seen in the effort of the Presbyterian-Congregational
American Home Missionary Society of New York City, which
directed an important evangelistical endeavor in Michigan
during the state's formative years. After the first few
years of Congregational—Presbyterian cooperation in the
venture, the Congregationalists began withdrawing to leave
the Presbyterians largely in charge of the Society's oper—
ation within the state. The Home Missionaries usually em—
phasized postmillennial doctrines in their effort to build
up a "Zion" in Michigan, yet George Duffield, the pastor
of the First Presbyterian church in Detroit, who for many
years coordinated the Home Missionary Movement, was an
ardent premillennialist. As the state's most prominent
Presbyterian clergyman, his premillennial position points
out the prevalence of both premillennialism and postmillen—
nialism doctrines of the Second Coming in one of Michigan's
largest Protestant denominations. The Millennial Hope was
a positive desire of the Home Missionaries; in George Duf—
field's theology, an absolute faith in the imminent Second

Coming held a central position.

vi

Even the Utopian community called ”Alphadelphia,"
located at Galesburg, Michigan, which was organized by a
Universalist from New York State, Henry R. Schetterly, was
regarded by contemporaries as a millenarian experiment.

A Fourieristic phalanx, founded upon the principles advocated
by the French socialist Charles Fourier, Alphadelphia was
promoted by Universalist ministers who had accepted Fourier—
ism as a gate to the Millennium. The Universalist penchant
for science and progress made him particularly vulnerable

to any idea which he felt might hasten the Millennial Day.

The adventism of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-
Day Saints was also successfully preached and accepted in
Michigan. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, as well
as the principle leaders of the young church, made several
visits to Pontiac, Michigan, where several of the Prophet's
relatives had settled. A belief in the Second Coming of
Christ then became a reality to the inhabitants of Oakland
County, as many accepted the new faith and departed for
the Mormon kingdoms in Jackson County, Missouri, and
Nauvoo, Illinois, where the "gathering" would take place
to await the Lord's return. After Joseph Smith's assas—
sination, James J. Strang, another New Yorker from the
"burned—over district," claimed the apostalic succession
and set up a millennial kingdom on BeaVer Island“ Michigan.
The majority of Mormons, however, chose to make the long
trip to the Great Salt Lake “Zion'I with Brigham Young.

vii

Yet the schismatic Strangites were a powerful influence in
Michigan Mormonism with their "Stake of Zion" on Beaver
Island. Until the time of his assassination in 1856, James
J. Strang continued to preach the dangers of the "last
days" and the need to gather into the Mormon Island kingdom
to await the Saviour.

The Millerite Movement, though mainly centered in
the Eastern states, created considerable excitement in
Michigan. William Miller, the Baptist preacher from Low
Hampton, New York, predicted that the Second Coming would
occur "around 1843." The evidence shows that Millerite
preachers lectured in several places in the state and
Second Adventism received a substantial following. After
the failure of Miller's predictions, a small group of Ad—
ventists, who still believed Miller to be right on his
basic chronolOgy, added a seventh day sabbath tenet to
their millennial belief and chose Michigan as the head-
quarters for their sect. Joseph Bates and James White,
the founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, came
directly from New England and New York to organize their
denomination at Battle Creek in the 1850's. The millennial
doctrine of the Sabbatarian Adventists soon made Battle
Creek into an Adventist town and made Michigan a stronghold

for the belief in a literal and imminent Second Coming.

viii

Although never so obviously millenarian as Mormonism
or Seventh—day Adventism, the great crusades for temperance
and antislavery were motivated to a large degree by a millen-
nial passion to abolish evil and establish the Kingdom of
Righteousness on earth. Early in the movements the millen—
nialism of the popular evangelists, Lyman Beecher and Charles
G. Finney, established a precedent for the age. These two
men, as well as many later abolitionists and temperance re-
formers, such as William Lloyd Garrison and Theodore Dwight
Weld, taught at intemperance and slavery were sins, which
must be eradicated before the Millennium could be achieved.
Michigan reformers were likewise convinced that the abolition
of slavery and intemperance would hasten the Millennium.

They also predicted that ch's wrath would be poured out on

a nation which deliberately thwarted the divine millennial
plan, unless America quickly abolished her social sins.
Therefore, the coming of the Civil War was often Viewed

as God's intervention in the affairs of the nation. The
Millennium, to the Michigan abolitionist and temperance
worker, was a literal truth and not a fanciful dream con-
cocted by some legEndary misty-eyed millenarian fanatic.

The Millennium, in fact, to all of Michigan's evangelical
Christians, was considered a promise which could be fulfilled

during their own lifetime.

ix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My obligations in completion of this work are many.
But I am especially indebted to the director of this paper,
Professor Gilman Ostrander, whose counsel and assistance
have been invaluable.

During the many months of graduate work, advice and
encouragement from the members of my Guidance Committee——
Professors Stuart W. Bruchey, Marjorie Gesner, John G.
Harrison of the History Department and Russell B. Nye of
the English Department--have also been genuinely appreciated.

My wife, Donna, deserves credit for finding time in
a busy family schedule to type the initial manuscript.

I wish also to acknowledge the generous assistance
of the librarians and their staffs at Michigan State
Library, Lansing, Michigan; Michigan Historical Collections,
Clements Library, the University of Michigan graduate
library, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan;
the Burton Historical Collection at the Detroit Public
Library, Detroit, Michigan; the Chicago Theological Seminary
Library, Chicago, Illinois; and the James White Library

at Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan.

Nathan G. Thomas

-TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. THE KINGDOM AT HAND. . . . . . . . . . . . .
II. THE PRESBYTERIANS AND THE AMERICAN HOME MIS-
SIONARY SOCIETY. I O C O O O C O O O O O 0

III. THE UNIVERSALISTS AND THE ALPHADELPHIA AS-
SOCIATION. O O O O C O O O C C O O O O O 0
IV. THE.MORMONS AND A STAKE OF ZION. . . . . . .

V. THE MILLERITES AND THE SEVENTH-DAY ADVENT-
ISTS O O O I C . C C O C . C O O C O C C 0
VI. TEMPERANCE AND ANTISLAVERY REFORMS . . . . .
BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Xi

PAGE

25

53

81

109
143

173

CHAPTER I
THE KINGDOM AT HAND

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote of Jacksonian America
that "the religious aspect of the country was the first
thing that struck my attention" and that "there is no
country in the whole world, in which the Christian religion
retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in
America. . . ." Furthermore, "In no country in the world,“
he noted, "has the principle of association been more suc-
cessfully used." These voluntary associations, he believed,
were formed not only to "resist enemies which are exclusively
of a moral nature" such as the "vice of intemperance," but
also "to promote public order, commerce, industry, morality,
and religion. . . ."1 Not only foreign travellers, but
all contemporaries were agreed upon the importance of
religion in the young republic. ~.It was, as Carl Russell
Fish wrote, "distinctly and increasingly a religious period"
when "every orator had to prove that his position was en-
dorsed by the Constitution and the Bible."2

And, as the religious intensity deepened, the revival
became the cutting edge of evangelical Protestantism adOpted
and promoted by major segments of all the denominations.3
Revivalism, this "cutting edge," was distinctly an American
phenomenon which played an integral part in the growth of

evangelical Protestantism. By 1830, Calvin Colton,
l

2

Presbyterian minister and prolific writer of the Jacksonian
Period, believed that revivals had become the "grand ab—
sorbing theme and aim of the American religious world;"
Charles Finney, the greatest revivalist of his time, wrote
that, "If there be any true religion in the world, I have
not the slightest doubt it is formed in its most unequivocal
form as the fruits of our great revivals in America."4

By 1830 the revival was generally accepted in most
denominations as the best method of increasing membership,
even though the excesses of the great Methodist camp meet-
ing revivals were deplored by many conservative-minded
Christians. Nevertheless, most Christians believed that
the sovereign Holy Spirit was providing the power to convert
and civilize the entire world and to bring Christ's reign
on earth. For this reason thousands who decried the methods
of the revivalist could see his successful fruits as a sign
of God's will, not only for the backwoods and frontier
regions, but for the East and the great cities.5

One important facet of revivalism, beginning even
before the years of this study, was its tendency to promote
COOperation among the major denominations. Revivalism
"helped to melt these ancient prejudices" and to promote
"a growing spirit of union" among the churches.6 Nowhere
is this better shown than in the establishment of the
Presbyterian-Congregationalist Home Missionary Society in
1826 and in the growth of the great interdenominational

prayer meetings in 1858. Yet, not all was harmony by

3

any means. It is "paradoxical that purportedly nonsectarian
revivalism and benevolence should encompass much of the
spirit they professed and yet engender interdenominational
strife of a bitterness scarcely to be paralleled."7 In
general, though, it seems fair to state that the spirit of
cooperation was increasing through these pre-Civil War
years, with organizations such as the Y.M.C.A. being the
logical outcome. Much of the existing strife was due to
intradenominational friction rather than disputes between
the large denominations. The Presbyterian schism of 1837
is the classic example, of course, with the slavery con-
troversy increasingly disturbing most denominations. But
one expects to find the "ancient prejudices" erupting to
some extent, since the denominations, despite their claims
to the contrary, were interested in increasing church mem—
bership. The advance, on the whole, was in the direction
of interdenominational social and religious work.

Since Christianizing the land, especially the
West, was one of the immediate goals set by the evangel-
ical churches, most of the leaders felt that a certain
degree of cooperation was necessary to achieve this end.
The interdenominational tract, missionary, temperance, and
Bible societies provide abundant evidence for the growing
feeling of cooperation during these years; it should not
be forgotten that the undertaking of the churches was an

extremely large one. Not only must individuab be regenerated,

4

but society itself and all institutions were to be purified.
Every humanitarian cause--temperance, peace, prison reform,
antislavery-—became the crusade of sincere Christians whose
hearts were stirred by the gospel of the Kingdom of Christ.8
The strong union between religion and morality led the
church revivalists and reformers deeply into "ultraism,"
the extremism of the era. There could be no other con-
clusion to this attempt to perfect man and society.

Perfectionism, the optimistic hOpe of man's attain-
ing a state of freedom from sin on this earth, was also
predominate during the pre-Civil War years. This belief,
of course, in its various forms, is as old as mankind.
In America it proved particularly potent from 1830 to 1860.
The American variety was to some extent a transfer of the
Methodist doctrine of sanctification to the Calvinistic
denominations. But whether the influence came from Methodist,
Quaker, or Pietest groups, perfectionism seems to have ac-
companied the great revivals and finally penetrated deeply
into all Protestant denominations. Sometimes called "the
second blessing," “holiness," "perfect lowL“ "sanctification,"
and "entire sanctification," perfectionism flourished in
all the major denominations before the Civil War. Calvinism
was liberalized to fit the increasing Jacksonian stress on
the free individual. As Sidney Mead writes, "The perfect
individual was the fully free individual. . . who had

developed his every potential to the fullest possible extent.”

5
Charles G. Finney was only typical for the times "in inter—
preting Christian perfection in the image of the free indi-
vidual." Democracy, equality, individualism, and perfection—
ism walked together through the first half of the nineteenth
century. It seemed to be "America's calling, under God, to
build a perfect society. .'. and democracy seemed to be the

way thereto."9

The drive for perfection, it may be noticed,
fit well into the "Restoration Theme" of the Jacksonian
democrats.10 Tocqueville believed that the principle of
equality was what suggested to Americans the idea of the
indefinite perfectibility of man.11
Perfectionism, therefore, in one form or another,
and whether looked upon from the religious or secular side,
was a driving force in young America. It could advance
to the ultraism of John Humphrey Noyes, probably the most
radical perfectionist of the nineteenth century, or it
might take the more mild form espoused by Charles Finney.
The freedom from the sense of sin preached by this great
revivalist at Oberlin did not go to the extreme of believ-
ing that anyone could be perfect, but only that individuals
should aim at being perfect. Finney took a direction away
from the Puritan views of human inability and imperfect
sanctification. He wandered too far for many Calvinists
and his interpretation naturally invited schism in the

Church. Nevertheless, revivalists and perfectionists

dominated the New-School Presbyterians, while the Methodists

6
grew strongly perfectionist branches in the Wesleyan
Methodist Church and the Free Methodist Church. It is
important to notice that all_churches were affected by this
search for holiness. This quest helped make Protestantism
a strong social force in the nineteenth century, and this
force of American Protestantism was directed most single—
mindedly when perfectionism was wedded to the belief in
Christ's imminent return to the earth-—the potent doctrine
called millennialism.

A genuine moving spirit, a spiritual impulse which
lay sometimes half concealed under the surface manifestations
of perfectionism and revivalism, was millennialism. It was
the leaven producing the ferment of reform and revivalism
so common to the era, with a final product which gave to
Protestantism its dynamic social strength. The new enter-
prises of Christianity--"the Bible societies, foreign mis—
sion societies, abolition societies, and the like. . . all
were hailed as the harbingers of the millennium."12 While
it is true that perfectionism and revivalism worked together
toward this end, they only became "socially volatile" when
combined with Christ's imminent conquest of the earth.13
The period of American history between 1830 and 1960 was one
of particular restlessness and expectancy since "Orthodox
Protestantism had long been developing a strong millennial
tone." And, not just sectarians, but "all protestants ex-

Pected some grand event about 1843. . . ."14 Millennialism

7
was indeed the yeast that kept the religious cup running
over during these eventful years.

The coming Millennium is referred to only in one
chapter of the Bible, the twentieth chapter of Revelation.
According to these passages, Satan is to be bound in the
"abyss" for a thousand years. Christ will come, either at
the beginning or end of the thousand years, and the righteous
will reign.

Broadly speaking, there are three main classifications
or systems of millennial belief: premillennialism, post-
millennialism, and amillennialism. The premillennialist
stresses the most pessimistic view in that he believes the
world must grow continually more evil until the Second
Coming. The "last days" will bring war and tribulation and
Satan's hold on the world will tighten. But when Christ
returns, He will set up His Kingdom and then will follow a
thousand years of peace and righteousness. The important
point is that Christ comes in person to reign before the
Millennium. The premillennialist is a man in a hurry,
since he teaches that the return of Christ for judgment
will come soon. In method, he tends to use a literal ap-
proach to the study of Scripture and accuses his postmil—
lennialist and amillennialist Opponents of "spiritualizing"

the Bible by giving it a figurative or symbolic interpreta-

tion.15

8

In contrast, postmillennialism describes a world that
is growing better through the work of the Holy Spriit. The
return of Christ will take place after the world has been
Christianized and prepared for Him at the_end of the Millen-
nium of peace and righteousness. The thousand years will be
a period of spiritual prosperity, when evil will be reduced
to a minimum if not completely eradicated.l6

The belief in amillennialism hardly falls within the
sc0pe of this study since its growth has come chiefly in the
late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As the word defines
itself, amillennialism teaches that the Bible does not pre—
dict a millennium at all. Good and evil will exist and develop
together until the Second Coming of Christ. Then the resur-
rection, the judgment, and eternal happiness for the right—
eous will follow. However, as with the other systems, theor-
ies vary considerably in amillennialistic circles.

There is another kind of millennialism. a rare type
called intramillennialism. The best example of this belief
in American history is Mother Ann Lee, founder of the Shaker
Church. The Shakers were convinced that the Christ Spirit
had become incarnate in her, thus starting the Millennium
for Ann Lee's followers who gathered into communitarian

17 In brief then, there were

settlements of righteousness.
actually only two main types of millennialistic belief, ex-
cepting Shakerism, in operation during the first half of

the nineteenth century--premillennialism and postmillennialism.

9
Millennialism is as old as Christianity. Christ's
disciples and the early church fathers were premillennialists
until the time of Augustine. Shirley Jackson Case writes,

in discussing the Millennium and the City of God: "The

 

Millennium was now no longer a desideratum, it was already
a realization. Working from this point of view, Augustine
lays the ghost of millenarianism so effectively that for
centuries thereafter it is practically ignored.“ Augustine
believed the Millennium began with the reign of the Church
during his own lifetime.18
They no doubt existed, but millenarian doctrines did
not become prevalent or popular again until the Reformation.
The Lutheran and Reformed Churches both espoused a restrained
type of millennialism, but premillennialism itself existed
as a more radical hope among the sectarians. In England,
millenarian groups caused Cromwell trouble during the
Revolution. Then another great surge of millennial expect-
ation crystalized in the late eighteenth century resulting
in the Shaker movement. Ann Lee succeeded, however, in
transferfing this movement to America. But long before the
Shakers, the Puritans, and particularly the Separatist
Puritans, brought the hOpe for a "Kingdom of God" to America.
The study of prophecy held an important place in the
lives of the Massachusetts Puritans. Not just the Separat-

ists groups alone, but all the Puritans shared interest in

the Biblical prophecies. They could see God's will revealed

10

to them in the establishment of a Holy Commonwealth which

was to be preparatory to Christ's Second Advent. American
historians have shown little interest in the Puritan fasci—
nation for the Prophecies, perhaps because the Puritan did
not experiment with idealistic UtOpian kingdoms such as those
of the nineteenth century. But, despite their belief that
the Kingdom might not occur immediately, the Puritan hope

for the Second Advent was a basic, literal aspiration.19

There was, however, for a good many years a waning
interest in prophecy after the early period. The sons and
grandsons of the Puritan Fathers "with a mixture of resigna—
tion and despair. . . relinquished the dream of millennial
Kingdom in their times."20 But with the coming of the
Great Awakening and its revival enthusiasm, millennial hOpes
again became an important part of evangelistical emphasis.
Jonathan Edwards, the last of the great Puritan preachers,
adOpted the views of postmillennialism in a figurative
resurrection and a temporal Millennium. He was most positive
that this millennium would start in America. Further, he
asserted that the revival itself was evidence that God was
beginning a new spiritual world in America.

The years after the Great Awakening brought a declin—
ing interest, at least in intensity, in the millenarian hope.
The young nation's first great poets, Barlow and Freneau,
might write that America's mission was to speed the Millen—

nium,21 but it was not until the "Great Revival" or “Second

ll
Awakening" at the turn of the century that the religious
interest in prophecy and the Millennium was once more
heightened. At this time the evangelical zeal of Protestant-
ism burned furiously in America. And again, the Millennium
was one of the main concerns. Samuel Hopkins and Timothy
Dwight were thoroughly convinced that Christ's earthly reign
must come soon. Hopkins believed that one could not tell
the beginning or the end of the thousand years, but that
the introduction was close. Timothy Dwight, President
of Yale, despite his close relationship with Hopkins, was
a strict premillennialist, deciding that the Millennium
would come before the year 2000. William Linn, president
of Rutgers, placed 1916 as the date of Christ's coming;
Eliphalet Nott, President of Union, agreed with Dwight on
the year 2000. Most college teachers and academic leaders
accepted and preached millennial doctrines.22 By many of
these leaders, the success of American revivalism, follow-
ing late eighteenth century deism in America and ”French
infidelity" overseas, was hailed as a sign of Christ's
return-—either spiritually or visibly in person.

The evangelical institution most likely to bring the
Millennium, according to the Methodists and the Baptists,
was the camp meeting. Forced out into the Open, since no
buildings in the west could hold the large crowds, the camp

meeting served the frontier areas in providing preaching

12
and religious experience for thousands of lonely people.
Here, as in the other revivals, the Gospel was highly
seasoned with millenarian doctrines.

The flame of revivalism after the Second Awakening,
discouraged perhaps by excess emotionalism, burned low for
awhile but then suddenly shot upward in the "burned-over
district" of western New York. In 1824 Charles G. Finney
began a ministry which made him one of the most effective
evangelists of all times. Later as teacher and then President
of Oberlin College he taught a brand of sanctification and
perfectionism little compatible with orthodox Calvinism.
His millenarian beliefs, nevertheless, were in line with
the prevailing millennial winds. Finney, and nearly all
the revivalists for that matter, anticipated "a Millennium,
a period of great happiness when holiness would be triumph—
ant." Charles C. Cole notices that references to these
"latter days" crept into their speech, for by using the im-
minence of such an event they could "spur on their potential
converts."24 Finney's belief in millennial perfectionism
is important, since his great revivals helped to introduce
the era of revivalism and reform before the Civil War. His
leadership in launching a fervent expectancy of the Millen-
nium could scarcely be equalled by anyone. But his millen-
nialism was in fact a mild variety compared to that which
wOuld soon be preached by many of his more literal—minded

COntemporaries.

13

Even a casual reading in the denominational litera-
ture of the pre-Civil War period indicates the prevalence
of the Millennial Hope. The doctrine was found in all the
churches of the period, but three groups in particular were
stressing millenarian doctrines as a basic part of their
creeds. Joseph Smith's dominant motif was his dream of the
Millennial Kingdom. John Humphrey Noyes, great perfection—
ist leader and founder of the Oneida Community, in retrOspect,
remembered the awakening of 1831 and how his heart was "fixed
on the millennium," and how he had "resolved to live or die

25 To Noyes, millennial perfection was the ultimate

for it."
standard in religious experience. The third outstanding
example of ultra-millennialism was the crusade of William
Miller to warn the world that Christ was returning in 1843
or 1844. The Millerite Movement was the most radical and

at the same time, because of its belief in the imminence

of Christ's return, the most intense of all millennial move—
ments in American history.

The large majority of seventeenth and eighteenth
century religious leaders were premillennialists. Postmil-
lennialism was of relatively recent origin, dating back to
the teaching of Daniel Whitby, an English preacher who

Wrote a two-volume Paraphrase and Commentary on the New

Testament in 1703. Whitby insisted that the world would

 

be completely evangelized to give the church universal
Control before the Coming of Christ. The first secure hold

this "new" doctrine obtained in America, was when accepted

14
by Jonathan Edwards who proceded to preach a figurative
resurrection and a temporal millennialism. Charles G.
Finney, who made some pretense of following in the foot-
steps of Edwards, also espoused a by—then pOpular post-
millennialism.26
In brief, by the nineteenth century postmillennial
doctrines were running a close race with premillennialism
in popular religious thought. According to Timothy L. Smith,
the premillennial crusade of William Miller only helped
"speed the adoption of a fervent postmillennialism, attuned
to the prevailing optimism of the age."27 Premillennial-
ism did notdie out, though, in any sense of the word. To
be convinced, one has only to notice the "Prophetic Confer-
ence" held at New York City in October of 1878, when over
one hundred ministers, editors, college presidents, and
teachers attended because the "previous doctrines of Christ's
second personal appearing has, we are constrained to believe,
long lain under such neglect and misapprehension." These
leaders were assembled, not from just small sects, but from
the Protestant Episcopal, Presbyterian, United Presbyterian,
Congregational, Baptist, Methodist, Dutch Reformed, Lutheran,
Independent, and Adventist churches.28
The millennial impulse was a principle motivating
factor in the establishment of the great religious and

humanitarian movements during the first half of the nine—

teenth century. It helped provide the materialistic American

15
with a sense of social responsibility. Oliver Wendell
Elsbree affirms this in his study on the formation of
missionary societies: "It is difficult to see how an ef-
fective missionary prOpaganda could have been developed
without an incessant appeal to Bible prOphecy as a final
authority in regard to the duty of Christians to evangel-

ize the world."29

The effort to purify society similarily
included the abolition of slavery as the "next step to be
taken on the way to the realization of the promise of the

30 Likewise it is this millenial

kingdom of God on earth."

impulse that helps account for all the other reformist

activities such as Bible societies, home missionary societ-

ies, temperance societies, peace societies, the crusade

against Sabbath-breaking, educational reforms, and prison

reform. Even the American socialistic schemes of the era

were trying to achieve a millennium.31 But according to

the evangelicals, America must first be Christianized and

a "way made for the Lord," The secular philOSOphy of progress

often fit perfectly into their plans for doing just that.
During the Jacksonian period, the millennial impulse

which had been prevalent earlier in the East, was transmit—

ted directly from New England to Michigan, but more often

from western New York,--the "second New England"—-to Michigan.

During the 1830's, because of disputes with the Holland

Land Company, the Dutch concern which held many of the

mortgages in western New York, and because of the availability

16

of good land in Michigan at a reasonable price, the Yorker
migration to the Wolverine state reached floodtide. In
the year 1836 alone, four million acres of Michigan land
were sold, doubling the previous year's sales. The migrat-
ing Yorker now had access to the Erie Canal, and deck pas-
sage from Buffalo, New York, to Detroit, Michigan, was only
three dollars per person on one of the fifty steamers in
use on Lake Erie. As one verse of the song "Michigania,"
which was very popular in the East declared:

Then there's the State of New York,

where some are very rich;

Themselves and a few others have dug

a mighty ditch,

To render it more easy for us to find a way,

And sail upon the waters to Michigania,——-

Yea, yea, yea, to Michigania.32
In the yang following 1830, Michigan had every reason to
be called the "third New England" as the Yorkers moved
in to transplant their Puritan ideals and institutions. By
1840, the state had a larger proportion of New England-New
York stock than any other western state,and the Millennial
HOpe, under Yankee-Yorker leadership, was firmly established.
Whether the postmillennialism of the missionaries sent out
by the American Home Missionary Society of New York City,
or the premillennialism of Millerism or Mormonism, any con—
cept of the Second Coming would find abundant adherents in

the Wolverine state, the third and last New England.33

17

Michigan became a territory in 1805, and at that
time there were only four towns within what would later
be the state borders. The port of Detroit, the largest
town, had a population of eight thousand. By 1830 though,
many new towns had been built up along the roads leading
to Detroit. These roads usually followed old Indian trails
like the Saginaw Trail and the Old Sauk Trail. To survive,
the towns were always planted along a principle route of
travel, such as Clinton, Coldwater, Sturgis, and Niles
along the Chicago Road, or along a river or creek where water
power was available, such as the thriving mill town of
Pontiac.3

Settlers poured in during the thirties, until Michigan
had a population of 212,267 in 1840. In fact, during
the decade of the thirties, Michigan had a larger percent—
age increase in population than any other state or territory.
By 1860, the total figure had grown to 749,113 inhabitants,
nearly all living in the first four tiers of counties. The
total picture in 1860, was one in which southern Michigan
_had been settled with Yankee emigrants from New England,

and western New York.35

It is a picture of a frontier state
hardly emerged out of the wilderness.

In economic development Michigan lagged behind such
states as Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and the impression

was widespread that Michigan consisted of little more than

mosquito infested swampland. But land selling for $1.25

18

per acre drew the settler to the prairies and "oak open-
ings" of the territory. After the Erie Canal made Michigan
accessible, emigrants arrived at Detroit by the shipload.

From Detroit inland, transportation proved a major
problem because of the low swampy ground. Congress passed
a law to construct a road from Detroit to Chicago which was
surveyed in 1825 and completed by 1835. Other roads were
built from Detroit to Saginaw, from Detroit to Port Huron,
and the Territorial Road which ran through the second tier
of counties north of the Chicago Road via Ann Arbor, Jackson,
Battle Creek, and Kalamazoo to St.Joseph on Lake Michigan.
These roads were little more than cleared strips of land
which, in rainy weather, became such mudholes that it took
as many as six horses or oxen to draw a wagon over them.

Besides public roadbuilding, the Michigan internal
improvement program included railroads and canals. Upon
statehood in 1836, the Michigan legislature passed a law
to provide for the building of three railroads and two
canals to cross the state from east to west. The new
projects progressed until early 1839 when the money ran
out. The state's indebtedness and the five million dollar
loan which financed the internal improvement proqram became
a political football for the Whigs and Democrats. Hard
feelings and hard times brought an agitation against internal

improvements at state expense which largely ended the program.

19
Railroad building, therefore, as well as canal transporta—
tion, remained behind most other states.

The financial distress after 1839, was alleviated
to a certain degree by the beginning of large scale lumber-
ing and mining Operations. Lumbering in Michigan, it is
true, did not come into its own until after the Civil War.
Yet the value of forest products rose from $1,000,000 in
1840 to $6,000,000 in 1860. Mining also became important
after 1840, with the rich fields of COpper opened in the
Upper Peninsula, and the discovery of the Marquette iron
range.

The majority of Michigan inhabitants, however, were
not miners or lumberjacks, but small farmers. The farmer
found that Michigan soil wouldpmoduce fine crOps of corn,
wheat, oats and potatoes, Wool, dairy products, maple
sugar,rye, barley, buckwheat, tobacco, and hops were also
successfully produced in early Michigan.

The Michigan pioneer—farmer had to be hardy enough
to endure the extreme privation of an "Open—faced campf'
until his neighbors helped him erect a better log cabin.
Since stores were often miles away, he had to be to a large
degree self-sufficient, preparing his own food, clothes,
furniture, and even tools. Farming was usually combined

with fishing, hunting, and lumbering Operations if possible.

20
lfledical help often being several days away, the pioneer
and his family had to be strong enough to endure malaria,
commonly known then as "chills and fever" or "ague."

On the political scene, the state belonged primarily
to the Democrats until 1854, when the slavery issue became
more and more important an issue. James G. Birney became
a resident of Michigan in 1841 and received strong support
as a presidential candidate in the election of 1844. The
Compromise of 1850 brought further discord to Michigan polit—
ics; personal liberty laws were passed to protect the fugi—
tive Negro and the Underground Railway increased its oper-
ations. Then in 1854, the Republican Party was organized
"under the oaks" at Jackson which soon took over as the
political party of Michigan with Lewis Cass being forced
into the background by Zachariah Chandler, the new political
leader of the state. From 1854 down until 1932 Michigan
remained a Republican stronghold.

During most of the Territorial period, the popula-
tion was predominantly French-Canadian Catholic, and Protest-
ant churches were not established until late in the period.
Reverend William Mitchell, a circuit rider, organized the
first Methodist church in Detroit in 1810. John Monteith,

a Presbyterian, came to Detroit in 1816 at the request of
Governor Cass to lead aninterdenominational Protestant
Society. This society, however, voted to become Presbyterian

in 1825. Other Protestant groups soon followed: the

21

Baptists at Pontiac in 1827; the Congregationalists in
various towns, but especially Pontiac and Marshall between
1828 and 1836; and the Lutherans in 1833 at Ann Arbor. Dur-
ing the next few years the Home Missionaries and circuit
riders worked tirelessly to build societies and churches in
all Michigan towns.

The reforming movement that swept over America in
the 1840's and 1850's found a ready place in the Michigan
churches. The Protestant churches furnished leadership in
all the great crusades whether for antislavery, temperance,
UtOpian socialism, prison reforms, women's rights, dietary
reforms, or antiCatholicism. The New York-New England back-
ground no doubt contributed a large share in making Michigan
a leader in these crusades. This spirit of reform, too,
eventually added new churches to the state's history which
included Mormons, Seventh—day Adventists, Spiritualists,
and Universalists. Reform also brought schism to many
large denominations which produced other churches such as
the Wesleyan Methodists and the Freewill Baptists. But in
general, the established denominations all enjoyed a healthy
growth in both numbers of members and church structures from
1830 to 1860. Church membership statistics are hardly an
accurate guide to measure church attendance, however, since
hundreds who were not members attended church regularly and
expected to experience conversion sometime in the future.
Religion, above all else, held a central place in the think-

ing of the Michigan settler.

FOOTNOTES

1. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
(Tr. Henry Reeve; New York, 1945), I, pp. 191—192, 303,
308.

2. Carl Russell Fish, The Rise of the Common Man,
1830-1850 (New York, 1927), p. 179.

 

3. Timothy L. Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform:
American Protestantism on the Eve of the Civil War (New
York, 1957), p. 45; see also Peter George Mode, The Front-
ier Spirit in American Christianity (New York, 1923), p. 41.

4. Quoted in Charles C. Cole, The Social Ideas of
the Northern Evangelists (New York, 1954), p. 71.

5. Smith, Revivalism and Reform, pp.7, 9, 157.
6. Ibid., pp. 43-44.

7. Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-Over District: The
Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastical Religion
in Western New York, 1800-1850 (Ithaca, New York, 1950),
p. 40.

8. H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America
(Hamden, Conn., 1956), pp. 122-123; Fish, Common Man, pp.
179 ff., 256 ff.; Smith, Revivalism and Reform, p. 60.

9. Sidney Mead, The Lively Experiment (New York,
1963), pp. 92. 93.

10. Marvin Meyers, The Jacksonian Persuasion: Polit-
ics and Belief (Stanford, California, 1957), pp. 11-23.

 

11. De Tocqueville, Democracy, II, pp. 33-34.

 

12. Dixon Ryan Fox, Ideas in Motion (New York, 1935),
p. 116; Niebuhr, Kingdom of God, p. 158.

13. Smith, Revivalism and Reform, p. 225.

 

14. Cross, Burned—Over District, pp. 200, 321; Fox,
Ideas in Motion, pp. 99-126; John R. Bodo, The Protestant
Clergy and Public Issues, 1812-1848 (Princeton, New Jersey,
1954), p. 251; Oliver Wendell Elsbree, "The Rise of the Miss-
ionary Spirit in New England, 1790-1815,“ The New England
Quarterly, I (1928), PP- 297-300; Bernard A. Weisberger,

22

 

 

23

Thgy Gathered at the River (Boston, 1958), p.131; Stow
Persons, American Minds: A History of Ideas (New York,
1958), p. 90; Cole, Northern Evangelists, p. 232.

15. A form of premillennialism called "Dispensation-
alism," popular in America today, divides history into
seven dispensations. The seventh thousand year period
which starts after Christ comes,is the Millennium. Dispensa—
tionalism is treated here as only a variant of premillen—
nialism since Christ comes before the Millennium according
to this belief. '

.For a discussion of Premillennialism see: George
E. Ladd, The Blessed HOpe (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1956)
and Crucial Questions About the Kingdom of God (Grand
Rapids, 1952; C. Norman Kraus, Digpensationalism in America
(Richmond, Va., 1958).

16. For the classic interpretation of Postmillennial-
ism see: David Brown, The Second Coming: Will it be Pre-
millennial? (Edinburgh, 1856), fourth edition.

17. Persons, American Minds, p. 177; Cross, Burned-
Over District, p. 31.

18. Shirley Jackson Case, The Millennial Hope
(Chicago, 1918), pp. 179, 180.

19. LeRoy Edwin Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our
Fathers: The Historical Development of Prophetic Inter-
pretation, III (Washington, D.C., 1946), pp. 33—42, 44—45,
and passim.

20. Persons, American Minds, p. 89.

21. Russell E. Nye, The Cultural Life of the New
Nation, 1776-1830 (New York, 1960), p. 51.

22. Froom, PrOphetic Faith, III,pp. 217-221, 242-
299; Fox, Ideas in Motion, pp. 99-126.

23. Charles A. Johnson, The Frontier Camp_Meetngg
(New York, 1955), p. 106; Weisberger, Gathered at the River,
p. 131.

24. Cole, Northern Evangelists, pp. 232-233.

25. Quoted in Cross, Burned-Over District, p. 200.

24

26. Froom, Prophetic Faith, II, pp. 651-655; III,
pp. 252—253; Ladd, The Blessed Hope, pp. 32-33; William
G. McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism (New York, 1959), pp.
105-106; Cross, Burned-Over District, p. 168; Smith, 32‘
vivalism and Reform, p. 228.

 

 

 

 

27. Smith, Revivalism and Reform, p. 228.

 

28. Premillennial Essays of the PrOphetic Confer-
ence, Held in the Church of the Holy Trinity, New York
City (Chicago, 1897). p. 11.

29. Elsbree, "The Rise of the Missionary Spirit,"
p. 297.

30. Niebuhr, Kingdom of God, p. 158; Gilbert Hobbs
Barnes, The Antislavery Impulse, 1830-1844 (New York, 1964),
first printed in 1933, pp. 161—163.

31. Arthur Alphonse Ekirch, The Idea of Progress
in America, 1815-1860 (New York, 1944), p. 139; Niebuhr,
Kingdom of God, pp. 122-123, Fox, Ideas in Motion, p. 116;
Fish, Common Man, pp. 179, 256.

 

32. Silas Farmer, History of Detroit and Wayne
County and Early Michigan, I (Detroit, 1889). P. 336.

33. For the third New England concept see J. Harold
Stevens, "The Influence of New England in Michigan,"
Michigan Histopy, XIX (1935), pp. 321—353; Morris C. Taber,
New England Influence in South Central Michigan," Michigan
History, XXXXV (1961), pp. 305—336; W. V. Smith, "The
Puritan Blood of Michigan," Michiggn Pioneer and Historical
Collections, XXXVIII (1912), pp. 355-361.

 

 

34. The facts and figures for a general picture of
Michigan, 1830-1860, are taken from: F. Clever Bald, Mich—
igan in Four Centuries (New York, 1954) and Willis Frederick
Dunbar, Michigan: A History of the Wolverine State (Grand
Rapids, 1965).

35. Stevens, "The Influence of New England in
Michigan," pp. 350-351; Smith,"The Puritan Blood of
Michigan," pp. 355-361.

CHAPTER II

THE PRESBYTERIANS AND THE AMERICAN
HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY

The postmillennial fervor of the missionaries sent
to Michigan by the benevolent interdenominational American
Home Missionary Society, and the premillennial expectancy
expressed by the eminent pastor of the First Presbyterian
Church of Detroit, George Duffield, were alike directed
toward preparing Michigan for the Second Coming of Christ.
A study of the Presbyterian Church in Michigan presents a
clear picture of both premillennialism and postmillennial-
ism within the ranks of the orthodox during the Jacksonian
period.

The evangelical enthusiasm and cooperation generated
by the Presbyterian-Congregational Plan of Union in 1801
reached a peak in the founding of the American Home Mis-
sionary Society at New York City in May, 1826. This Protest-
ant Society, purportedly interdenominational but in Michigan
primarily controlled by the Presbyterians, commissioned
hundreds of Presbyterian and Congregational pastors to
preach the Gospel to the destitute in the newly-formed
frontier communities. By the decade of the thirties

Michigan had become a main objective for the New England-

25

26

trained missionaries to save from infidelity and deism
and to establish a reign of righteousness.

The missionary clergymen sent to Michigan were
interested not only in saving individuals from sin, but
in preparing the way for the Millennium. Christ would
return to reign only when the Gospel had been preached to
every living creature. The missionary believed that God
had chosen Protestant America to begin His thousand year
reign of righteousness. The formation of the American
Home Missionary Society and its early success were regarded
as signs that the approaching golden era would occur during
the missionary's own lifetime. As the population moved west-
ward, the evangelicals did not despair of setting up the
Kingdom, but increased their endeavors to Christianize
and save the entire land. The frontier territory of Mich-
igan presented a leading challenge to the newly formed
Society. The Millennium would come when the territories
and states had been purified.

Therefore, the preaching of the Gospel itself was
no more important than destroying every influence that the
missionary considered evil in Michigan society. Millennial
peace would be postponed, he reasoned, until drunkenness
and sabbath-breaking, and the other sins of society were
abolished. But human efforts working with the Holy Spirit

would hasten the Blessed Day. So the American Home Missionary

27

worked with a kind of millennial fervor to regenerate
Michigan society and cleanse it from sin.

The Plan of Union, generally speaking, worked ad-
vantageously for the establishment of the Kingdom until
the withdrawal of the Congregational churches after 1840.
Even after schism in 1837, the separation of Old School
Presbyterian Churches, which never numbered more than fifteen
in the Synod of Michigan, the New School attempted to remain
on friendly terms with Congregationalism. Yet the gulf was
wide and the bridge built in 1801 rested on an insecure
foundation. One of the first Congregationalist missionar-
ies sent to Michigan, "Father" Isaac Ruggles, a Congregational
clergyman sent out by the United Domestic Missionary Society,
forerunner of the A.H.M.S., came to Michigan "with the
avowed intention of building up pure Congregationalism."1
In fact, Ruggles stirred up so much trouble between the
two denominations that Pontiac, Michigan, remained a
trouble spot in their relationship for many years after
Ruggles had been replaced. In brief, it seemed to many
Congregationalist missionaries and pastors, that the
Presbyterian polity was not so necessary to set up God's
Kingdom on the frontier after all and that perhaps the
purpose of the Presbyterian form was to aid the "Presbyter—
ian lion" swallow the "Congregational lamb."2 From 1840,
the story is one of increasing withdrawal of Michigan

Congregational churches from the Plan of Union.

28

The period from 1816, when the American Board of
Foreign Missions sent the Presbyterian minister John
Monteith to Detroit in 1816 at the request of Governor Cass,
until 1840 have been considered the halcyon years of Michi—
gan Presbyterianism. If 1837, the year of the Presbyterian
schism, was not the pivotal point in the history and growth
of the church, it is certain that the Congregational de-
fection in the years immediately following definitely started
a downward trend.3

The largest single congregation of Protestants in
Michigan during this period was the First Presbyterian
Church in Detroit. In 1816, when John Monteith arrived,
it was simply called a "Protestant Society" which included
people from all denominations. Monteith resigned in 1821
after organizing the first Protestant church in Detroit as
well as serving the state as the first president of what
would later be called the University of Michigan. The
Protestant Society later voted to become Presbyterian, and
the eloquent John P. Cleaveland, an important temperance
and antislavery leader, served as pastor. Cleaveland gave
up his pastorate in 1837 to assume his new position of
president of the embryo Presbyterian college at Marshall

which, due to the financial crisis of the time, scarcely

got off the drawing board. The following year, George

29

Duffield, probably the most famous and influential clergy-
man to serve in Michigan during the nineteenth century,
accepted the position as pastor.

George Duffield, one of America's most prominent
millenarians, arrived at Detroit fresh from his involve-
ment in the perfectionist controversy which helped bring
schism to the church. He had served for nineteen years
as pastor at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, then two years at
the Fifth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, before be-
coming minister at the Broadway Tabernacle of New York City.
During his pastorate at Carlisle he became a theological

storm center by producing a work called Spiritual Life:

 

or, Regeneration in which he allegedly departed from church
doctrine with his explanation of sanctification.4 Partly
because of his influence, schism came in 1837, and Duffield,
a "New School" Presbyterian, accepted the challenge of
frontier Michigan to begin a long ministry of thirty years
at Detroit.

A national figure, Duffield was in a position to
exert more millenarian influence upon Michigan than any
other one person in the state.5 He had become important
as a temperance advocate, especially after writing Egg
immorality of the Traffic in Ardent Spirits in 1834. And
despite his tendency toward conservatism,6 he remained
a man of strong convictions, an outspoken and fearless

preacher of the imminent coming of Christ, and the out-

Standing civic leader over the "largest and finest"

30

pastorate "in the then Northwest."7 To prepare the way
for the Millennium he worked for the causes of antislavery,
antisabbath-desecration, and education. His reform work
contributed more to the moral stability and progress of
Detroit than any other man. He was looked upon as the
city's first leader by all denominations.8

George Duffield was a man who knew what he believed.
He was convinced that his religious views were correct and
that neither Catholics nor Episcopalians, his main competit-
ors in Detroit, had a chance for admission to the Kingdom

9 and

of God. The "miserable spirit of Congregationalism"
the Oberlin perfectionism10 of Finney alike met his condem—
nation. Even though he had been accused of perfectionism
himself in the famed heresy trial, his diary entries dur—
ing and after Finney's visit to Detroit, leave little doubt
as to his distaste for the "loose principles" as well as
the "repellent manner" of Finney.ll He was sure that the
vengeance of God would be meted out to all those who
strayed even the slightest bit from his interpretation of
the scriptures. His diary displays his strong belief in a
God of vengeance and in eternal punishment for the wicked.
But a study of Duffield's theology reveals something even
more interesting in respect to his eschatological belief:
Duffield was an ardent premillennialist fighting a strong

Current of popular postmillennialism in the Presbyterian

Church.

31
The millennialistic belief and teaching of George
Duffield, in general, varied but little from that of
William Miller. He had read all that Miller had published
for many years past;12 Duffield believed Miller's calculations
to be "erroneous in many respects." Nevertheless, in a let-
ter to Joshua V. Himes, editor of the Millerite paper,

Signs of the Times, he expressed his appreciation for the

 

publication and for Miller's efforts to awaken a "slumber—
ing church and world." According to this letter the main
difference between Duffield's view and Millerite premillen-
nialism was a matter of the precise "time."13 He condemned
Miller for setting the year and the day, since "God, we
think, has purposely left these dates in doubt so that we
may not be able to know precisely the day of Christ's com-
ing."14 It is evident that Biblical prophecy was one of
Duffield's chief studies; as a matter of fact, the subject
matter of his sermons consisted almost entirely of explana-
tions of scripture and prOphecy, or of the doctrinal stand—
ards of the church.15 In the winter of 1841-42 he gave a
series of sermons to his Detroit congregation setting forth
his views on the coming Millennium. These sermonswere so
well received that his congregation requested their public-

ation which was done in a 434 page Work called Dissertations

 

on the Prophecies Relative to the Second Coming of Jesus
Christ. The discourses are well documented and show his

prodigious love for Biblical study and research. The ease

32
with which he handled scores of writings of both European
and American interpreters of prophecy displays an unusual
mastery of millennial literature.

Duffield got right to the point: Would the Millen-
nium introduce a righteous new world brought about by the
preaching of the Gospel or would Christ come in person be-
fore the Millennium? Duffield stated that the only way to
find out was to use a literal interpretation in studying

the prOphecies.16

The literal interpretation, he insisted,
had been used by the prOphets and apostles; it was folly to
believe those who tried to "spiritualize" the Millennium
to mean no more than a highly prosperous state of the church
brought about by missionary tracts and Bible societies.
Speaking of Christ and his apostles, he asserted that "Not
one word or hint is heard from any of them about the gospel's
enjoying a thousand year's prosperity before his coming."17
Three of his chapters were devoted to tracing the
millennial doctrine through the centuries. He concluded
from the kingdom prophecies of the seventh chapter of Daniel
that the Coming must be premillennial and literal. The
Advent was to be literal, and the end of the Papacy would
be literal, just as the destruction of the four great secular
kingdoms in Daniel's prophecy had been literal. The con-

clusion then, was that "the coming of Christ is first in

order5 before the Millennium.18

33

Chapter thirteen, "The Season and Signs of Christ's
Coming," reads like a Millerite tract. Since he believed
that the end was clearly evident in his day, he listed the
increase in knowledge, the increase of wealth, the peace
plans and preparations, and the slumber on the part of the
church as signs that the end of all things was near. How
near? By studying the 2300-day time prophecy of Daniel he
came to the conclusion by various calculations that the
final year of this long time-period had or would come in
1764, 1782, 1843, 1856, 1866 or 1868. William Miller, he
stated, chose the third date but had not "proved his assump—
tion to be correct." Yet Duffield himself came close to
date-setting when he wrote "that somewhere from 1843 to
1847, will be marked by very clear and decided movements
in God's providence. . . which shall render it a marked
epoch, and prove that we are advanced one stage nearer to

the time of the end."19

Similarly, he noticed God's warn-
ings in the heavens: "It is remarkable that, for the last
hundred, and especially the last fifty or sixty years, the
atmosphere and celestial phenomena have been more marked,
frequent, and varied, than in any prevknB age of the world."20

A postmillennial advocate, Professor Moses Stuart of

Andover Theological Seminary, soon replied with Strictures

 

on the Rev. G. Duffield's Recent Work on the Second Coming
of Christ. Duffield fired back in 1843 with 183 pages of

Millenarianism Defended; A Reply to Prof. Stuart's "Strictures

34

on the Rev. G. Duffield's Recent Work on the Second Comipg

 

of Christ." He accused Stuart of evading vital principles

 

of biblical interpretation and of unfairness in his dis-
cussion of the premillennial position; Stuart, he decided,
wanted to spiritualize and allegorize scriptural meaning
entirely. Duffield for instance, believed the visible church
to be the Kingdom of Christ as "accepted by most commentators,"
but Stuart interpreted Zion "as the church this moment and
heaven the next."21 The real argument then, was one of
literalism versus a figurative interpretation of the prOphecies.
Despite the disappointment of Adventist premillen-

nial hopes in 1843—44, Duffield never changed his position
on the Second Coming. In April of 1848, he recorded in his
diary:

I see the public papers secular 8: :eligious re-

joicing é; qlorying in these wonderful revolutions

in Europe 6; much like the false prOphets in the days

of Jeremiah crying that they see omens of peace ulti—

mately 8. the repose of the world under the influence

of Democratic principles 5. institutions. But I

think that the very Opposite is plainly to be discerned

8. that these revolutions are but the shocks of the

great earthquake under the 7th vial which are to

divide the great city into three parts 5, to be fol—

lowed by the Great Hailstorm or northern invasion.22
He still believed that "the seven times of Gentile domination
& the 2300 days of Daniel are rapidly drawing to a close
if this be not the year of their termination."23 He con-
sistently remained a firm adherent to the premillennial

view in spite of its unpOpularity after the Millerite

debacle.

35
It should be remembered that George Duffield fur-

nished the leadership for the largest Protestant church in
Michigan as well as the Detroit community in general. The
acceptance, or even toleration of his premillennial position
points out a paradox in pre-Civil War millennial belief. Pre-
millennialism and postmillennialism were often adhered to
even in the same congregation. Did Duffield advocate strange
or new doctrines? Evidently not. At Duffield's death in
1868 the Reverend Dr. Hogarth of the Jefferson Avenue Church.
the pastor of longest continuous residence in Detroit, stated
that Duffield had "proclaimed no new doctrine, had no phil-
osophy to declare, but all his trust was in the word of God;
all his faith was predicated to the testimony of the Bible."24
William A. McCorkle, Duffield's successor at the First Presby-
terian Church, probably spoke for the majority of Michigan
Presbyterians when he explained that George Duffield's

ministry was marked by his views of the second com-

ing of our Lord. His study of the scriptures led him

to the belief that the millennium is to consist in

the personal reign of Christ, in great glory, upon

the earth; although he pretended not to know--and

earnestly taught that no one could know--the time

of the second advent. Upon this subject he published

and preached. Whether sympathising with his views or

not, no one could question the earnestness of his own

belief, nor could it be doubted that his teaching was

such as to incite others to 'ssarch the scriptures

whether these things were so.‘ 5

Many of the missionaries sent out by the American

Home Missionary Society, however, regardless of the pre—

millennial influence of George Duffield who was head of the

Committee on Missions, believed that they were regnerating

36

society for the postmillennial return of Christ. Yet
Duffield's hOpe for the conversion of the world by Christ's
personal visible return to set up His reign does not seem
to have been a cause of conflict. He warred on the evils
of society in preparation for Christ's coming; the Home
Missionaries destroyed sin to establish a spiritual reign
of Christ for a thousand years before His personal return.
No doubt in the small town and rural community, the mis-
sionary's influence through direct contact with the peOple
was even greater than Duffield's. No great number at first,
the missionaries sent out to Michigan by the A.H.M.S. were
only ten in 1830 but steadily advanced to a high of eighty
by 1848. But ten years later the number had decreased to
sixty-five.26

As missions expanded, both at home and abroad, the
postmillennial belief was intensified. The Home Missionary
asserted in 1850 that if one would just sit down and read
even a report he could see how God was pouring out his
Spirit, shaking the nations and marshaling his hosts for
battle: "The events of a century seem now to be crowded
into a year; and the year, like days, and hours, are bearing
us swiftly into the millenium [sic]."27 C. B. Haddock, who
had been United States Minister to Portugal, wrote that

"Prophecy and Providence both teach us to hOpe-—both full

of promise; the earth is to have a millenium [sic]--as a

37
more perfect state, the last blissful result of a long
and painful experience. . . a glorious issue of a great
struggle."28 In an anniversary speech, Julian M. Sturtevant,
President of Illinois College, assured the missionaries that
the great event would take place before the year 2000 and
before "our grandchildren go to their graves."29 The hymn
written for this same anniversary meeting of the A.H.M.S.
in May 7, 1857, effectively caught the postmillennial mis-
sionary spirit of the times in its last stanza:
Like an armed host with banners,
Terrible in war array,

Zion came with glad hosannas,
To prepare her Monarch's way.

Unto him all power is given,
All the world his sway shall own,
And on earth, as now in heaven, 30
Shall his Will be done alone.
According to the quarterly reports requested of each
worker by the home office in New York, the duties of the
Michigan missionary included encouraging church membership
and Sunday School participation, organizing temperance
societies, and building up "Zion" in general. To report
the progress of the Kingdom in Michigan, the account nearly
always stated the number of hopeful conversions, number of
church members and Sunday School pupils, the number of vol-
umes in the Sunday School library, the attendance at preach-
ing services, and the amount of contributions received. In

addition to his regular responsibilities in establishing the

Empire of Christ in Michigan, sometimes the missionary was

38

forced to become a physician to his congregation if he
wished to preach. John Dudley reported that often his
meeting house was empty, since the whole congregation was
sick at home when he arrived to preach.31 Samuel Benton,
missionary to Armada, found that by practicing medicine he
gained more influence with his church members.32

Malaria was prevalent, and even occasional cholera
epidemics occurred, but other problems than disease proved
deterrent to Christ's reign. Since most immigrants had
been drawn to Michigan "to get ahead," the missionary found
that his members early succumbed to the temptations of
"worldiness, that meet the Christian in this new country"
which were "quite as severe a test of character, as would
be even the fires of persecution." Many who were known to
stand high in the Church in the East had fifllen when the
guards and influences of the older states were removed.33
J. N. Parsons wrote from Niles that the country was full
of "stray sheep" who had been members of the churches of
the East but had not "disclosed their professions since they
came to this country."34 Before the panic of 1837, specul-
ation became an "inveterate mania" which created an "ir-
religious and demoralizing tendency."35 I'Land fever" and
speculation were frequently of more immediate importance
than spiritual concerns. Silas Woodbury disgustedly wrote
that "speculation is the all in all" and that money was
sometimes loaned at fifty to one hundred per cent interest

while "ye whole country round us is on tip-toe."36

39

The desire of the pioneer—farmer to get rich quick
sometimes involved a desecration of the Lord's Day which
was abhored by the puritanical missionaries. The Millen-
nium could never arrive, they knew, unless the Sabbath was
kept rigidly as a day of rest and religious activity. The
Home Missionary letters abound with references to their
efforts in preventing Sabbath—breaking. Much to his con-
sternation, George Hornell, veteran missionary minister at
White Lake, found that the farmers and timber—cutters would
desert his meetinghouse, and run their lumber to market on
the Sabbath when a freshet came. They explained to him

37 Railroads

that the freshets usually came on the Sabbath.
too were condemned at the outset for "the tide of wicked—
ness created by the rolling of cars over otherwise peace-
ful villages on the Sabbath." Charles Lockwood complained
that the "great Sabbath breaking railroad pours a tide of

immorality upon us neutralizing all efforts at good.”38

. While it is true that the Home Missionary often
magnified the ravages of sin in the "waste places of Zion"
to justify to the home office his own position in a parti-
cular locality, there is much truth in his claim of the
irreligious character of early Michigan. Since the frontier
Settlements were certainly far from his dream of the Mil—
lennial Kingdom, they did not always readily accept the

missionary. Alexander McJunkin's letter from Plymouth in

1835 is not atypical of the hostility often faced by the

40

new missionary: "To stand it against the array of earth
and hell in a rising village of 300 inhabitants where every
man and woman knows you and every one sneers, requires from
the outset a zeal of martyrs and the heroisnlof Paul."39

It is evident, though, that much of the hostility
errupted from denominational rivalry, chiefly among the
Protestant denominations. The fear of "POpery" was a power—
ful motive for founding PrOtestant home missions, but as
Colin B. Goodykoontz has pointed out, it was a fear based
upon the fancies of the Eastern religious leaders rather
than the experiences of the missionaries themselves.40 In
Michigan, Roman Catholicism posed little problem to the
Protestant millennial dream. Until the period of heavy
foreign immigration, the Michigan missionary, often work-
ing in a region with a strong Roman Catholic background,
seldom referred to them. Alanson Darwin from Tecumseh
found that "two thirds of the population of the adjoining
county of Monroe are of that persuasion." And even though
he charged them with being "very zealous and active in
endeavoring to gain proselytes," his letter, like many
others, shows only a weak hostility toward Catholicism.41
Methodists and Baptists could be tolerated, at least at
times. Efforts were made to cooperate with these denomina-
tions; in fact the same church buildings were often used,

but no steady COOperation was maintained. Both Presbyter-

ian and Congregationalist believedtflmm the true Zion for

41
the coming Millennium would be founded and sustained by
their own Calvinistic denominations. The emotionalism of
the Methodists was deplored by the missionary. Erie Prince,
early missionary to Farmington, Michigan, told of holding
a meeting when a "Methodist rushed in and had what I con-
sidered a disorderly meeting, 4 or more praying, singing
& exhorting at once spatting their hands, & some one thing
& some another." He admitted that it could have been the
work of God since some had given evidence of a real change
of heart;yet twelve "had gone to the Methodists on six
months probation, and where the other will go, God only
knows,[until] they begin to think for themselves, the
Methodists are willing to think & act for them."42 Similarly,
P. W. Warriner wrote of a Methodist quarterly meeting at
Monroe which lasted six weeks "day & night, & the most noise

"43 The Baptists

& irregularity that I have ever heard before.
likewise, were regarded only as stumbling-blocks in the path
to the Millennium. According to Seth Hardy, who allowed
an agent from the American Baptist Bible Society to take
his pulpit at Owosso to present the "bible cause," they
couldn't be trusted. The Baptist minister was "invited,
after preaching saturday [sic] evening, to occupy a part
Of the day on the sabbath. And do you not think he took that

Opportunity to come out in a violent tirade against all

denominations of Christians but his own."44 Mormons,

42
Campbellites, and Universalists, who were also working
to build a Kingdom of Heaven on earth were alike detested
and classed with the infidels and deists. At best they
were "disturbers of Zion" preaching falsehood and creating
dissatisfaction among the "orthodox," A good minister,
however, could use their activity as a lever to move his
. 45
own members to action.
The fact of the matter is, however, that a rivalry

with the Methodists, Baptists or other denominationsimpeded
the growth of the Michigan Presbyterian Zion but little;
the schism of 1837, the withdrawal of the Congregationalists,
and the perfectionist controversy in the 1840's hurt much
more.46 It was not until 1851 that the Committee on the
Narration of the State of Religion of the Presbyterian Church
could report that:

Peace and harmony prevail in our church, and a

growing disposition to regard those who belong

to different denominations, and yet hold to the

vital principles of religion, with fraternal

affection; and, for the first time, since our

organization as a Synod, has a correspondence

been Opened between our Methodist brethren

and ourselves.47

Of the several basic motives underlying the evangelical

zeal of the Home Missionary in Michigan, such as national-
ism, or rescuing souls from infidelity or the POpe, the
millennial impulse tended to be the strongest. This impulse

enlarged the missionary's field of vision to take in the

whole world as a potential Kingdom of God. His object was

43

not just to convert individuals, but to save society from
falsehood, immorality, materialsim, and agnosticism. His
enterprise became a millennial mission to transplant the
high standards of a settled, organized community on the
frontier. But whether in Michigan or elsewhere, one has
to agree with Oliver W. Elsbree that back of all the motives
for missions was a universal conviction that bible prOphec-
ies pointed to transpiring events which would soon convert
the world.48

The millennial drive was not just an added stimulus
but a basic compelling force in building up the realm of

God in Michigan. The editors as well as the ministers

writing in The Home Missionary, reminded their readers

 

in every issue that the time for establishment of Christ's
Kingdom had come. The Reverend Daniel Temple, missionary
to Malta in the Mediterranean, declared in 1829 that "no
age, like the present, has yet passed over the world, so
full of wonderful indications that its redemption draweth
nigh."49 This same year the editors stated that ministers
should thank God that they live in the nineteenth century
since "the jarring movements of a sinful, restless world,
are resulting, under the harmonizing hand of God, in the
prospect of millenial[sic] peace."50 Gideon Blackburn,
President of the college in Danville, Kentucky, urged all
Christians to unite and "be bound together by the holy

.51

desire for the coming of the kingdom of Christ.‘ An

44

address delivered at the seventh anniversary of the A.H.M.S.
on May 8, 1833 went as far as to place the date for the
final conversion: "We infer then, that God has determined
to hasten, in his time, the conversion of the nation. Be-
fore the one hundredth anniversary of the American Home
Missionary Society. . . we may say to the nations, Look up
and lift up your heads for your redemption draweth nigh."52
The signs of the times told the missionary leaders of the
coming Millennium, even as they had indicated to George
Duffield that Christ was soon to appear: The rapid dif-
fusion of truth, the working up of the Church of God, the
increase of unity of feeling and effort among the denomina—
tions, the pouring out of God's grace through His Holy
Spirit, the great revival in religion--all these things
could only mean that "Zion's redemption draweth nigh."53
Nearly a decade later, Milton Badger and Charles Hall,then
Secretaries of Correspondence for the A.H.M.S., appealed

to the American churches to "arise in earnest to the conquest

of the whole land to Christ, and verily they shall not

 

have you over all the cities of Israel ere the Son of Man

ghall come!"54 Even a year after Miller's failure in

 

predicting the end of all things, they wrote: "Great
events are succeeding each other. . . the vast designs
of Providence are being fulfilled. . . . The end of all
things is drawing near. . . . The destiny of our country

Will soon be a matter of unalterable record."55

45

But after 1844, despite the many ambiguous references
to the "Kingdom of God," the "Kingdom of Christ," the Re—
deemer's Kingdom," and "Zion" by both the leaders and the
missionaries,56 the predicted Millennium was nearly always
to be a postmillennial one. R. S. Storrs might announce
in addressing the Anniversary of the A.H.M.S. in 1840
"that our sphere of action will soon be transferred to another
world" and affairs "will shortly be wound up,"57 but cer-
tainly the editors left little doubt as to what was meant
when they wrote, "the kingdoms of this world are become
the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ.” In replying to
a missionary from Michigan who had written testifying to
his belief that the world was near its end and Christ would
come soon, they explained that it was not in their province

to discuss the truth or falsehood of the Opinion but rather

to inquire "whether there are not some other doctrines

 

concerning which there is entire agreement among all
evangelical men" which would awaken the peOple of God.

For points of agreement they suggested three: the Day of

the Lord is always at hand for each person, since death
meant judgment; the crisis of the country's fate was at hand;
and judgment day decision was at hand for all, since no one

knew when the present probationary period would end.58

46

While it is true that the terms "Zion" and”Kingdom"
so frequently mentioned in the Bible can have various inter-
pretations, there is, with very few exceptions, little doubt
about their meaning in the Home Missionary letters and liter-
ature. The Kingdom was the Church, which must preach the
Gospel until peace and righteousness reigned. Their own
country must be regenerated first, accordingtD the missionar—
ies. It would then accept its responsibility to evangelize
the world. Until that time, the blessed Millennium would
not arrive.

This millennial spirit evoked a sense ofurgency which
sometimes almost reached a point of frenzy. The Home Mis-
sionary knew his job well; he was to evangelize and convert
the "destitute" areas, in this case Michigan, and build up
Zion. The battle with the kingdom of Satan had concentrated
in the West, and he knew it to be a war to decide the destiny
of the country and the world. The church already established
in the East, though not perfect, was the pattern to be used
in preparing the West, the country, and the world for the
postmillennial return of Christ. He believed the A.H.M.S.
to be a main instrument of the Lord in "hastening in the

hour of Jesus invincible."59

But only if the West was
regenerated could the country be saved. The struggle to
erect God's Kingdom in the West would decide whether "the

light which has shown upon us for a half a century, shall

shine with increasing brightness, until it ushers in the

47

millenial [sic] day, or whether it shall glimmer on a few
short years, and then be put out for ever."60 The Michigan
missionary well understood the urgency for him to destroy
the strongholds of sin. William Page, missionary to
Ann Arbor, realized that his success in that burgeoning new
frontier town indicated the Millennium:

Who ever heard until the report from this place, of

a church one month old, in a community less than

two years Old, on the very frontier of the nation,

with all the ordinances of the gospel permanently

secured among them, increasing in one year, to 50

members, erecting a meeting house, purchasing a

parsonage, and before two years are ended, send-

ing forth her charities and struggling with older

churches of the land for the Millenium [sic]?61
The missionary knew that he was working for a total regener-
ation involving the molding of society in its formative
state. Justin Marsh wrote from Leoni requesting the Home
Missionary Society to send missionaries to Michigan immed-
iately since the character of the state was being formed.62
John S. Kidder, stationed at Schoolcraft, declared, "It is
interesting to reside in such a place as this & observe
the changes going on in Society, in its forming state; &
more interesting still to exert an influence in moulding
it into a moral & religious community."63 Bible reading,
temperance, church and Sunday School attendance were all
considered necessary for Christ's spiritual reign during
the golden period. One clergyman refused Sabbath travel
on a boat, even though it cost him ten dollars extra to

keep two Sabbaths, since he knew that boats would not run

on Sabbath during the Millennium.64

 

I'fl :

~-.\.

 

 

.
"Vh

"A~v‘

F" ..

48
It is difficult to see how enthusiasm for home

missions could have reached the pitch that it did without
the propelling force of millennialism. The success of the
movement was largely brought about by the sincere desire
to hasten the day when all nations and peOples would keep
God's law and be united in peace and happiness. The im-
minence of the Millennium meant that the whole state, the
whole country, and even the whole world must be prepared
for Christ.65 For the Home Missionaries, as for George
Duffield, this remained the ultimate goal of evangelism

in pre—Civil War Michigan.

FOOTNOTES

1. John Comin and Harold F. Fredsell, History of
the Prespyterian Church in Michigan (Ann Arbor, 1950), p.
94; see also Fredrick Irving Kuhns, "The Breakup of the Plan
of Union in Michigan," Michigan History, XXXII (1948), pp.
157-180; William Warren Sweet, Religion on the American
Frontier, 1783-1850, Vol. III, The Congregationalists
Chicago, 1939). PP- 285-339.

 

 

 

2. William H. Davis and Philo R. Hurd in The Con-
gregational Church of Michigan for the First Fifty Years
of Their Ogganization into a State Organization (Printed by
order of the Association, 1892),pp. 14, 23.

3. Lewis G. Vander Velde, "The Synod of Michigan and
Movements for Social Reform, 1834—1869." Church History, V,

passim.

4. Clarence M. and M. Agnes Burton, editors, History
of Waype County and the City of Detroit, Michigan (Chicago-
Detroit, 1930), p. 276; Harris Elwood Starr in Dictionary
of American Biography, V (New York, 1930), pp. 490—491.

 

5. Lewis G. Vander Velde, "The Diary of George
Duffield," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XXIV (1937—
38). p. 21.

 

6. Lewis G. Vander Velde, ed., "Notes on the Diary
of George Duffield," The Mississippi Valley Historical Review,

7. Ibid., p. 22.

8. Burton, Wayne County, p. 276; Vander Velde,
"Diary," p. 25.

 

9. George Duffield, Diary, February 28, 1947;
October, 1851.

10. Ibid., March 1, 11, 12, 20, 21, 1847.
ll. Duffield, Diary, February 28.1847: June 29, 1847.

12. George Duffield, Millenarianism Defended; a Reply
to Prof. Stuart's "Strictures on the Rev. G. Duffield's
Recent Work on the Second Coming of Christ" (New York,
1843), p. 91.

49

50

13. Signs of the Times, March 1, 1841, p. 179.

 

14. George Duffield, Dissertations on the Prophec-

 

ies Relative to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ (New

York,

182.

1842). p. 389.

15. Vander Velde, "Diary," pp. 30-31.

16. Duffield, Dissertations, pp. V, VI.

 

l7. .lpig., pp. 153-155, 186.
18. .gpgg., pp. 277-290.

19. .gpigg, pp. 388—389.

20. Ipid., p. 404.

21. Duffield, Millenarianism Defended, pp. 37-41,

 

22. Duffield, Diary, April 23, 1848.
23. Ibid., December 13, 1848.

24. The Detroit Free Press, June 30, 1868.

 

25. William A. McCorkle, A Discourse onthe Life

and Character of the Late Rev. George Duffield, D.D.
(Detroit, 1868), p. 26.

26. The Home Missionary, II (January 3, 1830).

 

pp. 144—145; XXXI (July, 1858). pp. 56-57.

1838,

27. _gpig., XXIII (June, 1850), p. 27.

28. I;pgg., XXVIII (September, 1855), p. 213.
29. gpgg., XXX (November, 1857). p. 170.

30. lpgg.

31. John Dudley, Genesee, Michigan, October 21,

in A.H. M.S. papers, Chicago Theological Seminary.

32. Samuel A. Benton, Armada, Michigan, October

15. 1844, in A.H.M.S. papers, C.T.S.

33. The Home Missionary, IX (October, 1836), p. 115.

 

51

34. Maurice F. Cole, Voices From the Wilderness
(Ann Arbor, 19 61), p. 214; The Home Missionary, XII
(April, 1841), p. 280.

 

35. E. N. Nichols, Clinton, Michigan, in The Home
Missionagy. IX (November, 1936), p. 127.

 

36. Silas Woodbury, Bronson, Michigan, May 5, 1836,
in A.H.M.S. papers. C.T.S.

37. The Home Missionary, X (Sept., 1837), p. 129.

 

38. Cole, Voices, p. 155.
39. Cole, Voices, p. 168.

40. Colin B. Goodykoontz, Home Missions on the
American Frontier (Caldwell, Idaho, 1939), p. 234.

 

 

41. Cole, Voices, p. 74.

42. gplg., pp. 224—225.

43. lPlQ-v p. 302.

44. Ipid., p. 101.

45. Ibid., pp. 87, 112; The Home Missionary, I

(October, 1828) p. 103; III (December, 1830), pp. 156—
157; XVII (January, 1845), pp. 206-207.

 

46. A. S. Arms, Milford, Michigan, March 21, 1844;
George Barnum, Leoni, Midhigan, April 5, 1844; E. Boyd,
Brooklyn, Michigan, April 12, 1844; Elias Child, Clinton,
Michigan, March 29. 1844 in A.H.M.S. papers, C.T.S.

47. Minutes of the Snyod of Michigan: 1850-69. p.
16 (June 15, 1851).

48. Oliver Wendell Elsbree, The Rise of the Mis—
sionary Spirit in America: 1790-1815 (Williamsport, Pa.,
1928). Pp. 122-123, 142-143.

49. The Home Missionary, I (March, 1829), p. 178.

50. Ibid., II (October, 1829), p. 92.

51. Ibid., II (May, 1829). p. 1.

52. Ibid., VI (Sept., 1833). p. 78.

52

53. rpgg., IV (February, 1832), pp. 170-171.

54. $2292: XVIII (June, 1845), pp. 46-47.

55. Ibid., XVIII (June, 1845), pp. 46—47.

56. Cole, Voices, pp. 31, 35, 37, 61, 71, 167-168, 200.

57. The Home Missionary, III (August, 1840), p. 79.

58. Ipid., XIV (March, 1842), p. 265.

59. C. G. Clark, Webster, Michigan, January 8.
1830; Justin Marsh, Leoni, Michigan, September 1, 1840 in
A.H.M.S. papers, C.T.S.

60. The Home Missionary, III (July, 1834), pp. 44-46.

 

61. Ibid., I (May, 1828), p. 11.

62. Justin Marsh, Leoni, Michigan, September 14,
1840, in A.H.M.S. paper, C.T.S.

63. Cole, Voices, p. 146.

64. The Home Missionary, VII (February, 1835), p. 177.

 

65. Ibid., XXXI (April, 1859), back page, no number.

CHAPTER III

THE UNIVERSALISTS AND THE
ALPHADELPHIA ASSOCIATION

The Alphadelphia Association, a Utopian community
located near Kalamazoo, Michigan, was the state's single
communitarian experiment before 1860. By July 23, 1844,
When the Alphadelphia Society began operations, the ideas
of the French socialist, Charles Fourier, had been hailed
by several American reformers as a plan of scientific
socialism which would, if adOpted on a large scale, ultim-
ately save society from evil. In Michigan, ministers and
editors of the Universalist denomination heartily adopted
Fourierism as a scheme of regeneration with the hope that
it would hasten the Millennium. The Alphadelphia Community,
though purportedly non-sectarian, was organized and promoted
principally by Michigan Universalists.

At first glance the Universalist Church might appear
as the least likely of denominations to be influenced by
millenarian ideas. Yet while it is true that the official
Position of the Universalist Church was never Openly mil-
lenarian, its acceptance of and belief in science and
PrOgress made the membership particularly vulnerable to a
theory of millennial perfection. The Universalist was
COnfident that his denomination in particular, liberated

from the conservative hold of Calvinism, was destined to

53

54
accelerate the progress of religion and bring the Kingdom
of God to Michigan. His optimistic attitude toward future
salvation for the entire human race inspired him with an
unsurpassed enthusiasm to perfect society. Christ's coming
Kingdom, he constantly preached, was one of love and not of
damnation. When all peoples had accepted the gospel of
universal salvation, the resulting brotherhood would es-
tablish the Redeemer's Kingdom on earth.

For Universalists, knowledge was the key to unlock
the door to millennial peace. Michigan Universalists believed
that since God worked through human will and effort to ac-
complish His divine purpose of erecting a Kingdom of Right-
eousness, new "scientific" experiments to perfect society
should be accepted as from God. Perhaps, they would prove
to be shortcuts to the Millennium. For this reason phrenology,
mesmerism, Fourierism, and land reform schemes were readily
accepted by a large share of the Michigan Universalists.

Both the English and the New England background of
the Michigan Universalist Church were clearly millenarian.
Some of the earliest exponents of universal salvation, the
fathers of the Universalist Church in America, were caught
Up with prevailing millennial ideas. English Universalists
Joseph Priestly and Elhanan Winchester were both ardent
believers in ideas about the nearness of the Millennium.
Early American Universalists likewise accepted the progress

Of society toward the Millennium.1

55
By 1840, however, in view of the extreme premillen-

nial expectancy of the times, The Universalist_gparter1y
warned its readers that the ChurCh advances steadily toward
the perfect age and that people should not look for the sun
to turn to darkness or the moon to blood for signs of the
coming Millennium, but should turn their eyes toward Christ's
Spirit, their already descended Saviour. Christ was here
now, the editors continued, and could be seen working through
charities and reforms:

In all this, we see the continued evidence of the

presence of the great Master of Christians--not

bodily and in superhuman splendor--nor personally

careering through mid heaven attended by myriads

of winged celestials—-but in the progress of human

affairs and the beneficient influence of his gospel.
Hosea Ballou, a former New England Baptist and leading Univers—
alist preacher and writer, in a later article entitled

"The Millennium; or the Golden Age to Come" amplified the

position taken by The Qparterly by denying that an entirely

 

perfect reign of Christ upon the earth could ever take
place. Ballou's belief was predicated on an adversity
theory that society would degenerate if it were without
trials and difficulties. True happiness, he argued, comes
only through effort and labor, and therefore, the Golden
Age would be slow in coming; when it arrived it would not
be a thousand years of effortless bliss.3 On the other
hand, John G. Adams, a Universalist historian, admitted in

1882 that from the time of the founding of the American

56

Universalist Church many of its members had embraced the
Kingdom of God concept. Adams recognized that "there were
not a few in it [the Universalist Church] who saw very clearly
that the great Gospel in which they believed was in the
world to do a regenerative work with the human family. . . ."
The last half century, he added, had been a period especially
marked with progress and would prepare the way for "the
kingdom of God upon the earth."4

After its successful introduction in the eastern part
of the United States by George De Benneville, John Murray.
and Hosea Ballou, Universalism spread rapidly to the front-
ier states. As a kind of a lower class parallel to the
Unitarian revolt against orthodox Calvinism, it spread from
New England and by 1840 had reached its zenith as an active
anuiaggressive sect.5 During the period from 1830 to 1860
it, out of necessity, had developed a belligerent and
aggressive attitude toward the attacking Calvinists, and
vied with all denominations in evangelical proselyting
enthusiasm.

After Murray's death, Hosea Ballou became the gener-
ally acknowledged 1eader, especially after writing his

Treatise on the Atonement (1805) in which he accepted the

 

central doctrines of Unitarianism to give Universalists
their first consistent philosophy. Yet it should be made
clear that Universalists have never had an official state-

ment of faith or convenant.6 And even though they

57

have grown progressively more liberal, their doctrines

are and have always been a revolt againSt Calvinistic total
depravity and endless punishment in hell. Man was basically
good, they believed, and was capable of perfectibility.

In building this new church, the Universalists did
not cause the schism in the Congregational Church that
the Unitarians did, for they drew their converts from a
fairly large cross-section of denominations, particularly
the Baptists, as well as from the unchurched. By 1855, New
England Universalism could no longer be considered the
church of the common peOple;7 but in the frontier states
and territories it remained for many years a rural and
small town movement, where Universalists struggled against
the Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist denominations. The
settled portion of Michigan territory became fertile soil
for the rugged itinerant farmer-preachers to plant their
doctrine of universal salvation.

Universalism was first preached in Michigan in 1829 .
and a society was founded at Pontiac in 1830, Adrian in
1833, and another at Ann Arbor the following year.8 Ann
Arbor, where the first meeting house was erected in 1835.
appears to have been the center of early Michigan Universal—
ism. A Central Association was organized in June of 1836
embracing the whole state with delegates attending from

Adrian, Blissfield, Tecumseh, and Ann Arbor, "besides

58

brethren from other sections."9 Other associations soon
followed: Kalamazoo River, 1841; the Soufliern, 1848; the
Southwestern, 1863. The first state convention was held
.in 1843.10 By 1845, the Universalists in Michigan supported
but twenty—six societies and fifteen preachers, in comparison
to the leading state, Massachusetts, with 145 and 134
respectively.11

Most of their churches contained very small member-
ships, but those were characterized by great dedication
and devotion. Their eagerness for battle and enthusiasm
for propagating their belief bordered on fanaticism. The
constant fire from the so-called Orthodox sects multiplied
their aggressiveness, no doubt, yet a sincere desire to
evangelize and to proselyte were main motivational factors.
The drive to establish the Universalist Kingdom of God in
Michigan caused a bitterness unsurpassed in the religious
history of the state. Nearly all denominations detested
a new sect which, it was believed, lifted the lid from
Pandora's box by abolishing the fear of eternal punishment.

The major religious denominations, in fact, regarded
the Universalist as even worse than the infidel or deist,
as being completely lacking in religion and morals.12 A
Presbyterian minister from Cassopolis, James McLaurin,
neatly summed up the Calvinistic dislike for the "no—hell“

Universalist in refusing to debate publicly with one of

the challenging Universalist preachers: "The man who would

59
combat a lion may for good reasons decline coming in con-

tact with a skunk."13

Baptists and Methodists likewise
spared no efforts to check the growth of Universalism.
As a Universalist minister angrily explained in 1843, "every
conceivable means has been resorted to by other denomina-
tions to impede our progress“ in bringing Universalism to
Michigan.14 Since the orthodox denominations were positive
that the fear of hell—fire played an important part in
turning sinners to God and establishing His Kingdom on
earth, it naturally was assumed that Universalism would
undermine one of the very foundations of religious belief.
From the point of view of the Universalist, as he
labored to build up his own version of the Kingdom in
Michigan, the feeling was mutual. Groups that preached
eternal punishment were condemned as "Partialists" who
believed that God's love and salvation would save only
part of mankind. The Universalist paper, the biweekly

Primitive Expounder, first published in Ann Arbor in 1843,

 

led the attack in the warfare against the opposing sects.
Editor Richard Thornton regularly used its pages against'
the Baptists and Methodists, sometimes printing expOSES of
every known scandal or sexual irregularity among their
preachers.15 The Methodist Church was accused of having

a church aristocracy as well as being a "slave holding and
slavery defending church," and its members were invited

to "Come out of her, my peOple."16 The great Presbyterian

60

preacher, Charles G. Finney, was castigated in a lengthy
article entitled "He Has Gone!" after his three-week revival
in Detroit. Finney, The Expounder implied, had come to
Michigan only for the money that he could take home with
him.17 Occasionally, it is true, better relations were
maintained with their Opponents. The Kalamazoo River As-
sociation having no meeting place, requested use of the
Baptist Church in Battle Creek in 1847 and "it was promptly,
unhesitatingly and generously granted" with many Baptists

attending the meetings.18

But this case was an exception
to the rule.

William Miller's Seconi Advent doctrine was especially
disliked by Universalists. since it predicted that a God of
Wrath would come to destroy a sinful world. Not only were
Millerites "Partialists;" they were Partialists of the
worst kind, who called for a premillennial burning of
sinners. Richard Thornton wrote with some delight in
November of 1844, over a month after the day set by the
Millerites for the end of the world, that he noticed the
world had refused to burn. "The second advent of Christ,"
he explained, "is already passed. . . . The day of judg-
ment commenced at the setting up of the gospel kingdom,
and is now progressing. . . ." The Millennium would come,
not with the appearance of Christ from the heavens, but in

the promoting of the Redeemer's Kingdom here on earth.

Thornton believed that Millerism had led to much insanity

61

and suicide and that it was merely an intensification of
the doctrine of "future and awful judgment" taught by all
the Partialist churches.19

Most of the reforms of the age were accepted by
Universalists as harbingers of the coming Millennium,
however. As an avowed perfectionist and reform church,
the Universalists aspired to be the vanguard of all the
latest ideas in the advancement of mankind. They accepted
temperance reform wholeheartedly, although they often de-
plored the way the subject was presented by itinerant lectur-
ers. During the Washingtonian crusade in Jackson, The Ex-
pounder explained that the celebrated Dr. Hume "entertained,

amuzed, [sic] and disgusted the peOple upon the cause of

temperance; spicing his discourse with that darling pet of

 

partialism--endless misery."20 The antislavery reform was
also readily adopted by Michigan Universalists. In 1843,‘
editor Thornton claimed that every Universalist in Michigan
was a'Tull blooded abolitionist."21 Upon the subject of
Sabbath-breaking Michigan Universalists were just as
vehement as the Congregationists or the Presbyterians.
Thornton angrily declared that if the Central Railroad did
not stop running cars and employing hands On the Sabbath,
the people should rise and "endeavor to enforce the laws

of the land."22 Nearly every reform, even if originating

from the Partialist churches, was taken up by Universalists.

62
Sunday Schools, Tract and Bible Societies were not to be
"rejected because others have abused them."23 It was dif-
ficult for the Universalist denomination, founded upon the
principles of regeneratkn and progress, to reject any re-
form advocated during the thirties and forties.

The Universalist reformation was in most respects

an attempt to restore Christianity to "its original purity."

 

The owners of The Primitive Expounder established the paper

to be "Devoted to'Theoretical and Practical Religion, ex-

pounded in its Primitive Purity, Excellence, and Loveliness."24

The Millennium, coming from the great social and religious

reforms of the era, would accomplish the restoration and

purification. If the Millennium depended upon progress,

then surely it was being hastened in the frontier State

of Michigan where improvement was rapidly taking place. As

J. H. Sanford, one of the state's leading Universalist

evangelists, wrote in The Expounder: "Surely Zion is

awakening from her slumbers." The "waste places" of the

Zion were being built up, and the Redeemer's Kingdom was

soon to be established.25 A few years later Sanford used

less restraint in his millennial predictions: "The signs

of the times are propitious," Sanford exclaimed, "and we

have every reason to believe a new era is about to burst

upon the Christian world."26
Most Michigan Universalists believed that the Gospel

Kingdom had been instituted by Christ Himself at the Day

of Pentecost. The duty of the Universalist Church which

63

was the Gospel Kingdom according to their interpretation,
was to preach the principle of universal love to all people.
Christian Universalism must be accepted before mankind could
be reunited for a Millennium of peace and mutual love.27
God had been working slowly but surely through the divine
process begun at Pentecost. The Universalist could see the
great changes and progress being made in his time, which
convinced him that the Millennium itself was drawing close.

The Universalist leaders and editors never expected
unanimity upon the question of the Millennium, however.
One layman wrote to Richard Thornton dissenting from the
Opinion that Christ had already returned at Pentecost. He
believed that Christ's Coming would be at the end of the
“present dispensation" and would last until Christ "hath
subdued all things to himself." Thornton replied that
"this lay brother fails to convnuxeus that his positions
are correct, yet we trust they will be read with candor."28

The Universalist anxiety to hasten the Kingdom of God
in Michigan through progress and perfection, carried them
into UtOpian Socialism of the French reformer, Charles
Fourier. His plan of "scientific" socialism would supply
a model for the perfect society, as well as provide a short-
cut to the Millennium. Michigan's flirtation with Fourier-
ism, the Alphadelphia Association, located near Galesburg,

stemmed directly from the Universalist desire for the mil-

lennial perfection of society.

64

The theories of Fourier, so popular in America in the
1840's and accepted by many Michigan Universalists, were
definitely millenarian. Charles Fourier, who died in 1837,
had taught that all the "pygmy labor" of individual reforms
in the past was fruitless: "The human race is going to be. . .
delivered altogether." There was a plan of God, he believed,
adivine social design that would secure the happiness Of
mankind: "There exists. . . for man a . . . Divine Social
Order to be established on the Earth for the regulation of
the Social and Domestic Relations of the Human Race." Since
Fourier was sure that he had discovered this divine plan,
he advised his fellowmen to build no more new buildings,
since all existing structures of the world would have to be
altered to fit the new order. He believed that all his
system of evolutionary socialism needed was a chance to
show the world its virtues; then mankind would rally to
it. His system, which he named the Phalanx System, would
be "the most astonishing and most fortunate event which
can take place on the globe. . . the sudden passage from
social chaos to universal harmony."29

Albert Brisbane, American student of Fourier and
the leading exponent of the Fourieristic philosophy and
experimentation which swept over the country in the 1840's,
admitted that Fourier's "Divine Social Code" was the "reign
of Social Harmony—-the reign of what is called, in the
language of religion, the Kingdom of God." Fourierism,

continued Brisbane, would bring the

65

Advent of a future Social Harmony on Earth . . . the

Millennium which has been prophesized in all ages,

and is the realization of the great prayer of Christ-

ianity: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth

as it is in Heaven."30
Afitbert Brisbane shared in his master's millennial dream:

A great vision floated before my mind: it was the

universal association of humanity on this earth. . . .

I saw this associative humanity working with order,

with concert, to realize some great purpose.

. . . I saw it [this new humanity] a child of God,

a god itself upon its planet. . . . I saw on one

globe, as on all the globes, these divine humanit-

ies carrying out in detail the incomprehensible

harmonies of the universe.31
Urliwrersalists in Michigan would accept this visionary scheme,
Sidncze it emphasized a so-called scientific evolution, re-
tELiiued private property ownership, and kept relatively free
frtann religious skepticism. Perhaps, they thought, Fourier—
iSrn was to be the society of the future.

Nevertheless, Hosea Ballou warned the readers of the
HILiliersalist Review, belatedly it is true, against the
dallgyers of Fourierism.' Improvement of society was not its
Ohhj€3ct, he stated, but rather the entire abolition of the
existing system. If the present society was being perfected,
there was little reason to destroy it, Ballou argued. He
CCNJILd not agree with the Fourierists that the complete'
deveelopment and realization of the phalanx system was "the
Com ' - - - 32

:Lng of Christ in the glory of his Father." By the
tinnee Ballou issued his warning, however, the Universalists
lr‘ Ddichigan had already launched what turned out to be the
Orlliy Fourierist phalanx in Michigan, one of some twenty-

fiA’Q such experimentsnationally.33

66

The Alphadelphia experiment was not officially spons-
ored or promoted by the Universalist Church of Michigan
or even by any one of its societies, and from the time of
its organization, in spite of the Alphadelphian founders'
repeated claims to the non-denominational character of the
phalanx, there was a great deal of confusion about Universal-
is t_ involvement in the project. The Universalist paper,
The Primitive Egpounder, was edited at Ann Arbor by Univers-
alist ministers who used its pages to promote the new
socialist scheme in Kalamazoo County.

When The Primitive Expounder was moved from Ann
Arbor to Alphadelphia, though it was privately owned by
the two Universalist editors, it only increased the con-
qu ion. The editor of the eastern socialist paper, TE
w, made it understood in letters to The Expounder's
Office that Fourierism absolutely was pp}; Universalism.

con\fersely, The Expounder owners later had to answer charges

 

that their paper had become entirely Fourieristic. T113
W editor could foresee dangers of sectarianism and
Warned that it might wreck Alphadelphia. As it turned

out; . the Association yap mainly a Universalist concern.
“any of the leaders, including founder Henry R. Schetterly.
Were Universalists, and a large share of the preaching at
Alphadelphia was done by Richard Thornton, James Billings.

and E. Wheeler, all prominent pastors of that denomination.

 

67
An extract from a letter of James Billings of Ann
Zkrbor to H. R. Schetterly at Alphadelphia throws some
Jright on the sectarian feeling which soon came to exist in
tIie phalanx. Somewhat offended because the Universalist

paper, The Expounder, had been transferred to Alphadelphia

 

Ionic had not been printed yet, the Universalist minister
declared: "I presume there are many members of the assoc-
ijatzion that care but very little whether The Expounder is

pnalalished or not. . . ."34 A year later Calvin White af-

 

fj_rnned the fears of The Future editor:

 

The idea has become general that the association

was formed for aristocratical and dishonest pur—

poses and some supposed it to be an Infidel got up

and some a Universalist concern and some suppose

you were going down under the weight of your own

dishonesty and bad management.35

The allegation of bad management may have been true;

bull there is little doubt about the Universalist domination
Of tile Alphadelphian phalanx. A small slender dark-haired
GEEJL‘I'I‘tan Universalist, Dr. Henry R. Schetterly, a practicing
phl’Stician formerly from New York State, was the controlling

Spj—rfiit of the Utopian organization. He was an effective

Speaker and writer, and his contributions to The Primitive

 

§§Ilcnander show him to have been a man of high intelligence

 

Wltirl a better than average education. Possessing a high
deSIerQ of self—confidence and abundant energy, in a matter

of 'Vleeks the Alphadelphian phalanx was in operation.

68
Dr. Schetterly issued a call through The Primitive

Expounder, and in December of 1843 fifty—six interested

 

individuals met in a schoolhouse at the head of Clark's

Lake in Jackson County for a three—day session. Preliminary

plans were drawn up, a skeleton constitution was adopted,

and a committee, headed by Schetterly,of course, was elected

to view three prospective sites. In January, 1844, The

Expounder ran a notice that on "the first Monday of February

 

next" stock certificates would be issued for a "Fourier

Industrial Association" located near Galesburg on the

Kalamazoo River in Comstock Township. The membership sub-

scription books would be Open at offices in Bellvue, Battle
Creek, Marshall. Comstock, Columbia, Spring Arbor, Ann

Arbor, Franklin, Birmingham, Northville, and Unadilla for

SiX days only.3 In a letter to the Phalanx dated May 20.

1844 . Schetterly stated that $32,000 was paid to secure

2oBl4 acres of land, but that the land—debt was only $5,776

since most of the land was invested as stock. He also added

enthusiastically, that the number of members had increased

to "Upwards of 1,300, [both resident and non—resident] and

more than one hundred applicants were rejected, because
there seemed to be no end, and we became almost frightened

at the number."37 To help insure the success of the in-
Stit:ut:ion, only those were selected who could produce qualif-

ie , . . .
d vOuchers for their "moral character and industrial habits."38

69

Apart from economic details, the constitution of the
Alphadelphia Association, as finally adopted and signed
by fifty-one heads of families, concerned itself largely
with health, education, and moral reforms. The new assoc—
iation, called Alphadelphia or "First Brotherhood/‘was to be
a domestic and industrial association governed by a president,’
a vice-president, a secretary-treasurer, and twelve directors.
Capital stock, to be divided into fifty dollar shares.
was set at $200,000 but could be increased to $2,000,000
by a majority vote of the members and stockholders. After
payment of taxes, insurance, and repairs, one-fourth of the
remaining money was to be paid to the stockholders and three—
fourths to the laborers, annually. Payment for labor .
would be "in proportion to the labor and skill bestowed.”
Provisions were made for a percent of profits to be set
apart for general educational purposes; a public library
and a seminary would also be established. Article nine
included several sections to safeguard religious rights:
"Every member. . . shall enjoy his own religious and polit-
ical opinions, unmolested and inviolate. . . ." and "shall
not be compelled to contribute in anyway to the support
of religious worship. . . ." All denominations of Christ-
ians would be accomodated. One of the by-laws allowed a
person the use of horses and wagons "on the particular day

of the week each denomination have established as their

Sabbath. . . ." Another section of the Constitution set

70
up a Council of Arbitration to settle disputes among members.
This council finally became inundated with complaints and
seems never to have functioned smoothly.39
The Association put their dream into Operation in

July, 1844. An official newspaper, The Alphadelphia Tocsin,
was printed, sawmills ran day and night to provide the lumber
for building a "Mansion House," and farming commenced on

the "domain." The first entry in both the Journal and the

Dazbook was made July 23, 1844 and the last one on May 2,

 

1848 and April 30, 1848. respectively. The millennial ex—
periment was never a success.however, even from its very
beginning.

One of the first disputes arose, according to Dr.
Schetterly, from a disagreement between a Mr. Tubbs, who
Wanted the Association buildings to be located on the land
he had owned, and many of the other members, who wanted to
build on the railroad side of the river. Tubbs was voted
down, but from this time on he cautioned all interested
people against investing at Alphadelphia. Schetterly felt
that "this disagreement at the commencement of the exper-
iment threw a damper on it. from which it never entirely
recOvered."40

The truth is, the disease was of more serious nature
than Dr. Schetterly's statement indicates, for Alphadelphia

had proved to be a consumptive patient from the day the

first stock was issued. Members charged each other with

71
laziness and outright dishonesty. The Council of Arbitrations
vvorked overtime trying to smooth over accusations of steal-
ing tools and grain. From reading these Reports, one gets
a general impression of irregularity and disorderliness.
E- S. Camp, who had helped draft the Constitution, angrily

criticized the directors for having given James Billings a

commission as agent for the Tocsin. The Constitution, he

asserted, was written "to protect the interest of every
individual member of the Association and to establish, as
far as possible a perfect equality in the distribution of
the income." The profit motive had very early caused a
sharp dispute in the organization.42 Billings for his part
resigned as agent and attributed the dispute to "sectarian
Prejudices." Another writer in The Expounder gave as his

reason for the failure: "The ruin was wrought in the begin-

ning. by receiving some improper members whose only object

43
Was to make money. . . ." The venture was so unsuccessful

that many years later when questioned, one old Alphadelphian
would only say, "When we left we banished every memory of
the Old domain from our minds and have not wished to recall
them - " Another answered: "Too many large families, poor
and hungry, who could do no work, or were incapable of
SuI>E>C>rting themselves, got among us and were a continual

eXpense--a hole in the meal bag from first to last, to

t . .
he aSSOCIation. "44

72

Jealousies arose, inequalities were charged in the
division of the work, and members started dropping away.
Schetterly attempted a merger with the Integral Phalanx,
Sangamon County, Illinois, but after an exchange of several
communications, he received reply which read: "We are almost
certain however that a union could not be affected between
us ; in consequence, of our different Opinions in relation
to our Rules of Progress."45 He finally gave up the enter—
prise as being completely hopeless. The Daybook contains

a notation in June, 1846: "June 21, Dr. Schetterly ran

"46

away this day Sunday the let 1846. Yet Schetterly's

faith in a Fourieristic Kingdom of God on earth must have
waned but little, since ’he joined the LaGrange Phalanx near
Mongo, Indiana, and later the Wisconsin Phalanx at Ripon,
Wisconsin.47 Such then, was the fate of Fourierism in
Michigan.

In the realm of philosophy, the founders and members
Of the Alphadelphia society knew exactly what they were
about, as their records prove. Briefly stated, the Alpha-
delphians were trying to establish "one fond brotherhood"
in Michigan, not as an escape from the problems of society,
but as an example for the remaking of society. The exist-
ing evils of society must be remedied by "making man the
friend and brother of his fellowmen." As S.A. Webster wrote

to H. R. Schetterly: "The evils for which we seek a remedy

73
is in the heart of society, and not its extremities, and
it is to the heart that we must apply the cure."48 A
friend of Schetterly's and member of the House of Represent—
atives at Detroit, George Ecklee, who introduced the Alpha-
delphian Constitution in the House, wanted all the members
of the Association to know "they stand in a more important
position in regard to mankind and future ages than did their

forefathers in 76."49

The problem they faced was to build

a Utopian organization so near to perfection that Michigan

and eventually the nation would follow suit, and the Spirit

of God would fill the land with peace and righteousness.
Strong religious overtones have been evident in

nearly all communitarian schemes. Arthur Bestor found

that most communitarian sects in America held Millenarian

50 In fact, millennialism and UtOpian-

beliefs in some form.
ism are found hand in hand throughout the entire history

of Western civilization. Historians have noticed this
connection between millennialism and Utopianism, but yet

not much has been written about it. It is evident that both
religious and secular men were in quest of the same “heavenly

"51 John Humphrey Noyes, whose knowledge and past

city.
experience with American socialism surpassed most men of

the nineteenth century, claimed that while the religionists
had for their great idea the regeneration of the soul, the

Socialists wanted to regnerate society, which was the soul's

environment. The two schools were too divergent, however,

74
to work together successfully. He hOped "that the next
phase of national history will be that of Revivalism and
Socialism harmonized and working tOgether for the Kingdom
of Heaven."52 This combination wa§_found to a large degree
in a Universalist-Socialist union at Alphadelphia, yet the

experiment still failed.

Some of the private correspondence to H. R. Schetterly

 

shows the strong millennial undercurrent in the thought of
Michigan Fourierists. William Jones, a Universalist con-
vert to Fourierism, wanted to sell his property and join
the phalanx but could not find a buyer for his property.
He lamented that he had not had the opportunity of meeting
Dr. Schetterly and
becoming acquainted with what I consider the great
object of man's creation and that for which our
Saviour laboured to establish while on earth; the
social enjoyment and the promotion of happiness and
brotherly love while on earth; and revealing to the
mind the butiful [sic] prospects that awaits us in
the future.53
A few months later, Schetterly received a letter from a
borad-minded subscriber to the phalanx newspaper, The
.Alphadelphia Tocsin, remarking on the millennial spirit in
many other movements. From Schetterly's previous articles

in the paper, Benoni Pixley, from Portage Lake, Michigan,

concluded that:

75

. . . Mohamedanism, Millerism, and Mormonism, were
blessings of no less importance than Christianity--
And why indeed, may we not reasonably conclude that
all these things are designed, by an inscrutable
providence, to advance the intellectual, moral,
physical and social interests of man? Taking this
view of the subject, I cannot doubt but your doctrines
and undertakings, will result in much good to the
human race. 'Andif Fourierism is destined to prove a
panacea for all our social evils, it will be hailed
by philanthropists, in every land, with unbounded
joy, as a renewed assurance that the Creator still
remembers the work of his hands, and will, in the
end, redeem them from every evil that their own mad-
ness and folly brought upon them.54

By the late summer of 1845, the handwriting was on
the wall at Alphadelphia. John Caryle, from across the state
line in Illinois, pleaded with Schetterly to hold on, since
"Suffering humanity requires that all who have put their

hands to this Noble work of God, should perservere [sic]

 

unto the egg. Victory is certain--for 'If God is for us,
who shall be against us.'" Caryle found out that victory
was not certain, for Alphadelphia had, in fact, collapsed.
Yet he would not give up his hope for the Kingdom:

You have undertaken this great work, a work when
accomplished will cause all Heaven to rejoice,

and Earth keep Jubilee, eighteen hundred years

has expired since the command "after this manner
pray ye, thy Kingdom come thy will be done on earth
as done in heaven"[.] If heaven is a transcript

of earth/as it now is/who wishes to go there,[.]
Millerism has had its day, and the earth still re-
mains [.] "All things remain as they were" [.]

to my limited perception, I can see a god in

this great Excitement, a Spirit of inquiry, a
thirst for true light, a desire for Truth. . . which
is destined to moraly [sicg renovate the world, and
exhibit the King of Zion.5

 

 

76
Both the Michigan Universalists and the Alphadelphians

were highly millennialistic. The Kingdom of God on earth,
which they believed would commence in their time, became an
integral part of their dream for Michigan. God was perfect—
ing the world, they assured themselves; Universalism and
Utopian Socialism were to be tools for His hands. The Un—
iversalist hOpe for perfection, however, did not end with

the failure of Fourierism in Michigan; the Millennial Hope

was simply diverted to other channels.

 

FOOTNOTES

1. In Oliver Wendell Elsbree, The Rise of the Mis-
s¢i<>nary Spirit in America, 1790-1815 (Williamsport, Pa.,
1928), p. 126.

 

 

2. The Universalist Quarterly and General Review,
I (1844), pp. 394-95.

 

3. Ibid., IV (1847), pp. 146—147, 151.

4. John G. Adams, Fifty Notable Years: Views of
_§11€3.Ministry of Christian Universalism (Boston, 1882), pp.
50) 55’ 32].. .

 

5. Richard Eddy, Universalism in America, II (Boston,
1894) , p. 479.

 

. 6. Frank S. Mead, Handbook of Denominations in the
€§§ijged States (second Revised ed. Abingdon Press, 1961), p.

 

 

7. Timothy L. Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform:
fEESEgLican Portestantism on the Eve of the Civil War (New.
York,1swd.p.2a

 

8. Eddy, Universalism in America, pp. 384—385.

 

9. The Primitive Expounder, July 1, 1847.

 

10. Ibid.; Eddy, Universalism, pp. 384-385.

 

11. The Primitive Expounder, October 16, 1845.

 

XXI 12. The Home Missionary, I (October, 1828), p. 103;
f 1:1: (January, 1845) pp. 206—207; Maurice-F. Cole, Voices
-¥E£221_the Wilderness (Ann Arbor, 1961), pp. 87, 112.

 

 

13. The Primitive Expounder, September 23, 1847.

 

14. Ibid., September 23, 1843.
15. For instance see Ibid., January 28,1847.
16. Ibid., August 12, 1843.

17. Ibid., April 8, 1847.

77

78

18. .gpgg., June 4, 1847.

19. .lbid., December 23, 1843; November 28, 1844.

20. gpgg,, October 28, 1843; April 2, 1845.

21. .gpgg., July 15, 1843.

22. l;p;g., April 8, 1847.

23. _£Qid., September 23, 1847.

24. .l§$§°' January 11, 1843.

25. .lbid., July 29, 1843.

26. Ibid., February 25, 1847.

27. .gpgg., January 24, July 15, 1843; March 9, 1849.

28. Ibid., November 28, 1844.

29. Charles Fourier in F. M. Warren, Ten Frenchmen
of the Nineteenth Century (Chautauqua, N.Y., 1804), p. 69;
Albert Brisbane, The Social Destiny of Man (New York, 1857),
p. 101; Arthur Eugene Bestor, Jr., Backwoods Utopias; The

§§ctarian and Owenite Phases of Communitarian Socialism in
America: 1663-1829 (Philadelphia, 1950), p. 13.

 

 

 

 

30. Brisbane, Social Destiny, p. 107.

 

31. Redelia Brisbane, Albert Brisbane: A Mental
Biography with a Character Study (Boston,1893), pp. 208-209.

32. The Universalist Quarterly and General Review,
II (1845), pp. 52, 53, 56, 73; see also Horace Greeley's
rebuttal in Ibid., pp. 136-147.

33. Bestor, Backwood's Utopias. PP. 238-239; histor-
ies of the Alphadelphia Association are found in:.The Kalama-
zoo Gazette, January 24, 1937, (Centennial edition, Part
II, p. 16); History of Kalamazoo County, Michigan (Philadelphia,
1880): Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, V
(Lansing, 1884); John Humphrey Noyes, History of American
§9cialisms (New York, 1961, reprint of the 1870 edition),
PP. 388-396.

 

 

 

79
34. James Billings to H. R. Schetterly, September
5, 1844 in Alphadelphfii papers in the Michigan Historical
(Rallections, University of Michigan.

35. Calvin White, Martin, Michigan, to H. R. Schet-
terly, September 29, 1845, in Alphadelphia papers, M.H.C.

36. The Primitive Expounder, January 20, 1844.

 

37. In John Humphrey Noyes, History of American
Socialisms (New York, 1961, reprint of the 1870 edition),
pp. 391, 392.

 

 

38. The Primitive Expounder, March 3, 1844.

 

 

39. Alphadelphia Constitution, Alphadelphia papers,
M.H.C. '

40. Noyes, American Socialisms, p. 394.

 

41. Council of Arbitration Reports, Alphadelphia
papers, M.H.C.

 

42. E. S. Camp to Directors of the Association,
.May 6, 1844, Alphadelphia papers, M.H.C.

43. The Primitive Expounder, March 26, 1846.

 

44. .A. D. P. Van Buren's article in Michigan Pioneer
and Historical Collections, V (Lansing, Mich., 1844), p. 412.

 

45. Secretary of the Integral Phalanx to H. R.
Schatterly, October 21, 1845 in Alphadelphia papers, M.H.C.

46. Daybook, Alphadelphia papers, M.H.C.
47. Van Buren,Michigan Pioneer Collections, p. 411.

48. The Primitive Expounder, October 28, 1843; John
Bliss, Saline, Michigan to H. R. Schetterly, January 30,
1845; S. A. Webster to H. R. Schetterly, September 10, 1844
in Alphadelphia papers, M.H.C.; see also Arthur E. Bestor,
"Patent Office Models of the Good Society," American
Historical Review, LVIII (April, 1953), p. 524.

 

49. George Ecklee, Detroit, Michigan to H. R.
Schetterly in Alphadelphia papers, M.H.C.

50. Bestor, Backwoods Utopias, p. 6.

 

80

51. Earnest Lee Tuveson, Millennium and UtOpia: A
Study in the Background of the Ideas of Progress (Berkeley
and Los Angeles, 1949), preface and passim; Arthur A.

Ekerh, The Idea of Proggess in America, 1815-1860 (New
York, 1944), pp. 139, 146.

52. Noyes, American Socialism, pp. 26, 28.-

53. William Jones to H. R. Schetterly, August 23,
1844, in Alphadelphia papers, M. H. C.

54. Benoni Pixley, Portage Lake, Michigan, to H. R.
Schetterly, January 13, 1845 in Alphadelphia papers, M.H.C.

55. John Caryle, Elk Grove, Illinois to H. R.

Schetterly,August 26, 1845; September 16, 1845 in Alphadelphia
papers, M.H.C.

CHAPTER IV

THE MORMONS AND A STAKE OF ZION

The twenty-five mile wide strip of "psychic highway,"1
as Carl Carmer called it, across the State of New York in
reality extended straight westward into the Territory of
Michigan. After the opening of the Erie Canal, the decade
of the thirties brought hundreds of settlers to lower Michigan
from the "burned over" district in New York. Thrshighway
could also be called a "millennial highway," since this was
the route of millennial ideas to Michigan. The fires of
Mormonism and Millerism, the most radical of all such religious
movements in America, at first burned fiercely in New York,
then swept on toward the frontier of the West.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was,
as the name suggests, an adventist church, composed of the
faithful followers of the Prophet Joseph Smith, a chosen
group of Saints who set out to bring Christ's reign of
righteousness in America. The history of the Mormon King-
doms in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois is a familiar one, but
the coming of the Saints to Michigan is not so well known.
This story of Michigan Mormonism is composed of two phases.
The first one is that of Mormon proselyting in southern
Michigan. The second phase, the history of the Mormon "King
of Beaver Island/'James Jesse Strang, is nearly fantastic.

81

82

There can be no doubt about the millennial ideas of
Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. Joseph Smith's
parents were of New England stock, moving with ten—year
old Joseph into the "burned-over" area in New York, a com—
mon path for the Yankee emigrant from the New England
states. Here, at the very fountainhead of revivalism and
religious excitement in America, young Smith seems to have
absorbed, or at least have been well aware of, every pre-
vailing millennial doctrine.

Smith's first major revelation, The Book of Mormon,

 

was relatively measured in its hopes for the Millennium,
but his subsequent pronouncements were strongly adventistic.
His revelations mention the Millennium over and over again,
with wars, crop failures,and signs in the heavens as portents
of the coming event. He warned his followers "to be prepared
in all things against the day when tribulation and desola—
tion are set forth upon the wicked" for the hour was nigh
when "I will burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that
wickedness shall not be upon the earth. . . ."2 In this
same revelation given to Smith in September, 1830, he des-
cribed the Millennium after the destruction of the wicked:

For I [Christ] will reveal myself from heaven with

power and great glory, with all the hosts thereof,

and dwell in righteousness with men on earth a
thousand years, and the wicked shall not stand.

83
Then the redeemed would reign on earth with Christ for
a millennium, "Satan shall be bound and when he is loosed
again, he shall reign for a little season, and then cometh
the end of the earth."4 The Coming, it was plain, was to
be premillennial; the inhabitants of the world would grow
continually more evil, with, of course, the exception of
the Saints. The Saints would be warned of the approaching
day because of earthquakes, hail storms, and signs in the
heavens--"the sun shall be darkened, and the moon be turned
to blood, and stars fall from heaven."5 The Advent would
usher in the great Millennial Sabbath--a beginning of the
seventh thousand years in which the Lord God would "sanctify
the earth, and complete the salvation of man and judge all
things. . . ."6 Joseph Smith was never as definite as
William Miller would be on the precise time when the great
event would take place. A direct revelation from God told
him that it would occur during his lifetime, however. He
prayed earnestly to know the time, but was told, "Joseph
my son, if thou livest until thou art eighty-five years
old, thou shalt see the face of the son of Man: therefore
let this suffice and trouble me no more on this matter."7
In a prOphecy given March 14, 1835 he affirmed that "even
fifty-six years should wind up the scene."8 Millennialism,

indeed, formed a strong foundation for Smith's new religion.

84

The evidence shows that this millenarian hOpe was
precisely the pulling power of early Mormonism. Smith's
biographer, Fawn Brodie, put it succintly in stating that:

Many Mormon converts had been caught by the contagion
of millennialism and saw in this rise of the new
prOphet, with his private and mysterious illumination,
final evidence of the impending arrival of Christ.
Many sprang to Joseph's cause hOping to stand at
his right hand at the Judgement Day. And since Joseph
himself was infected with the millennial spirit, he
encouraged this sentiment.9
Significantly, Smith's first important convert was Sidney
Rigdon, a former Disciples preacher with an intense mil-
lennial belief. The Prophet was simply capitalizing on a
long tradition of millennialism, bringing it to a head,
even as William Miller would do in preaching an even more
millennial urgency in 1843-44. Joseph Smith, long before
the peak of Millerite activity, reinforced the Expectation,
by making it coincident with his own career on earth.

The "gathering,"--that is to say the assembling of
the Saints to a place of refuge which was to precede the
coming of Christ--, is of vital importance in Mormon mil—
lennial doctrine. Christ would not come, according to
Mormon belief, until the Saints were gathered into a place
of refuge. This first step in millennial progression made
them buy and build "with a kind of desperate haste lest the
day of the Lord's Coming find their lamps untrimmed."lo

Christ was to return to rule from his two capitals in Zion

and in Jerusalem, following the restoration of the ten tribes

85
of Israel.11 While other millenarians set the time for the
Millennium, Mormons specified the exact place Zion was to
be located in America, where Christ's government would be
established. The Saints would eventually take over the
country, even the whole world, with Christ in person as their
King. Therefore, the "gathering" as William Mulder has
written, was the unifying theme of Mormonism.12 The as-
sembling of the Saints was only the preparatory event to
the establishment of the personal, literal reign of God on.
earth, however. The way must be made ready for the Lord
by bringing the Saints to Zion from all places in the world.
And while it is true that Michigan was not envisioned by
Smith as the place to build Zion, as was Jackson County,
Missouri,or Nauvoo, Illinois, Mormons could see the rapidly
settling Michigan territory, with its background of Yankee
stock, as an excellent field for proselyting followers.
From their headquarters in New York State and Kirtland, Ohio,
the Mormons would gather God's peOple from a now easily ac-
cessible Michigan on their way westWard to the appointed
place on the "borders of the Lamanites."

Aside from the fact that most of the settlers to
Oakland County, Michigan, were from the'burned-over district,"
Joseph Smith had an even stronger reason to preach his
millenarian ideas in Michigan. Stephen Mack, the founder
of the thriving young mill-town of Pontiac, was an uncle

of the Mormon prOphet. Stephen Mack had died in 1826, but

86

he had left behind many relatives in Oakland County, includ-
ing his wife and twelve children, who, Joseph knew, must
be saved from destruction at the coming of Christ.13

Pontiac was being afflicted with a spiritual unrest
which would help make Mormonism appear even more attractive
to people who already believed in the imminence of Christ's
return. The Presbyterian Church of Pontiac was rent with
schism. Isaac Ruggles,14 the energetic Home Missionary
with Congregational designs, had succeeded in breaking the
Presbyterian Plan of Union Church there, and in forming a
Congregational group. There remained much bitter feeling,
and with the unsettled state of affairs, the Mormons .
found an attentive audience to their new doctrine. There-
fore, from a combination of reasons, Oakland County proved
to be a natural field for successful Mormon proselyting.
Pontiac would be home base for zealous missionaries in

Michigan to call in the true believers.15

In 1834, Joseph Smith himself visited Pontiac,l6
accompanied by his father and his brother Hyrum, as well

as the Three Witnesses to the plates authenticating the

Book of Mormon, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin

 

Harris. With this top-level visit, one begins to see the
importance of Michigan to the founders of the Mormon
Church. Not only relatives, but many additional converts

could be won here, Smith realized. There is little wonder

87

at the impression made on the town of Pontiac by Mormonism
during these early years, since the entire Smith family
(the father, mother, Joseph, and Hyrum), the Three Witnesses,
and most of the leading missionaries had all been frequent
visitors. As for how the people of Pontfiuzfelt about their
distinguished guests, Edward Stevenson, a young man who
went to Utah with the Mormons, believed "that we were
blessed above kings, rulers and potentates of the earth."17
Meetings were held and large crowds turned out to hear the
preaching of Smith and the testimonies of the Three Wit-
nesses. A non-Mormon resident of Oakland County recalled
many years later the great stir caused by the new religion
in their early years of Mormonism:

The spread of the new faith seemed to be a contagion;

neighborhood meetings were held every day, and new

converts announced. Some of the converts claimed to

have received a new inspiration and to speak in un-

known tongues. My father became an early convert

and was received into the church. My mother. . . was

also baptized. . . .18
Altoqether, at least fifty persons in and around Pontiac
abandoned their homes and departed this small frontier com-
munity for Zion.19

Mormon activity was not limited to Oakland County

alone. Churches were established also in Lapeer, Wayne,
Livingston, Washtenaw, and Lenawee Counties. By the 1840's
in the western part of the state there was extensive Mormon
activity in St. Joseph, Branch, and Kalamazoo Counties.
Conferences were held as the Mormons organized their work

and prepared their Saints to gather in the West.20

88

The urge to "gather'I was extremely strong among the
Michigan Saints,21 and this urge was motivated by millenar-
ian ideas. The Saints were in haste to seek refuge at
Zion, for the Second Coming could happen at any moment after
the successful collecting of God's chosen people. Almira
Mack, who had married a Mormon, William Scobey, joined the
Saints in Missouri. Some three years later her mother,
Temperance Mack, also "gathered" there. They both showed
a strong concern for the salvation of their friends and
loved ones back in Pontiac. Notice the anxiety in Almira's
letter to her sister Harriet at Pontiac:

Perhaps some may think me deluded and feel to pity
me, but will soon know the truth of these things, '
for great things await this generation, and it is
for this reason that I feel so anxious for you and
the rest of my friends, for behold the coming of our
Saviour is nigh at hand, and this generation will not
pass away untill [sic] he will appear in his glory
and we ought to be prepared for it that whether in
life or in death we may abide the day, for when he
comes his Saints who have slept in death will arise
and come with him and live on the earth a thousand
years, while the wicked will have to remain in their
graves untill [sic] the thousand years are expired

then they will have to appear before the judgement
seat of Christ.22

Almira, it is quite evident, believed that safety from God's
wrath could only be found at the Mormon settlement in
Missouri.

But safety from the gentiles in Missouri was another
matter. The Mormons moved to Nauvoo, where they were certain
they would see the Kingdom of God on earth. Temperance

MaCk wrote to her daughter that "the judgments of God are

89
about to be poured out upon gll_the inhabitants of the
Earth except those who are gathered together in places which
has [sic] appointed for the safety. . . ."23 Nearly every
letter of Almira and her mother Temperance to their relatives
at Pontiac warned of impending judgment and appealed to
them to seek the Mormon sanctuary. The Mormons sincerely
believed in their mission, as witnessed in the fact that
Temperance, despite her advanced age, and the persecutions
in Missouri and Illinois, never lost her faith in the Mormon
Kingdom of God. She endured the long, hard trek to the
valley of the Great Salt Lake, satisfied that she had at
last. found the Heavenly City.

The PrOphet Joseph, whose revelations spurred the
followers on to build the City of God on earth, never ceased
tOuproclaim the Lord's speedy return. In truth, the main

bdommon motivation to settle and build in the face of seem-
ingly insurmountable obstacles and persecutions, sprang
firom Smith's constant reminders that the Mormon Kingdom of
(Bend was to be established immediately before the Second
4A£TVent, and that it would happen in the Prophet's own life
tilne. Every devoted Mormon believed that the Saints would
51131 see Christ descend to rule from Zion. Nowhere in Smith's
“trlitings is this promise more explicit than in the ordina-
tViCJn of his twelve apostles in 1835. The blessing upon
LYman E. Johnson stated "that he shall live until the
g’Eithering is accomplished. . . and he shall see the Saviour

chDUQEB and stand upon the earth with power and great glory."

90
Heber C. Kimball was blessed "that he may stand unto the
coming of our Lord, and receive a crown intimaKingdom of
our God. . . " Similarly, Orson Hyde's blessing read:
". . . that he may stand on the earth and bring souls till
Christ comes." John F. Boynton's blessing was the most em-
phatic on the subject:
Thou shalt lead the elect triumphantly to the places
of refuge. . . Thou shalt stand in that day of
calamity when the wicked shall be consumed, and pres-
ent unto the Father, spotless, the fruits of thy
labor. Thou shalt overcome all the evils that are
in the world: thou shalt have wisdom to put to silence
all the wisdom of the wise; and thou shalt see the
face of thy Redeemer in the flesh.24

Then Joseph Smith was murdered. The Millennium
evidently was not to begin during his lifetime. Confusion
reigned among the Saints after Smith's assassination,
since Smith had not clearly specified a successor in the
event of his death. Mormon leaders realized that the
Prophet's death on June 27, 1844, brought not one but two
great problems, the problem of church government and leader-
ship, and the question of where the Saints should settle to
escape gentile persecutions. The first problem was of more
immediate importance to the then leaderless Saints.

The Mormon Church in general was thrown into confusion
at the death of their leader. The Michigan Saints seemed
completely paralyzed, but there was no confusion in the
mind of newly-converted Mormon, one James J. Strang. He

appeared at a conference held at Florence, Michigan, in

July, 1844, and announced that before Joseph Smith's death,

91

(E)

Smith had appointed him to be successor and prophet. Th
Michigan conferences, who were already leaning toward the
Twelve Apostles at Nauvoo for leadership, took a dim View
of Strang's pretensions. At Florence, the elders Crandall

Dunn and Harvey Green, who were the presiding high priests

. . . . 1 . . 2 5
for Michigan, immediately denounced 11m as an impostcz.

Strang, ho ever, persisted in the claim that he was the

Willi

[1. J
v

heir to Smith‘s prephctic position and that he tas fu
the Mormon Prophet's revelations and its :uctians.
To a large ertent he did follow Sm-th‘s example.

—’

the Scxirtures, frllwW-

1

F’.

He used a literal interpretation 0
ing tin: law CH3 the Olrl'Tesgameil,c:husely, emsaiid Smitl .
Adultery vas pnnishabl: by death in Smith's Zion as we,
later in Strata‘s Kincdom. I: accoxaa C: with Old Teeta—

ment law, the whippinq post was also used. Poly ami, tro,
which Strann first denouxced but later ac:cpted Tull . ham
been promulgatid by Smith s yeielatio s. A titti v st—
tem and the s “eras—day Sabbath, accepted by St:a 1 Mt

~ . .:.1 '_..., 1 .\.~»‘\~1, ." 11 .. t '- ,.
doubt tame rlbm a literal renderinv 01 Old Tes an kt rah

Ur‘
"—V’
r— .1
fl}

dlftCth considerably from Smith's. His diary re
he tu;xed {ram the ”tistorteu, uncouth, ann b ohe; fiCI s
of man towaid ”the stars :or light and the works a? nature

for instructior.” In a m stical illumiratibi he found the

92

darkness dispelled: the shades retired: the il-

lusive works of man disappeared as I passed on, and

the Spirit of Nature moved me with a holy inspira—

tion. The sun had not yet appeared nor the moon

arisen in the east but there was a glory in the light

shades of evening, like Milton's twilight in heaven.28
With the exception of his diary entries, however, Strang
was careful to use the popular names for the Christian deity
in written communications. In most respects the Millennial
Kingdom started by Strang at Beaver Island did bear a strik—
ing resemblance to the one outlined by Joseph Smith just
before his death, if one overlooks Strang's added personal
theological concepts--such as his deity, the "Spirit of
Nature.”

The most obvious parallel to Strang's kingdom was in
Smith's little known inauguration in 1844 as the head of
the temporal Kingdom of God in Nauvoo. Smith believed that
God had given him a personal mandate to establish the kingdom
spoken of in Daniel 2: 44-45.29 It was literally to be a
political kingdom from which Christ would reign as both
spiritual and political ruler of the world during the Mil-
lennium. Smith's campaign for the presidency of the United
States was not just a gesture or an attempt to dramatize
the plight of the Mormons, but a real attempt to assume
temporal power.
Smith had organized a shadow government of fifty men,

a nucleus for the future Mormon world state. And this
Council of Fifty bore close resemblance to Strang's Halcyon

Order of the Illuminati, which was to help govern the Strang-

ite Kingdom of God on earth. Two months after Joseph

93
conciliar govenment was escablished, however, he was assas-
sinated. James J. Strang assumed that he would wear the
crown to commence the new Millennial Kingdom, since he had
a letter from Smith himself to establish "a Stake of Zion"
at Voree, "the Garden of Peace," in Wisconsin.

Strang's motives for setting up his own version of
the Kingdom of God have long puzzled historians. At first
glance, his history both at Voree, Wisconsin, and later on
the Beaver Islands of Lake Michigan simply reveal a Charla—
tan who saw an opportunity for power and jumped at the chance
to take leadership of the Mormons. The more one studies
Strang's papers, books, and periodicals, however, the more
one is convinced of Strang's genius and obvious sincerity.
His hunger for power as a youth, so plainly shown in his
diary,31 was no doubt a motivating factor behind his whole
life's work; yet he cannot be dismissed as a clever imposter
governed only by an unbridled ambition. Probably Strang
will remain an enigma to historians. Nevertheless, his
millennial philosophy furnished a clue.

Strang, like Smith, was a product of the “burned-
over" area of western New York. He was born there, received
rural school education, and studied law. In 1836 he mar—
ried Mary Perce whose sister had married a Mormon and
moved West. Strang and his wife decided to join them and
some other Mormons at a small frontier settlement on the

White River near Burlington, Wisconsin. There Strang, who

94

professed to be a free—thinker, came under the influence

of Mormonism. In February 1844, he journeyed to Nauvoo,
received personal instruction from Joseph and Hyrum Snith
and was baptized by the PrOphet himself. Strang was made
an elder and sent back to Wisconsin to establish a Stake

at Voree, near Burlington. Shortly after Strang's baptism,
Joseph and Hyrum were murdered by a mob on June 27, 1844.

In July, Strang appeared before the Conference at
Florence, Michigan, with his letter from Smith, which, if
construed broadly, would have given the succession to Strang.
He failed, however, to convince the Conference that the
letter was authentic or that he had received the appointment
by an angel, as he claimed. He maintained his claim, none—
theless, and he returned to Voree to gather the Saints into
his "Garden of Peace." Strang managed to attract a good
many Mormons from Nauvoo, as well as from Michigan, many
of them very important in the church. William Smith, pat-
riach of the church and brother of Joseph Smith, joined
him, as did John E. Page, one of the apostles. William E.
Marks, former president of the Nauvoo Stake, and John C.
Bennett, who had been mayor of Nauvoo, both followed Strang.
Although the Strangites never collected a large group of
SedJits, at least not compared to the "Brighamites," the list
(iflnorman dignitaries who joined with them is quite impres-

sive.

95

To establish his right as ruler in the Millennial
Kingdom, at least till Christ came, Strang claimed revela-
tions and visits from angelic beings much as Smith had done.
He was told where to dig up the plates with strange writ-
ing, and how to interpret them with the aid of the magic
stones, Urim and Thummim. To put it briefly, Strang fol-
lowed Smith so closely in the discovery of ancient records
divinely preserved and with divine help in deciphering
them, that Mormons would seemingly have either to deny
Smith or accept Strang. It was a neat trap, but the major-
ity of the Saints at Nauvoo decided to follow the leader—
ship of Brigham Young to a new Zion in Utah.

According to a revelation given to Strang on June

27, 1844, after he had received the controversial letter
from Smith, he was ordered to make Voree a sanctuary for
the oppressed:

While the day of the wicked abideth, shalt thou
prepare a refuge for the oppressed, and for the poor
and needy. Unto thee shall they come, and their
brethren who are scattered shall come with them,
and the destruction of the ungodly shall quickly
follow, for it already worketh.32

With this heavenly message to reinforce the letter of suc-
cession, Strang set out to build the City of God, maintain-
ing that it was the true Zion of the Saviour, and that
Brigham Young did not have divine authority to establish
any other Kingdom. In his first pastoral letter "James

the Prophet" pleaded with the Saints to follow God's leader-

ship:

96
Let not my call to you be vain. The destroyer has

gone forth among you and has prevailed. You are pre-
paring to resign country and houses and lands to him.
Many of you are about to leave the haunts of civiliza—
tion and of men to go into an unexplored wilderness
among savages, and in trackless deserts, to seek a
home in the wilds where the footprint of the white man

is not found. The voice of God has not called you to
this.

Strang urged the oppressed Mormons to flee for safety to
Voree. The gathering of the peOple for the great Millen-
nial Sabbath would be there.33 He realized of course
that the Mormon Church must desert Nauvoo, and he also knew
that the destination this time would have to be a locality
free from gentile persecution. Nauvoo had lost the heavenly
mandate, it was sinful and impure. The Kingdom of God
was to be transferred to Voree, Wisconsin, not just as I'a
Stake of Zion," as Smith had written in his letter, but
"the Stake of Zion." Any other Stake following any other
leader, was simply the work of the devil. As indicated by
a poem in the Strangite paper, the Northern Islander, the
Strangite Mormons never ceased believing that their's was
the true gathering place for God's chosen peOple:
Come up, Oh ye Saints, AlthO'
scattered afar,
and truth will shine forth as a
bright morning star;
and blest Zion redeemed, will

hasten the day,
When sorrow and sighing will flee far away.

34
Zion, it is true, can have many meanings. But the
Strangite Saints knew exactly the Zion they were preparing

for the Millennium. The preparation, or doctrine of pro—

gression, has been an inherent factor in Morman success

97

wherever they have settled. To the Strangites the Millen-
nium was much more than a rosy dream for the future-—it
was a reality. They felt that with the Mormons at Voree
the Saviour had already "commenced his religious and will
soon. . . commence his political kingdom, which last is to
destroy all the power of the devil."35

The Zion at Jerusalem, they emphasized, was not the
Zion from which the deliverer was to come. The Jews for
a certainty, must return "from the North Country" to Pales-
tine and gather at their Zion, but Christ was to return
to the Mormon Zion in North America. Zion in the last
days would be located in the land of America, "on the sides
of the North;" the city of David, or Zion at Jeruselem,
was merely an "auxiliary," and not the principal. And
furthermore, this establishment of a people to a "place
called Zion is an absolute prerequisite to the bringing in
of the kingdom of God,and the attainment of salvation,"
As John E. Page put it, Zion could only mean "the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" since it was "the
only church that receives the gospel theory in all its
doctrine and principles, as Jesus and the apostles preached
it." In an article directed against Universalism, he stated
emphatically that when Christ returned few would be saved,
and the "proud" and the "wicked" would be burned up.36

Despite the strong millennial doctrines of Mormonism,

John Page, speaking for the Strangites, had little use

98

for Millerism. In reviewing a copy of the Advent Herald
he agreed with the Adventists that Christ must come soon.
But the return of the Jews to Palestine must take place
previous to the Second Advent. The Millerites, he decided,
had done nothing but abuse the Bible, since God had never
sent them to make a "midnight cry."37

Much as Miller had done a few years before, the
Strangites sent out missionaries to warn the world of the
impending danger and to gather the true-at-heart into the
Kingdom to await the coming of Christ. The Strangites, as
might be expected, worked especially hard in winning their
own Mormon brothers to their cause, but the Gospel was
delivered to the gentiles as well. Michigan was their prime
target, probably because many of the Voree and Beaver Is—
land schismatics were originally from Michigan. Pontiac,
once again proved to be a center of Mormon activity to—
gether with Bath Mills, Albion, and Jackson. George J.
Adams, Strangite minister, writing from Jackson in July,
1849, announced that there was a "throng inquiring after
the truth." At Albion he preached in a crowded schoolhouse
and in the Methodist Church, and turned the "place upside
down."38 Many in the “great crowds".that turned out to
hear the Mormon preacher, it may be assumed, came only out
of curiosity. Samuel Graham, another itinerant preacher

of Strang's, reported from Albion the following Spring, "at

priest—ridden Albion I preached last evening to a miserable

99
lot of empty benches."39 Strang himself also toured lower
Michigan to win converts to his church. He preached at
Michigan Central College, at Spring Arbor, to large crowds
of peOple, provoking a series of written communications and
a challenge for a public debate from Professor D. M. Graham
from that college.40 The debate never was held, but Strang
was always eager and sure of himself in public disputation.
The Strangite papers contain numerous offers for debate.
Mormons were every bit as aggressive as the Universalists,
who were known for their cocky, belligerent attitude.
Mormon certainty in the coming Kingdom is affirmed

in an interesting article in the Voree paper entitled
”The Kingdom of God" and signed "C. J. D." Charles J.
Douglass was actually Elvira Field, a beautiful young
schoolteacher from Eaton Rapids, Michigan, with whom Strang
had fallen in love. Since he was already married and had
not yet announced his policy on accepting the practice of
polygamy, Strang simply had her disguised as his "nephew,"
and lived with her without benefit of ceremony.41 Elvira,
his first polygamous wife, had learned her millennial les-
sons well:

Ah! is Christ then to reign on the earth? Yes

indeed. When this kingdom [Strangite Mormon] gets

dominion on the earth, then Christ will come and

reign with his saints literally for one thousand

years. Christ's church is established upon the
earth, and his kingdom soon will be. . . ."

100
Furthermore, she maintained that the Kingdom of God was
not within the individual as some claimed, but was a definite
literal kingdom to be established before the coming of the
Son of Man.42
The evidence shows that Strang held the idea of

the Kingdom of God and the Millennium as a kind of a
whip over the heads of his followers. The nearness of
Christ's coming, he undoubtably could see, was a most ef-
fective way of driving his followers to greater and greater
efforts to gather the Saints and to build a temporal King—
dom of God. A sense of doom and approaching judgment was
a chief source of strength. Strang told his followers,

Let me warn you that the time draws near. PrOphetic

events are crowding close upon one another. The

PrOphet Joseph has warned you that these things

shall happen in this generation. Come up to the

places [Voree and Beaver Island] God has appointed;

for the Lord delayeth not his coming; and it shall

be as a thief, when you look not for it.43
He always exhorted his people to "look for the coming of
the Lord Jesus," and knew that his own calling was one to
lead "the church to peace and happiness and preparing a
people for the Coming of the Son of God."44 When the
Temple was to be built at Voree, Strang's revelation from

God was intended to provide the needed incentive for the

task:

101

Therefore come ye all my servants, and bring your

silver and your gold, and your precious stones, and

bring ye timber and stone, and labor with your hands

and your cattle, and build a house unto me, and see

that ye do all things according to the pattern which

I shall show unto my servant James as he shall deliver

it unto you; and make ye a free will offering, and

build a tower of strength unto me upon the hill of

promise; for if ye do all these things, dominion

shall be given unto you, and Daniel the prophet

shall proclaim the Kingdom of God, and shall call

forth the saints to possess it.45

Even though Voree did not turn out to be a "Garden
of Peace" for Strang's Mormons, conflicts widi Gentile
neighbors was not the greatest problem. Much of the land
around Burlington, Wisconsin, had already been pre—empted
by settlers before the arrival of the Mormons, and the Wis-
consin farmers drove hard bargains on resale. Strang
needed more land, especially since his dream of an empire
could not be realized at Voree. At any rate, Strang heard
that Beaver Island in Lake Michigan, just twenty miles off
the Michigan coast, was to be sold by the federal govern-
ment. He acquired the island, and after 1844, settlers came
in a steady stream, although he had originally claimed
that Big Beaver was to be only "the Great Corner Stake of
Zion" with Voree as the main Stake.
After the transfer was made, Strang was crowned

King and announced the will of the Lord in its fullest——
the "Kingdom of St. James." Following the pattern kaid
down by a set of deciphered plates, which he called the

Plates of Laban, Strang proclaimed himself ruler of God's

 

102
new Kingdom which was to be re-established on earth.
The translation of the Plates of Laban was later put into
book form as the Book of the Law of the Lord. As Milo
Quaife has written, the book set forth "a surprisingly
comprehensive framework of theocratic government. . . ample
in scope to serve the needs of a kingdom of whatever size."46
Strang had realized his dream; he was an absolute King.
His legislation regulated polygamy, women's dress, Sabbath-
keeping and a tithing system among many other things. After
implementing these laws, Strang reached a position of power
over his group never achieved even by the Prophet Joseph at
Nauvoo, Illinois, before his death. As a Mormon poet had
written about Strang in 1846:
And the law which Joseph gave,
To the Church, the Saints to save;
Teaching us how we should live
He enforces rigidly.
Precious are his years to come,
While the righteous gather home
For the great Millennium,
Where h[e]'ll rest in blessedness.47
Strang would not live to see his millennium on Beaver
Island nor would any of his Saints. Yet his faith in the
premillennial return of God as set forth in his Book of
the Law of the Lord never wavered:
To this many prophets have borne witness; that in
his latter days, God would gather Israel again upon
their own land, and establish them as an individual
Kingdom. . . .
The whole course of prophecy indicates that the
nations of the earth will not be converted to God-

liness, but that they will increase in wickedness
and be destroyed.48

103
The rules established in Strang's Kingdom were those to
prepare a people for the coming of God. There is little
reason to doubt his sincerity in doing so. The growth of
his colony from 1848 to 1855 to nearly over 2,500 Mormons
testifies to his followers' belief in his prophecies.

In 1856 after several years of bitter relations with
neighboring Gentiles, particularly the Irish Catholic fish-
ermen of Mackinac, Strang was assassinated by three of his
own malcontents. After Strang's death, the sheriff of
Mackinac, who hated the Mormons, demanded that Beaver be
vacated. When a mob appeared to help carry out this order,
the leaderless Mormons fled for their lives from Zion.

Many who did not escape by themselves were crowded on avail-
able steamers and sent into exile, as the mobs confiscated
their prOperty. Perhaps as many as 2,600 Mormons were

driven from the island following the assassination of

Strang. One ship alone took 490 to Chicago, while the steam—

ers Iowa and the Louisville carried large numbers to

 

Detroit. The Saints were scattered in every direction.
Some joined the Brighamites in Utah; others later ended

up with the Reorganized Church in Missouri, but the great
majority probably abandoned all adherence to Mormonism.
Six Strangite Churches still exist today with a total mem-
bership of about 250,50 but the dispersal of the Strangites
in 1856 ended a remarkable attempt at building a temporal

Millennial Kingdom within the United States.

104

Ultimately, according to both Smith and Strang, Mor—
monism was to branch out and establish dominion over the
whole earth. Whether one speaks of a spiritual or a polit—
ical kingdom, the millennial drive was a principal source
of Mormon strength. In either orthodox Mormonism or the
schismatic Strangite group, this force must be reckoned
with in determining motivational factors. As time passed,
however, Mormon adventism received less and less emphasis
until, as William Mulder affirms, "The great events which
seemed so imminent retreated into a future comfortably
remote, and Mormonism settled down to an indefinite post-

ponement of prOphecy."51

FOOTNOTES

1. Carl Carmer, Listen for a Lonesome Drum, A
York State Chronicle (New York, 1936), p. 145.

 

2. Joseph Smith, The Doctrine and Covenants of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Containing the
Revelations given to Joseph Smith, Jun., The Prophet for
the Building up of the Kingdom of God in the Last Days
(Liverpool, 1891), p. 143.

3. 'gbid.

4. .Ipid., p. 181.

5. .rpgg., pp. 180, 186, 187.

6. ‘Ibid., p. 279; James E. Talmadge, The Articles
of Faith (fifth edition, Salt Lake City, 1909), first

edition in 1899, pp. 373-382; Joseph Smith, The Pearl of
Great Price (Salt Lake City, 1888), pp. 45, 74-75, 80.

 

 

7. Smith, Doctrines and Covenants, p. 461.

8. Ibid., p. 461; Millennial Star, xy, pp. 206-
207 in Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History; The Life
of Joseph Smith, the Mormon PrOphet (New York, 1945),
seventh printing, 1963, p. 101.

9. Brodie, No Mans Knows, p. 101.

 

10. Ibid., p. 130.

11. Frank S. Mead, Handbook of Denominations in the
United States (Nashville, 1961), p. 127; Smith, Doctrines
_agd Covenants, pp. 477-488; Thomas F. O'Dea, The Mormons
(Chicago, 1957), p. 35; Smith, The Pearl of Great Price,
p. 122; Talmage, Articles of Faith, p. 380.

 

12. William Mulder, "Mormonism's'Gathering': An
American Doctrine with a Difference," Church History, XXIII
(1954), p. 251.

13. John and Audrey Cumming, The Saints Come to
Michigan (Mt. Pleasant, Michigan,l966), pp. l-2, this small
book is a reprint of "The Saints Come to Michigan,"

 

105

106

Michigan History, XLIX (March, 1965), pp. 12-27; Samuel W.
Durant, History of Oakland County, Michigan (Philadelphia,
1877), pp. 70—71; Stephen B. McCracken, "Fifty Years Ago

and Now," in the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections,
(Lansing, 1890), XIV, pp. 616-618; History of Oakland

County, Michigan, I, (Chicago and New York, 1912), pp. 67-69.

 

 

14. See Cumming, The Saints, p. 3 for an account
of Lucy Mack Smith's interesting conversation with "Father"
Ruggles.

15. For extensive Mormon missionary activities in
Michigan see The Primitive Expounder, February 17, 1844;
Maurice Cole, Voices From the Wilderness (Ann Arbor, Mich.,
1961), p. 87; The Home Missionary, XVII (January 1845),
pp. 206-207; Cumming, The Saints, pp. 4—5 and passim.

 

16. Edward Stevenson, Reminiscenses of Joseph the
Prophet (Salt Lake City, 1933), p. 5 in Cumming, The Saints,
pp. 6-7.

 

 

17. For Smith's visits to Michigan see Joseph Smith,
History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,
Period I, II (Salt Lake City, 1904), pp. 168—169, 253;
Cumming, The Saints, pp. 5-8.

 

18. McCracken, "Fifty Years Ago" in Michigan
Pioneer and Historical Collections, XIV, p. 616.

 

19. Ibid.

20. Cumming, The Saints, pp. 12—15.

 

21. Ibid., p. 8.

22. Almira Mack Scobey to Harriet Mack Whittemore,
Pontiac, Michigan, June 9, 1835 in Whittemore papers, Michi-
gan Historical Collections, University of Michigan.

23. Temperance Mack to Harriet Mack Whittemore,
Pontiac, Michigan, September 16, 1840 in Whiteemore papers,
M.H.C. .

24. Smith, History of the Church, pp. 189-191.

 

25. Milo M. Quaife, The Kingdom of Saint James
(New Haven, 1930), p. 15; Quaife's is the best complete
work on Strang. Others are Oscar W. Riegel, Crown of Glory
(New Haven, 1935); Russel B. Nye, "James Strang," in‘A
Baker's Dozen (East Lansing, 1956), pp. 162-183; "Foreword"
and "Introduction," in Mark Strang, The Diary of James J.
Strang (East Lansing, 1961), pp. vii-xiv.

 

 

 

107

26. Smith, Doctrine and Covenants, pp. 463-474;
for Strang's polygamy see Milo M. Quaife, "Polygamy at
Beaver Island," Michigan History, V (1921), pp.334-355.

 

27. James J. Strang, The Book of the Law of the
Lord (Royal Press, Saint James, Michigan, 1856), pp. 23,
286, 288, 291; Gospel Herald, May 23, 1850; Elizabeth
Whitney Williams, A Child of the Sea; and Life Among the
Mprmons (Charlevoix, Michigan, 1950), p. 65.

 

 

28. Mark Strang, Diary, pp. 35, 36.

29. "And in the days of these kings shall the God
of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed:
and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but
it shall break in pieces and consume these kingdoms and
it shall stand for ever.

Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out
of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces
the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold;
the great God hath made known to the king what shall come-
to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the inter—
pretation therof sure." '

30. Klaus Hansen, "The Making of King Strang: A
Re-examination," Michigan History (XLVI (1962), pp. 201-219;
see also Klaus Hansen, "The Political Kingdom of God as
a Cause for Mormon-Gentile Conflict," Brigham Young Univers-
ity Studies, II (Spring-Summer, 1960), pp. 241—260.

 

 

31. Strang, Diary, pp. 15, 17—19, 32.

32. James J. Strang, The Diamond: Being the Law
of Prophetic Succession and A Defense of the Callingyof
James J. Strapg as Successor to Joseph Smith, and a Full
Exposition of the Law of God Touching the Succession of
Prophets Holding_the Presidencyyof the True Church, and the
Proof that this Succession Has Been Kept Up. (Voree, Wis-
consin, 1848), pp. 6-7; also in Strang, The Law of the
Lord, p. 171.

33. Strang, The Diamond, pp. 10—11.

 

34. Northern Islander, January 9, 1851.

 

35. Zion's Reveille, December, 1846.

 

36. Ibid., August 5, Septmber 2, 1847; Gospel Herald,
November 15, 1849; March 14, 1850.

37.
38.

39.
2, 1850.

40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.

50.

108

Gospel Herald, September 7, 1848.

 

Go§pel Herald, August 16, 1849.

 

Ibid., October 7, 1847; August 16, 1849; May

See Ibid., November 2, 1848.

See Quaife, Kingdom of St. James, pp. 100-112.

 

Gospel Herald, November 15, 1849.

Zion's Reveille, August 26, 1847.

 

Voree Herald, January, 1846.

 

Ibid., July 1, 1846; also in The Diamond, p. 10.

 

Quaife, The Kingdom of St. James, p. 93.

Voree Herald, August, 1846.

 

Strang, Book of the Law of the Lord, pp. 172, 213.

Quaife, Kingdom of St. James, pp. 127, 180-181.

 

Frank S. Mead, Handbook of Denominations in

the United States (Nashville, 1961), pp. 131, 132.

 

51.

Mulder, "Mormonism's Gathering'," p. 260.

CHAPTER V

THE MILLERITES AND THE SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS

The establishment of the Seventh-day Adventist head-
quarters at Battle Creek in the 1850's climaxed the events
which made Michigan a center of millennial faith. In the
village of Battle Creek, Seventh-day Adventists, the most
successful of the several sects of Adventists coming from
the great Millerite excitement of 1843-44, organized pro-
grams in fields of evangelism, education, health, welfare
work, and foreign missions. Regardless of their previous
disappointment in Christ's expected return in 1844, the
Adventists based each of these areas of endeavor upon a
faith that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. The Seventh-
day Adventists did not regard themselves merely as founders
of another church, but as a peOple specifically selected
to fulfill Bible prophecy in preparing the world for the
Second Advent of Christ. No other millenarian group in
the state rivaled the Adventists in millennial expectancy.
From their headquarters in Battle Creek they went forth
to preach their gospel of millennial salvation to every
human on earth. The State of Michigan had become a strong-

hold of Adventism by 1860.

109

110

The Adventist emphasis on health reform ultimately
made of Battle Creek, Michigan, the cereal capital of
the world and "The Biggest Little City in the U.S.A."
As Charles W. Post, the Postum and Grape Nuts pioneer,
stated after cereal manufacture had been established, "A
cablegram from anywhere in the world addressed 'Battle
Creek' will be delivered."1 The city's position as "Food-
town—U.S.A." stemmed directly from the importance Seventh-
day Adventists placed upon diet and good health in prepara-
tion for the Kingdom of God. The principles of Dr. John
Harvey Kellogg, one of the nation's tOp leaders in health
reform, and Ellen G. White, both important leaders in the
Seventh-day Adventist denomination, constituted a medical
and health program which not only made Battle Creek famous
for cereals but also produced the world-known Battle Creek
Sanitarium. As Gerald Carson has written, "What gave the
city its special flavor was the religious-health-medical
doctrine of the Seventh-day Adventists."2

The Michigan Seventh-day Adventist denomination had
roots extending deeply in the Millerite Movement of 1843—44.
William Miller, the leader of the movement, was a self-
educated farmer from Low Hampton, New York. Brought up
as an orthodox Christian, he had turned to Deism, which was
Widely pOpular at the turn of the nineteenth century. After
.the War of 1812, in which he served with the rank of Captain,

he became dissatisfied with his own skepticism and set out

111

to "harmonize all those apparent contradictions in the
Bible to my own satisfaction, or I will be a Deist still."
Using only the Bible and a Concordance to study and compare
"Scripture with Scripture,"he not only was converted to
Baptist orthodoxy, but he became convinced that Christ's
second coming was almost at hand.3 Interpreting the writ—
ings of Daniel in a literal sense, and applying the widely
accepted principle of a year for a prophetic "day" to the
2300-day prOphecy of Daniel 8:14,4 Miller was startled to
discover that the long time period which predicted Christ's
second advent ended, according to his reckoning, around
1843. Furthermore, the Second Coming would be premillennial:

I found the only millennium taught in the word of

God is the thousand years which are to intervene be-

tween the first resurrection and that of the rest of

the dead, as inculcated in the twentieth of Revela-

tion; and that it must necessarily follow thepersonal

coming of Christ and the regeneration of the earth. . . .
There would be no millennium of righteousness and no general
conversion of the world before the Advent; Christ's coming
meant the end of the world for all who were unprepared for
the event. Nor could one expect the conversion of the
Jews as a sign of Christ's coming, as held by many theologians,
On the grounds that "the promises respecting Israel's
restoration are applied by the apostle [Paul] to all who are
Christ's. . . ." According to Miller, the Jews would not

be converted en masse before the Advent, since "spiritual

Israel" included all who accepted Christ's Gospel and

112

awaited His return. After several years of checking
and rechecking his calculations, and after much hesitation
and soul-searching, Miller felt compelled to "go and tell
the world of their danger."5

Miller's ideas soon inspired a movement, spreading
rapidly over the evangelically "burned-over" area in New
York, and fanning out across the eastern part of the United
States. Thousands of people from all denominations turned
out to hear "Prophet" Miller's predictions concerning the
end of the world at the Millennium, either preached by
Miller himself or by one of his converts. Miller did not
desire nor anticipate a separate denomination.6 He hOped
to avoid disturbing denominational structure. As it turned
out, however, his teaching created several new sects of
Adventist churches.

Miller never set a precise day for Christ's appear-
ing, but predicted that the Return would be "about the
year 1843." When the Expectation failed to materialize
during the Jewish year from March 21, 1843 to March 21,
1844, one of the Millerite leaders, Samuel S. Snow, launched
the “seventh—month movement." According to Snow's calcula-
tions, the Lord was to come on October 22, 1844, the calendar
equivalent of the Jewish Day of Atonement for that year.
.Miller as well as his colleagues and followers gradually
accepted this interpretation. The millennial fires burned
'brighter than ever during the late summer of 1844 only to

The extinguished by the day of "the great disappointment."

113

Miller's chronology had differed but little from many
other nineteenth century students of millennialism. His
premillennialism was more dramatic, mainly because it was
more exact. His preaching was especially effective because
he was so positive and forceful in his certainty of Christ's
personal coming for judgment at a definite time.

The Opposition to Miller's premillennial doctrine
increased as the appointed day for Christ's appearing drew
near. Charges by the press that Millerism caused insanity
and suicide became commonplace, and strange stories of
Adventists making white ascension robes to wear while wait-
ing in graveyards and housetOps for the Second Advent were
freely circulated. The question is, then, why would Miller's
doctrine on the Second Advent bring so much opposition and
ridicule if millennialism was an integral part of the
American dream? There appears to have been little doubt
in the minds of most Americans that the Millennium was
coming. Miller therefore, must have held variant ideas
about the nature of the expected Millennium. It is too
easy to believe that Miller's disagreement with orthodox
millennialists consisted of his emphasis on a precise time
for the Advent. Actually, the chasm was much broader than
that; his millenarian beliefs ran counter to at least
two main currents in America's religious thought at that

time.

114

The first was the belief in postmillennialism which
was, without doubt, the prevailing millennialism of the
day. Professor George Bush of New York University wrote
to Miller that, "you have entirely mistaken the nature of
the events which are to occur when those periods expire. . . ."
The great event, Bush argued, was not to be a physical
conflagration but a moral regeneration. The cleansing of
the sanctuary (Daniel 8: 14) was not to be done with fire,
but would be accomplished by a temporal millennium.7 The
Millerite leaders themselves realized that the main issue
was not really the time factor, since many theologians
accepted Miller's "millennial arithmetic," but the main
problem was to refute the common charge against Miller
that: "'You may be right in your dates, but you are mis-
taken in the event. You confuse the Millennium with the
Judgment.”8

But in addition to Opposing the strong tide in favor
of the postmillennial return of Christ, Miller was in con—
flict with the accepted form of premillennialism. Many
premillennialists, perhaps a majority, agreed with post-
millennialists that the Millennium would be "temporal,"
that is, one in which unregenerate mortals existed and in
which there was still sin and repentance. The main dif-

ference between premillennial and the postmillennial positions

115
was the question of whether Christ would return before or
after the Millennium, and whether it would be a spiritual
or literal return.

According to both theories, however, there would be
a probationary period for sinners after Christ's return,
regardless of whether the Second Advent was spiritual or
literal. Miller would not accept any belief in a temporal
millennium.

Miller's millennium offered less hope for the sinner
in the fact that it represented the beginning of an eternal
reign for immortal saints. Christ was literally to come
at the close of human probation before the Millennium.
Judgment would be pronounced at that time, and sinners would
have no second chance for repentance: ". . . I saw con-
clusive evidence to prove the advent personal and pre—mil-
lennial, that all the events which the church look to be
fulfilled in the Millennium before the Advent, must be
subsequent to it. . "9

The earth's surface was to be cleansed with "fervent
heat" at Christ's coming:

After which . . . it is to become the new earth,
wherein the righteous will forever dwell: that, at
his coming, the bodies of all the righteous dead will
be raised, and all the righteous living be changed
from a corruptible to an incorruptible, from a mortal
to an immortal state; that they. . . will reign with
him forever in the regenerated earth: . . . that the
bodies of the wicked will then all be destroyed, and
their spirits be reserved in prison until their

resurrection and damnation at the end of the thousand
years. . . .10

 

116

One can easily see why Miller's belief in the Second
Advent was unpopular in an age of material improvement
and faith in progress and an age in which many churches
were breaking the restraints of the Calvinistic tradition.
Miller's doctrines were not in accord with the temper
of the times. His teaching seemed pessimistic to the aver—
age American, and not a "blessed hOpe" at all. To most
Americans, furthermore, Millerism did not appear very demo-
cratic. Miller soon discovered that his emphasis on a
wrathful God, an imminent judgment day as a last chance for
sinners, and salvation for the few was not at all pOpular
with clergymen. He was probably right when he wrote to
the Millerite editor, Joshua V. Himes after the failure
of the predicted event that, "I then thought, and do now,
that their denial was based more on an unwillingness for
the Lord to come than on any arguments' leading to such a
conclusion."11

After the day of the great disappointment on October
22, 1844, a large_portion of the Millerites returned to
their former churches, but a hard core, including William
Miller himself, could not believe that their interpretation
of Biblical prOphecy was wrong. During this "scattering
time," a time of confusion among second-advent believers,
some of the more devoted Millerites gathered at each others

homes to study and restudy the scriptural promises. It

117
remained for Hiram Edson, a Millerite preacher from Port
Gibson, New York, to supply the most satisfying answer to
what happened on October 22: the cleansing of the sanctuary
was not the purifying of the earth by fire at all; the
sanctuary was not the earth, according to Edson, but was
a "heavenly sanctuary" after which the Old Testament earthly
sanctuary was patterned. The Old Testament sanctuary service
consisted of two phases: the regular services day by day
all year long, and the yearly service on the Day of Atone—
ment. Miller had been right in his calculation but wrong
on the event. On October 22, 1844, Christ had entered the
heavenly holy of holies to begin the "investigative judg-
ment" of sinners. In other words, according to this teach-
ing by Edson, which was accepted by the later Seventh-day
Adventists, the coming of Christ was merely postponed for
a short period until the finishing of the mediatorial work
of judgment in the most holy place of the heavenly sanct—
uary. No one knew how long this work would last, but it
would not take long. The "sanctuary service" was to become
a distinctive teaching of Seventh—day Adventists.

The Advent doctrines of this group of "sanctuary
Adventists" was never again to include date—setting. James
White, prominent leader of the early Seventh-day Adventist
movement, declared,"We are now emphatically in the waiting
time, in the time Of the 'patience of the saints'." He

stated that the Advent message "does not hang on time. . .

118

[for] What we have witnessed, for more than six years past,
of the sad results of setting different times, should
teach us a lesson on this point."12

The other distinctive doctrine added by this group
of Adventists to Miller's belief in the Second Advent, was
thesanctity of the seventh-day Sabbath. This belief, how-
ever, had been gradually spreading among many of the Mil-
lerites even prior to October, 1844.13 The Sabbatarian
tenent of their belief was derived from several sources,
but the Seventh Day Baptists, some of whom were Millerites,
exerted a steady influence on the Second Adventist believ-
ers to keep the seventh day holy. Joseph Bates, the rugged
ex—sea captain and Millerite lecturer from Fairhaven, Mas-
sachusetts, with James White and his wife Ellen, the pil-
lars of the embryo Seventh-day Adventist Church, were all
preaching and writing the "truth" of the seventh day Sab-
bath by 1846. The seventh day Sabbath, in fact, became co-
equal with Miller's original doctrine of the Second Advent.
The "Sabbath message" was interpreted to be the last of
the "three angel's messages" of Revelation 14: 6-11. The
Millerites had proclaimed, this new group of seventh-day
keepers believed, the first angel's message Of the gospel
to the world. When the churches shut their doors to

this message, the second angel's message was given "to come

out of her [the churchesflBabylon"] my peOple" since Babylon

119
had fallen. The Sabbath doctrines were interpreted to be
the third angel's message, and those who did not accept
this truth would receive the "mark of the beast."14
Miller's own View of the Millennium was changed

somewhat by Seventh-day Adventists before their arrival

in Michigan. By the time The Present Truth was established

 

as a pioneer periodical primarily to promote Sabbatarian
views, the Adventists had crystalized their beliefs con—
cerning the Millennium. They differed from Miller basic-
ally on two points: that the redeemed were taken to heaven
during the thousand years, and that the renewal of the earth
occurred at the end of that period. They agreed with Miller
that there was no second chance and that probation ended
with Christ's SecOnd Advent. George W. Holt, prominent
Millerite and later Seventh-day Adventists, explained in

the Review and Herald, the successor to The Present Truth,

 

that the explanation of three specific days answered the
question:

THE DAY OF WRATH. This we believe to be in the
future, proceeding the day of the Lord. . .In this
day the seven vials of God's wrath will be poured
out upon the wicked, which will cause the time of
trouble such as never was, spoken of by Daniel the
prophet.

THE DAY OF THE LORD, OR DAY OF JUDGMENT. The length
of this day is 1,000 years. It is introduced by the
voice of God, the revelation of Jesus Christ, the
binding of satan, and the final deliverence of all
who are found written in the book of life. . . .
Jesus, according to his promise, has come and taken
his children away from this earth, to live and

reign with him in the Holy City, New Jerusalem,

120

while the earth, which has been tilled for 6,000

years, rests, lays desolate, and is left without

an inhabitant.

THE DAY OF ETERNITY. This day is introduced by the

loosing of Satan [after the 1,000 years], the

devil, the resurrection of the wicked, the Holy City,

New Jerusalem descending from God out of heaven,

and the final destruction of the wicked.15
Thus the Seventh—day Adventists deviated evenferther than
Miller from a belief in a temporal millennium. It also
should be pointed out that from the Seventh-day Adventist
standpoint, the Millennial HOpe was definitely a heavenly
hope. The Millennium was made synonymous with Heaven;
since the saints were to leave with Chrkst for the Millen-
nium and would.not return to the earth until after the
thousand years, the Second Advent was equated with Heaven
itself.

The primary leadership for Michigan Seventh—day Advent-
ism was provided by three prominent Millerites: James
White, his wife Ellen Gould White, and Joseph Bates. Only
twenty-one years of age in 1842 when he first heard William
Miller lecture, James White set out to preach the Advent
of Christ in his home state of Maine, and was ordained to
the ministry in the Christian denomination the following
year. After October, 1844, he retained his millennial
beliefs, and, in fact, assumed a dominant leadership among
the Second AdventiSt believers. In 1845 he met Ellen

IIarmon, a Millerite from Portland, Maine, and they were

married.the following year. After their marriage they

121
read a seventh day Sabbath pamphlet published by Joseph
Bates, accepted the message as "new light" and attended
the first conference held by seventh day Sabbath-keeping
Adventists at Rocky Hill, Connecticut, in 1848. In the

summer of 1849, the Whites published The Present Truth,

 

a paper emphasizing their Sabbath and sanctuary position

which was the forerunner to The Second Advent Review and

 

The Sabbath Herald, the official Seventh-day Adventist

 

denominational paper. During these years the couple
edited their periodical for short periods successively at
Oswego, New York; Paris, Maine; Saratoga Springs, New
York; and Rochester, New York.

While James White played a vital role in the forming
and organization of the new Seventh—day Adventist denomina-
tion, his wife Ellen was even more important to the church.
Because of bad health in her youth,she had received no
formal education after the age of nine. In December of
1844, when only seventeen, she received the first of her
many visions which she claimed were direct messages from
the Lord. The acceptance of Ellen White as the "Lord's
Messenger" having the spirit of prOphecy by Seventh-day
Adventists soon placed her in a position which eclipsed
that of her husband. Dozens of books and some 4,600 articles
contributed to journals of the church poured from her pen
during her long life to furnish guidance and reproof for

the church, as well as for its individual members. To

 

122

understand Seventh-day Adventism, one must recognize this
important position that Mrs. White held in their denomina-
tion. To Adventists, she was the Lord's chosen vessel to
prepare and guide them--"the remnant church"--to the Mil-
lennial Kingdom.16

Joseph Bates, the third important founder of the
church, more prOperly deserved to be called the father of
Seventh-day Adventism in Michigan, than James and Ellen
White. He left his home at Fairhaven, Massachusetts, at
an early age for a life on the sea. During an adventurous
career, he experienced shipwreck, imprisonment in the
British Navy, and spent over two years as a prisoner during
the War of 1812. By 1824, now captain of his own ship, he
had become a thorough temperance advocate, giving up wine
as well as "ardent spirits," and even discarding all tobacco,
tea, and coffee. After returning from the sea in 1828,
Captain Bates became active in temperance and antislavery
reform movements at Fairhaven. He heard William Miller
lecture in 1839, however, and henceforth devoted his energy
to preaching the Second Advent. Bates had become convinced
by 1845, that the seventh day of the week was the true
Sabbath. After a trip to Michigan in 1849, a great share
of his remaining years were spent proclaiming the Second

Advent and the seventh—day Sabbath in this state.17

123

Even though the Millerite Movement centered in
the eastern part of the United States, there was enough
Millerite activity in Michigan to prepare a strong founda—
tion for later Seventh-day Adventism. Charles Fitch, second
only to Joshua V. Himes in importance among Miller's follow-
ers, was a former pastor of a Congregational Church in Boston
and the leader of the Millerite effort in the West, who
preached in Detroit on several occasions. From Ann Arbor,
S. B. Noble, a Second Advent believer, wrote to Joshua V.
Himes that Fitch had recently visited there. Noble added
that "there are many who believe with me" at Ann Arbor,
and that in other sections of the state "there are several
lecturing and preaching on the subject."18

Miller himself claimed to have labored in Michigan,
although available Millerite periodicals and Michigan papers
contain no account of it. On an extensive tour during the
summer of 1844, Miller had planned to go further west than]
Cincinnati, "but freshets in the rivers in those parts pre-

'19 But regardless of whether Miller even personally

vented.‘
preached in Michigan or not, there is evidence to show
that Millerite millennialism was readily accepted by many
of the state's inhabitants.

As a matter of fact, most denominations in Michigan
found that the preaching of the "soon coming" of Christ

increased church attendance and intensified frontier

revivals. There was less Opposition to Millerism in

124
Michigan than in the East, where the movement centered.
Elijah H. Pilcher, one of the pillars of the Methodist
Church in Michigan, and a capable church historian, recorded
the excitement from the Millerite doctrine at Adrian, in
the winter of 1842-43, where John Baughman, the "father of
Michigan Methodism," was active. "Multitudes flocked to
the church for refuge at this time," Pilcher stated, and
many were brought in because of Millerism, ". . . it was
a deep and extensive revival, and resulted in much perman—
ent good."20 Likewise, the official Baptist periodical
for Michigan, The Michigan Christian Herald, edited by
Andrew Ten Brook,pastor of the Baptist Church at Detroit
and later professor and librarian at the University of
Michigan, defended his fellow Baptist, William Miller, in
no uncertain terms. The editor wished "that writers upon
this subject [Millerism] would either plant their batter-
ies against Miller'ssironghold and demolish his fortifica-
tions, or else forever cease their skirmished upon his
outposts."21 A year later, in 1843, Ten Brook agreed with
Miller that there could be no temporal millennium, and he
added, in regard to Miller's entire doctrine, "we need only
say that we have not read, nor can we construct a refuta-
tion at all satisfactory. . . ." The best plan, the

article read, was to be ready for Christ's coming.22

125
On the other hand, Millerism in Michigan was condemned

13y others as a fanatical movement, a cause of hysteria and
eaven of suicide. George Washington Pray, a student at the
tJniversity of Michigan, recorded in his diary:

How devilish it is that such a doctrine should be

prOpagated by the money making publishers of

Miller papers. If the peOple will not be warned

by the fate which they know awaits them [,] that

is by Death, why will they heed this doctrine? One

of our neighbors, a very worthy man, Mr. [Hiriam H.]

Tooker [,] after having attended the Millerite Con-

ference at Detroit [,] came home a monomaniac and
has for a few days entirely neglected his business.

23
Ijriiversalists condemned the Millerites for preaching a
Cicmztrine of "Partialism." After the Millerite "first dis-

Eipmmdntment" in the spring of 1844, Richard Thornton, the

€3<flitor of the Universalist Primitive Ekpounder at Ann Arbor,

 

‘Aflrote about the prevalence of Milleritesin Michigan and that

"’their disappointment seems not to have totally crushed

tiheir spirits. . . ."24 Two years later he noticed that

tile "recent excitement of Second Adventism" had in some

nneasure subsided.25 In that same issue of The Primitive

 

JEgpounder, a subscriber from Oxford, Oakland Co., claimed
'there were several Adventists in the vicinity who had gone
(crazy because of Millerism.26 At Jackson, where Millerism
laad been strong, an Adventkst interrupted a Universalist
Fneeting in 1847 by exhorting "the end of all things" and

27

Idad to be forcibly ejected. It is plain that Miller-

ites were quite active in Michigan even after 1844.

126

The best source of knowledge for Adventist activity
in Michigan is the Midnight ng, the most important of the
Millerite periodicals established to warn Americans of the
Advent. The many letters printed from believers in Mich-
igan demonstrate a substantial Millerite sentiment in the
state. Moses Clark, a Baptist minister of Portland, Mich-
.igan, wrote that he was lecturing on the subject and
that many peOple had accepted it.28 A "Brother Drew" from
Iiowell stated "There is scarcely a neighborhood in my ac—
cquaintance but there are some that believe in the advent

r1igh.'.'29

E. Wesbrook, China, St. Clair Co., claimed

‘that even the Roman Catholics were turning out to listen
t:o the lectures. And from the small village of Climax
(came a call from Daniel B. Eldred for Millerite lecturers.
IEldred promised large crowds since "the peOple want to

llear."30

Another Millerite periodical, The Sigps of the Times,

 

(:ontained a letter from S. Barnes, Owosso, Michigan, to
\Joshua V. Himes which sheds light on the movement. Barnes
declared that he had been an ardent believer in the Second
.Advent for twenty-five years, but had never heard a

lecture on the subject. After reading a Millerite tract

'1 had no further doubts to remove. Immediately I. . . went
to sounding the Midnight Cry." Barnes claimed that he had
given the warning to large audiences in sixteen settle-

ments, some of which were at distances of over one hundred

127

. 31 . . . . . .
niiles. Adventism in Michigan was an indigenous movement,

Vlith an existing millennial faith furnishing the basis for

tile entire movement. Millerism in Michigan, the evidence

:irudicates, was an expression of existing beliefs, rather than

81 novel or bizarre movement.

Michigan Adventists received no direction to speak

()1? during the years immediately following their disappoint- F

rnenut of 1844. Joseph Bates, one of the original advocates

CDfi the seventh day Sabbath, and, with James White, the

liensognized co—founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church,
Eiirrived in Michigan in 1849 on fire with a pioneering spirit
tic) convert all Adventists to his seventh day "Sabbath truth."
E3Eites, performing with the ambition and zeal of a Methodist
cl'ircuit rider, would hang up his charts wherever he could
Eseacure a church, hall, or schoolhouse, preach the imminent
I"lillennium and present his stand on the Sabbath question.
1"lichigan Adventists seemed to welcome Bates with Open arms.
IXt: Jackson, which had already been a focal point for Miller-

ite Adventism, he converted the entire company of Advent—

iest believers. J. C. Bowles, wrote to James White in

Z\Ugust of 1849 that "the little band here [at Jackson] have
13eceived the truth on the Sabbath, without exception."
Earom statements such as this James White believed that
Ifinally the "scattering time" had ended, the "gathering

tZime" had come. Three years later, on a tour in

Edichigan, Bates traveled to Battle Creek converting

128
Presbyterian David Hewitt and his family to form a nucleus

for a church that would grow to be the heart of Seventh-

day Adventism.

Pioneer itinerant preachers such as Bates, S. W.

Rhodes, J. N. Loughborough, M. E. Cornell, J. B. Frisbie,

and S. T. Cranson had by 1853 turned Michigan into one of

the main Seventh-day Adventist strongholds. Letters pub-

lished by the Review and Herald between 1849 and 1853
showed "bands" of Seventh-day Adventists at Jackson, Battle
Creek, Bedford, Eagle Lake, Hastings, Grand Rapids, Lapeer,

North Plains, Plymouth, Tyrone, Climax, Hartland, Locke,

and Conway. Adventists had good reason to believe that

" the cause of truth was prospering in Michigan" and "that

God is at work in the West."33 J. N. Loughborough, pioneer

S eventh—day Adventist preacher, arrived at Locke, Michigan,

to find over forty members. He baptized twenty—three on

In the vicinity of Franciscoville, the

th at single visit.

Adventists held a meeting at C.S. Glover's barn, in'Sylvan,

wi th over four hundred present. James and.Ellen White them—

8 elves visited Michigan in 1853 and despite the fact that
they found the church at Jackson in "great confusion,"
Sfane some refused to accept Mrs. White as the Lord's mes-

S enger, they could later report that, "the truth had been
taking strong hold in Michigan. . . ."34

129
Even though the Sabbath topic seemed to overshadow
all else, primarily because the Sabbatarian Adventists
vvere working among Millerites who must be given the "new
light," the millennial impulse remained as strong as ever
Iaefore. With the "heavenly sanctuary" explanation of
vvhat happened in October of 1844, and the addition of the
sseventh day Sabbath—-the third angel's message--the Ad-
xrentists set out to preach the gospel to every living being.
CTCfiHIEL Andrews, a new minister who would in 1876 by be—
<2cnning its first missionary, start the denomination into
.itzs successful foreign evangelism program, expressed the
Ilcnpe of all Adventists when he wrote from Jackson in 1851:
"VVEa'hope for the things promised——the kingdom of God, the
ifEilrst resurrection, immortality, to reign with Christ a
t:}1c>usand years in triumph over the Beast and his image."35
IéjLICewise, James White, writing in The Present Truth, had
r‘1C>t: lost any of the Millerite expectancy of the Advent.
V911~i.te argued that it was now more important than ever to
SS];>I:eadthe truth quickly, since Christ could come at.2flX
tzernen
I tremble at the word of the Lord, and the im—
portance of this time. Whatis done to spread
the truth must be done quickly. The four Angels
are holding the angry nations in check but a
few days, until the saints are sealed; the nations
will rush, like the rushing of many waters. Then

it will be too late to spread before precious souls,
the present saving living truths of the Holy Bible.36

130
Adventists always had agreed on the "soon-coming"

of Christ, but they could not always agree on the nature

of the Kingdom. The most serious challenge the Seventh-

day keepers met in the formative years of the church was a

serious dispute within their ranks concerning the interpre—

tation of the Millennium. The defection began at Jackson,

Michigan, where some of the Adventists refused to accept

the reproof Ellen White gave them. The dissenters, after

establishing a paper entitled the MessenLer of Truth,

joined forces with another dissident group of non-Sabbatar-
ian Adventists in Wisconsin who held an "Age—to-Come" theory,
believed that Christ‘s Advent would bring a Millennial
Kingdom in which probation would continue and the nations
Of the world would all be converted under the reign of
Christ and the saints. This form of premillennialism was
tll’le same kind that had been used to oppose William Miller
Years before; some Second Adventists, despite Miller‘s
tleaching, had accepted it. James White opposed the doctrine
in the pages of the Review and Herald and by 1858 the so-
cza:LZLed "Messenger Party" was dead.37

Because of Joseph Bates' successful promotion of

Se’Venth—day Adventism in Michigan, the Whites decided that
the young state would be the best area in which to center
their activities. In Michigan, in the heart of the

hat; ion, a peOple could be prepared to go out and preach

131

the Millennial Kingdom to the entire nation. In 1855 James
White's health failed, over-burdened by his heavy responsib-
ility as church editor and coordinator for the entire
movement. He asked the church to take over the Review and
Herald office, which he had personally founded at Rochester,
New York, "establish it where they pleased" and manage it
with a publishing committee. Michigan Adventists wanted
the Review at Battle Creek. James White wrong that

We are happy to say that the Brethren in Michigan

have cheerfully taken upon themselves the respons-

ibilities of the Review office. They will probably

move it to that state this fall. Brethren in

Vermont are willing and ready to do the same, but

regard Michigan to be more the center of the future

field of labor. . . .
To make this move to Battle Creek, a $1,200 fund for the .
purchase of ground and the erection of a publishing house
building was provided by four influential Adventists in
Michigan. Then in September, 1855, at a meeting held at
Battle Creek, it was voted to move the Review and Herald,
the official denominational periodical, there.38

With this move, Adventism gained great encourage-

ment in Michigan. A little more than a year later James
White estimated that the number of Sabbath-keepers in the
State of Michigan had increased more than one-half since
the Review office was moved to Battle Creek?9 The town of
Battle Creek, was destined from this small beginning to

be the world headquarters for Seventh-day Adventists

during the next half century.

132
A short time after the press was moved to Battle

Creek, Mrs. White had a vision encouraging the Adventist
exodus to Michigan from the East which no doubt strengthened
the Michigan church:

The Lord has shownnmain vision. . . That God has been

opening the way for the spread of present truth in

the West. . . . The peOple of the East have heard

the proclamation of the second coming of Christ, and

have seen much of the display of the powers of God,

and have fallen back into a state of indifference and

security where it is almost impossible to reach them

at present.40
The move proved to be a good one for the Whites, personally,
since they found "sympathizing friends" in Michigan who
assisted them in obtaining a lot and building a house at
Battle Creek. And Seventh-day Adventism flourished in the
West.41

Once the Review and Herald was established in Battle

Creek, the church branched out into various areas of re-
form. The Seventh-day Adventist gospel must be preached
to all nations and peOples. Michigan itself, of course,
was the first objective of the proselyting Adventists.
Tent and camp meetings were organized, salesmen were sent
out to distribute the tons of literature printed by the
Review and Herald Publishing House. Evangelistic efforts
were held in many areas of Michigan and the church grew
raPidly, partly though, because of the large influx of

Adventists from the East. The Adventists were not content

With just preaching the Advent and the Sabbath, however.

 

133

Their efforts ranged to reforms such as temperance and

health, dress and education. As Mrs. White stated in 1857:

"We should take hold of very reform with zeal, yet should

avoid giving the impression that we are vacillating and

subject to fanaticism.42

Michigan Seventh—day Adventists, in fact, were prob-

zably as reform minded as any other church group in America.

13ach one of then: reforms, it is also obvious, was instigated

tn: prepare a chosen peOple to finish the work of taking

tlie Seventh-day Adventist message to all the world. The

"t:ruth" must be proclaimed, laborers were few, and the Mil—

Ileznnium was near. Adventists had a special work to do,

they were positive, with a direct commission from Christ

tjkLrough His messenger, Ellen G. White. According to Mrs.

le'lite,

Before the flood, God sent Noah to warn the world,
that the peOple might be led to repentance, and
thus escape the threatened destruction. As the
time of Christ's appearing draws near, the Lord
sends his servants with a warning to the world to
prepare for the great event.43

Adventists have been noted not only for doctrines
Of tile seventh day Sabbath and the Second Advent of Christ
lult £1150 for their emphasis on diet, health, and medical

Programs. The background for these programs, however, was

to a great extent millennialistically oriented. Some of

the Millerite leaders had been health and temperance ad-

44

vocatens Joseph Bates and James White in particular,

I

134

but the preaching of the Second Advent and the nearness

of the event, subordinated health reform until after

October, 1844. Once the church settled at Battle Creek

organized, and solidified their doctrines through the in-

aspiration of Mrs. White, the health and temperance reforms

vvere increasingly stressed. The Adventist health programs,

seven to the building of the nationally known Battle Creek E

SLanitarium, were sponsored to prepare God's people to in—

]qearit the Kingdom. Mrs. White, the leading spokesman for

tlre church, repeatedly made the connection in her writings:

In the preparation for the Lord's second Coming,
a great work is to be accomplished through the
promulgation of health principles. . . The people
should be taught that transgression of the laws
of nature is transgression of the laws of God.

"VVea are, she continued, "to labor both for the health of

tIIee body and for the saving of the soul."45 She, as the

Lc>rxd's messenger, warned the peOple on the subject of

temperance that :

(Sod's people are to learn the meaning of temperance
.in all things. They are to practice temperance in
leating and drinking and dressing. All self-indulgence
.is to be cut away from their lives. Before they can
Jreally understand the meaning of true sanctification
euad of conformity to the will of Christ, they must,
try cooperating with God, obtain the mastery over

wrong habits and practices.46
Healtfla :reform, she always advised, was one of the "great‘
branches of the work of preparation for the Coming of the

Son 0f?.Ddan." Temperance and health reforms were to be

135
woven in the Adventist message "to turn the people of God
from their idolatry, their gluttony, and their extravagence
in dress and other things.” The church members were taught
to believe that their bodies were not their own, since "God
has claims upon us to take care of the habitation he has
given us, that we may present our bodies to Him a living

sacrifice, holy and acceptable."47 Health principles, it

- "I

F s u‘hlu

.is evident, were important in the Adventist striving for
amillennial perfection.

The same millennial preparation is true of the Ad-
'vwentist endeavor along publishing and educational lines.
]?r£blications were "to prepare a peOple to meet God" and to
gyjsve warning "to those who are standing on the very brink
c>ff ruin." The leaders who operated Adventist publishing
iiusstitutions were to be held accountable for the souls
()1? their fellow men. In the field of education, Mrs.
Wllj.te put her visions for the Adventist's school system
iritxo book form with a volume entitled Education. She left
light:le doubt about the ultimate goal for the student. In
_Se\7en1th-day Adventist schools students would learn "the
gnuirusiples of His Kingdom and becoming its subjects and
Ci tizens" and "be prepared at His coming to enter with Him
intc> 11:3 posssession." The life on this earth was only a
begirnaiuag, only an "invitation into the principles of
heaverl; the life work here is a training for the life work

there." The entire Adventist educational system, from

136

beginning through college, was to prepare "the student for

the joy of service in this world, and for the higher joy

of wider service in the world to come." The church's ed-

ucational institutions, as well as the publishing houses and

health institutions were "instrumentalities of God to . . .

cooperate in . . . the work of warning the inhabitants of

the world that Christ is coming the second time with power

and great glory. "48

The decisively important factor in Adventist success

vvas their belief in Christ's imminent coming. Church

Huembers worked in a breathless haste to give their message

C)ff salvation to mankind before probation closed. Jane

C3j_nley, a Michigan Adventist addressing a letter to her

"lorethren and sisters" in the Review in 1857, typifies the

ZXCiventist spirit of total involvement in giving and build-

:Lrig to prepare for the Lord's return:

I know that Jesus is soon coming, but I must have a
realizing sense of this fact; for I feel that every
act of mine ought to be in reference to this one
thing, and it seems strange how any one that be-
lieves in the soon coming of Christ, can hold on to
their possessions, be so careful about a little of
this world's goods and so fearful they shall do more

than their part.49

In. tlris convert's mind, as well as in every Adventist be-

liever 's, was the conviction that one's own acts could

hastuerl or retard the Second Advent. Every Adventist was

taungt from childhood that he could hasten the Lord's
returil Tby proclaiming the Adventist message and giving

liberéi].1y to the church to aid in that purpose.

137
Mrs. White, writing in the Review nearly a half
century later, stated that if the church had done its
duty in past years, "Christ would have come, and the saints
would have received their welcome into the City of God."50
From the time of the establishment of the church in Battle

Creek,she feared a "falling away" from the original millen-

nial fervor of the founding fathers. Since time had ap-

£’—-”“.‘_-TI

parently been extended, she noted, many were becoming care-
less and indifferent. The Second Coming had become to

many a familiar tale: "'My Lord delayeth His Coming' is not
only said in the heart, but expressed in words and most
decidedly in works." She warned time after time that worldly
concerns were increasingly absorbing the church member's
interests, and that little was being'said of Christ's
coming which was once the theme of all thought' and con-
versation. Until her death in 1915, she kept the Kingdom
of God and its imminence in the forefront of every writing.
She made it clear that Seventh-day Adventists' responsibility
was to declare the end of time : "The return of Christ to
Our world will not be long delayed. Let this be the key-
1'IOte of every message." Believers were to "sound an alarm
thrcnugh the length and breadth of the earth. Tell the
people that the day of the Lord is near and hasteneth greatly.
Let: none be unwarned." Christ's return, then, was the im-
pelling millennial motivation, the strongest force behind

a1 1 Adventist activity. 51

138

With the formation of the General Conference of

Seventh—day Adventists at Battle Creek on May 20-23, 1863,

comprising a constituency of 125 churches and 3,500 members,

the denomination was firmly established. In Michigan,

Seventh-day Adventists built the foundations for a health

and missionary program which would eventually take their

gospel to peoples of 928 languages and dialects. At the

turn of the century, however, the occurrence of several

disasterous fires at Battle Creek was interpreted as divine
disfavor upon the tendency of church members to congregate
at: Battle Creek instead of taking their message to all the

world, and the denominational headquarters was moved

to the nation's capitol. Out of a total church membership

Of more than one and a half million today, only 18,230

Seventh-day Adventists reside in Michigan.52

_‘_*“- :-

FOOTNOTES

1. Gerald Carson, Cornflake Crusade (London, 1959),
E3- 5.
2. Ibid., p. 10.

3. Sylvester Bliss, Memoirs of William Miller
1852) , pp. 68-69.

4. "And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three
laiindred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed."

5. Ibid-.pp. 73-76, 92; for accounts of Millerism
see Francis D. Nichol, The Midnight Cy: A Defense of the
(Sliaracter and Conduct of William Miller and the Millerites,
V0110 Mistakenly Believed That the Second Coming of Christ
lgxould Take Place in the Year 1844 (Washington, D.C., 1944);
VVliitney R. Cross, The Burned-Over District: The Social and
Irritellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western
ggxaw Yorky_l800-1850 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1950), Chapters 17-20.

6. From Miller's "Apology and Defense" in Bliss,
gggemoirs of William Miller, pp. 361-362.

7. Quoted in James White, Sketches of the Christian
.ggj_fe and Public Labors of William Miller, (Battle Creek,
312375), pp. 9—10; Nichol, Midnight Cry, pp. 445-449.

8. The Midnight Cry. December 1, 1842.

9. Bliss, Memoirs of William Miller, p. 74.

10. Ibid., PP. 72,73.

11. Ibid., p. 256.

12. The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, August 19,
1851.

13. See the Midnight Cry, September 5, 12, 1844.

14. Seventh-day Adventists today teach the angels'
meSsages as a threefold unit. They would preach the gospel
tc’ €111, and encourage individuals to come out of sin, con-
fruslan, and false systems. They teach that the Ten Com-
mfigdments are still in effect; the keeping of God's law,

“7 14:}1 includes the seventh day Sabbath, is a final test

for God ' 5 people.
139

(Boston,

 

140

15. Review and Herald, March 23, 1852; see also
.NOvember 15, 1853 and July 24, 1856; Ellen G. White,
Early Writings (Washington, D.C., 1882), pp. 289—291,
(The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan (Mountain
\liew, California, 1888): PP. 653-661; Adventist Leaders,
IBible teachers,and Editors, Seventh—day Adventists Answer
gluestions on Doctrine (Washington, D.C., 1957), pp. 489—508.

 

 

 

16. For the story of James and Ellen White see
Crames and Ellen White, Life Sketches (Battle Creek, 1880);
Crames White, Life Incidents (Battle Creek, 1868); Ellen G.
thite, Early Writings; also articles in Don F. Newfeld,
eud., Seventh-day Adventist EncyclOpedia (Washington, D.C.,
3.966).

 

 

17. See Joseph Bates, The Autobiography of Joseph
Esates (Battle Creek, 1868); James White, The Early Life
atnd Later Experience and Labors of Elder Joseph Bates
(Battle Creek, 1877).

18. Signs of the Times, April 12, 1843.

 

l9. Bliss, Memoirs of William Miller, pp. 264, 327.

20. Elijah H. Pilcher, Protestantism in Michigan
(IDetroit, 1878),pp. 303, 304.

21. Michigan Christian Herald, December, 1842.

 

22. Ibid., March 27, 1843; May 8, 1843.

. 23. George Washington Pray Diary in Michigan Histor—
.14:a1 Collections, University of Michigan.

24. The Primitive Expounder, February 17, 1844.

25. Ibid., May 21, 1846.

26. Ibid.
- 27. Ibid., March 11, 1847; see also the January 22,
i5352 issue for J. H. Sanford's review and refutation of
13- .RJ Pinney's (a Baptist-Millerite minister from New York)

Work on the Second Advent.

28. Midnight Cry, March 24, 1843.

 

29. Ibid., February 8, 1844.

30. Ibid., April 18, 1844.

;s::eeei

141

31. The Signs of the Times, May 21, 1843.

 

32. In The Present Truth, September, 1849.

 

33. Review and Herald, September 2, 1851; February
3, March 2, July 22, September 2, 16, October 28, November
25, 1852; January 6, 20, February 3, 17, March 3, 1853;
for an account of Bates in Michigan see Arthur W. Spalding,
Origin and History of Seventh—day Adventists, I, (Washington,
D.C., 1961), pp. 251-256.

 

 

34. Review and Herald, June 9, July 7, 1853; James
and Ellen White, Life Sketches, p. 302; James White, Life
Incidents, p. 297.

 

 

 

. F ““41

35. In Review and Herald, December 9, 1851.

 

36. The Present Truth, July, 1849.

 

37. Seventh-day Adventist Encylcopedia, p. 770;
IReview and Herald, January 14, 1858.

 

 

38. Review and Herald, September 4, October 2, l6;
VVhite, Life Sketches, p. 317; White, Life Incidents, p. 297.

 

 

 

39. Review and Herald, April 16, 1857.

40. Ellen G. White,Testimonies for the Church
(Mountain View, California, 1948), pp. 146-147.

 

41. James and Ellen White, Life Sketches, pp. 313-317.

 

42. Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, I,
aflountain View, California, 1948), p. 559.

 

43. Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets (Mountain
\7iemn California, 1890), p. 102; also Testimonies for the
(erurch, VII (Mountain View, California, 1948), p. 107.

 

 

 

44. See the Review and Herald, May 1, 8, 1856;
J'Oseph Bates, The Autobiography of Joseph Bates (Battle
(3lreek, 1868), pp. 206-207, 230, 262.

 

 

45. Ellen G. White, Counsels on Health and Instruc—
Jiégpn to Medical Missionary Workers (Mountain View, Calif—
‘313nia, 1923), p. 206; Testimonies for the Church, VI, pp.
224, 225.

 

46. Ellen G. White, Medical Ministry (Mountain View,
Ckalifornia, 1932), p. 275.

 

142

47. Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, III,
pp. 61, 62, 63.

 

48. EflJrH1G. White, Testimonies for the Church,
VI, p. 18: VII, 139-141; Education (Mountain View, California,
1903), pp. 13, 17, 184, 307.

 

 

49. In the Review and HeraldL December 17, 1857.

 

50. Review and Herald, December 24, 1903; Testimon-
ies for the Church, VIII, p. 22; IX, p. 58.

 

 

 

51. Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church,
II, pp. 195, 196, 198; III, p. 255: IV. p. 306; V, pp. 9,
11-12, 387; VI, PP. 18, 22, 406, 436.

 

52. 1965-1966 Yearbook of the Seventh-day Adventist
iDenomination (Washington, D.C.), p. 4.

 

 

CHAPTER VI
TEMPERANCE AND ANTISLAVERY REFORMS

The attacks upon the "twin evils" of slavery and
.intemperance gained great strength from the millennial
sglirit which typified pre—Civil War American idealism.
ITIe sense of mission and the belief in a divine progress

tcnuard perfection spurred men on to usher in the era of

pueace, happiness, and righteousness. Christians believed

triat God required their cooperation to eradicate the evils

CXE society and thereby prepare the way for the Lord. The

Lmord would come, they were sure, only when man had done his

Kmart in the purification process. After the great evils of
SCDCiety had been destroyed, or at least reduced to a min-

innrmu Christ's triumph would be assured and He would pour

CDtlt His spirit upon a civilized, enlightened and sanctified

wOrld. Christians would then enter into their millennial

jC>)u The spread of Protestantism through the success of

[hi—ssionary, tract, and Bible societies, the emphasis on

irfiaforms pertaining to education, insane asylums, prisons,

i311d.women's rights were all considered signs of the Spirit
“Nbrking through men, while the two glaring evils of the

(flay, intemperance and slavery, drew the greatest concentra-

tion of fire from the reformers.

143

144

Christian millenarians and the advocates of the idea
of progress joined forces in reform and attack on evil. The
optimism of the age,so clearly manifested through an ex-
panding frontier, a rapidly increasing pOpulation, and the
development of an industrial system, provided an impetus
for an already inherent American faith in progress. A
rising nationalism complemented material progress to make
.Jacksonians confident that the American mission was to
louild a perfect society. Among religious bodies.manifesta—
tion of progress and improvement, evident on every side,
vvas accepted as the special sanction of Providence. The
:idea of progress, as Arthur Ekirch notes, was sufficiently
\Iague in its meaning to be used to justify even contradictory
tzendencies of the age. In secular and religious circles,
Eis never before in the nation's history, leaders were agreed
tljat both the individual and society could be perfected in
Pumerica. Whether speaking of the Biblical Millennium or
Clue secular idea of a future American Utopia, fundamentally
tlje impulse was the same.

Among national religious leaders, Lyman Beecher and
<Charles Grandison Finney, two of the strongest millenarian
ITeformers of the era, were powerful influences in Michigan.
ESeecher's influence on Michigan can be traced back to his
'Views on temperance reform in 1825. He was later influential

in his position as President of Lane Seminary at Cincinnati,

Ohio, together with his lecturing in Detroit. But great

145

as Beecher's influence was on Michigan reform movements,
Charles G. Finney's was greater. Even though Michigan has
been called the "third New England,"2 it should not be for-
gotten that New York was the "second New England" where
Finney produced the greatest revival of the first half of
the nineteenth century. A large proportion of the emi—
grants to Michigan Territory, which was rapidly being
settled after 1825, came the Buffalo—Detroit water route
from western New York. Even as late as the Civil War
nearly 200,000 of Michigan's 749,213 inhabitants claimed
New York as their native state.3 Without doubt, many of
these migrating Yankee-Yorkers had attended the Finney
revivals in the Genessee Country of western New York.
Although Finney himself was never a radical abolitionist
he accepted the presidency to Oberlin College in 1835 which
already included among its students the abolitionist "rebels"
from Lyman Beecher's Lane Seminary at Cincinnati. Oberlin
quickly became the abolitionist stronghold of the West,
training antislavery agents for work in Michigan as well as
elsewhere in the West.4

In spite of the fact that Finney always tried to
persuade the reformers to subordinate abolitionism and
temperance reform to revivalism, he more than any other
single person inspired the "ultraistic" movements of the
era by avidly pronouncing slavery and intemperance as sins.
Finney attempted to draw all aspects of human behavior

within the province of Christianity. In his Rochester

146

revival in 1830—31, he pronounced alcoholic beverages as
sin which only conversion would cure. "The man's hands
are RED WITH BLOOD," exclaimed Finney in 1835, "who stands
aloof from the temperance cause." Slavery likewise was con-
demned as sin:

Christians can no more take neutral ground on this

subject. . . than they can take neutral ground on

the subject of the sanctification of the Sabbath.

It is a national sin. It is a sin of the church. . .

I repeat, it is the sin of the church, to which all

denominations have been more or less guilty. . . .5
He then went ahead to suggest what must be done in moral re-
form. The church had been negligent in promoting the Gospel
and abolishing evil: "We ought to have done ten times as
much as we have for missions, Bibles, education, tracts,
free churches, and in all the ways designed to promote
religion and save souls." If the whole church as a body
had gone to work ten years ago, he stated, the world would
have been converted and "The millennium would have fully
come in the United States before this day." In his en-
thusiasm he finally decided that if "the church will do
all her duty, the millennium may come in this country in
three years."6 The indictment of slavery and intemperance
as sins, combined with a fervent millennial hope support-
ing its abolition, formed a powerful motivation for re—
form in Michigan. The reformers would find here rich
ground for their crusades, since the sinfulness of slavery

and intemperance must have been already accepted by many

of the inhabitants.

147
In the temperance field the crusade for total ab-
stinence began with Lyman Beecher's six sermons preached
before the Litchfield, Connecticut, congregation in the
autumn of 1825. In these sermons, published the following
year for general circulation, Beecher stated that the daily
use of "ardent spirits, in any form, or in any degree, is
intemperance." Nothing less would suffice for the Millen-
nial Kingdom than total abstinence:
Everything needful to the perfect state of society
can exist without it [ardent spirits]; and with it,
such a state of society can never be attained. It
retards the accomplishment of that prophecy of
scripture which foretells the time when the knowledge
of the Lord shall cover the earth, and violence and
fraud shall cease.7
Beecher's appeal led to the formation of the American

8 Justin

Society for the Promotion of Temperance in 1826.
Edwards, pastor of the Park Street Church, Boston, was
the organizing spirit in the movement. Edwards preached

that the Kingdom of God on earth was the ultimate end

of the temperance movement. His Temperance Manual, a small

 

catechism on temperance reform published by the American
Tract Society, stated that all must repent and be converted
from the sin of drinking "because he hath appointed a day
in which he will judge the world in righteousness.”

By 1830, the pattern and precedent had been set.
The Home Missionaries would take the gospel of temperance
to the West as part of their regular duties. -The temper-

ance reformer would now share the enthusiasm for progress

148

and perfectionism hitherto enjoyed by the evangelical re-
vivalists, knowing that he was destroying sin and helping
to restore a primitive edenic Christianity. The editor

of the Temperance Recorder decided as early as 1832 that

 

no one could look at the progress being made without the
”conviction that this very cause is at once the harbinger
of the millennium and destined to one of the most efficient
means of its introduction.10 Not only was the temperance
movement a harbinger of the Millennium; it was itself con—
sidered the work of the Holy Spirit.

Gerrit Smith, a leading abolitionist and temperance
reformer, wrote that "Well has the Temperance Reformation
been called the John the Baptist of the Gospel." The
American Temperance Society's literature made frequent
references to the work of the Holy Spirit in preparation
for "both worlds" and the time "when the will of God shall
be done on earth as it is in heaven."11 One of the most
popular of all the temperance writers in the national
movement, Lucius M. Sargent, described the future Kingdom
in glowing words:

The baser passions in men's nature. . . shall come
under the government of reason; man shall regain

the dominion over himself; religion shall resume her
station in the soul. . . . the bitter waters. . .
shall be dried up at their fountain heads. The sun
shall shine with a brighter splendor; and the broad
midway moon. . . shall diffuse her milder light

over a temperate world.12

The hope for a purified America where temperance

reigned was not lost track of in the conflicts over methods

149
of building the perfect society, such as the disagreements
among reformers over whether to preach temperance or total
abstinence; or whether to sponsor licensing or prohibition
legislation. Neither the increasing pre—occupation with
antislavery activity nor even the Civil War permanently
stopped the movement. The impulse ebbed and flowed always
with the expectation that Christ's spiritiaul return depended
upon the removal of this great evil of American society.
After the war the reformers once again set out to:
Cast, cast the stumbling block away
O'er which unnumbered thousands fall;
Then, soon will dawn the better day,
When Christ our king shall reign o'er all.
Your flags inscribe with this device---
We'll make the world a paradise.13
The temperance movement in Michigan kept pace with
the national movement. The emphasis until mid-century was
upon "moral suasion" and pledge-signing, with a certain
amount of regulation from licensing laws dating back to
early territorial days. Although many local societies had
been formed earlier to promote temperance, the Michigan
Temperance Society was not organized until 1833. When the
societies found that temperance in the sense of moderation
was not effective they turned toward abstinence from "ardent
spirits," and finally to total abstinence from "all that
intoxicates." In 1845, the granting of licenses was

placed under popular control at either township or charter

elections, but this regulating system was considered a

150

failure. The new state constitution of 1850 abolished
entirely the license system. Three years later the Mich—
igan legislature enacted the state's first prohibition law,
which was to be submitted to the people for pOpular approval.
Despite the fact the approval was given by substantial
majority, the Michigan supreme court declared the law and
the process of pOpular approval to be faulty. A new pro-
hibition statute was passed by the Republicans in 1855, yet
it was never enforced and was Openly violated.14

Michigan furnished at least one national figure to
the temperance movement, besides numerous local reformers
known only with the state. General Lewis Cass helped or-
ganize the Congressional Temperance Society in 1833, and
was chosen its first president. One year earlier as
Secretary of War, Cass had abolished the grog ration in the
army.15 Of the local reformers, George Duffield, pastor
of the First Presbyterian Church of Detroit, was probdaly
the most influential, but the most sensational was Augustus
Littlejohn of Allegan, who lectured during the Washington-
ian Crusade, the great national reform begun by six "re—
formed inebriates“ at Chase's Tavern in Baltimore in April
2, 1840. One witness from Kalamazoo, where Littlejohn was
lecturing in 1844, claimed that he had never seen the
city "so much excited on any subject, nor took so deep an

H16

interest in any reform before or since. . . . In

addition to the work of Duffield and Littlejohn, all of the

151

Home Missionary workers and the majority of the antislavery
leaders were avid temperance men.17

The stress on temperance reform in Michigan, as else-
where, was considered a vital part of the great moral re-
form to hasten the Kingdom of God on earth. Temperance
reform was blended with revivalism to the extent that sign-
ing the pledge was considered necessary for religious conver—
sion. George Duffield believed, with many others, that
prohibition must be achieved to hasten the Millennium.
All were guilty and shared in the sin of intemperance, he
asserted, if they remained "inactive, unconcerned spectators
of the great moral movements destined to 'prepare the way

of the Lord.'"18

The pastor of the First Congregational
Church of Detroit, H. D. Kitchel, could see God's will
working through temperance reformation for a future golden
age. In a Fourth of July oration before the Sons of Tem—
perance Society in 1849, he told his listeners that:
It is thrsGod has our race under tuition, in process
of development and cultivation. . . .this world's
history. . . is a record of great moral experiments,
in which the race has been all along testing the good
and evil, and making proof of principles. And the
results of these experiments go upon record and are
for use in after ages in this world, if men be wise,
and for use in other worlds where they will be wise.
Two years previously, a Michigan writer covering the national
parade of the Sons of Temperance at Philadelphia had de-

clared that never had the world witnessed such a scene "since

the days of Jesus of Nazareth." It was, he continued:

152

A precursor of a brighter and more glorious day than
they had heretofore seen—-a day of millennial grace—-
a day in which the light shall break in upon the
hearts of all the children of men with its great and
subduing brightness-—a brightness that would never
come while a distillery or grog ship was allowed in

a civilized and moral community.20

In the same vein, Lyman Beecher, speaking before the
Temperance Society in Detroit, warned that:
The millenium [sic] could never come while such an
evil was in the world, and one of the signs God
yet intends to redeem the world, is that the des-
truction of this very greatest evil that opposes
the progress of the gospel has already commenced.
This final destruction of the evil, decided Beecher, would
only come when the inhabitants of Michigan elected legis—
lators who would pass laws against it.21
The best example of the millennial impulse behind

temperance reform in Michigan is found relatively early

in the movement. The January, 1842 issue of the Michigan

 

Temperance Advocate, published at Marshall, Michigan, con-

 

tained an article entitled ”The Temperance Reform a Harbinger
of the Millenium [sic] "which clearly set forth the millen-
nial philosophy of the temperance reformers. The article
stated that the church had for many years watched the signs
of the times "to see if there were any thing that betokened
the dawn of millen[n]ial glory" yet only a few streaks of
light had been observed. But now it was not enthusiasm to
imagine "that we are standing at this moment on the margin

of the latter day glory; and that the church will soon

strike up. . . her song of millennial joy." One had but

153
to notice the prOgress of the temperance cause to be
fully convinced "that this cause is at once a harbinger of
the millen[n]ium, and destined to be one of the most ef—
ficient means of its introduction." The writer then proceeded
to describe the millennial society which would be established
after intemperance was abolished from the land.

Take out of the world all the misery of which in-
temperance is either directly or indirectly the
cause, and the change would be so great that for a
moment you would almost forget that the earth was
still in any degree laboring under the original curse.
Take away all the vice and the crime with which in-
temperance is identified or connected, and it would
almost seem as if the "holy Jerusalem had descended
out of heaven" to dwell with men. Limit your views to
a single neighborhood or a single city, and sippose
intemperance to be entirely banished, and imagine the
greatness of the change; and then extend your views
all over this great nation, and this wide world, and
in each case suppose the temperance reformation to
have become universal, and to have done its perfect
work, and say whether its direct influence in bring-
ing forward the millen[n]ium does not far exceed

your most vivid conceptions.

The writer appealed to all Christians to pray for the Mil—
lennial Day and to act consistent with those prayers "lend—
ing your influence to help forward this glorious cause of
moral improvement, which mag; prevail ere the millen[n]ium
shall fully come." A pointed warning was given to those
involved in making or selling the "poison." Those so en-
gaged, concluded the article, should "Never Open your lips
then to pray for the millen[n]ium. If the millen[n]ium

should really come, it would ruin your business foreveri”22

154

As in the national movement, the hope of attaining
millennial bliss through temperance reform continued strongly
until the years just prior to the Civil War, when the anti-
slavery movement overshadowed all other reforms. The Civil
War itself proved to be a hindrance to the work in temper-
ance reform. After the war, however, reformers once again
turned their attention toward the evils of drink. "Now is
a propitious time," declared Barton S. Taylor, a Methodist
preacher from the Detroit Conference and a former anti—
slavery leader, in a speech to the Order of the Good Templar's
at Saginaw in 1866. "The war is over and we can turn our
thoughts to things at home." Christians must engage in
a new battle to "lessen the evils of intemperance. . . until
the dawn of the millenium [sic]."23

In the context of these millennial hopes, the tem-
perance and antislavery movements were intimately associated.
Barton Taylor from Detroit, Erastus Hussey of Battle Creek,
or Nathan Power of Farmington, to mention only three, could
as easily lecture on temperance as on the abolition of
slavery. The two crusades were seen as part of one effort
to achieve this perfect society. Nathan Power, a well—known

figure in Michigan antislavery circles, emphasized this

point in the Signal of Liberty, December 15, 1841. Abolit-

 

ionists had to be temperance men, according to Power:

155

We make no dependence here on a man professing

abolition unless he is a temperance man. . . The

Temperance road is the great highway on which the

holy cause of emancipation must travel. . . since

slavery can never be abolished until drunkeness

shall cease. . . .
A few months later Power strengthened this statement by
declaring that, "I view the temperance enterprise allied
to the cause of emancipation of the slave as the coming
of John the Baptist to the Gospel dispensation."24

The millennial spirit manifested itself as clearly

in the antislavery reform movement as in temperance. Many
of the great national antislavery leaders were emphatically
millenarian. Such prominent abolitionists as William Lloyd
Garrison, Theodore Dwight Weld, Lewis and Arthur Tappan,
Angelina and Sarah Grimke, and Wendell Phillips espoused

millenarian doctrines in their attempts to renovate American

society. Garrison declared in The Liberator of December

 

15, 1837, that the object of the abolition was to usher

in the Kingdom of God on earth. "We are bound by the laws

of a kingdom which is not of this world," he exclaimed,

". . . which is destined to break in pieces and consume

all other kingdoms." Theodore D. Weld also was an avowed
millennialist. Of the two Quaker Grimke sisters, Angelina,
who married Weld, was drawn to Millerism for a time. Wendell
Phillips and the Tappan brothers were likewise absorbed in
hastening the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven to American

. 2 5
soc1ety.

156
A testimony to the millenarian designs of northern

abolitionists was supplied by the southern defenders of
slavery. James H. Hammond from South Carolina wrote to the
abolitionists in January of 1845:

I might say that I am no more in favor of slavery

in the abstract, than I am of poverty, disease,

deformity, idiocy, or any other inequality in the

condition of the human family; that I love perfection,

and think I should enjoy a millennium such as God has

promised. But what would it amount to? A pledge

that I would join you to set about eradicating those

apparently inevitable evils of our nature, in equal-

izing the condition of all mankind, consummating the

perfection of our race, and introducing the millen-

nium?
The Millennium, concluded Hammond, was to be brought about
by "the Almighty” and not by man. Man's past history, he
stated, showed how futile human efforts were to accomplish
God's purposes and how the Almighty had always carried out
his designs by "unconscious instruments.”26

George Fitzhugh, perhaps the most perceptive of all

the spokesmen for the southern social order, who also had
travelled in the north and talked freely widi the anti—
slavery leaders, could see that millenarian and Utopian
ideas were the taproot of abolitionism endeavor. He could
see that this millennial drive threatened not merely the
institution of slavery, but all existing law and order.
The abolitionists, to Fitzhugh, were neurotics obsessed
with a millennialism and perfectionism which would destroy
any institution not perfect. He could see that William

Goodell, the New York abolitionist, philosopher, and news—

paper editor, believed "the condition of his society is so

157

bad, that it becomes necessary to upset and reverse it by
the millennium." The abolitionist Gerrit Smith also seemed
"to look to an approaching millennium." The philosophers
and philanthrOpists from the north, wrote Fitzhugh, had
been "roaring" for years that the whole edifice of society
is rotten, dangerous, and no longer fit for human dwelling.
And now, he continued, the rats are headed, "into every
hole that promises shelter"—-some join the Rappists, Shakers,
Fourierite Phalansteries, Spiritualists or "quietly put on
their ascension robes to accompany Parson Miller in his
upward flight." But the greater numbers, Fitzhugh decided,
have waited for "Mr. Garrison and Mr. Goodell to inaugurate
their Millennium." The antislavery Liberty Party was made
of two groups, he wrote; the Millennial Christians "who
expect Christ, either in the flesh or in the spirit, soon
to reign on earth" and the "infidel" Social Scientists who
follow the schools of Owen, Blanc, Fourier, and Comte. But
"Infidel" or Christian abolitionism made little difference
since they both

betray a similar tendency. The Abolitionists of New

York, headed by Gerritt Smith and Wm. Goodell, are

engaged in precisely the same projects as the "in-

fidels," but being Christians would dignify Free Love

and No—Government with the appellation of Millennium.

Probably half the Abolitionists at the North expect

a social revolution to occur by the advent of the Mil-
1ennium.27

158

George Fitzhugh and James Hammond were correct; the abolition-
ist's desire to hasten the Millennium and set up the Kingdom
of God was a strong factor in the antislavery impulse.

The antislavery movement in Michigan got off to
an early start compared to many other western states. A
group of Pennsylvania Quakers, including Elizabeth Margaret
Chandler who had worked closely with Benjamin Lundy in edit-
ing an early abolitionist newspaper, The Genius of Universal

Emancipation, arrived at Tecumseh, Michigan, on the Raisin

 

River in 1830. Under her leadership, the first anti-
slavery society was founded the next year, the ”Logan Female
Anti-Slavery Society." Although Elizabeth Chandler died

in 1834, Weld's agents from Oberlin College later found
Lenawee County, Michigan, a virtual hot-bed of abolitionism.
Benjamin Lundy, the great Quaker abolitionist, had visited

the settlementin 1832, and Garrison's Liberator was extrem—

 

ely popular with the Quakers at Tecumseh. They had received
his paper from its inception and corresponded regularly
with Garrison.28
By the fall of 1836, when the Michigan State Anti—
Slavery Society was organized, the antislavery movement

in Michigan was well underway. It was not until 1839,

however, when the American Freeman was established as

 

one of the first of the abolitionist periodicals in the
western states, that Michigan received national recognition

as a leader in the antislavery movement. The Freeman

159
was published at Jackson, Michigan, during 1830—1840 as

the American Freeman and the Michigan Freeman and then was

 

 

merged with the Signal of Liberty at Ann Arbor in 1841.

 

The Sigpal of Liberty was the official organ of the Mich-

 

igan State Anti-Slavery Society. Seymour B. Treadwell,
agent of the Michigan State Anti-Slavery Society, and
Theodore Foster from Scio, Michigan, editors of the Signal,
were leaders in Michigan abolitionism. Guy Beckley, Method—
ist minister from Ann Arbor who was instrumental in found—
ing the Michigan Wesleyan Methodist Church, also served

as associate editor of the paper for several years. Ultra
abolition, as well as abolition by political action,
centered at Ann Arbor in the nucleus formed by these zeal—
ous editors. Other leaders included Nathan Thomas, a
practicing physician from Schoolcraft, Michigan, who was in
charge of the Underground Railroad station located there;
Nathan Power, the Quaker school teacher from Farmington,
Michigan, and one of the founders of the Michigan State
Anti-Slavery Society; Erastus Hussey from Battle Creek,

the temperance and antislavery lecturer who was known

for his work in Underground Railroad; and Jabez S. Fitch,

a leading merchant of Marshall, Michigan, who was to run

as gubernatorial candidate on the Liberty ticket in 1842.
Most important to the leadership of the antislavery move-
ment in Michigan, however, was James G. Birney, the Liberty

Party presidential candidate, who settled in Saginaw in 1841.

160
Birney's presence necessarily drew national attention to

Michigan, and to the Signal of Liberty, since this abolition—
29

 

ist paper then became a Liberty Party organ.
The early antislavery reform in Michigan, as in the
national movement, was based upon the desire to build a

paradise on earth. The Report of the Proceedings of the

 

Anti-SlaverygState Convention held at Ann Arbor included

 

letters from leading abolitionists from the East, urging
their Michigan comrades on to the Millennial Kingdom.
Alvan Stewart, the abolitionist lawyer from Utica, New
York, and a leading figure in organizing the Liberty Party,
reminded the convention delegates that:

The battle will be like the battle of Gog and Magog-—

but we shall conquer: Fear not brethren; go for-

ward and fight valiantly; and you shall not lose

your reward in that day when the oppressor will pray

for the rocks and mountains to fall on him from

the face of the Lamb130
William Goodell, in a long letter prepared to be read to
the Convention, set forth the perfect society that the newly
organized Michigan State Anti-Slavery Society would help
to achieve. He stated that the formation of the Michigan
Society was proof "that there was a Spirit moving upon the
mighty waters-—a Spirit that had decreed 'Let there be
Light1'" Furthermore, he wrote, "the Church of Jesus Christ
will be trained to enter upon the triumphs of her millen-

1

nial emancipation."3* That the Michigan leaders accepted

this millennial responsibility is evident from a letter

written a few years later to Seymour Treadwell, editor of

161

the Michigan Freeman, by Jabez S. Fitch, one of the most

 

important abolitionists in the state. He praised editor
Treadwell for having endured so many "fiery trials" as the
head of the Freeman. Fitch assured Treadwell that the Lord
would sustain them in the righteous cause. But Treadwell
must
Continue to hold up truth, and it will prevail, and
we shall triumph. The edict had gone forth that the
great battle between Gog and Magog must be fought,
before the Millennium can be ushered in and the troops
under God are beginning to enlist. . . .32

In November of 1841 James Gillespie Birney, the
former Kentucky slave—owner, arrived at Saginaw "almost
out of the peopled world," where he could "live cheap and
where I can put my boys to doing something to support them-
selves."33 A few months later he purchased land in
lower Saginaw (now Bay City) where he lived for the greater
part of his remaining years. The move to Michigan did not,
however, reduce Birney's antislavery and Liberty Party
activities, since he kept busy lecturing in Michigan and
often writing for the Signal of Liberty.

In 1834 Birney had written to the Elders of the
Presbyterian Church in Kentucky that the effects of slavery
are "to exclude the knowledge of God and Christ, as well
as of the necessity of any preparation for the world to
come. . . " He realized, the letter continued, that he

was not writing to "cavillers" but to those "who are will-

ing to do whatever may hasten his glorious reign on earth,

162

34 Beriah

and add to their own weight of glory in heaven."
Green, President of Oneida Institute of New York and former
teacher at Western Reserve College in Ohio, recognized this
millennialism of his subject in his short campaign biography
of Birney published in 1844. No people could be "prosperous
or happy. . .," Green quoted from Birney's letters, "who
deny His right to reign on earth among men."

In his hope for the Kingdom, Birney sometimes des-
paired of both his country and government. Perhaps both
would be destroyed. Seth M. Gates, a friend of Birney's
in Congress and an abolitionist who had had a price placed
on his head of $500 by one Georgian planter, assured Birney
shortly after the latter's removal to Michigan, that God
was still at the helm and the reign of God was sure:

. . . there is prayer in the land, power in the
truth, and especially the Gospel of truth, and I
trust a more glorious part to perform in the scenes
which are to convert the world and usher in the
Millenium[sic] awaits us than final disorganization
and annihilation as a Government.36
Yet Birney wrote to Lewis Tappan a little later that there
was little hOpe: "Our Church is corrupt--our government

37 The success of

. . . is corrupt. The end must come."
the Liberty Party, Birney came to believe, was the only
salvation for a corrupt nation. God would regenerate society
through political means. Our Lord has declared, Birney

told the people of Pontiac in a late summer speech of 1842,

that

TE, .,”-.3 1‘1le

163

oppression and violence shall cease in the earth, so

sure it is that the march of improvement shall go

forward, until the great foundation principle of

human liberty—-the common brotherhood of men--shall

be recognized in all our land. . .-.38

Theodore Foster, editor of the Signal of Liberty for
many years, shared with Birney the promise of Christ's reign
of peace and happiness on earth. All would be free, there
would be no strife or suffering. Many yeans after he had
resigned his post as head of the Signal of Liberty, during
the dark years of the Civil War, he wrote his sister, Lydia
Comstock of Wisconsin, of his concern about the suffering
of the northern soldiers in southern prisons. He was con-
soled by the thought of the coming Millennial Day: "You
and I not only believe but Eggg that the time is coming
when the whole earth shall be a paradise on which God shall
delight to look, and these evils shall be known no more."39
Not only in the writings and philosophy of individual

leaders such as Birney and Foster did the interest in the
Kingdom of God on earth flourish. The resolutions of the
various Liberty Party rallies and antislavery meetings around
the state provided additional proof of the millenarian
impulse in the Michigan movement. At an antislavery meeting
held at Young's Prairie, Michigan, the resolution was adOpted
that "we believe slavery, as it now exists in the United
States is one of the greatest obstacles in the way of the

coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. . . ." A resolution of

the Liberty Party in Lyon, Oakland County, read:

 

 

164

Resolved, that we gratefully acknowledge the hand
of providence in carrying forward the cause of
liberty, and we believe it one important link in
the vast chain of causes by which the all wise and

benevolent Being will ultimately redeem a revolted
world from every form of Sin and Oppression.40

 

In the minds of most reformers the dawn of the Millen-
nial Day meant judgment as well as promise. If necessary,
God would use His avenging sword of justice to humble a
wicked and obstinate nation. By the late 1850's the prospect
of a Civil War became increasingly accepted as God's re-
tributive justice for national sins. When the war finally
came, it was viewed by many as a cleansing process which
would prepare America for the Reign of Christ.

In the opinion of reformers it was not the South
alone that was guilty in the eyes of God; the North shared
the sin for allowing slavery to exist in America. Seymour
Treadwell represented the feeling of the Michigan abolition-

ists when he wrote in the Signal of Liberty:

 

'The North Sea, if she will, speedily redeem the

slave and save the nation, if indeed the measure

of our iniquity be not already full, and the nation
thus fitted for sudden destruction: Surely the North
ought to do this. If she will not, how can she ex-
pect the judgments of Heaven to fall lighter upon

her own head than upon the South?41

The fear of God's wrath was thought important enough to be
written into the Preamble at the founding of the Michigan

State Anti-Slavery Society:

 

 

165

They [the undersigned] anticipate the vengeance of

Heaven on their beloved country, should it persist

in a crime of so deep a dye, and so adhorrent to

the spirit and precepts of that religion which is

from above.42
Similarly, James G. Birney's letters contain many references
to the coming judgment of God. He wrote to the New York
abolitionist, Lewis Tappan, that "we are ready now to be
dashed to the earth—-to be broken as a potter's vessel,
and to be made a beacon to all coming times." The whole
country was ready to collapse from the weight of its sins,
and "our damnation as a people lingereth not."43

Among religious sects, both Mormons and Adventists

saw the Civil War as evidences of God's anger. The Mormon
leader Joseph Smith had predicted the judgment of God
through a civil war which would be started by South Carolina.
Then the inhabitants of the earth would "be made to feel
the wrath, and indignation and chastening hand of the Al-

44 The Seventh-day Adventist leader, Ellen

mighty God."
G. White, compared American slavery to that of the Israelites
when "the Egyptians were made to feel God's judgments."

Thus, she wrote in 1862, "God is punishing the nation for

the high crime of slavery. . . . He will punish the South

for the sin of slvery, and the North for so long suffering
its overreaching and overbearing influence." After the

Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run, Mrs. White

explained that God "would not suffer victories to be gained

faster than he ordained, . . to punish them for their sins."

 

166

The war,she believed, was evidence that "the scenes of
earth's history are fast closing. We are amid the perils
of the last days."45

Baptists and Presbyterians were likewise fearful
of divine justice. A circular letter of the Michigan's
Washtenaw Baptist Association in 1842 declared that God
was about to destroy the nation because of the twin sins
of intemperance and slavery. It pointed to the four great
fallen biblical empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and
Rome, and warned that "The same causes that destroyed them
are making rapid progress in our nation."46 George Duf-
field of the Detroit First Presbyterian Church, who dis—
liked fanatical abolitionism as much as the institution of
slavery itself, pessimistically decided thatthe world
must be scourged into peace and righteousness "by God in
His own way." On the eve of the Civil War in a Thanksgiving
Day sermon, taking Jeremiah 18: 7,8 as his text«-"At what
instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a
kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it
. . . ."--Duffield pleaded for the country to turn away
from its national sins such as intemperance and slavery
before it was too late. God was just "waiting for this
great nation to turn from its evil," then He would spare
"our guilty land." A few weeks later, when the Union

was already dissolving, Duffield spoke again:

 

 

167
If God gives not repentance to put away voluntarily,
the evils of slavery, and those it developed, He
will, as He ever has done, interfere by His judg-
ments to do it. . . .We tremble in view of His judg-
ments and wrath, for we are guilty.47
George W. Clark, a reformer who had published Michigan's

first temperance paper, the Michigan TemperanxaHerald, at

Ann Arbor, inl837, wrote to Lincoln in July of 1861 giving

' i

the President advice on how to end the judgments of God

I’-
L .
I

which were "being poured out upon the country." Clark, a
popular songwriter nationally known in antislavery circles

as the "Liberty Singer," told Lincoln to abolish slavery
immediately--"obey the voice of God and 'proclaim liberty
throughout all the land to all the inhabitants therof'" and
once again God would look with favor upon a redeemed nation.48

The conviction that the nation would be punished for
the sins of slavery and intemperance was shared by many
churchmen and abolitionists in Michigan. The Kingdom of
peace and righteousness was evidently to be set up only
by the direct intervention of God. And though the war it—
self proved to be a shock to those hoping for an imminent
golden age on earth, they believed that God still reigned
and would help the North destroy slavery.

The hOpe for a temporal millennium and the sense of
mission manifested by the Jacksonians was intensified in
Michigan society during the period of 1830 to 1860. The
crusades against slavery and intemperance were only two of

the social reforms being stimulated by the millennial im—

pulse. In Michigan, the "third New England," the strong

168
millenarian spirit demonstrated by both the leaders and
the laity of the state, was a primary factor in the suc-
cess of the great reforms. In every endeavor of the
Protestant evangelical crusade, a fervent belief in the
Second Coming moved men to action in preparing the way for
the Lord. Whether exhibited in Home Missions, Fourierism,
Mormonism, Adventism, or in the many great social reforms

of the time, the millennial impulse, transmitted from west-

?» . .uu-fin- [

ern New York, was a powerful force for reform in the "third

New England."

FOOTNOTES

1. For a discussion of the idea of progress and
Christianity read Arthur Alphonse Ekirch, The Idea of Prog-
ress in America, 1815-1860 (New York, 1944), pp. 33-37,
John B. Bury, The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry Into Its
Origin and Growth (New York, 1932), p. 73 and passim.

 

 

 

 

 

2. Morris C. Tabor, "New England Influence in South
Central Michigan," Michigan History, XXXXV (1961), p. 308;
W. V. Smith, "The Puritan Blood of Michigan," Michigan ,]
Pioneer and Historical Collections, XXXVIII (1912), pp. 355- 54?
361; J. H. Stevens, "The Influence of New England in Mich-
igan," Michigan History, XIX (1935), pp.321-353.

 

 

 

 

 

3. Charles Lanman, Red Book of Michigan (Detroit,
1871), p. 140.

 

4. Arthur Raymond Kooker, "The Antislavery Movement
in Michigan," an unpublished Ph.D. dissertation at the Univers—
ity of Michigan (1941),pp.79,and passim; see also Gilbert Hobbs
Barnes, The Antislavery Impulse, 1830—1844 (New York, 1933)
Chapters VI, VII.

 

5. Charles Grandison Finney, Lectures on Revivals
of Religion (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), pp. 287,298.

 

 

6. Ibid., pp. 305, 306.

7. Lyman Beecher, Six Sermons on the Nature, Occasions,
Signs, Evils, and Remedy of Intemperance (New York, 1827),
pp. 11, 77; John Allen Krout, The Origins of Prohibition (New
York, 1925), PP- 105-108.

 

 

8. Krout, Origins of Prohibitions, p. 108.

 

9. Justin Edwards, Temperance Manual (New York, N.D.)

 

p. 86.

10. Temperance Recorder, March 6, 1832 quoted in
Krout, Origins of Prohibition, p. 119.

 

 

11. Permanent Temperance Documents of the American
Temperance Society, I (Boston, 1835), pp. 9, 81, 448, 454.

 

 

12. Lucius M. Sargent, Address Delivered at the
Benefecient Coggregational Meeting-Housey Julyy4i 1838, etc.
(Providence, 1838), p. 32.

 

 

169

170

13. The Templar's Companion, May 1866.

 

14. Floyd B. Streeter, "History of Prohibition Leg-
islation in Michigan," Michigan History, II (1918), pp. 289-
308; John Fitzgibbon, "King Alcohol: His Rise, Reign, and
Fall in Michigan," Michigan History, II (1918), pp. 737—781.

 

 

15. Fitzgibbon, "King Alcohol," p. 742.

16. See A. D. P. Van Buren, "Temperance in Pioneer
Days," Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, V kn
(1882), pp. 426-433. ‘

 

l7. Signal of Liberty, December 15, 1841; see the _
many references to temperance in Maurice F. Cole, Voices is
From the Wilderness (Ann Arbor, 1961), pp. 73, 113 and

passim.

18. George Duffield, An Address Delivered in the
Presbyterian Church Before the Young Men's Temperance
Society of Carlisle (Carlisle, Penn., 1832), p. 11; George
Duffield, The Bible Rule of Temperance: Total Abstinance
from all Intoxicating Drink (New York, 1868), p. 125.

 

 

 

 

 

19. H. D. Kitchel, The Law of Reform: An Oration
(Detroit, 1849), p. 3.

 

20. Michigan Temperance Journal and Washipgtonian,
July, 1847.

 

21. Evangelical Observer, July 1, 1845.

22. Michigan Temperance Advocate, January 1842.

 

23. Newspaper clipping from the Barton Papers,
Michigan Historical Collections at the University of Michigan.

24. Signal of Liberty, December 15, 1841; March
16, 1842.

 

25. Truman Nelson, ed., Documents of Upheaval:
Selections from William Lloyd Garrison's "The Liberator,‘I
_t831—1865 (New York, 1966), pp. 143, 146, 149; Louis Ruchames,
The Abolitionists: A Collection of Their Writingg (New
York, 1963), pp. 39—40; John L. Thomas, The Liberator;
William Lloyd Garrison (Boston, 1963), p. 317; Gilbert H.
Barnes and Dwight L. Dumond, Letters of Theodore Dwight
Weld, Angelina Grimke Weld and Sarah Grimke, I (New York,
1934), pp. 297-298; II, pp. 785, 961; Benjamin P. Thomas,
Theodore Weld (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1950), pp. 27-28,
218; Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-Over District: The Social

 

 

 

 

171

and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western
New York, 1800-1850 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1950), p. 286; Lewis
Tappan (New York, 1870), p. 361 and passim; Wendell Phillips,
Speechesy_Lectures, and Letters (Boston, 1892), p. 135 and
passim; Carlos Martyn, Wendell Phillips: The Agitator

(New York, 1890), p. 325 and passim.

 

 

 

26. E. N. Elliott, Cotton is King, and Pro—Slavery
Arguments (Augusta, Georgia, 1860), pp. 633-634.

 

 

27. George Fitzhugh, Cannibals All: or Slaves With-
out Masters (Edited by C. Vann Woodward, Cambridge, Mass.,
1960), pp. 89-90, 96-97, 99, 103, 104, 214, 228-229; see
also John L. Thomas' excellent essay, "Antislavery and
Utopia" in Martin Duberman, ed., The Antislavery Vanguard:

New Essays on the Abolitionists (Princeton, 1965), pp. 240-269.
(Princeton, 1965), pp. 240-269.

 

.,_.__—r
a... -_

‘4.“‘m’.
.4

 

28. See Merton L. Dillon, "Elizabeth Chandler and
the Spread of Antislavery Sentiment to Michigan," Michigan
History, XXXIX (1955), pp. 481-494; Kooker, "Antislavery
movement in Michigan," pp. 92-93.

 

29. In addition to Kooker, "Antislavery Movement in
Michigan," see Martha D. Aiken, "The Underground Railroad,"
Michigan History, VI (1922), pp. 297-261; Charles E. Barnes,
"Battle Creek as a Station on the Underground Railway,"
Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, XXXVIII (1912),
pp. 279—285; on Guy Beckley see John E. Kephart, "A Pioneer
Michigan Abolitionist," Michigan Histoty VL (1961), pp.
34-42; Robert L. Kincaid, "Nathan M. Thomas: Michigan
Pioneer," Michigan Histoty, XXXXI (1957), pp. 315—326.

, 30. Report of the Proceedings of the Anti-Slavery
State Convention Held at Ann Arbor, Michigan, The Tenth
and Eleventh of November, 1836 (Detroit, 1836), page 5.

 

 

31. Ibid., PP. 5-8.

32. Michigan Freeman, October 7, 1840.

 

33. James Birney to Lewis Tappan in Dwight L. Dumond,
Letters of James Gillespie Birney, 1831-1857, II (New York,
1938), p. 637.

 

34. Mr. Birney's Second Letter to the Ministers and
Elders of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucty_(1834).

 

 

35. Beriah Green, Sketches of the Life and Writingg
of James Gillespie Birney (Utica, N.Y., 1844), p. 116.

 

 

36. Seth Gates to James Birney, January 24, 1842
in Dumond, Birney Letters, II, pp. 665-667.

 

172

37. James Birney to Lewis Tappan, July 8, 1842 in
Dumond, Birney Letters, II, pp. 702-704.

38. Signal of Liberty, September 5, 1842.

39. In Willis H. Miller, "Theodore R. Foster Writes
From Lansing," Michigan History, XXXV (1951), p. 328.

 

40. Sigpal of Liberty, July 3, August 26,1843.
41. Ibid., May 16, 1842.

42. Report of the State Convention at Ann Arbor, p. 11.

 

43. James Birney to Lewis Tappan in Dumond, Birney
Letters, pp. 641, 704.

44. Joseph Smith, The Pearl of Great Price (Salt
Lake City, 1888), pp. 81-82.

45. Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church,
I (Mountain View, Calif., 1945), pp. 260, 264-265, 267.

 

46. "Circular Letter of the Washtenaw Baptist
Association," in Signal of Liberty, June 27, 1842.

47. George Duffield, Diary, April 23, 1848; George
Duffield, "A Thanksgiving Discourse: The Rule of Divine
Providence," p. 21, and "Our National Sins to be Repented
of," p. 29, in Secession: Its Cause and Cure (Detroit, 1861).

48. From the George W. Clark Scrapbook in the
Michigan Historical Collections at the University of Michigan.

 

 

B I BL IO GRAPHI CAL ESSAY

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY

No central collecting agency retained copies of the
numerous newspapers, periodicals, and pamphlet literature
printed during the early years of Michigan. For instance,
no copies of the Fourieristic Alphadelphia Tocsin printed
at the phalanx near Galesburg, or of its successor, the

True Tocsin at Jackson, are available even though the

 

original list of subscribers is known. Few copies survive

of the Michigan Temperance Herald started by George W.

 

Clark at Jackson in 1838, the Michigan Temperance Advocate
published at Marshall, Michigan, during the 1840's, or the

early Baptist periodical, the Michigan Christian Herald of

 

Detroit. Existing issues of other local periodicals, which
are potential sources of information, such as the Western

Pioneer and Herald of Truth published at Litchfield, Mich-

 

igan, cannot be found.

One of the best depositories for manuscripts per-
taining to Michigan church history is the Michigan Histor-
ical Collections at the University of Michigan. Church
records, private collections, and diaries housed there are
invaluable to the student of early Michigan history. The
Clements Library at the University of Michigan also has
valuable sources, particularly the Strangite periodicals
published at Voree, Wisconsin. The Burton Collection in

the Detroit Public Library contains the large diary of
174 '

 

 

175’
George Duffield, and manuscripts on nearly all subjects
relating to early Michigan. A few rare c0pies of Detroit
religious periodicals located in the Burton Collection are
especially valuable for studying denominations. The Am-
erican Home Missionary Society papers at the Hammond Library,
Chicago Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois, remain a
relatively untapped source of Michigan history. The hundreds
of letters from the Home Missionaries to the parent office
in New York City contain a wealth of information on early
Michigan. The James White Library at Andrews University,
Berrien Springs, Michigan, is an abundant Seventh-day Advent-

ist source, even having some of the early Millerite period-

 

icals. The complete file of the Advent Review and Sabbath
Herald from 1850 to 1860, located at the James White Library,
provides an excellent history of the early growth of the
Seventh-day Adventist Church. The Michigan State Library
at Lansing should not be overlooked, having valuable printed
writings by both James Strang and George Duffield, besides
numerous other rare books and pamphlets.

I am endebted to the very important study of American
religious history done by Whitney R. Cross in the Burned-

Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of

 

Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800-1850

(Ithaca, New York,1950). Though sometimes considered as

a local history of the Genesee Country, its major importance
rests upon the work as a scholarly case study in the trans—

mission of New England culture to western New York, and the

 

176
implications of the spread of these ideas westward from the
"burned-over district.“ This transmission of the Yankee-
Yorker culture to Michigan, the "third New England," is
discussed in W. V. Smith, "The Puritan Blood of Michigan,"
Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, XXXVIII (1912),
pp. 355-361; J. H. Stevens, "The Influence of New England

in Michigan," Michigan History, XIX (1935), pp. 321—353, and

 

Morris C. Tabor, "New England Influence in South Central
Michigan," Michigan History, XXXXV (1961), pp. 305-336.
General histories for the religious background of
the era which I have consulted include William Warren Sweet,
The Story of Religion in America (3rd ed., New York, 1950);
Religion on the Frontier,l783—l850 (New York, 1931-46);
Religion in the Development of American Culture, 1765-1840
(New York, 1952); Willard Sperry, Religion in America (New
York, 1946); Thomas C. Hall, The Religious Background of

American Culture (Boston, 1930); WinthrOp S. Hudson,

 

American Protestantism (Chicago, 1961).

 

Other volumes particularly helpful on the study of
the interrelation of church and society during the period
are John R. Bodo, The Protestant Clergy and the Public

Issues, 1812-1848 (Princeton, N.J., 1954); Charles C. Cole,

 

The Social Ideas of the Northern Evangelists, 1826—1860
(New York, 1954). Timothy L. Smith, Revivalism and the
Social Reform: American Protestantism on the Eve of the

Civil War (New York, 1957) is a valuable study of perfection-

 

ism and revivalism as well as of the church-society relation—

ship.

177

William G. McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism (New York,
1959) and Bernard A. Weisberger, They Gathered at the River
(Boston, 1958) are two basic studies of revivalism. The
early camp meeting is best handled in Charles A. Johnson,
_gpe Frontier Camp Meeting (New York, 1955).

On the history of millennialism, Leroy Edwin Froom,
a Seventh-day Adventist, in four large volumes has compiled
a comprehensive history of prophetic interpretation, Eta
Prgphetic Faith of Our Fathers (Washington, D.C., 1946—54)
which is a significant study. H. Richard Niebuhr's small
book, The Kingdom of God in America (Hamden, Conn., 1937),
is invaluable since it traces the millennial concept through
American history as a central theme. A more general study
is a history of Christian millennialism through the ages
of western civilization by Shirley Jackson Case, The Mil-

lennial Hope (Chicago, 1918). Postmillennialism is supported

 

in David Brown, The Second Coming: Will it be Premillennial
(Edinburgh, 1856). For a recent postmillennial view see

Loraine Boettner, The Millennium (Philadelphia, 1958).

 

The premillennialist position is described by George E.
Ladd's two studies, The Blessed HOpe (Grand Rapids, Mich.,
1956) and Crucial_guestions About the Kingdom of God (Grand
Rapids, Mich., 1952). The relationship of millennialism

to the early American missionary endeavor is develOped in
()liver W. Elsbree, The Rise of the Missionary Spirit in

America 1790-1815 (Williamsport, Pa., 1928).

 

178
For Michigan church histories, Elijah H. Pilcher's

Protestantism in Michigan (Detroit, 1878) is reliable, but

 

it is chiefly a Methodist history. John Comin and Harold

F. Fredsell, History of the Presbyterian Church in Michigan

 

(Ann Arbor, 1950) is the standard work on the Presbyterian
Church. Lewis G. Vander Velde's'The Synod of Michigan and

Movements for Social Reform," Church History, V (1936), pp.

 

52-70, states the case for the Presbyterian Church in re—
gard to its attitude on social reform. Difficulties with
the Plan of Union are described by Frederick I. Kuhn in

"The Breakup of the Plan of Union in Michigan," Michigan

 

History, XXXIII (1948), pp. 157-180. For the Congregational

side read The Congregational Church of Michigan for the

 

First Fifty_Years of Their Organization into a State Or-

ganization (n.p., 1892). Lewis G. Vander Velde has shed

 

a great deal of light on the history of Presbyterianism in
Michigan, through a study of the George Duffield diary in

"The Diary of George Duffield," The Mississippi Valley

 

Historical Review, XXIV (1937-38), pp. 21-34 and "Notes
on the Diary of George Duffield," in the same volume, pp.
53—67. The premillennialism of the Presbyterian minister,
George Duffield can be found in his diary, and especially
in his book, Dissertations on the Prophecies Relative to
the Second Coming of Jesus Christ (New York, 1842).

The Home Missionary Movement in Michigan can be fol-

lowed by reading the many numbers of The Home Missionary

 

(New York, 1827-93). The editors often describe the

 

179
conditions in Michigan and letters from the Michigan Mis—
sionaries are included in nearly every issue. A convenient
source for some of these Michigan letters to the home office

in Maurice F. Cole, Voices From the Wilderness (Ann Arbor,

 

Mic., 1961), a book of letters printed primarily for its
philatelic interest, but of different importance to the

social historian. Colin B. Goodykoontz, Home Missions in

 

the American Frontier (Caldwell, Idaho, 1939) is the stand—

 

ard work on the subject.
Little has been written about Universalism in Mich—
igan or concerning its connection with Fourierism. Richard

Eddy, Universalism in America, 11, Boston, 1894) recorded

 

some of the Universalist activities in early Michigan.

The best source on this denomination, however, is The Prim-

 

itive Expounder published at Ann Arbor, 1843-44, and then

 

successively printed at Alphadelphia, Jackson, and Lansing

until 1852. The Expounder was owned and edited by two

 

Universalist ministers and represented the views of the
Michigan Universalist Church. The background for Four-
ierism in Michigan is established by Arthur Eugene Bestor,
Backwoods Utopias: The Sectarian and Owenite Phases of

Communitarian Socialism in America 1663-1829 (Philadelphia,

 

1950) and John H mphrey Noyes, History of American Social—

 

isms (New York, 1961). Albert Brisbane, the American
discipkaof Charles Fourier,gives his own interpretation

of Fourierism in The Social Destiny of Man (New York, 1857)

 

 

180
Since most accounts of the Alphadelphian phalanx are dated,
rather superficial, and rarely documented, the student had
best go directly to the original manuscripts at Michigan
Historical Collections, University of Michigan, where the
entire collection is housed. Secondary accounts may be

found in the History of Kalamazoo County, Michigan (Phil—

 

adelphia, 1880); Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections,

 

V (Lansing, 1884), pp. 406-412; The Kalamazoo Gazette, Jan-

 

uary 24, 1937 (Centennial edition, part II). The pages

of the Universalist paper, The Primitive Expounder, some-

 

times contained material on the Alphadelphia Association.
To understand both Mormonism and its prophet, Joseph
Smith, the exceptional biography of Smith by Fawn M. Brodie,

No Man Knows My History; The Life of Joseph Smith, the

 

Mormon Prophet (New York, 1945) should be read. A good

 

monograph on Mormonism was done by the Catholic scholar,

Thomas F. O'Dea, The Mormons (Chicago, 1957). Joseph

 

Smith's beliefs are found in his Doctrines and Covenants

 

. . . . (Liverpool, 1891) and The Pearl of Great Price
(Salt Lake City, 1888). Although a short account by Smith

of Mormonism in Michigan appears in History of the Church

 

of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, Period I, II (Salt
Lake City, 1904), the best work on pre-Strangite Mormon

activity in Michigan is John and Audrey Cumming, The Saints

 

Come to Michigan (Mt. Pleasant, 1966). James J. Strang's

 

kingdom at Voree, Wisconsin,and later on Beaver Island,

181
Michigan, can be followed through the pages of the Strangite

paper published successively as the Voree Herald, Zion's Re-

 

veille, and Gospel Herald at Voree, Wisconsin, and finally as

 

the Northern Islander at Saint James, Beaver Island, Michigan.

 

The best secondary source on Strang is Milo M. Quaife, The

Kingdom of Saint James (New Haven, 1930), though it needs to be

 

read in conjunction with Mark Strang, ed., The Diary of James

J. Strang (East Lansing, 1961) which effectively points out

 

some of Quaife's mistakes. Mark Strang, a grandson of James J.
Strang, edited his grandfather's youthful diary and included

many key sentences originally written in an elementary code

which had baffled Quaife. Klaus Hansen's revisionist "The Making

of King Strang: A Re-examination," Michigan History, XLV (1962),

 

pp. 201-219 is an important study in motivational factors.
Aside from the Strangite periodicals, Strang's philoSOphy is

best found in James J. Strang, The Diamond. . . (Voree,

 

Wisconsin, 1848), much of which was included in the compil—
ation of the laws for his kingdom in The Book of the Law of

the Lord (Saint James, Michigan, 1856) published at the time

 

of his death. Useful secondary sources on the Strangites in-
clude Russell Nye's essay in A Baker's Dozen: Thirteen Unusual

Americans (East Lansing, 1956) and the sensationalized work

 

by Oscar W. Riegel, Crown of Glory (New Haven, 1935). A hostile

 

view of Strang was written by Elizabeth Whitney Williams, A
Child of the Sea; and Life Among the Mormons (Charlevoix,
Michigan, 1950).

An objective treatment of the Millerites has yet

to be written. Francis D. Nichol, a Seventh-day Adventist

historian, has done a painstaking research in The Midnight

182

Cry: A Defense of the Character and Conduct of William
Miller and the Millerites . . .(Washington, D.C., 1944).
Nichol disproved the accounts concerning ascension robes and
suicides popularized by Clara Endicott Sears in Days of
Delusion: A Strange Bit of History (New York, 1924).
The biography, Memoirs of William Miller (Boston, 1852),
written by Miller's close friend Sylvester Bliss, includes
much of Miller's correspondence. Most biographical ac—
counts of Miller are taken from Bliss' work.

Seventh-day Adventism is traced from its Millerite
beginning in Arthur W. Spalding, Origin and History of

Seventh-day Adventists, 4 vols., (Washington, D.C. 1961-62).

 

Joseph Bates' The Autobiography of Joseph Bates. . . .

 

(Battle Creek, 1868), demonstrates the reforming fervor

of this Adventist pioneer, even though only a small portion
of the book was reserved for his Adventist activities.

A narrative of the early labors of James and Ellen White

is found in James and Ellen White, Life Sketches (Battle

 

Creek, 1880) and James White, Life Incidents (Battle Creek,

 

1868). A primary source for Seventh—day Adventism is the

official church paper, the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald,

 

published at Battle Creek after 1855. To understand fully
the Adventist philosophy the prophetic books of Mrs. Ellen
G. White must be read, particularly the nine volumes of
Testimonies for the Church (Mountain View, Calif., 1948)

written from 1855 to 1909.

183

For a background to temperance and antislavery re-
form, the writings of Lyman Beecher and Charles G. Finney
are important, especially Beecher's Six Sermons on the
Nature, Occasions, Signs, Evils, and Remedy of Intemperance
(New York, 1827) and Finney's Lectures on Revivals of Religion
(Cambridge, Mass., 1960). Among the numerous biOgnaphical
studies d? the national antislavery reformers, the follow-
ing are especially helpful on the topic of milennialism:

John L. Thomas, The Liberator: William Lloyd Garrison

 

(Boston, 1963); Benjamin F. Thomas, Theodore Weld (New

 

Brunswick, New Jersey), and Lewis Tappan, The Life of Arthur
Tappan (New York, 1870). For the southern views of the
northern abolitionists' millennialism check E. N. Elliott,
Cotton is Kingypand Pro—Slavery Arguments (Augusta, Georgia,
1860) and George Fitzhugh, Cannibals All! or Slaves With-

out Masters (Cambridge, Mass., 1960). A perceptive article

 

explaining the southern vieWpoint is John L. Thomas,
"Antislavery and Utopia" in Martin Duberman, ed., The Anti—
slavery Vanguard: New Essays on the Abolitionists (Princeton,
1965). The Michigan antislavery movement has been studied

by Arthur Raymond Kooker, as an unpublished doctoral dis-
sertation at the University of Michigan, entitled "The Anti-
slavery Movement in Michigan," (1941). A most helpful

source is the official organ of The Michigan Anti-Slavery

Society, the Signal of Liberty published at Ann Arbor 1841-

 

1848. Dwight L. Dumond, ed., Letters of James Gillespie

Birney, 1831—1857, 2 Vols., (New York, 1938) is also an

 

184
important work. Helpful articles on antislavery in Michigan
are Merton L. Dillon, "Elizabeth Chandler and the Spread of
Antislavery Sentiment to Michigan," Michigan History, XXXIX
(1955), pp. 481-494; Charles E. Barnes, "Battle Creek as
a Station on the Underground Railway," Michigan Pioneer and
Historical Collections, XXXVIII (1912), pp. 279-285; John
E. Kephart, "A Pioneer Michigan Abolitionist," Michigan
History, XXXXV (1961), pp. 34—42; Robert L. Kincaid, "Nathan

M. Thomas: Michigan Pioneer," Michigan History, XXXXI

 

(1957), pp. 315—326.

John Allen Krout, The Origins of Prohibition (New
York, 1925) remains the standard work on the national temper-
ance reform movement down to the Civil War. Since few
copies of the Michigan Temperance Advocate are available,
the student of early Michigan temperance must rely on the
Michigan Temperance Journal and Washingtonian published at
Ann Arbor, 1846-47. Some articles on the early temperance
movement in the state, useful for a general picture, in-
clude Floyd B. Streeter, "History of Prohibition Legisla-
tion," Michigan History, II (1918), pp. 289-308; John Fitz-
gibbons, "King Alcohol: His Rise, Reign and Fall in Michigan,"
Michigan History, II (1918), pp. 737-781; and A.D.P. Van
Buren, "Temperance in Pioneer Days," Michigan Pioneer and

Historical Collections, V (1892), pp. 426-433.