Body: | The Arrest and Trial of Israel Dammon
The Myths Debunked!
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It has been called the SDA historical discovery of the century!
In March 1986 Andrews University Seminary graduate student Bruce Weaver discovered a newspaper account of the arrest and trial of one of Ellen White's friends, Israel Dammon. Find out why you never read about this historical discovery in the Adventist Review!
Click to View Incident In Atkinson: The Arrest and Trial of Israel Dammon by Bruce Weaver.
Click to View About the author Bruce Weaver
Click to View Why did Israel Dammon reject Mrs. White?
Point counter point:
Click to View Ellen White's account of the incident
Click to View Newspaper account of the incident
Click to View Contradictions between the two above accounts.
Click to View White's references proven unreliable
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We Speak truth in LOVE
"you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth" Jn 8:40
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Why Did Israel Dammon Reject Ellen White?
He witnessed her visions. He witnessed her miracles. Why did this Adventist
leader reject Ellen White?
Israel Dammon was a leader among the Adventists during the period of
1844-1846. He was a friend of the Whites and accompanied them on some of
their travels.
Witnesses a Miracle of Mrs. White
In the fall of 1846 Dammon accompanied the Whites and Joseph Bates on a trip to Poland, Maine. According to a second-hand account written by J.N. Loughborough in The Prophetic Gift in the Gospel Church, the horse pulling their wagon was "partly-broken" and its wild, erratic behavior had in the past caused the death of two men. Loughborough writes that in the midst of the trip Mrs. White went into a trance. As soon as she went into vision the horse "stopped perfectly still, and dropped his head, looking like a sleepy old horse." While Mrs. White remained in vision, the horse stood perfectly still. When the vision was over, the horse started up on his own "without any indication from his driver." From that time to the completion of their trip the wild horse was "completely tamed."
Witnesses Visions of Mrs. White
In addition to the vision mentioned above, Israel Dammon was present during a number of Mrs. White's early visions. He was present during Mrs. White's visions in February, 1845, at James Ayer's home in Atkinson, Maine, and he even witnessed some of her visions in his own home. Apparently, the shut door of salvation was a frequent theme of those early visions.
Dammon Rejects Mrs. White as a Prophet
After 1846, Dammon no longer regarded Ellen White as a prophet. Despite the supposed miraculous taming of the wild horse, despite the visions he witnessed where Mrs. White described the shut door of salvation (which Dammon himself advocated at that time), Dammon chose to part company with the Whites. He and his wife wrote an explanation of their decision:
We were formerly acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. White, and for a time had confidence in her visions, but for a good many years have had none at all. When we saw that they conflicted one with another, we renounced them altogether, and betook ourselves to the word of the Lord.
It has been some twenty years or more since we were associated with Mrs.
W.; but we remember very perfectly that her first visions or vision was
told both by herself and others (especially by Mrs. W.) in connection with
the preaching of the "shut door," and went to substantiate the same. While
under that influence, and preaching the visions, she, in vision, saw N. G.
Reed and I. Dammon, in the kingdom in an immortal state, and crowned. After
that, she saw them finally lost. How could both be true? I think one was
just as true as the other, and that God never told her any such thing.
(An Examination of Mrs. Ellen White's Visions, Miles Grant, Boston:
Published by the Advent Christian Publication Society, 1877)
Another reason Dammon parted company with the Whites could be a harsh
letter James White wrote to Dammon. In the book Defense of Eld. James White
and Wife: Vindication of their Moral and Christian Character on pp. 108-9,
the author quotes a letter by an Elder J. B. Goodrich (written early in
1870), that mentions Dammon:
I called on Eld. Dammon and wife, and had a talk with them. Eld. Dammon has
an old grudge against Bro. White for a letter he wrote him in 1845 or '46.
He says he censured him to the wrath of God, and he thinks he had no reason
to do so.
Israel Dammon was one of the first to reject Ellen White. Down through the
decades many, many others have followed in his footsteps. If there is one
lesson we can learn from Israel Dammon's rejection of Mrs. White, it is
this: A supposed miracle or a vision does not prove a person to be a
prophet of God. A prophet of God must pass the Six Biblical Tests of a
Prophet.
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Mrs. White's Weak and unreliable References in the Israel Dammon Incident
At the end of Spiritual Gifts 2, the only publication in which Ellen White
tells the Israel Dammon story, there are fifteen lists of individuals whose
names are published as vouching for various segments of Mrs. White's
auto-biographical sketches.
Of these fifteen lists, five pertain specifically to events she experienced
in the state of Maine (including the Dammon incident in Atkinson) during
the first fifteen to eighteen months of her public ministry (roughly
January 1845 to June 1846). These five lists of testimonials include
sixty-one entries; but when they are sifted for repetition, thirty-eight
different names remain.
By examining the 1850 United States Census Bureau records for Maine, and
reviewing dozens of Maine local histories housed at the Library of
Congress, I was able to identify twenty-eight of the thirty-eight
individuals (73%) printed on the five lists. (Three or four others have
been identified only tentatively.)
Twenty of the twenty-eight witnesses (71%) I was able to identify were from
five families. Nine of the twenty-eight were sixteen-years-old or younger
(the youngest being six) when the time passed in 1844. Two were charged in
1845 with vagrancy and/or disturbing the peace. Two others were deceased
before 1859 or 1860 when the lists probably were compiled. One of those,
Uriah Smith's father-in-law, Cyprian Stevens, died on September 6, 1858,
five days after being bitten by a rattlesnake.
It seems surprising that eight (or 29%) of the twenty-eight individuals I
was able to identify were strongly denounced by Mrs. White in 1860 - the
same year that she published their names - for fanaticism and for not
receiving her visions, including Cyprian Stevens' daughter, Harriet (Mrs.
Uriah) Smith:
"Harriet, I was carried back and shown that there has never been a
reception of the visions given in Paris....I was pointed back, away back to
the time when those in Paris, especially Brn. Andrews' and Stevens'
families were ensnared in error, and for years were in a perfect deception
of Satan. They suffered while in this error, but they will never obtain a
particle of reward for it. If they had been willing to be taught, and
receive light in God's appointed way, they would not have been held in
error, fanaticism and darkness all that length of time." ("To Brother J.N.
Andrews and Sister H.N. Smith," W58, 1860, Advent Source Collection, pp. 7
& 10.)
The lists of names at the end of Spiritual Gifts 2 vouching for Mrs.
White's stories were discussed in 1874 by Isaac Wellcome in his History of
the Second Advent Message and Mission, Doctrine and People, page 408:
"The most of these signers were as deeply in fanaticism as [James and Ellen
White] themselves; some were leading ones. But signers who had not been
personally associated in the fanaticism being scarce, to certify in these
prepared papers, the names of two young ladies (perhaps more) are added,
who, at the time specified for the events, were aged, respectively, nine
and fourteen years. Prodigies in intellect and judgment, surely, or,
perhaps, endowed with the "gift of discerning spirits." But it is no
difficult task to procure the names of partisans, associates, accomplices,
their children, cousins, and aunts, to certify to one's rectitude, sanity,
or orthodoxy. It is more safe and important, however, to have a good
"record in heaven."
Of the five lists of names under scrutiny, one list was made up of five
individuals who were supposed to have signed the following statement:
"We bear cheerful testimony to the truthfulness of the statements relative
to Elder Dammon, on pages 40, 41 [of Spiritual Gifts 2]. As near as we can
recollect we believe the circumstances of his arrest and trial to be fairly
stated."
H.A. Hannaford,
Wm. T. Hannaford,
D.S. Hannaford,
James Ayer, Sen.,
Mrs. R.W. Wood.
As references go, this list of five is not very impressive. None of the
five were witnesses at Dammon's trial. James Ayer, Jr., owned the home in
which Dammon's arrest took place and he did testify at the trial. But it is
his father who was seventy-two at the time of the incident, and
eighty-seven when Spiritual Gifts 2 was published, whose signature
apparently was obtained.
The remaining four witnesses resided in Orrington, across the Penobscot
River from Bangor. The four were sufficiently close neighbors to be
included on the same page of the 1850 federal census. Laborer William
Hannaford, his wife, Dorcas, and their daughter, Hester A., comprised three
of the four
Orrington testimonials. They were ages forty-three, forty, and sixteen,
respectively, in 1845. It is quite possible that William was the Mr.
Hannaford who figured reluctantly in a 28 March 1845 report from a
Piscataquis Farmer correspondent in Atkinson:
"The Millerites have been collecting for the past four days and held their
meetings at the house of Mr. James Ayer, Jr., in the southwest part of this
town. All secular business has been suspended by them, to await the coming
of the Lord, which they say will take place on the 4th day of April next.
From 10 to 15 have been baptised daily, many of them six or eight times
each. Last evening a party of Indians or anti-Routers arrived on the ground
about nine o'clock, and upon being refused admittance, burst open the doors
and took the Millerites belonging out of town and carried them off with
them. They harnassed [sic] Mr. Ayer's horse to a sled, and packed on a
load, and pressed a Mr. Hannaford one of their number to drive the team
through the woods to Dead Stream, about five miles distant, where they
intended to tar and feather them in case they continue to hold their
meetings any more."
The final name published as vouching for Mrs. White's account of Dammon's
arrest and trial, a Mrs. R.W. Wood, was twenty-three in 1845 and married to
a twenty-nine year old farmer named Newall Wood (probably the Brother Wood
mentioned at the trial). A troubling reference to Mrs. Wood's Spiritual
Gifts 2 testimonial appears on page 117 of E.S. Ballenger's unfinished
manuscript entitled "Early History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church":
"In a private letter dated May 16, 1888, Mrs. Wood denies that she ever
signed this statement and she did not know that her name was attached to it
until many years after. She also denies the accuracy of Mrs. White's
statements regarding the [Dammon] affair. She was present and remembered
the experience very well, and her account does not agree with Mrs. White's
account. If they will forge Mrs. Wood's name to a document they would forge
other names; therefore we have good reason for doubting the value of their
testimonials."
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Contradictions in the Israel Dammon Incident
Between what White said and the truth!
Mrs. White's Spiritual Gifts 2 account of the arrest and trial of Israel
Dammon contradicts - on major and minor points - the testimony of both
friendly and unfriendly witnesses and the court record as reported in the 7
March 1845 Piscataquis Farmer. Those contradictions are presented below:
Mrs. White
Trial record
"while I was speaking, two men looked in...." [This implies a quiet one-speaker meeting]
Joseph Moulton: "I went to arrest the prisoner....Can't describe the place - it was one continued shout."
"The power of God was in that room, and the servants of God, with their countenances lighted up with his glory, made no resistance."
Joseph Moulton: "When I went to arrest prisoner,...so great was their resistance, that I with three assistants, could not get him out....We were resisted by both men and women."
"They would move him a few inches only, and then rush out of the house....The men could not endure the power of God, and it was a relief to them to rush out of the house."
Joseph Moulton: "I remained in the house and sent for more help...."
"Elder D. was held by the power of God about forty minutes, and not all the strength of those men could move him from the floor where he lay helpless."
Joseph Moulton: "We overpowered them and got him out door in custody."
"A lawyer offered his services."
Joel Doore, under cross-examination: "I engaged counsel in this case to defend the prisoner."
"He was asked to give [the court] a synopsis of his faith."
"Elder Dammon again rose for further defense. Court indulged him to speak."
"He told them in a clear manner his belief from the Scriptures."
"He read 126th Psalm, and the 50th Psalm. He said that the day of grace had gone by; that the believers were reduced, but that there was too many yet, and that the end of the world would come within a week."
"It was also suggested that they sung curious hymns, and he was asked to sing one."
"The prisoner and his witnesses asked permission, and sung..."
"Many witnesses were brought to sustain the charge, but they were at once broken down by the testimony of Elder D's acquaintances."
Ayer: "I agree with Crosby and Lambert." Osborn: "Think Crosby's testimony correct." Mason: "I have heard Crosby testify, and think him correct." [Defense disputed little of prosecution's testimony.]
"Elder D. was asked if he had a spiritual wife. He told them he had a lawful wife, and [that she was] a very spiritual woman..."
James Ayer, Jr: "Dammon said he had a spiritual wife and he was glad of it." [The witty negative response alleged by EGW is not in the record, and is ruled out by the testimony of defense witness Ayer.]
"...he was released."
"The Court sentenced the prisoner to...Ten Days."
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Ellen White's Account of the Israel Dammon Incident
from Spiritual Gifts, Vol. 2, pp. 40-42, 1860
From Exeter we went to Atkinson. One night [Feb. 15] I was shown something
that I did not understand. It was to this effect, that we were to have a
trial of our faith. The next day, which was the first day of the week,
while I was speaking, two men looked into the window. We were satisfied of
their object. They entered and rushed past me to Elder Damman [sic]. The
Spirit of the Lord rested upon him, and his strength was taken away, and he
fell to the floor helpless. The officer cried out, "In the name of the
State of Maine, lay hold of this man." Two seized his arms, and two his
feet, and attempted to drag him from the room. They would move him a few
inches only, and then rush out of the house. The power of God was in that
room, and the servants of God with their countenances lighted up with his
glory, made no resistance. The efforts to take Elder D. were often repeated
with the same effect. The men could not endure the power of God, and it was
a relief to them to rush out of the house. Their number increased to
twelve, still Elder D. was held by the power of God about forty minutes,
and not all the strength of those men could move him from the floor where
he lay helpless. At the same moment we all felt that Elder D. must go; that
God had manifested his power for his glory, and that the name of the Lord
would be further glorified in suffering him to be taken from our midst. And
those men took him up as easily as they would take up a child, and carried
him out.
After Elder D. was taken from our midst he was kept in a hotel, and guarded
by a man who did not like his office. He said that Elder D. was singing,
and praying, and praising the Lord all night, so that he could not sleep,
and he would not watch over such a man. No one wished the office of
guarding him, and he was let go about the village as he pleased, after
promising that he would appear for trial. Kind friends invited him to share
their hospitalities. At the hour of trial Elder D. was present. A lawyer
offered his services. The charge brought against Elder D. was, that he was
a disturber of the peace. Many witnesses were brought to sustain the
charge, but they were at once broken down by the testimony of Elder D's
acquaintances present, who were called to the stand. There was much
curiosity to know what Elder D. and his friends believed, and he was asked
to give them a synopsis of his faith. He then told them in a clear manner
his belief from the Scriptures. It was also suggested that they sung
curious hymns, and he was asked to sing one. There were quite a number of
strong brethren present who had stood by him in the trial, and they joined
with him in singing, "When I was down in Egypt's land, I heard my Saviour
was at hand".
Elder D. was asked if he had a spiritual wife. He told them he had a lawful
wife, and he could thank God that she had been a very spiritual woman ever
since his acquaintance with her. The cost of the court, I think, was thrown
upon him, and he was released.
Spiritual Gifts, Vol. 2, pp. 40-42, 1860
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Newspaper Account of the Israel Dammon Trial
Following is an article that was published by the Piscataquis Farmer that
gives a picture of the type of worship that Ellen White was involved in
during the 1840's. Israel Dammon was a preacher that Ellen Harmon (this was
prior to her marriage to James White) was closely associated with during
the time that they believed in the shut door doctrine.
PISCATAQUIS FARMER
Devoted to politics, agriculture,literature, morals, temperance, news
Vol. 3 Dover Maine, Friday Morning, March 7, 1845 No. 31
TRIAL OF ELDER I. DAMMON REPORTED FOR THE PISCATAQUIS FARMER
In offering the public the following report I feel it due to them as well
as myself, to make a few remarks. When I volunteered to do it, I had no
doubt but that the examination would have been gone through with in the
course of a few hours. Judge then, what must be my surprise on finding the
Court House filled to over flowing, and having it occupy such a length of
time. To the witnesses I will say, I have abridged your testimony as much
as possible, and have omitted much of the most unimportant part, in order
to shorten the work, but have endeavored in no case to misrepresent you,
and if you find an error, I beg you to impute it to my head, instead of
heart. --To the reader I will remark, that much of the testimony was drawn
out by question, and I have omitted the questions in all cases where it
could b dispensed with and shorten the work. To all, I offer it as an
imperfect and impartial report. In consequence of my total inexperience,
being but a laboring man, I should shrink from publishing it, but from the
urgent solicitation of others. Thanking the Court for the favor of a seat,
by them, and the Court and Counsel for the use of their minutes, I sign
myself this once THE REPORTER.
N.B. I have preserved the language of the witnesses as much as possible.
Monday, Feb. 17, 1845
STATE OF MAINE, vs. ISRAEL DAMMON.
Prisoner arraigned before Moses Swett, Esq. of Foxcroft, associated by Seth
Lee, Esq. of Atkinson, on the following complaint, to wit. To Charles P.
Chandler, Esq. one of the Justices of the Peace within and for the County
of Piscataquis. "HARTFORD J. ROWE, of Dover, in the Co. of Piscataquis,
Yeoman, upon his oath complains, the Israel Dammon, Commorant of Atkinson,
in said County, Idler, is, and for several days last past, has been a
vagabond and idle person, going about in the town of Atkinson, aforesaid,
in the county aforesaid, from place to place, begging: --that he the said
Israel Dammon is a common railer or brawler, neglecting his calling, or
employment, misspending his earnings, and does not provide for the support
of himself family, & against the peace of the State of Maine, and contrary
to form of Statute in such cases made and provided. He therefore prays that
the said I. Dammon, may be apprehended and held to answer to said complaint
and dealt with relative to the same as law and justice may require."
Plead Not Guilty
Court adjourned to one o'clock, P.M.
Opened agreeably to adjournment.
C.P. Chandler, H.G.O. Morison, for State. J.S. Holmes, for Respondent.
Opened by Chandler. Cited chap. 178, sec. 9, Revised Statutes.
Adjourned to Court House.
EBENEZER BLETHEN, sworn. Have been in the house three times, saw nothing
out of the way in Elder Dammon. Have seen others. Objected to by Holmes.
Confine your remarks to prisoner, he can in no ways be accountable for the
conduct of others, and I object to any testimony except what goes to show
what respondent [Dammon] has said or done, as wholly irrelevant.
Question by Chandler. Who was the presiding elder at the meeting?
Ans. Elder Dammon presided and took the lead of the meetings that I
attended.
CHANDLER AND MORISON. The meetings appear to be Elder Dammon's meetings-he
took the lead and guided them, and is accountable for any public
misconduct, and ought to check it: we propose to show the character of his
meetings, to show the character of the man. By the Court. You may relate
any thing that took place at the meetings, where the respondent was
presiding elder.
Witness [Blethen]. The first meeting I attended was two weeks ago yesterday
[2 February 1845] --saw people setting on the floor, and laying on the
floor; Dammon setting on floor; they were leaning on each other. It did not
have the appearance of a religious meeting.
Cross-examination. Saw nothing like licentiousness--there was exhortation
and prayer each evening. Was there last time after [for the purpose of
retrieving] part of my family.
J.W.E. HARVEY, sworn. Have attended their meetings two days and four
evenings. First meeting lasted eight days--have known Dammon six
weeks--Dammon, White and Hall were leaders. Dammon said the sinners were
going to hell in two days. They were hugging and kissing each other-Dammon
would lay on the floor, then jump up-they would frequently go into another
room. Dammon has no means to support himself that I know of. The meeting
appeared very irreligious--have seen him sit on the floor with a woman
between his legs and his arms around her.
Cross-examined. The room they went into was a back room; don't know what
was in it-I was in two rooms where there was a fire. In the back room they
said the world's people must not go. Dammon said the meeting was to be a
private meeting and they wanted no one to come unless they believed as he
did in the Advent doctrine. I did go considerably-If the meetings were
religious ones I thought I had a right to go to them-I went to satisfy
myself what was done. I had no hostile feeling against them. I think they
held the first meeting a fortnight [two weeks before]. Dammon said he
wanted no one to attend their meetings unless they believed in the advent
doctrine.
WM. C. CROSBY, Esq. sworn. I was at the meeting last Saturday night, from
about 7 o'clock to 9. There was a woman on the floor who lay on her back
with a pillow under her head; she would occasionally arouse up and tell a
vision which she said was revealed to her. They would at times all be
talking at once, halloing at the top of their voices; some of them said
there was too much sin there. After the cessation of the noise, Dammon got
up and was more coherent--he complained of those that come there who did
not believe in the advent doctrine. At one time Dammon said there was hogs
there not belonging to the band, and pointed at me, and said, I mean you,
Sir. Subsequently he addressed me again--said, you can't drive us out of
town; he stared me in the face and said, I am an honest man, or I could not
look you in the face, and you have hell's brass or you could not look me in
the face. Dammon said if he was owner of the house he would compel all
unbelievers to leave it--they were setting and laying on the floor
promiscuously and were exceedingly noisy.
Cross-examined. Did he not say if there was any there who did not come for
instruction he did not want them there.
Answer. That is not what he said--he pointed to me and said he meant you-I
never was more pointedly addressed in my life--we stood five or six feet
apart, most of the men were on the floor--most of the women in chairs--Do
not know how long Dammon has been in town.
THOMAS PROCTOR, sworn. Saw the prisoner last Saturday--was present when he
was taken; know nothing of the meetings myself.
MOSES GERRISH, sworn. I have never attended any of their meetings, when the
prisoner was present.
LOTON LAMBERT, sworn. They were singing when I arrived--after singing they
sat down on the floor--Dammon said a sister had a vision to relate-a woman
on the floor then related her vision. Dammon said all other denominations
were wicked--they were liars, whoremasters, murderers, &c.--he also run
upon all such as were not believers with him. He ordered us off--we did not
go. The woman that lay on the floor relating visions, was called by Elder
Dammon and others, Imitation of Christ. Dammon called us hogs and devils,
and said if he was the owner of the house he would drive us off--the one
that they called Imitation of Christ, told Mrs. Woodbury and others, that
they must forsake all their friends or go to hell. Imitation of Christ, as
they called her, would lay on the floor a while, then rise up and call upon
some one and say she had a vision to relate to them, which she would
relate; there was one girl that they said must be baptized that night or
she must go to hell; she wept bitterly and wanted to see her mother first;
they told her she must leave her mother or go to hell--one voice said, let
her go to hell. She finally concluded to be baptized. Imitation of Christ
told her vision to a cousin of mine, that she must be baptized that night
or go to hell-she objected, because she had once been baptized. Imitation
of Christ was said to be a woman from Portland. A woman that they called
Miss Baker, said the devil was here, and she wanted to see him--she
selected me and said, you are the devil, and will go to hell. I told her
she want [was not] my judge. Mr. [James] Ayer [Jr., owner of the house]
then clinched me and tried to put me out door. I told him we had not come
to disturb the meeting. The vision woman called [to] Joel Doore, said he
had doubted, and would not be baptized again--she said Br. Doore don't go
to hell. Doore kneeled to her feet and prayed. Miss Baker and a man went
into the bedroom--subsequently heard a voice in the room hallo Oh! The door
was opened--I saw into the room-she was on the bed-he was hold of her; they
came out of the bedroom hugging each other, she jumping up and would throw
her legs between his. Miss Baker went to Mr. Doore and said, you have
refused me before, he said he had--they then kissed each other--she said
"that feels good"--just before they went to the water to baptize, Miss
Baker went into the bedroom with a man they called Elder White--saw him
help her on to the bed--the light was brought out and door closed. I did
not see either of them afterwards. Once I was in the other room talking
with my cousin. Dammon and others came into the room and stopped our
discourse, and called her sister and me the devil. Imitation of Christ lay
on the floor during the time they went down to the water to baptize, and
she continued on the floor until I left, which was between the hours of 12
and 1 o'clock at night.
Cross-examined. Answer. The visionist lay down on the floor I should think
about 7 o'clock--she lay there from that time until I left. Dammon and
others called her Imitation of Christ. Part of the time Dammon was down on
the floor on his back--can't say certainly who first said she was Imitation
of Christ, but can say Dammon repeatedly said so--Dammon said Christ
revealed to her and she to others. I am not acquainted with Elder White.
They called him Eld. White. They said if the Almighty had anything to say
he revealed it to her, and she acted as mediator.
WM. RICKER, sworn. Know Elder Dammon--I went to attend their meeting once:
they told me there would be none--I asked them where it would be on the
next Sabbath? They told me they know not where; but they did not admit any
but the advent band. I asked Dammon if that was Christ's religion? He said
it is ours.
LEONARD DOWNES, sworn. --Went to meeting with Loten Lambert, and kept with
him; heard him testify, and know what he has related to be true. He omitted
one thing. I saw Dammon kiss other people's wives. (Witness underwent a
severe cross examination, in which his testimony was so near a repetition
of Mr. Lambert's, that it is by me, considered useless to copy it.)
WM. C. CROSBY, reexamined. I saw no kissing, but heard about it. I did not
stay late, went about 7, left about 9 o'clock. After the visionist called
them up she told them they doubted. Her object seemed to be to convince
them they must not doubt. Dammon called the churches whoremasters, liars,
thieves, scoundrels, wolves in sheep's clothing, murders, &c. He said read
the STAR. By spells it was the most noisy assembly I ever attended-there
was no order or regularity, nor anything that resembled any other meeting I
ever attended--Dammon seemed to have the lead and the most art. I don't say
Dammon shouted the loudest; I think some others stronger in the lungs than
he.
DEACON JAMES ROWE, sworn. I was at Ayer's a short time last Saturday
evening--Elder Dammon found fault with us for coming to his meeting-he
spoke of other denominations as Esq. Crosby has just testified--said the
church members were the worst people in the world. I have been young, and
now am old, and of all the places I ever was in, I never saw such a
confusion, not even in a drunken frolic. Dammon stood up on the floor and
said, I am going to stand here--and while I stand here, they can't hurt
you, neither men nor devils can't hurt you.
Cross-examined. He said all churches, made no distinction. I put no meaning
to what he said, I only state what he did say. I have been acquainted with
the prisoner twenty or thirty years; his character was good until recently.
JEREMIAH B. GREEN, sworn. I attended an afternoon meeting a fortnight ago
yesterday--they had an exhortation and prayer in the evening--I saw men
wash men's feet, and women wash women's feet--they had dishes of
water-Elder Dammon was the presiding elder--I saw Dammon kiss Mrs. Osborn.
EBENEZER TRUNDY, sworn. I was at meeting week before last, --I heard Dammon
say, "God's a coming! God's a coming!!" Mr. Boobar was telling of going
into the woods to labor--Dammon said he ought not to go. Boobar said he had
a family to support and was poor. Dammon told him he must live on them that
had property, and if God did not come then we must all go to work together.
JOSEPH MOULTON, sworn. When I went to arrest prisoner, they shut the door
against me. Finding I could not gain access to him without, I burst open
the door. I went to the prisoner and took him by the hand and told him my
business. A number of women jumped on to him--he clung to them, and they to
him. So great was the resistance, that I with three assistants, could not
get him out. I remained in the house and sent for more help; after they
arrived we made a second attempt with the same result--I again sent for
more help--after they arrived we overpowered them and got him out door in
custody. We were resisted by both men and women. Can't describe the
place-it was one continued shout.
WM. C. CROSBY, Esq., called again. Prisoner has been reported to have been
there about a fortnight, with no visible means of support.
J.W.E. HARVEY, reexamined. Prisoner has been there considerable. I know of
no means he has of support, other than to live on his followers.
T. PROCTOR, reexamined. Prisoner has been reported as a man who has no
means of support--I do not know of his having any.
JACOB MARTIN, Esq., Selectman of Atkinson, sworn. It is the common report
that the prisoner is living upon his followers. I have attended no meetings
of their's. Have seen a number of sleighs there, and fifteen or twenty
strangers.
BENJAMIN SMITH, Esq., Selectman of Atkinson, sworn. I have been called upon
by the citizens of Atkinson to interfere and put a stop to these
meetings--they gave as a reason, that the defendant and others were living
upon certain citizens of said town--and that they were liable to become
town charge. I started today to go there, but learned that the prisoner had
been arrested and that the others had dispersed.
Here the government stopped. Court adjourned to half past 6 o'clock.
Evening--Respondent's [defense] witnesses.
JAMES AYER, JR., affirmed. The most of the meetings were at my house. I
have generally attended them--sometimes I was out. I have heard the
testimony on the part of the State. Some things stated I do not recollect.
I was there last Saturday evening--saw no kissing. I agree with Crosby and
Lambert substantially. I understood prisoner to say there were members of
the churches who he referred to instead of the whole. Saw the woman with a
pillow under here head--her name is Miss Ellen Harmon, of Portland. I heard
nothing said by her or others about Imitation of Christ. I saw Miss Baker
laying on the floor. I saw her fall. Saw Miss Baker and Sister Osborn go
into the bedroom--Sister Osborn helped her on to the bed, came out and shut
the door. There was no man in the bedroom that evening. I heard the noise
in the bedroom--Brother Wood of Orrington and I went in; asked her what was
the matter, she made no reply, and I went out. Brother Wood assisted her
off of the bed, and helped her out--she appeared in distress. She told
brother Doore she was distressed on his account--was afraid he would lose
his soul, and advised him to be baptized. Did not see them kiss each other.
It is a part of our faith to kiss each other--brothers kiss sisters and
sisters kiss brothers, I think we have Bible authority for that. [Note: The
Bible certainly does tell of the holy kiss. But it was not just men kissing
women and women kissing men. Men kissed men (Genesis 27, Genesis 29,
Genesis 31, etc. & Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, etc.) and women kissed
women (Ruth).] I understood the prisoner to say, there was an account in
the STAR of a deacon who had killed seven men. the reason of our kneeling,
I consider an object of humiliation.
Cross-examined. --I know nothing about Miss Harmon's character. I did not
say there was no kissing--I saw none. I did not hear her called Imitation
of Christ. Elder Dammon has had no other business, but to attend meetings.
He and another man from Exeter, came with a young girl. Dammon said he had
a spiritual wife and he was glad of it. I went to Mr. Lambert and said if
he disturbed the meeting, he must go out door. We went to the water after
11 o'clock--Brother Dammon baptized two. I know nothing about Sister
Baker's character--seen her at meeting in Orrington. I understood Sister
Harmon had a vision at Portland, and was traveling through the country
relating it.
JOB MOODY, affirmed. I was at meeting Saturday evening. Brother Dammon said
in relation to other churches they were bad enough; said they were corrupt;
he spoke of the STAR--he did not say they were thieves, &c. I am not
certain, but think he said that evening there was exceptions. Sister Harmon
would lay on the floor in a trance, and the Lord would reveal their cases
to her, and she to them.
By the Court [a question of Moody]. Answer. Mr. Dammon repeatedly urged
upon us the necessity of quitting all labor. Kissing is a salutation of
love; I greet them so--we have got positive scripture for it--I reside in
Exeter.
Here the witness was told he might take his seat. He said I have some
testimony in relation to Brother Dammon's character, if I am not a going to
be called again. He then stated that he had been acquainted with Brother
Dammon five or sic years, and his character was good. He works part of the
time, and preaches a part of the time. I have been serving the Lord and
hammering against the devil of late.
ISLEY OSBORN, affirmed. I know nothing bad in Brother Dammon's character.
He believes there is good, bad and indifferent in all churches-he thinks it
best to come out from them, because there is so many that has fallen from
their holy position. Do not recollect hearing him use the expressions about
churches they have sworn to, but have heard him use as strong language
against them. Do not call Sister Harmon Imitation of Christ. They lose
their strength and fall on the floor. The Lord communicates to them through
a vision, so we call it the Lord. Brother White did not go into the
bedroom, nor any other man.
Cross-examined. She told them their cases had been made known to her by the
Lord, and if they were not baptized that evening, they would go to hell. We
believed her, and Brother Dammon and I advised them to be baptized. Brother
Dammon thought it best to keep the meetings secret, so they would not crowd
in. Hold to kissing--have scripture exhortation for that. Sister Baker has
a good character--the wickedest man in Orrington says she has a good
character, and that's enough to establish any character, when the worst man
admits it. (roar of laughter) We wish to go through the ordinance of
washing feet in secret. Did not see any kissing, but presume their was, as
it is a part of our faith. Think Esq. Crosby's testimony correct.
By Court [a question]: -- Answer. Elder Dammon does advise us to quit all
work.
ABRAHAM PEASE, affirmed. Reside in Exeter, prisoner's character is as good
as any man in Exeter. He has a small farm, and small family. He is a
reformation preacher--reformation has followed his preaching.
GARDNER FARMER, affirmed. Reside in Exeter--prisoner provides well for his
family. He has been to my house, and I to his--he always behaves well. I
saw him in Atkinson a fortnight ago last Tuesday.
Court adjourned to Tuesday morning 9 o'clock.
Tuesday, [Feb.] 18.
JACOB MASON, affirmed. Reside in Garland. Brother Dammon said the churches
were of that description--said they were lyers, rogues, &c. I did not
understand him to include all, but individuals. Sister Baker's character is
good. Do not recollect of Brother Gallison using any compulsion, to make
his daughter go forward in baptism. I saw Elder White after Sister Baker
went into the bedroom, near Sister Harmon in a trance--some of the time he
held her head. She was in a vision, part of the time insensible. Saw
nothing improper in Brother Dammon that evening. I never knew him [to be] a
beggar, or wasting his time.
Cross-examined. Do not know who it was that went into the bedroom with
Sister Baker--he was a stranger to me; he soon came out. Can't say how soon
he went in again. I have heard Crosby testify, and think him correct. I
thought her visions were from God--she would describe out their cases
correct. She described mine correct. I saw kissing out door, but not in the
house. A part of the time we sat on the floor--both men and women
promiscuously. I saw no man go into the bedroom. They wash feet in the
evening. It is a practice in our order to kiss, on our meeting each other.
Sister Harmon was not called Imitation of Christ to my knowledge. I think I
should have heard it if she was. I believe in visions. Sister Harmon is
eighteen or nineteen years of age; she is from Portland.
JOEL DOOR, affirmed. Reside in Atkinson--Elder Dammon said there was bad
characters in the churches; I did no understand him to say all. He preaches
louder than most people; no more noisy than common preachers of this faith.
The vision woman would lay looking up when she came out of her trance-she
would point to someone, and tell them their cases, which she said was from
the Lord. She told a number of visions that evening. Brother Gallison's
daughter wanted to see her mother before she was baptized, but finally
concluded to be baptized without seeing her. Sister Baker got up off the
floor, and went to Lambert to talk with him. I saw no more of her, until I
heard a noise in the bedroom--they went and got her out, as the other
witnesses have stated. After she came out, she said she had a message to
me. She said I had thought hard of her, (I acknowledged I had) but I became
satisfied of my error, and fellowshiped her. We kissed each other with the
holy kiss--I think Elder White was not in the bedroom that evening; but I
don't know how many, nor who were there. The girls that was baptized were
seventeen years old, one of them had been baptized before. We have
Scripture enough for every thing that was done. There was not one tenth
part of the noise Saturday evening, that there generally is at the meetings
I attend. As far as I am acquainted with Elder Dammon, I consider him a
moral good man.
Cross-examined. When she kissed me, she said there was light ahead. We
believe her (Miss Baker's) visions genuine. We believe Miss Harmon's
genuine--t'was our understanding that their visions were from God. Miss
Hammond [Harmon] told five visions Saturday night. I did not tell any
person yesterday that it was necessary to have anyone in the room with her
to bring out her trances. I did engage counsel in this case to defend the
prisoner.
JOHN H. DOORE, sworn. I was not at meeting Saturday evening. I belong to
the society, and have seen nothing out of character in anyone. Don't
consider Elder Dammon a bad man--he a man I highly esteem. My daughter was
baptized Saturday evening--she has been baptized before. I have seen both
men and women crawl across the floor on their hands and knees.
GEORGE S. WOODBURY, sworn. I am a believer in the Advent doctrine-I have
attended every one of the meetings in Atkinson. (This witness was very
lengthy in his testimony, both on examination and cross examination. It
amounts to the same as the preceding witnesses for the defense with the
following additions.) He thinks Elder White was not in the bedroom, but
others were in. We don't acknowledge any leaders, but speak according to
the impulse. The elders baptize. I believe in Miss Harmon's visions,
because she told my wife's feelings correctly. It is my impression that
prisoner kissed my wife. I believe the world will come to an end within two
months-prisoner preaches so. I believe this is the faith of the band. It
was said, and I believe, that Sisters Harmon and Baker's revelations as
much as though they came from God. Sister Harmon said to my wife and the
girls if they did not do as she said, they would go to hell. My wife and
Dammon passed across the floor on their hands and knees. Some man did go
into the bedroom. Heard Brother Dammon say the gift of healing the sick lay
in the church.
By the Court [a question]. Answer. Elder Dammon advises us not to work,
because there is enough to live on until the end of the world.
JOHN GALLISON, affirmed. (Chandler observed that he had thought of
objecting to this witness on the ground of insanity, but upon reflection,
he would let him proceed, as he believed it [his insanity] would
sufficiently appear in the course of the examination.) I have been
acquainted with Elder Dammon as a Freewill elder a number of years. He
asked Dammon how long it was. D. answered six years. I have been at his
house frequently--everything was in order and in its proper place. I have
attended every meeting. I have seen some laying on the floor, two or more
at a time--have seen nothing bad in the meetings. (Witness here described
the position Miss Harmon lay in on the floor, when she was in a trance, and
offered to lay down and show the Court if they wished to see. Court waived
it.) Witness related the visions similar to the other witnesses, but more
unintelligible. Did not hear her called Imitation of Christ. I know she
won't [was not], for we don't worship idols.
Cross-examined. I believe in visions, and perfectly understand that, but
suppose we are not before an Ecclesiastical Council. Elder Dammon does not
believe as he used to. (Witness read from the bible.) We do wash each
other's feet--do creep on the floor very decently. I think he has baptized
about eleven, but can't say certain how many--I have the privilege of
knowing how they behave as well as anyone else. I have no doubt Sister
Harmon's visions were from God--she told my daughter so. I was in favor of
my daughter being baptized--I could not see ahead to see the devil's rabble
coming, but since they have come, I am certain we did just right.
ABEL S. BOOBAR, affirmed. (Most of the testimony of this witness was a
repetition of what others have testified to, of which the reader I think
must be weary.) I did not see White go into the bedroom with Miss
Baker--heard the noise in the bedroom. Others did go in. Elder D[ammmon]
said the churches were in a fallen state, and he had rather risk himself in
the hands of the almighty as a non-professor, than to be in the place of
some of the churches. I believe fully in the faith. (Witness affirmed the
story of kissing, rolling on the floor, and washing of feet.)
JOSHUA BURNHAM, sworn. I have know Miss Dorinda Baker from five years of
age--her character is good--she is now twenty-three or twenty-four years of
age. She is a sickly girl, her father has expended $1,000 in doctoring her.
I was at the meeting Saturday night--it was appointed for the lady to tell
her visions.
Adjourned to half past one o'clock.
LEVI M. DOORE, sworn. I have attended more than half of the meetings-my
brother's testimony is correct--agree also with Mr. Boobar.
Question by Respondent. Answer. Elder Dammon's mode of worship now is
similar to what it used to be.
Cross-examined by Morison. Did they use to sit on the floor? Ans. No. Did
they use to kiss each other? Ans. No. did they use to go into the bedroom?
Ans. No. did they use to tell visions? Ans. No.
By Morison. Why do you say that his mode of worship is similar to what it
used to be? Because he preaches similar. Did he use to preach that the end
of the world was at hand, and baptize in the dead hours of night? Ans. No.
The reason we sit on the floor is to convene more people--sometimes we take
some in our laps, but not male and female. Don't know of Brother D[ammon]
spending money uselessly. I am a believer. Sometimes we sit on the floor
for formality. Our faith don't hold it to be essential. (Witness repeated
the mode of kissing, visions, &c. similar to the others.) I never heard
Brother Dammon say he wished to destroy the marriage covenant. (Respondent
here reexamined a number of witnesses, all of who testified that he used
his wife well, and appeared to love her.)
STEPHEN FISH, Exeter, sworn. I attended the meetings at Atkinson, last
summer--have attended most all of the Quarterly Meetings for seven
years--have been to Elder Dammon's house, and he to mine--he provides well
in his house--he has always opposed the mode of paying the ministry by
regular salary. (Here the defense closed.)
WITNESSES FOR STATE.
EBENEZER LAMBERT, Esq., sworn. Last Sunday evening Loton Lambert told me
the story of the meeting the evening before--he related as he testified
yesterday almost verbatim.
JOHN BARTLETT, of Garland, sworn. I have heard the respondent say that one
of their band was a near to him as another--he considered them all alike.
It is the general opinion of our town that the prisoner is a disturber of
the peace, and ought to be taken care of. I have been acquainted with Elder
Dammon seven years--his character was always good until within about six
weeks.
LOTON LAMBERT, reexamined. He affirmed all his former testimony-does not
know Elder White, but Joel Doore told me it was White that was in the
bedroom with Miss Baker.
Cross-examined. There was nothing to obstruct my views--the man had on a
dark colored short jacket, and I think light pantaloons.
LEONARD DOWNES, reexamined. Did see Miss Baker come out of the bedroom with
a man he had his arm around her--see her go in with a man and shut the
door. He had on a short jacket, dark colored, and light colored
pantaloons-saw her kiss Mr. Doore--she said "that feels good."
THOMAS PROCTOR, reexamined. Prisoner stated to me that Miss Baker had an
exercise in the bedroom, and he went in and helped her out.
Cross-examined. I have said I wished they were broken up, and wished
somebody would go and do it. I have said Elder Hall ought to be tarred and
feathered if he was such a character as I heard he was. I was at one
meeting, but as to divine worship there was none. They told us they allowed
none there but believers.
A. S. BARTLETT, Esq., sworn. Yesterday I saw Mr. Joel Doore and Loton
Lambert conversing together. I went to them--I heard Doore say to him, it
was Elder White that was in the bedroom with Miss Baker--Lambert said that
was what I wanted to know. I so understood, and think I am not mistaken. I
also heard Doore say there was a noise in the bedroom.
ELDER FLAVEL BARTLETT, sworn. I think Prisoner does not belong to the Free
Will Baptist Church. He is not fellowship with them.
JOSEPH KNIGHTS of Garland, sworn. I attended one of Dammon's meetings in
Garland, he behaved well until meeting was over. After meeting was over I
saw him hugging and kissing a girl. It is the common report in Garland,
that he is a disturber of the peace.
PLYN CLARK, sworn. I attended their meeting a week ago last Wednesday or
Thursday night. (This witness gave a general character of the meeting as
described by others.) I heard one hallo out "I feel better"--others said
"good enough." I think the whole character of the meeting was demoralizing.
J.W.E. HARVEY, called. I have attended the meetings a number of times-I
have seen prisoner on the floor with a woman between his legs--I have seen
them in groups hugging and kissing one another. I went there once on an
errand--Dam[mon] halloed out "Good God Almighty, drive the Devil away." I
once saw Elder Hall with his boots off, and the women would go and kiss his
feet. One girl made a smack, but did not hit his foot with her lips. Hall
said "he that is ashamed of me before men, him will I be ashamed of before
my Father and the holy angels." She then gave his feet a number of kisses.
JOEL DOORE, JR., called for the defense. I have heard Brother Dammon preach
that the day of grace was over with sinners. Respondent said "that is my
belief."
LEVI M. DOORE, called. Br[other] Wood was dressed in light pants and dark
jacket.
JOEL DOOR, JR., called. Brother Wood had light pants and dark jacket.
ABEL AYER, called. Brother Wood went to the baptism and was about all the
evening.
JAMES BOOBAR, called. Sister Baker and Br[other] Wood were about all the
evening. Elder White had a frock coat and dark pants.
PRISONER opened his defense and cited Luke 7 chapter 36 verse--John 13
chapter--Last chapter in Romans--Phillipians 4th chapter--1st Thessalonians
5th chapter. Holmes followed with the defense. Court adjourned one hour.
Holmes closed the defense with signal ability. chandler commenced in behalf
of the State. Cited 178 chapter 9th and 10th sections Revised Statutes; he
dwelt upon the law; after which MORISON summoned up the testimony and
closed with a few brief and appropriate remarks.
ELDER DAMMON again rose for further defense. Court indulged him to speak.
He read 126th Psalm, and the 50th Psalm. He argued that the day of grace
had gone by, that the believers were reduced; but that there was too many
yet, and that the end of the world would come within a week. The Court
after consultation sentenced the prisoner to the House of Correction for
the space of Ten Days, From this judgment Respondent appealed. Tuesday
morning the prisoner having taken his seat, rose just as the Court came in,
and shouted Glory to the strength of his lungs. Tuesday afternoon, after
the Court had came in and were waiting for the counsel, the prisoner and
his witnesses asked permission, and sung as follows.
Click to View
Bruce Weaver's Biography
Actually I did the research and wrote the article in 1986-1987. I had left
Adventism in early 1982 or late 1981. My point of doing it was fourfold:
Using a fresh and original approach, to thoroughly research an
article on Ellen White exclusively utilizing historical and public domain
documents which were beyond the jurisdiction and control of the Ellen White
Estate.
To demonstrate that no matter how damaging and disconfirming the
evidence may be, faith in her work would continue largely undaunted.
To prove that when her fantastic stories and accounts are probed
closely, the available evidence would reveal a different story emerging and
that her credibility would tend to suffer.
To leave a parting shot which would hold its own, being airtight
enough so as to not be easily refuted by church apologists.
The response from the church personally towards me as a result of the
publishing of this article has been one of silence as I am out of range in
that I am no longer employed by the church nor do I seek to harass the
denomination. On the other hand, I have not been invited to dialog about
this at any time in any public or private Adventist forum. That speaks for
itself.
That being said, I was the victim of considerable intimidation and pressure
while I was a Seminary student at Andrews University (1979) and as a
minister in the Arkansas/Louisiana conference in 1979-1980. I was the first
one to be eventually forced out of the ministry in February 1980, prior to
the media attention devoted to Walter Rea and Desmond Ford. I was the one
who brought the extent of the plagiarism issue with EGW to the attention of
Andrews seminary faculty and Walter Rea.
In the fall of 1978, I copied a list of books which was in Ellen White's
library at the time of her death. Then I systematically haunted [visited]
used book stores and theological libraries to acquire copies of a number of
these works and examine them for evidence of plagiarism. Furthermore, I
discovered documents secreted away in White Estate files which proved that
the White Estate was attempting to manage the nature and conclusions of a
study being launched into the growing issue of plagiarism in Ellen White's
writings. You can well guess some of the political machinations which that
elicited!
Bruce Weaver
March 27, 1999
Click to View
Incident In Atkinson:
The Arrest and Trial of Israel Dammon
by Bruce Weaver
(taken from Adventist Currents, Vol. 3, Number 1, 1988)
For more than a century, Seventh-day Adventists have relied unquestioningly
on Ellen G. White's own personal account of her first, post-disappointment
travels (first published in 1860) for their understanding of her initial
calling and her earliest ministry. 1
In a personal letter to J.N. Loughborough in 1874, she describes how she
spent the winter/spring of 1845 traveling from town to town, primarily in
Maine, fighting various forms of fanaticism that preoccupied those
Millerites who (following the disappointments of 1843 and 1844) still
refused to believe that God had not shared His timetable with them. 2
However, recently resurrected newspaper accounts of a February 1845 weekend
incident in Atkinson, Maine, involving Ellen Harmon, James White, Dorinda
Baker, Israel Dammon, and others, call into question the reliability of
Ellen White's autobiographical sketches. 3
While Mrs. White's retrospective of her earliest travels emphasizes her
fanatacism-fighting role, she also frequently dwells upon startling
miracles that she says either attended her ministry or that took place in
its presence. Mrs. White's three-page, published account of the arrest and
trial of Israel Dammon 4 is so remarkable that, while reading it over in
March of 1986, it occurred to me that some specific contemporary references
to it must have survived in the New England newspapers - especially since
it involved the police and the courts.
My research was soon richly rewarded. It turned up the earliest existing
eye-witness accounts of Ellen Harmon in vision - accounts included as part
of sworn courtroom testimony regarding the activities that led to Dammon's
arrest. The most historically significant find was an article in the 7
March 1845 Piscataquis Farmer under the heading "Trial of Elder I. Dammon."
This Dover, Maine, weekly newspaper provided a 124-column-inch abridgment
of the court reporter's transcript of Dammon's February 17 and 18
arraignment and trial.
Ellen Harmon's presence at the arrest of Dammon, and references to her
behavior during the activities that led to his arrest, make this document
particularly fascinating to Adventists. Fascination turns to concern,
however, when Mrs. White's account of the affair is compared with that of
the witnesses at the trial. But before making those comparisons, it is
necessary to establish context and to read the documents in question.
"Misty, snowy, and hail[ing]"
Ellen Harmon left her Portland, Maine home in January 1845 and traveled by
sleigh with her brother-in-law, Samuel Foss, to visit her sisters in
Poland.5 She had experienced one vision in December of 1844 as well as a
"call" to travel and share her vision with other Maine Millerites. 6
The great disappointment was nearly three months past, and the conservative
New England populace could not understand why Millerism had outlived the
bitter disappointments of 1843 and 1844. Even before Christ's failure to
appear many believed that there were "arguments enough in favor of holy
living without resorting to the possibility of the speedy end of the world
for motives with which to address men." 7
While most Millerites quietly rejoined the mainstream denominations and
society as a whole, small pockets of true believers were scattered
throughout the northeast. Some of them, in Ellen Harmon's home town or
Portland, worshipped "with propriety of conduct...at Beethoven Hall." 8 The
meetings of others (attended by Miss Harmon), who met almost exclusively in
private homes, were characterized by the "holy" salutation kiss, loud
shouting and singing, physical prostrations, promiscuous (mixed)
footwashing, multiple baptisms by immersion, odd exhibitions of voluntary
humility (i.e. crawling, barking), and the presentations of a few (mostly
female) visionaries.9
But it was the no-work policy advocated by a number of leading Adventist
extremists that most attracted them to municipal authorities. Piscataquis
County was the first to bring serious civil intervention to the fanatical
Millerites of Maine. This precedent was soon followed by arrests, trials,
and imprisonments or guardianships in Orrington, Bangor, Paris, Norway,
Woodstock, and Portland. 10
Ellen Harmon moved continuously among these Adventist extremists, and it is
likely that she narrowly avoided arrest in Orrington by fleeing the scene.
11 And it is possible that she was arrested - along with Joseph Turner - at
Poland in Aril 1845. 12 But there is no question about Ellen Harmon's
presence during and involvement with the incident in Atkinson that led to
the arrest of Israel Dammon.
The following paragraphs from the second volume of Spiritual Gifts (p.
40-42) contain Ellen White's only account of the February 1845 incident in
Atkinson.
Newspaper Accounts
Newspaper accounts and other records provide additional context for the
incident which Mrs. White described with such economy.
Saturday evening, 15 February 1845, found a number of disappointed
Millerites (probably 50 or 60) gathered at the house of James Ayer, Jr., in
the southwest part of the small eastern Maine town of Atkinson. 13 Nearly
nine inches of snow had already fallen at nearby Bangor that month. The
Bangor meteorologist described that Sabbath as "misty, snowy, and
hail[ing]." The high for the day was 33 degrees, but it was 18 degrees by
nine o'clock that evening. 14 The visitors - more than a score of whom had
arrived by sleigh from other towns such as Exeter, Garland, and Orrington -
were groping for meaning in their disappointment. 15 Although the Ayer
household was alive with warm worshipers, nearby Dead Stream or one of its
tributaries 16 would be the site of at least two icy baptisms later that
night. 17
The meeting was presided over by a former sea captain from Exeter, Israel
Dammon, 18 and featured two visionaries: Miss Dorinda Baker of Orrington,
and Miss Ellen Harmon of Portland, as well as Elders Hall, White and
Wood.19
Prosecution witness William Crosby, a 37 year old attorney 20 who attended
the Saturday night meeting, described it in court two days later:
"They would at times all be talking at once, halloing at the top of their
voices... A woman on the floor lay on her back with a pillow under her
head; she would occasionally arouse up and tell a vision which she said was
revealed to her... By spells it was the most noisy assembly I ever attended
- there was no order or regularity, nor anything that resembled any other
meeting I ever attended..."21
It may be useful to say about the full report from the Piscataquis Farmer
which follows that its publisher, George V. Edes, was a 58 year old justice
of the peace. 22 His civil appointment may explain why he assigned a
volunteering layman to abridge the trial transcript for the Farmer's
readers. But it also suggests the reason that so much space was given to
its coverage in this paper.
A typical Maine newspaper of the period consisted of four pages, half of
which usually contained public notices and advertisements for patent
medicines. It was highly unusual for news items to exceed one column in
length. Only speeches by the president of the United States or other
important national figures claimed the amount of space allotted to the
Dammon trial - seven long columns.
The entire Piscataquis Farmer report is reproduced below. All material
appearing within brackets has been added for clarification, and some
cosmetic editorial corrections have been made for easier reading. My
commentary on the incident and the documents that illuminate it resumes at
the conclusion of the 'Farmer' report.
[All unreferenced quotes will be from the 7 March 1845 Piscataquis Farmer
story.]
The Piscataquis Farmer report of the Dammon trial raises two important
questions for Seventh-day Adventists. One, are Mrs. White's retrospectives
on her own lifework reliable, even in a general way? And two, to what
extent did she participate in post-1844, Millerite fanaticism?
A start can be made in answering question one and contrasting Mrs. White's
account of Dammon's arrest and trial with the 'Farmer' reporters abridgment
of the trial testimony.
The Piscataquis Farmer coverage of the Israel Dammon trial has overwhelming
face-value credibility:
The number of witnesses (20 for the prosecution, 18 for the defense)
The integrity of the witnesses, most of whom were God-fearing people who
would not take an oath lightly
The quality of the witnesses (several of the prosecution witnesses were
attorneys and justices of the peace who had a vested interest in the
integrity of their legal system
The almost total agreement among the witnesses - both for the defense and
the prosecution - about the incident
The nearness of their testimony to the event (2 days later)
The obvious authenticity of the dialogue
The exceptionally long and verbatim reporting
The reporter's use of court and counsel minutes
The reporter's expressed concern for the faithfulness of his report to the
witness' testimony: "I...have endeavored in no case to misrepresent you,
and if you find an error, I beg you to impute it to my head, instead of
heart...I offer it as an imperfect and impartial report."
White Estate undersecretary Paul Gordon grasped at the reporter's candor
and modesty to denigrate his report: "I think we must remember that the
reporter...apologizes for it not being perhaps as accurate as it could
be....At any rate, it appears to be one reporter's account of the trial
that is imperfect, to say the least." 23
Actually the reporter was telling the witnesses and the "Farmer's" readers
just what pains he had taken to be accurate. "I have abridged your
testimony as much as possible" from the minutes of "the Court and the
Counsel," omitting only "the most unimportant part."
Gordon has another argument: "You can quickly see that their (defense and
prosecution witnesses) testimony contradicted each other in almost every
case... It would appear that those against Dammon were telling one story,
and those that were for him told another." 24
Apparently Gordon had not taken the opportunity to read the reporter's
abridgment of the trial minutes very carefully. The witnesses all agreed on
all points of any substance except whether or not Ellen Harmon was referred
to as Imitation of Christ, and who was in the bedroom with Dorinda Baker
and why.
Three defense witnesses, each represented at length in the "Farmer" report,
expressly affirmed the testimony of prosecution William Crosby, Esq. James
Ayer, Jr., host for the Saturday evening meeting testified: "I agree with
Crosby and Lambert substantially." Isley Osborn said, "Think Esq. Crosby's
testimony correct." And Jacob Mason added: "I have heard Crosby testify,
and think him correct."
It does appear, as Gordon surmises, that Dammon did not serve his sentence.
But it was not, as Gordon further speculates, "because there was such
conflicting testimony." 25 Had the testimony been as conflicting as Gordon
claims, the Dover Court would not have "sentenced the prisoner to the House
of Correction for the space of Ten Days."
Apparently, defense counsel Holmes appealed. Because Dammon himself wrote
that after his sentencing he "was put over until May term [district court
session], then the warrant was quashed; and I was acquitted without
date."26
Calling it "one of the grandest defenses of religious toleration and
freedom, that it has ever been my pleasure to listen to," one of Holmes'
contemporaries, Joseph D. Brown, remembered Holmes' representation of
Dammon as an "eloquent argument for religious freedom and toleration and
the right of every person to worship God according to the dictates of his
own conscience, under his own vine and fig tree." 27
Dammon did not get off, as Gordon suggests, "because there was such
conflicting testimony"; or, as Mrs. White remembered, because the testimony
of the prosecution's "many witnesses...were at once broken down by the
testimony of Elder D.'s acquaintances present, who were called to the
stand." 28 It was argument from law, not testimony, that rescued Dammon
from ten days in jail.
It is ironic that this defender of a fanatical Adventist was a veteran Free
Mason who became the first Master of the Masonic Lodge organized at
Foxcroft in the year of Dammon's trial. "Religiously he was a Free Thinker,
though he affiliated with the Universalists." 29
Former White Estate associate secretary Ronald Graybill wove an apologetic
of his own - suggesting that in Atkinson, James White and Ellen Harmon were
caught off guard and out of their element:
"I don't know how much fanatic behavior went on in Portland. But in a sense
she had her first exposure to it in Atkinson. After she went through this
experience, she rode calmly to the next town with James and Sister Foss in
the carriage. James may have said, "Boy, I hope we never get into one of
those again." 30
It can be established clearly from Mrs. White's publications and letters
that Atkinson was not Miss Harmon's "first exposure" to fanaticism. On an
autumn evening in 1842 she was for the first time prostrated by the power
of the Holy Spirit - what was termed the "second" blessing - and was unable
to return home that night. 31
Before she met Israel Dammon, Ellen Harmon's first vision (December 1844)
clearly indicates that she believed in "wash[ing] one another's feet and
salut[ing] the brethren with a holy kiss." 32
In her earliest published account Mrs. White names some of the towns she
visited on her first journey to eastern Maine: Poland, Orrington, Garland,
Exeter, and Atkinson. 33 Before the arresting weekend in Atkinson,
MissHarmon had been to Orrington, where she joined forces with James White.
At Garland she received a letter from her mother "begging" her to come home
to Portland because "false reports were being circulated concerning me."
But she had "great freedom" in bearing her testimony there, and "heartfelt
shouts of glory and victory went up from that house" in Garland. 34 At the
very least, the Garland meeting must have been a bit noisy.
Miss Harmon's next stop was Exeter, Israel Dammon's home town. Two years
later Mrs. White wrote to Joseph Bates about her part in that meeting:
"The view about the Bridegroom's coming I had about the middle of February,
1845, while in Exeter, Maine, in meeting with Israel Dammon, James, and
many others. Many of them did not believe in a shut door. I suffered much
at the commencement of the meeting. Unbelief seemed to be on every hand.
"There was one sister there that was called very spiritual. She had
traveled and been a powerful preacher the most of the time for twenty
years. She had been truly a mother in Israel. But a division had risen in
the band on the shut door. She had great sympathy, and could not believe
the door was shut. I had known nothing of their difference. Sister Durben
got up to talk. I felt very, very sad.
"At length my soul seemed to be in agony, and while she was talking I fell
from my chair to the floor. It was then I had a view of Jesus rising from
His mediatorial throne and going to the holiest as Bridegroom to receive
His kingdom. They were all deeply interested in the view. They all said it
was entirely new to them. The Lord worked in mighty power, setting the
truth home to their hearts.
"Sister Durben knew what the power of the Lord was, for she had felt it
many times; and a short time after I fell she was struck down, and fell to
the floor, crying to God to have mercy on her. When I came out of vision,
my ears were saluted with Sister Durben's singing and shouting with a loud
voice. Most of them received the vision, and were settled upon the shut
door." 35
What Mrs. White wrote Joseph Bates of the Exeter meeting with Dammon,
James, and others obviously was not intended as a description of the
meeting as a whole; but what she did portray had the flavor of a
charismatic service. She and Sister Durben were both "struck down" or
"slain upon the floor." And Durben was shouting while Harmon was in vision.
What else happened is not mentioned; but given Israel Dammon's presence and
probable leadership of the meeting, there is no good reason to doubt that
he was involved in those "exercises" that he had been performing since the
new year began.
Witnesses at the Dammon trial agreed that for several weeks he had been
presiding over meetings at Garland, Exeter, and Atkinson; and that he was
teaching and practicing no work, no more salvation for sinners, "holy
kissing," footwashing, creeping, and rebaptism.
John Bartlett of Garland testified that he had known Dammon for seven years
and that "his character was always good until about six weeks [ago]."
Jeremiah B. Green, under oath, said: "I attended an afternoon meeting a
fortnight ago yesterday [Sunday, 2 February 1845]...elder Dammon was the
presiding elder." There Green witnessed footwashing and "saw Dammon kiss
Mrs. Osborn."
J.W.E. Harvey told the court that he had attended several meetings. "First
meeting lasted eight days - have known Dammon six weeks - Dammon, [James]
White and Hall were leaders."
The Atkinson meeting obviously was not James White's initiation; and Ellen
Harmon had been traveling with him for at least a couple of weeks. 36
John Gallison testified that he had been acquainted with Dammon "a number
of years," had "attended every meeting" (including those "at his house"),
and he believed Dammon had "baptised about eleven." The baptism rate began
to pick up in the month after Dammon's trial, as the new date (April 1845)
set by
O.R.L. Crosier and others for the Lord's return approached. 37 March 20-24
found ten to fifteen candidates being baptised daily from among those still
meeting at the James Ayer, Jr., home in Atkinson. 38 And, according to the
Oxford Democrat, Dammon was still "their presiding elder." 39
Under Oath or Under Inspiration - Who to Believe?
That Mrs. White was not put off by Dammon's behavior in Atkinson is easily
inferred from her own writing. In 1860 she recalled the meeting at Exeter
and "what I had been shown concerning some fanatical persons present, who
were exalted by the spirit of Satan." 40 This cannot refer to Dammon whom
"the Spirit of the Lord rested upon" a few days later (and on the next
page)41 during his arrest in Atkinson. Mrs. White lionized Dammon at the
trial; and not long thereafter she and Dammon were together in Topsham,
Maine, where she wrote: "Bro. Dammon cried out in the Spirit, and power of
God," to encourage a prayer of healing for Frances Howland.42
Graybill says that "after she went through this [Atkinson] experience, she
rode calmly to the next town with James and Sister [Louisa] Foss in the
carriage."43 It is unlikely that Miss Harmon "rode calmly to the next
town." She and James were departing the scene of an arrest. Had they been
feeling calm and courageous, they would have joined their supporting
testimony with that of the "strong brethren present who" Mrs. White later
wrote, "had stood by him [Dammon] in the trial."44
"Sister Foss" most likely was not "in the carriage." This is probably why
Ellen's mother was "begging" her to "return home". 45 The available
documentation suggests that Louisa Foss first accompanied Ellen some time
later, upon her initial journey to New Hampshire. 46 And, whoever she was
traveling with, they were transported in a sleigh, not by carriage.
James White would not have said, "Boy, I hope we never get into one of
*those* again." As indicated by J.W.E. Harvey at the Dover courthouse,
"Dammon, White and Hall were leaders" at an earlier meeting that "lasted
eight days." And later in the summer of 1845 White identified closely with
the fanatical Adventists, writing, Most of our brethren are under
guardianship," and defiantly paraphrased part of his lady friend's first
vision:
"By this time God made them [non-Millerite Christians] to know that he had
loved the "fanciful," "fanatical," "disgraceful," band, who could wash one
another's feet." 47
A year later, and four days before his wedding to Ellen, James White
complained to "Brother Collins" about "a congregation of hard, ugly
Congregationalists and Methodists" before which he was to preach a funeral
service. He made certain that Collins understood that he was not "going to
try to convert people to the Advent faith. No; it's too late. But it's our
duty on some occasions to give a reason for our hope, I think, even to
*swine*." A few lines later White mentioned a recent visit with some of his
Adventists friends, concluding, "We had a Holy Ghost time together." 48
Ellen White in the Dock
Both the prosecution and defense witnesses agree essentially on what took
place at the Ayer home in Atkinson on Saturday night, 15 February 1845. But
there is substantial disagreement between Mrs. White's 1860 account
-fifteen years after the fact - and the testimony of the witnesses as
reported in the Piscataquis Farmer. The record and the witnesses contradict
her on major and minor points, and no witness supports her on any contested
point.
The contradiction that matters most is between the testimony of the
arresting officer, Joseph Moulton, and the memory of Mrs. White over
whether or not the participants in the Ayer home resisted Dammon's arrest.
Deputy sheriff Moulton testified that when he notified Dammon that he was
under arrest, "a number of woman jumped on to him - he clung to them, and
they to him." Moulton said that "so great was the resistance" that he had
to send twice for reinforcements to help him and the three assistants who
accompanied him. "We were resisted by both men and woman," Moulton said.
Ellen White says that when the sheriff and his three deputies tried to
arrest Dammon, "the Spirit of the Lord rested upon him, and his strength
was taken away, and he fell to the floor helpless." In their efforts to
drag Dammon from the house, she recalled, the men "would move him a few
inches only, and then rush out of the house" because "the power of God was
in that room, and the servants of God with their countenances lighted up
with his glory," she insisted, "made no resistance." But, despite a dozen
men's efforts, "Elder D. was held by the power of God about forty minutes,
and not all the strength of those men could move him from the floor where
he lay helpless." 49
Not only does Mrs. White contradict the arresting officer's account of what
he and his men experienced, but her version describes an event that clearly
is beyond ordinary human experience. True or false, her version is
fantastic. If Mrs. White was accurately describing a supernatural
event,then the response of the people who witnessed or experienced it seems
very unnatural. Such a remarkable event certainly would have become the
focus of much attention. Yet not one of the many witnesses for either the
defense or the prosecution contradicts Sheriff Moulton's terse description
of the arrest.
In fact, if twelve men worked strenuously and unsuccessfully to budge one
prone and otherwise unimpeded individual, and if there had been such a
powerful but invisible aura in the room that "it was a relief to them to
rush out of the house" periodically, normal men would been sufficiently
spooked (or converted) by the experience to abandon their mission long
before forty minutes had expired.
Mrs. White's errors on lesser points involving the trial itself further
weaken the credibility of her account:
White: "A lawyer offered his services." 50
Witness Joel Doore, a Dammon partisan: "I did engage counsel in this case to defend the prisoner."
White: Dammon "was asked to give them [the court] a synopsis of his faith." 51
Piscataquis Farmer: "Court indulged him to speak."
White: Dammon "was asked to sing one" of their "curious hymns."52
Piscataquis Farmer: "The prisoner and his witnesses asked permission, and sung as follows:..."'While I was down in Egypt's land,...'"
This incident from early 1845 presents modern Adventists with the unhappy
choice between the contemporaneous witnesses and the memory of their
prophet - between testimony given under oath and statements made under
inspiration.
Mrs. White a Fanatic?
Adventists who are willing to let the accumulating weight of evidence
influence their assessment of Mrs. White's memory will find helpful an
overview of her participation in the fanaticism she insists she was
fighting. The sworn testimony of the witnesses at the Dammon trial - for
both prosecution and the defense - suggests that Ellen Harmon was more
involved in the bizarre exercises that precipitated Israel Dammon's arrest
than Seventh-day Adventists have ever imagined.
All of Mrs. White's later published and unpublished statements about her
earliest experience deny any participation in fanaticism. In fact, she
strongly insists that her primary duty was to travel among the disappointed
Adventists and fight fanaticism:
"It became my unpleasant duty to meet this [fanaticism], and we labored
hard to suppress it. We had not part in it, only to bear a testimony
decidedly against it wherever we met it." 53
"The nominal Adventists charged me with fanaticism, and I was falsely, and
by some, wickedly, represented as being the leader of the fanaticism that I
was laboring to do away." 54
It would be unfair to find Mrs. White guilty of fanaticism merely because
she continually associated with fanatics. After all, how could she fight
fanatics without being where they were? However, the witnesses at Dammon's
trial, along with independent documentation, suggest that she participated
in some of the very activities she later denounced and remembered
combating.
Rebaptism
"Some had distressed spells (or pretended to) declaring it was the duty of
some particular person to be baptized again," wrote John Cook to the editor
of the Morning Star. 55 Cook, if he read the newspaper, may have had Ellen
Harmon in mind. Because both friendly and unfriendly witnesses at Dammon's
trial testified that Miss Harmon presented some individuals visiting the
James Ayer, Jr. home that Saturday evening with painful alternatives: they
could undergo an icy baptism that very night or "go to hell." Loton Lambert
informed the court that Harmon:
"told her vision to a cousin of mine, that she must be baptized that night
or go to hell - she objected, because she had once been baptized."
Lambert further testified that Harmon:
"called Joel Doore, said he had doubted, and would not be baptized again -
she said Bro. Doore don't go to hell. Doore kneeled to her feet and
prayed."
Isley Osborn, a friendly witness, stated:
"She told them their cases had been made known to her by the Lord, and if
they were not baptized that evening, they would go to hell. We believed
her,..."
One this point and at that time Ellen Harmon was no hypocrite. She was
first baptized at the age of fourteen on June 26, 1842, in Casco Bay. 56
Later, James White wrote, she received "baptism at my hands, at an early
period of her experience." 57 And she preached from vision what she
practiced - at least into 1850. On July 19 of that year, while in Oswego,
New York, she had a vision that those who since 1844 had kept Sunday for
the Sabbath:
"would have to go into the water and be baptized in the faith of the shut
door and keeping the commandments of God and in the faith of Jesus coming
to sit on the throne of his Father David and to redeem Israel.
"I also saw those who have been baptized as a door into the professed
churches will have to be baptized out of that door again, into the faith
mentioned above, and all who have not been baptized since '44 will have to
be baptized again before Jesus comes and some will not gain progress now
until that duty is done." 58
Later, Mrs. White backed away from both her Oswego Vision theology and her
Atkinson meeting methodology:
"Several....of our ministers I was shown were making a mistake...[by]
making a test question of rebaptism. This is not the way that the subject
should be treated....These good brethren were not bringing those newly come
to the faith along step by step, cautiously and guardedly, and...some were
turned from the truth, when a little time and tender, careful dealing with
them would have prevented all such sad results." 59
The Shut Door 60
In 1845 Miss Harmon believed that probation had closed for "all the wicked
world" 61 on 22 October 1844. She admitted in a letter to J.N.Loughborough
in 1874 that "after the time passed in '44, I did believe no more sinners
would be converted." This is accurate. However, her next words suggest that
the door was shut on both her memory and her theology:
"I never had a vision that no more sinners would be converted, and I am
clear and free to state no one has ever heard me say or has read from my
pen statements which will justify them in the charges they have made
against me upon this point." 62
The "they" who'd made "charges" were four of Mrs. White's friends and
acquaintances from the early days. They remembered her relationship to the
Shut Door differently. Israel Dammon, of course, was there:
"It has been some twenty years since we were associated with Mrs. W., but
we remember very perfectly that her first visions, or vision, was told both
by herself and others (especially by Mrs. W.) in connection with the
preaching of the shut door, and went to substantiate the same." 63
The first time Ellen Harmon related her first vision away from her Portland
home was in January of 1845 at Megquier Hill (pronounced Me-gweer) in
Poland. 64 John Megquier remembered:
"about the first visions that she had were at my house in Poland. She said
God had told her in vision that the door of mercy had closed, and there was
no more chance for the world, and she would tell who had got spots on their
garments; and those spots were got on by questioning her visions, whether
they were of the Lord or not." 65
Mrs. Lucinda S. Burdick met Ellen Harmon several times in 1845 at her
uncle's house in South Windham, Maine. Mrs. Burdick recalled that during
one of Miss Harmon's visions "her position upon the ground seemed so
uncomfortable that I placed her head in my lap and supported her thus
throughout the event." 66 Wrote Mrs. Burdick:
"Ellen...said God had shown her in vision that Jesus Christ arose on the
tenth day of the seventh month, 1844, and shut the door of mercy; had left
forever the mediatorial throne; the whole world was doomed and lost, and
there never could be another sinner saved....I have been told that they
deny on this [west] coast that she ever saw the door of mercy closed; but
there are thousands of living witnesses who know that a blacker lie could
not be invented, and I am one of the number." 67
Pastor I.C. Welcome, who was rebaptized by James White,68 remembered that
he "several times caught her [Miss Harmon], while she was falling to the
floor, at times when she swooned away for a vision."
"I have heard her relate her visions... Several were published on sheets
[he probably refers to the early broadside, To the Little Remnant Scattered
Abroad] 69 to the effect that all were lost who did not endorse the '44
move, that Christ had left the throne of mercy, and all were sealed that
ever would be, and no others could repent. She and James taught this one or
two years." 70
Although these four witnesses contradict Mrs. White's 1874 statement in
which she says "I never had a vision that no more sinners would be
converted, and...no one has heard me say or has read from my pen" such
statements, it is not a case of their word versus hers. It is Mrs. White
versus Mrs. White. Twenty-seven years earlier - on July 13, 1847 - while
she still believed in an irrevocably shut door, Ellen White had written to
Joseph Bates about a vision she had received in February 1845 on her first
missionary journey:
"While in Exeter, Maine, in meeting with Israel Dammon, James, and many
others, many of them did not believe in a shut door...It was then I had a
view of Jesus rising from His mediatorial throne and going to the holiest
as Bridegroom to receive His kingdom...Most of them received the vision,
and were settled upon the shut door."71
By 1883 Mrs. White not only denied having had a vision that "no more
sinners would be converted," but she now added the contradiction that her
visions had disabused the little band of their shut-door error.
"For a time after the disappointment in 1844, I did hold, in common with
the advent body, that the door of mercy was then forever closed to the
world. This position was taken before my first vision was given me. It was
the light given me of God that corrected our error, and enabled us to see
the true position." 72
Damned to Hell
Five times witnesses (two friendly, one unfriendly) at the Dammon trial
attributed to Ellen Harmon the specific words "go to hell" as the option
afforded individuals at the James Ayer, Jr. home who either would not "be
baptized," "be baptized again," or "forsake all their friends." It is clear
from her vision at Oswego, New York (29 July 1850) that Ellen White
believed those who would not be rebaptized were lost. But some Adventists -
who won't mind the unbiblical theology involved - ironically, might be
troubled tolearn that she would use the expression "go to hell."
In July of 1874 Mrs. Burdick recalled that Miss Harmon had used the
expressions "doomed and damned" to describe the whole world after 1844, and
to describe individuals "as soon as they took a stand against" her
visions.73
The next month, in a private letter to J.N. Loughborough, Mrs. White denied
Burdick's statement:
"I never have under any circumstances used this language to anyone, however
sinful. I have ever had messages of reproof for those who used these harsh
expressions... I have never stated that this one or that one was doomed or
damned. I never had a testimony of this kind for anyone. I have ever been
shown that God's people should shun these strong expressions which are
peculiar to the first-day Adventists." 74
In the third issue of "The Present Truth", Ellen White appears to have
slipped while recounting a vision and to have used one of these "strong
expressions" so "peculiar to the first-day Adventists":
"I saw that Satan was working through agents, in a number of ways. He was
at work through ministers, who have rejected the truth [that 22 October
1844 was an eschatologically crucial date], and are given over to strong
delusions to believe a lie that they might be damned." 75
Usually, however, Mrs. White got across the same message through euphemisms
such as "spots on their garments," 76 or "hearts...as black as ever,"77 or
"forever lost." 78
It does seem clear that Mrs. White was denying only the use of certain
expressions; she did not deny having told individuals (or a class of
people) that they were, or would be, lost. She was very clear that William
Miller's associates, who did not maintain their faith in the shut door and
adopt the seventh-day Sabbath, were all lost. 79
In fact, the day following a vision given in late 1850 at Paris, Maine, she
wrote of "Laodiceans" who had "said the shut door was of the devil,....They
shall die the death." Why? Because, she explained, "the sin against the
Holy Ghost was to ascribe to Satan...what the Holy Ghost had done." 80
The Holy Kiss
The New England populace was amused and scandalized by newspaper accounts
of the promiscuous public kissing that attended the home meetings of
fanatical, post-disappointment Millerites. One paper reported a Millerite
meeting in Portland at which:
"Brother M stated that he had a special impression that he must kiss Sister
N. Her husband being present, thought such an impression must come from the
Devil - as no good impression would expose his wife to be kissed by such an
"ugly looking mug" as that brother were. So he took her away unkissed, and
will probably keep her away."81
The subject of kissing came up repeatedly at the trial of Israel Dammon,
with variations on the word (e.g. kiss, kissed, kissing) occurring at least
twenty-six times. Witnesses for the accused stoutly defended the practice.
One particular instance of this "exercise" that received so much attention
at the trial had more the flavor of a make-up kiss than a holy kiss.
Dorinda Baker, the other visionist present, approached Joel Doore saying,
"You have refused me before." Doore recalled Miss Baker saying that he "had
thought hard of her." Doore became "satisfied of my error, and...we kissed
each other with the holy kiss." Loton Lambert was watching and testified
that Miss Baker had said, "that feels good." Joel Doore remembered, "When
she kissed me, she said there was light ahead."
Job Moody testified that "kissing is a salutation of love...we have got
positive scripture for it...." And Isley Osborn added, "It is a part of our
faith."
Ellen White later wrote in agreement. Including herself among the 144,000
she stated:
"Then it was that the synagogue of Satan ["fallen Adventists," who had
given up 1844 as a mistake, and "the nominal churches"]82 knew that God
loved us who could...salute the brethren with a holy kiss, and they
worshipped at our feet." 83 (Curiously, the highlighted words were omitted
from the sixth edition of Spiritual Gifts 2.)
There are several appendix notes in the fifth edition of Early Writings
(placed there in 1963 by trustees of the Ellen G. White Estate) that are
"provided to explain expressions and situations not so well understood
now..." The trustees write:
"It was the custom among the early Sabbath keeping Adventists to exchange
the holy kiss at the ordinance of humility. No reference is made to obvious
impropriety of exchanging the holy kiss between men and women, but there is
a call for all to abstain from all appearance of evil." 84
Perhaps the next edition of Early Writings will contain a rewrite of that
appendix to "explain expressions and situations not so well understood" by
the trustees in 1963.
James Ayer, Jr., the man in whose Atkinson home Dammon was arrested,
witnessed to the court that "it is a part of our faith to kiss each other -
brothers kiss sisters and sisters kiss brothers, I think we have biblical
authority for that." Mrs. White concurred, citing 1 Thess. 5:26. 85 In
fact, all of the specific instances of kissing mentioned in the Dammon
trial abridgment were kisses between members of the opposite sex: Joel
Doore and Dorinda Baker, Israel Dammon and Mrs. Isley Osborn, and Dammon
and Mrs. George Woodbury.
The Holy Laugh
Neither as biblical nor perhaps as controversial as the holy kiss, the
"holy laugh" is mentioned in a "Bangor Whig and Courier" report of the
arraignment of nine Millerites and in a list of postdisappointment
Millerite fanatical manifestations contributed by a reader to the "Morning
Star". 86
In an August 1850 letter, Mrs. White seemed to acknowledge and affirm the
holy laugh. James White had taken suddenly and seriously ill. Ellen, Sister
Harris, Clarissa Bonfoey, and Ellen's sister, Sarah, who were alone with
the sick man, united their prayers on his behalf:
"Sister Harris and Clarissa were set entirely free and they prayed God with
a loud voice. The spirit caused Clarissa to laugh aloud. James was healed
every whit,... 87
It seems odd that when Mrs. White wrote this story for publication, she did
not mention a charismatic prayer session nor did she indicate that "the
spirit caused Clarissa to laugh aloud." 88
Promiscuous Footwashing
Prosecution witness Jeremiah B. Green testified that he had witnessed
footwashing during an earlier Millerite meeting at which "Elder Dammon was
the presiding elder"; but he only "saw men wash men's feet and women wash
women's feet." John Galliston testified that "we do wash each other's
feet"; Jacob Mason referred to "wash[ing] feet in the evening"; and Isley
Osborn said they preferred "to go through the ordinance of washing feet in
secret."
Ellen White's footwashing practice in 1851 was more progressive than the
trial record indicates was Dammon's 1845 protocol in Atkinson. Citing
"duties...the performance of which will keep the people of God humble and
separate from the world, and from backsliding, like the nominal churches,"
Mrs. White wrote: "I saw that the Lord had moved upon sisters to wash the
feet of the brethren and that it was according to gospel order." But, she
cautioned, "there is no example given in the Word from brethren to wash
sister's feet." 89
In her very first vision (December 1844), Ellen Harmon was shown that her
enemies "knew that God had loved us who could wash one another's feet." 90
(This phrase was also deleted from the vision as published in 1860 in
Spiritual Gifts 2.)
Voluntary Humility (creeping)
Crawling was another exercise, intended to promote and demonstrate
humility, that was in vogue at Dammon's meeting in Atkinson. John Doore
testified on the witness stand that he had "seen both men and women crawl
across the floor on their hands and knees." And George S. Woodbury said,
"My wife and Dammon passed across the floor on their hands and knees."
A description of the creeping that took place at the home of Captain John
Megquier in Poland, Maine, was provided by a correspondent of the Norway
Advertiser: "They seldom sit in any other position than on the bare
floor....A women, at the meeting he attended, got on her hands and knees,
and crept over the floor like a child. A man, in the same position,
followed her, butting her occasionally with his head. Another man threw
himself at full length upon his back on the bed, and presently three women
crossed him with their bodies." 91
This creeping was a humiliation that - however literally biblical ("except
ye become as little children" Matt 18:1-6) - Ellen White, thirty years
later, insisted she had not been prepared to bear:
"Duties were made by men, tests manufactured that God had never required,
and which found no sanction in His Word. I state definitely I never crept
when I could walk, and have ever opposed it. I was shown in vision, after I
refused to accept this as a duty, that it was not a requirement of God, but
the fruit of fanaticism." 92
Mrs. White was reacting - although not publicly - to the remarks of Mrs.
Lucinda Bodge Burdick published in an 1874 issue of The World's Crisis.
Mrs. Burdick had become well acquainted with Ellen Harmon and James White
when the three of them stayed together several times in 1845 at the home of
Josiah Little (Burdick's uncle) in South Windham, Maine, a few miles from
Harmon's parent's home in Portland.93 It was this 1874 statement by
Burdick, published in The World's Crisis, that Mrs. White objected to so
strongly:
"At the time of my first acquaintance with them [James White and Ellen
Harmon] in early 1845 they were in a wild fanaticism, - used to sit on the
floor instead of chairs, and creep around the floor like little children.
Such freaks were considered a mark of humility." 94
Although the absence of independent, contemporary evidence on this point
leaves the 1874 statements of Mrs. White and Mrs. Burdick in apparently
unresolvable tension, the uncommitted reader will have to give Burdick the
edge because of Mrs. White's unwillingness to make a public refutation.95
Shouting
The incoherent din that marked the proceedings at the Ayer household on the
night before Israel Dammon's arrest was not unusual for a Millerite home
meeting. Defense witness Joel Doore minimized the volume: "There was not
one tenth part of the noise Saturday evening, that there generally is at
the meetings I attend." But it was loud enough to astonish the prosecution
witnesses.
William C. Crosby described it as "exceedingly noisy." "They would at times
all be talking at once, halloing at the top of their voices." In fact, he
added, "by spells it was the most noisy assembly I ever attended....I don't
say Dammon shouted the loudest; I think some stronger in the lungs than
he."
Dammon's shouting was not limited to the Saturday night meeting: "Tuesday
morning the prisoner having taken his seat, rose just as the Court came in,
and shouted Glory to the strength of his lungs."
Ellen Harmon, and Ellen White up to at least the age of twenty-five or
thirty, would have appreciated Dammon's outburst had she been there:
"Singing, I saw, often drove away the enemy and shouting would beat him
back. I saw that pride had crept in among you, and there was not childlike
simplicity among you." 96
Ellen White's letters, from 1853 and previously, indicate her early support
for unreserved worship. She admonished one Adventist congregation in 1850:
"I saw you should rise together, and unitedly get the victory over the
powers of darkness and sing and shout to the glory of God." 97 "I saw there
was too little glorying God, too little childlike simplicity among the
remnant."98
On November 7, 1850, Ellen White described a conference she had recently
attended of twenty-eight Adventists at Topsham, Maine:
"Sunday the power of God came upon us like a mighty rushing wind. All arose
upon their feet and praised God with a loud voice....The voice of weeping
could not be told from the voice of shouting. It was a triumphant time....I
never witnessed such a powerful time before." 99
In late 1851 James White wrote of a "powerful vision" that "had a mighty
effect. Ellen came out of vision," he said, "then shouted till she went off
in vision again." 100
According to Ron Graybill, "In the 1870's, feeling still ran high on some
occasions"; and he quotes from an Ellen White letter to her boys in 1872:
"The blessing and power of God rested upon your father and mother. We both
fell to the floor. Your father, as he rose upon his feet to praise God
could not stand. The blessing of God rested upon him with remarkable
power....Elder Loughborough felt the power of God all through his body. The
room seemed holy....We shouted the high praises of God." 101
But by 1874 Mrs. White had lost much of her "childlike simplicity." She
recalled somewhat censoriously an early 1845 meeting in Orrington, Maine, a
few weeks after Dammon's trial, at which she had reprimanded fanatics for
their "shouting and hallooing." Just before she left Orrington, a few
assembled with her, she said; and "God was worshipped without boisterous
noise and confusion, but with calm dignity." 102
By 1900 Mrs. White's memory had joined her childlike simplicity:
"I bore my testimony, declaring that these fanatical movements, this din
and noise, were inspired by the spirit of Satan, who was working miracles
to deceive if possible the very elect."103
"Slain By The Spirit"
Nine Millerites were arraigned before the Bangor, Maine, police court on 2
April 1845, charged with being
"Idlers and Vagrants and disturbers of the public peace, and sentenced to
the House of Corrections for a term of time varying from five to thirty
days. These trials caused great excitement and the City Hall was crowded to
its utmost capacity....There was evidently a misunderstanding among the
spectators, of many of the technical terms in use among the
Adventists....such as "salute," "embrace," "slain upon the floor,"
"shouting," "laughing," &c. Whenever these terms occurred in the testimony,
they created much merriment....This was especially the case when the acts
which these terms expressed were described." 104
The expression "slain upon the floor" or "slain by the Spirit" was used to
designate a sudden and total loss of physical strength that sometimes
overcame Millerites during their ecstatic worship services.
Isaac Wellcome, a minister of the Advent Christian Church and author of
History of the Second Advent Message, "was often in meeting with Ellen G.
Harmon and James White in 1843 and 45." 105 Wellcome recalled Miss Harmon's
actions:
"She was strangely exercised in body and mind, usually talking in
assemblies until nature was exhausted and then falling to the floor, unless
caught by someone sitting near (we remember catching her twice to save her
from falling upon the floor), remaining a considerable time in the mesmeric
state, and afterwards, perhaps not until another meeting, she would relate
the wonders which she claimed had been shown her in spirit...." 106
Reacting privately in 1874 to Wellcome's testimony, Mrs. White wrote:
"It might have been, but I have no acquaintance with him, and never knew
him by sight. Before '44, I sometimes lost my strength under the blessing
of God. I.C. Wellcome may have confounded these exercises of the power of
the Spirit of God upon me with the visions." 107
Mrs. White seemed to be trying to say that while she had visions after
1844, she was not thereafter "so overpowered by the Spirit of God as to
lose all strength...."108 Arthur White does not agree. And, for evidence,
he quotes from his grandmother's account of an experience she had "several
days" after her second vision. As Father Pearson was praying for her, Mrs.
White remembered: "My strength was taken away, and I fell to the floor. I
seemed to be in the presence of the angels." 109
In 1847 Mrs. White described how she "fell from my chair to the floor," at
the onset of her third vision (February 1845); "and a short time after I
fell," Sister Durben "was struck down" by "the power of the Lord." 110
"Such experiences were repeated again and again," says Arthur White, who
has had the opportunity to browse for decades through tens of thousands of
pages of Mrs. White's unpublished letters and manuscripts. 111
Limited-access policies of the Ellen White Estate force us to leave the
disagreement on this point between Mrs. White and her grandson unresolved.
But Mrs. White's belief that others around her were being slain by the
Spirit throughout the late 1840's has been clearly demonstrated by her
descendent and by former associate secretary of the White Estate Ron
Graybill.112
Also, it is clear that whether she was "slain upon the floor" (in or out of
vision) during her early travels, Ellen Harmon spent a lot of time
ministering prone from the floor. In Atkinson, on the evening of 15
February 1845, according to witness Loton Lambert, she lay on the floor
having and telling visions for more than five hours. Jacob Mason testified
that James White "some of the time...held her head."
Later, Lucinda Burdick recalled that in the autumn of 1845 on a Sunday
afternoon in South Windham, in a grove near the home of Andrew Bodge, that
"suddenly, Ellen Harmon became rigidly prostrate upon the ground....Her
position upon the ground seemed so uncomfortable that I placed her head in
my lap and supported her thus throughout the event." 113
Months later, in Randolph, Massachusetts, Ellen Harmon spent most of four
hours "in vision...inclined backward against the wall in the corner of the
room." Mrs. White was quoting Otis Nichols for her description of that
session, except that where he described her "talking in vision with a
shrill voice." she changed the word "shrill" to "clear." 114
The Dead Are Raised
In 1874 Mrs. White recalled encountering and rebuking fanatics at Orrington
in the summer of 1845, who "believe[d] the dead are raised," telling them
"I know this is all a delusion." She also recalled that at Garland in 1845
"ElderDammon and many others...were in error and delusion in believing that
the dead had been raised."
"While I was repeating this Scripture, Elder Damon [sic] arose and began to
leap up and down, crying out, 'The dead are raised and gone up; glory to
God! Glory, Hallelujah!' Others followed his example. Elder Dammon said,
'...I cannot sit still. The spirit and power of the resurrection is
stirring my very soul.'"
"Our testimony," Mrs. White recalled, "was rejected, and they clung
tenaciously to their errors." "Elder Dammon....became my enemy only because
I bore a testimony reproving his wrongs and his fanatical course...."115
Ellen Harmon may never have taught, as Dammon did, that the dead are
raised. But it is difficult to believe that she strongly rebuked those
(especially Dammon) who did believe it. Although Mrs. White wrote in 1860
that "distracting influences" had "separated Eld. D. from his friends who
believe the third message," she recalled that Dammon joined with her at
Topsham in the healing of Francis Howland, some time after his Atkinson
arrest:
"Bro. D. cried out in the Spirit, and power of God, "Is there some sister
here who has faith enough to go and take her by the hand, and bid her arise
in the name of the Lord?" 116
If Dammon became Mrs. White's "enemy" over her rebuke (in the spring or
summer of 1845) of his fanatical belief that the dead were being raised, it
seems odd that both Joseph Bates and R.S. Webber placed Israel Dammon in
the wagon with Elder and Mrs. White and Bates, behind a "refractory colt,"
shortly after the November 1846 Topsham meeting at which Mrs. White had the
vision of the planets, that convinced Bates her visions were genuine. 117
Furthermore, Uriah Smith, J.N. Andrews, and G.H. Bell substantiate
references "to Eld. Damman [sic] as...having traveled with Bro. and Sr.
White, and [having] been well acquainted with their early labors." 118
Dammon's travels with the married Whites would have followed their wedding
on August 30, 1846, more than a year after he became Mrs. White's "enemy."
What Ron Graybill wrote about Mrs. White's memory of her childhood - "she
consistently dates events...too early" - appears to be true for her early
adulthood as well. 119
Time Setting
The lessons to be learned from the uneventful passing of firm dates set by
William Miller's followers in 1843 and 1844 for the second coming of Christ
were lost - for varying lengths of time - on those Adventists who were
later to be seen as pioneers of the Seventh-day Adventist movement. O.R.L.
Crosier, James White, and Joseph Bates all set dates after 1844 for the
Lord's return - each later than the other. 120
Ellen Harmon may well have been among the time setters of 1845. John Cook
wrote on 5 April 1845 that some Millerites "were confirmed in the belief
that the appointed time was the 4th day of April, on account of the visions
(?) of a girl."
"In these exercises she wrote with her finger on her hand April 4th, 1845,
and then counted over her fingers each one for a day from the time of the
vision (so called) to the 4th of April." 121
Mrs. Burdick was very specific in her personal memory of Ellen Harmon's
time setting:
"At one time she saw that the Lord would come the second time in June,
1845. The prophecy was discussed in all the churches, and in a little
'shut-door paper' published in Portland, Me. During the summer, after June
passed, I heard a friend ask her how she accounted for the vision? She
replied that 'they told her in the language of Canaan, and she did not
understand the language; that it was the next September that the Lord was
coming, and the second growth of grass instead of the first in June.'" 122
Mrs. Burdick's statement was published in the July 1, 1874 issue of The
World's Crisis. Two months later, Ellen White privately denied all of Mrs.
Burdick's claims (and there were several) - except her statement regarding
time setting. 123
In 1847 James White claimed that Miss Harmon had experienced a vision a few
days before October 22, 1845, that indicated "we would be disappointed"
again.124 True or not, 125 Ellen, like James, continued to believe that
Jesus' second coming was truly imminent. This belief delayed both their
effort "to try to convert people to the advent faith" and their ability to
see "that the way...[was] made plain" for them to marry. 126
Even after she surrendered the notion of time setting, Mrs. White had
trouble admitting that those who had done so during the Millerite period
were really, biblically, mistaken (see Early Writings, pp. 232-237).
But whether or not she was setting specific dates for the Lord's return in
1845, during the 1850's Mrs. White was placing clear limits on God's
timetable. In a 27 June 1850 vision, she was told that "now time is almost
finished." Her "accompanying angel" indicated that "those who have of late
embraced the third angel's message" would "have to learn in a few months"
"what we have been years learning." 127
At an early morning meeting in Battle Creek in late May 1856 Mrs. White
stated:
"I was shown the company present at the Conference. Said the angel: 'Some
food for worms, some subjects of the seven last plagues, some will be alive
and remain upon the earth to be translated at the coming of Jesus.' Solemn
words were these, spoken by the angel...." 128
Mrs. White did not (and logically could not) live to see her prophecy fail.
No Work
While some of the Millerites annoyed their fellow citizens by crawling in
public places, 129 and others disturbed their neighbors (as Noah Lunt did)
with late night warnings under their windows, 130 it was primarily the
no-work teaching and practice that caused civil authorities to place
fanatical Millerites under guardianship or, for brief periods, in jail. 131
These actions were taken in the best interest of both the community and the
individuals arrested. Atkinson, where Dammon was apprehended, was little
more than a village. In 1850 its population numbered 895 - 474 men and 421
women.132 When a few individuals left their crops to rot, their cows
unmilked, their chickens unfed, or failed to show up somewhere for work,
the impact on the tiny community was severe. The Bangor Whig and Courier
reported:
"An industrious farmer, living in Orrington [35 miles southeast of
Atkinson] who has for several years, supplied customers in this city
[Bangor - five miles from Orrington] with milk has recently...abandon[ed]
selling milk...to...make earnest preparation for the immediate end of the
world. He has not since waited upon his customers...." 133
The Selectmen of Orrington placed several Millerites under guardianship in
February 1845 and cautioned the public "against purchasing any property,
real or personal of them, as all contracts or deeds will be void on account
of their incompetency to manage their affairs." 134 These legal actions
began too late to save some Adventists from "expos[ing] themselves and
their families to the peltings of the pitiless storm of poverty." 135
The Adventists' theological misjudgment left many of them and their
children to the mercy of generous and more farsighted neighbors. Mrs. M.C.
Stowell Crawford recalled:
"After the time passed [1844] there were several large families that father
had to supply with everything. He would purchase eight barrels of flour at
a time." 136
Ellen Harmon appears to have lived (but perhaps not taught) the no-work
fanaticism of Millerite leaders such as Jesse Stevens, Joseph Turner, and
Dammon. The no-work doctrine - like the shut-door teaching - was the
logical outgrowth of sincere belief in the imminent return of Christ. While
Miss Harmon was certain that no sinners could be brought to Christ, she did
believe that the saved could lose their faith and thereby their salvation
while the Bridegroom tarried (Matthew 25).
The Piscataquis Farmer account of the Dammon trial and some of Mrs. White's
own memory statements indicate her preoccupation with the mortal sin of
doubt.137 Prosecution witness William Crosby testified" "After the
visionist called them up she told them they doubted. Her object seemed to
be to convince them they must not doubt."
Neither Ellen Harmon nor Ellen White believed that anyone could be saved
who had once believed in the 1844 movement and then gave it up - except
William Miller. 138 And so those who believed their Saviour would appear
momentarily had only two responsibilities: one, to keep the faith; and,
two, to bolster the faith of their brethren.
By her own estimate, Ellen Harmon "journeyed for three months" during the
winter/spring of 1845 encouraging the scattered flock of discouraged
Millerites with what the Lord had shown her in vision. 139 Yet "financial
resources for her journey did not concern her," says Arthur White, because
"she had now assumed a confident trust in God." 140 But so, of course, had
those like Dammon, Stevens, and Turner, who advocated the no-work doctrine,
"assumed a confident trust in God."
During her travels Miss Harmon was transported, fed, and boarded by
new-found friends. The Nichols family boarded her for eight months (between
August 1845 and June 1846) at their home near Roxbury, Massachusetts. 141
Mrs. White remembered that "they were attentive to my wants, and generously
supplied me with means to travel." 142
While Ellen Harmon herself did not work, she remembers laboring strenuously
with those in Paris, Maine, "who believed that it was a sin to work."
"The Lord gave me a reproof for the leader [Jesse Stevens] in this error,
declaring that he was going contrary to the Word of God in abstaining from
labor, [and] in urging his errors upon others...." 143
Stevens rejected Harmon's counsel; and she recalled having seen, before the
fact, "that his career would soon close." "At length," she wrote, "he made
a rope of some of his bed clothing with which he hung himself." 144
It may be that Ellen Harmon was speaking out against the no-work doctrine
in 1845, but a subsequent issue of Adventist Currents will demonstrate just
how unlikely it is that Jesse Stevens' suicide was related to his rejection
of her counsel.
Was Ellen Harmon Arrested?
Was Ellen Harmon arrested for her fanatical behavior? Otis Nichols, writing
to William Miller in April 1846, said that
"there have been a number of warrants for her arrest, but God has signally
protected her. At one time a sheriff and a number of men with him had no
power over her person for an hour and a half, although they exerted all
their bodily strength to move her, while she or no one else made any
resistance." 145
Arthur White believes that Nichols was confusing Ellen Harmon with Israel
Dammon, 146 even though Nichols - writing within months of the alleged
arrest attempt - had reason to tell Miller, "What I have written I have
knowledge of and think I can judge correctly." Why? "Sister Ellen has been
a resident of my family much of the time for about eight months." 147
Whether or not Nichols was confused, Arthur White proceeds on his next
Early Years page to confuse the "hour and a half" that Nichols says the
sheriff and his men spent trying to arrest Miss Harmon with his own account
of the Dammon arrest - even though Arthur's only source for the Atkinson
incident is his grandmother who was there and says Dammon's arrest took
forty minutes.148
The most tantalizing piece of this puzzle is found in an April 1845 issue
of the Daily Eastern Argus, a newspaper from Miss Harmon's home town of
Portland:
"Millerism. The proceedings of the professors of this belief, have been
such, that the officers of Norway and some other towns in the vicinity have
felt it their duty to take means to put a stop to them....On Wednesday
[April 23], one of the leaders, well known as Joe Turner, another named
Harmon, with one or two others were arrested at the house of Mr. Megquier,
in Poland, by the Selectmen of that town, as was reported...." 149
Mrs. White remembered that she initially related her first vision away from
home in Poland, 150 in (Otis Nichols says) January 1845. 151 And John
Megquier, at whose house Turner and Harmon were arrested, remembered that
"about the first visions that she had were at my house in Poland." 152 By
her own account she was in Poland on two occasions during the winter/spring
of 1845. And her second visit to that town came after her initial,
three-month journey east, which began sometime in January. 153 The records,
the date, the geography, and the relationships, suggest that it would have
been convenient for Miss Harmon to be at John Megquier's house on April 23,
1845, in Poland, Maine.
Added to all of this, Miss Harmon was a friend and admirer of the arrested
Joseph Turner. In 1847 she described to Joseph Bates her great relief upon
learning that the shut-door position that she received from her first
vision was compatible with what Turner was teaching from Scripture. 154 And
so it would not be surprising to find them together in late April 1845, at
a popular Millerite gathering spot - the home of John Megquier.
Thirty years later Mrs. White remembered being shown in advance "that we
would be in danger of imprisonment and abuse. ...the emissaries [sic] of
Satan were on our track, and we would fare no better than those who had
been fanatical and wrong, and suffered the consequences of their
inconsistent, unreasonable course by abuse and imprisonment." 155
Three paragraphs after seeming to predict her own imprisonment, she writes
of
"...brethren believing the truth...[who] were imprisoned and beaten. But we
rode through these very places in broad daylight, visited from house to
house, held meetings, and bore our testimony...." 156
There is presently not available sufficient evidence to indicate
conclusively whether or not Ellen was the Harmon who was arrested along
with Joseph Turner in Poland, Maine, on April 23, 1845.
Postdisappointment Fanaticism
Evidence indicates Ellen Harmon-
Mandatory rebaptism
taught/participated.
Shut door
taught it from vision.
"Go to hell"(intemperate expressions)
used phrased repeatedly; trial witnesses agree.
The holy kiss
taught it from vision.
The holy laugh
described an instance of it affirmatively.
Mixed footwashing(women wash men's feet)
taught it from vision.
Shouting
participated actively.
Slain by the Spirit
fell on many occasions.
Time setting
does not deny it; early friends say she was.
No work doctrine
did not work; but says she fought this doctrine.
The dead are raised
denied this belief, and no evidence refutes her.
Conclusion
Most Adventists who learn of it will probably be able to accommodate the
revised image of Ellen Harmon as a "shrill"-voiced, lounging, shouting,
kissing, condemning, fainting, and footwashing, postdisappointment,
Millerite fanatic. It may take some Adventists a little longer to
assimilate the implications of Mrs. White's inability to remember her early
ministry the way it actually took place. They will either have to assume
that she possessed a particularly fecund delusional system, as Jack
Provonsha does, 157 or that she consciously distorted the past for her own
(however complicated and even, perhaps, well-intended) purposes.
Those who have the fortitude and the wits will recognize what the
implications are for so many other stories of Providence that dot the
landscape of Adventist history. And it will become easier to identify with
A.G. Daniells' question at the 1919 Bible Conference about "just how much
of that is genuine, and how much has crawled into the story?"158
It was Ellen White who advised that it is only as we see how the Lord has
led us in the past that we can set our faces courageously and confidently
to the future. 159 Can Adventists be blamed then for moving forward
timorously? Because it is becoming increasingly clear that Mrs. White did
not leave us a credible picture of her pivotal place in our religious
roots.
Endnotes
Ellen White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2.
Ellen White to J.N. Loughborough, 24 August 1874.
"Trial of Elder I. Dammon," Pitcataquis Farmer, 7 March 1845.
White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2, pp. 40-42.
Otis Nichols to William Miller, 20 April 1846. Arthur White, in his book,
The Early Years, p. 75, quotes Nichols; but he arbitrarily changes Nichols'
"(January, 1845)" to "[February 1845]." In so doing White also contradicts
his own "mid-January" statement from the Early Years, p. 65.
Ellen White Life Sketches, p. 72.
Bangor Whig and Courier, 26 October 1842.
Daily Eastern Argus, 13 March 1845.
Dorinda Baker: Pitcataquis Farmer, 7 March 1845; Emily C. Clemons: J.V.
Himes to William Miller, 12 and 29 March 1845, as quoted in Ronald Numbers,
Prophetess of Health, p. 17; Mary Hamlin: M.C. Stowell Crawford to Ellen
White, 9 October 1908; Phoebe Knapp: White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874.
Daily Eastern Argus, 28 April & 28 May 1845; Oxford Democrate, 8 April & 18
November 1845; The Norway Advertiser, 28 March 1845; The Bangor Whig &
Courier, 19 February & 5 March 1845; "Letter from Bro. White," Day-Star, 6
September 1845.
White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874.
Otis Nichols to William Miller, 20 April 1846; Daily Eastern Argus, 28
April 1845.
Pitcataquis Farmer, 25 March 1845.
Meterorological journal for Bangor, Maine, February 1845, National Archives
microfilm.
Pitcataquis Farmer, 7 March 1845.
This is deduced from the location of James Ayer Jr.'s home as given in the
Pitcataquis Farmer, 25 March 1845; an 1880 atlas of Atkinson; and a
description of the size and location of Dead Stream and its branches in
"Atkinson" chapter XI of Amasa Loring's, History of Piscataquis County
(Hoyt, Fogg & Donham, Portland, ME.: 1880), p. 89.
Pitcataquis Farmer, 7 March 1845.
Oxford Democrat, 1 April 1845.
Pitcataquis Farmer, 7 March 1845.
United States Census, 1850, Piscataquis County, Maine.
Pitcataquis Farmer, 7 March 1845.
Maine Register, 1843, p. 63.
Paul Gordon to Ingemar Linden, 17 February 1987.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Israel Dammon to Samuel S. Snow, 28 May 1845, published in The Jubilee
Standard 1 (5 June 1845) p. 104.
John F. Sprague, Esq., "James Stuart Holmes, The Pioneer Lawyer of
Piscataquis County," The Bangor Historical Magazine IV (July 1888-June
1889), p. 34.
White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2, pp. 38-40.
Sprague, p. 35.
"Scandal or Rite of Passage? Historians on the Dammon Trial," Spectrum 17
(August 1987), p. 44.
White, Life Sketches, pp. 38-39.
Ellen White, Early Writings, p. 15.
White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2, pp. 38-40.
Ibid., p. 39.
Ellen White to Joseph Bates, 13 July 1847. This letter is photographically
reproduced in Ellen White's handwriting in Adventist Currents 1 (July
1984), pp. 13-15.
White, Spiritual Gifts vol. 2, p. 38; Life Sketches, p. 73.
O.R.L. Crosier, "Prophetic Day and Hour," The Voice of Truth and Glad
Tidings (9 April 1845), p. 15.
Pitcataquis Farmer, 25 March 1845.
Oxford Democrat, 1 April 1845.
White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2, p. 39.
Ibid., 40.
Ibid., 40.
"Scandal or Rite of Passage," Spectrum, p. 44.
Ibid., 39.
White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874; Spiritual Gifts vol. 2, p. 46.
James White to "Dear Bro. Jacobs," 19 August 1845 published in The Day-Star
7 (6 September 1845).
James White to "My Dear Brother Collins," 26 August 1846.
White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2, pp. 40-41.
Ibid., 41.
Ibid.
Ibid., 42.
White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874.
White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2, p. 58.
John Cook, 5 April 1845 letter to the editor, Morning Star, 16 April 1845.
S.D.A. Encyclopedia, p. 1585.
James White, Life Incidents, p. 273.
Ellen White, Oswego vision, 29 July 1850 (Advent Source Collection).
Ellen White to G.I. Butler, 13 December 1886, quoted in Evangelism, p. 375.
For a parsimnomious discussion of the shut-door problem, see Adventist
Currents 1:4 (July 1984).
Ellen White, A Word to the Little Flock (30 May 1847), p. 14.
White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874.
Israel Dammon, The World's Crisis, 1 July 1874.
Arthur White, The Early Years, p. 65, referencing Letter 37, 1890.
John Megquier, The World's Crisis, 1 July 1874.
Lucinda S. Burdick, notarized statement, 26 September 1908.
Lucinda S. Burdick, The World's Crisis, 1 July 1874.
Isaac C. Wellcome, History of the Second Advent Message, p. 403.
James White, publisher, 6 April 1846.
Isaac C. Wellcome, The World's Crisis, 1 July 1874.
This letter is reproduced in Ellen White's handwriting in Adventist
Currents 1 (July 1984), pp. 13-15.
Ellen White, Selected Messages, vol. 1, p. 63.
Burdick, Crisis, 1 July 1874.
White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874.
Ellen White, The Present Truth 1 (August 1849), pp. 21-22.
Megquier, Crisis, 1 July 1874.
White, The Present Truth, (August 1849), p. 22.
White to Eli Curtis, A Word to the Little Flock (30 May 1847), p. 12.
White, Early Writings, pp. 257-258.
Ellen White vision given 24 December 1850, written 25 December 1850,
published in Adventist Currents 1 June 1985, p. 9.
Piscataquis Farmer, 4 April 1845.
James White, Day-Star, 6 September 1845; Ellen White, Spiritual Gifts vol.
1, pp. 171,172.
White, Early Writings, p. 15.
Ibid., appendix, 302.
Ibid., 117.
Bangor Whig and Courier, 3 April 1845; John Cook to Bro. Burr, 5 April
1845, letter published in Morning Star, 16 April 1845.
Ellen White to Bro. and Sis. Howland, 15 August 1850.
White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2, p. 138; Life Sketches (1880), p. 274; Life
Sketches (1915), p. 137.
White, Early Writings, pp. 116-117.
Ibid., 15.
Norway Advertiser, 28 March 1845.
White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874.
Burdick, notarized statement, 26 September 1908.
Burdick, Crisis, 1 July 1874.
Mrs. White should have directed her objections and any evidence for them to
the source of her displeasure, The World's Crisis, not to J.N.
Loughborough, a man who worshipped her. A few excerpts from her 24 August
1874 letter to him were first published in the 14 January 1932 Review and
Herald, fifty-seven years after she wrote it. But the bulk of the letter
remained off the record until 13 December 1977, when its twelve,
double-spaced pages were provided Andrews University Seminary graduate
student Rolf Poehler as part of manuscript release #592.
Ellen White, Manuscript 5a, 1850; July 1850 from East Hamilton, N.Y.
Ibid.
Ellen White, Manuscript 5, 1850; vision July 29, 1850.
Ellen White to "The Church in Brother Hasting's house," Letter 28, November
7, 1850.
James White to "Dear Brethren," 11 November 1851, quoted by Ron Graybill in
"Glory! Glory! Glory!" Adventist Review (1 October 1987), p. 13.
Ellen White to sons Edson and Willie, 7 December 1872, as quoted in Ronald
D. Graybill, The Power of Prophecy: Ellen G. White and the Women Religious
Founders of the Nineteenth Century, doctoral dissertation (John Hopkins
University, Baltimore, MD.: 1983), p. 96.
White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874.
Ellen White to Bro. & Sis. Haskell, 10 October 1900.
Bangor Whig and Courier, 3 April 1845.
Wellcome, Crisis, 1 July 1874.
Wellcome, History of the Second Advent Message, p. 397.
White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874.
Ellen White, Testimonies, vol. 1, p. 31.
White, Life Sketches (1915), pp. 69,71.
White to Bates, 13 July 1847.
Arthur White, "Tongues in Early SDA History," Review and Herald, 15 March
1973, p. 5.
A. White, ibid.; Graybill, The Power of Prophecy, pp. 95,96.
Burdick, notarized statement, 26 September 1908.
White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2, pp. 77-78; Otis Nichols, eight-page
(pre-1860) statement (White Document File 733).
White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874.
White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2, pp. 42,43.
J.N. Loughborough, The Great Second Advent Movement, pp. 261-263.
White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2, pp. 42,43.
Graybill, The Power of Prophecy, p. 190.
O.R.L. Crosier, "Prophetic Day and Hour," The Voice of Truth and Glad
Tidings (9 April 1845), p. 15; James White, Letter to the editor, The
Day-Star, p. 6 (20 September 1845); A Word to the Little Flock (30 May
1847); Joseph Bates, An Explanation of the Typical and Anti-typical
Sanctuary (1850), pp. 10,11.
Cook to Burr, Morning Star, 16 April 1845.
Burdick, Crisis, 1 July 1874.
White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874.
James White, Word to the Little Flock (30 May 1847), p. 22.
Wesley Ringer, The Shut Door and the Sanctuary: Historical and Theological
Problems, (April 1982) pp. 53,54. This 128-page monograph was written at
the request of the Southern California Conference. In it Ringer argues
compellingly that the contemporary evidence does not support James White's
claim that his wife had predicted the disappointment of 22 October 1845.
James White to Bro. Collins, 26 August 1846.
White, Early Writings, pp. 64-67.
White, Testimonies, vol. 1, pp. 131,132.
Bangor Whig and Courier, 21 February 1845.
Oxford Democrat 8 April 1845.
Day-Star, 6 September 1845, "letter from Bro. White."
United States Federal Census, 1850.
Bangor Whig and Courier, 5 March 1845.
Bangor Whig and Courier, 19 February 1845.
Ibid.
M.C. Stowell Crawford to Ellen White, 9 October 1908.
White, Life Sketches, pp. 89,90.
White, Early Writings, pp. 257,258.
White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2, p. 38.
A. White, The Early Years, p. 69.
Otis Nichols 8-page, pre-1860 statement; Otis Nichols to William Miller, 20
April 1846.
White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2, p. 68.
White, Life Sketches, pp. 86.
White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2, p. 65.
Nichols to Miller, 20 April 1846.
A. White, The Early Years, p. 76.
Nichols to Miller, 20 April 1846.
A. White, The Early Years, p. 77.
Daily Eastern Argus, 28 April 1845.
White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2, p. 38.
Nichols to Miller, 20 April 1846.
Megquier, Crisis, 1 July 1874.
White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2, pp. 38,50.
White to Bates, 13 July 1847.
White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874.
Ibid.
Jack W. Provonsha, "Was Ellen G. White a Fraud?" unpublished 25-page
monograph (Loma Linda, CA.: 1980).
"The Bible Conference of 1919," Spectrum 10 (May 1979), p. 28.
White, Life Sketches, p. 196.
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