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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
In history books, in newspapers and in religious journals, and most impressively of all, in ponderous encyclopedias, has been carried down to us for a hundred years, a strange and wondrous story. The story concerns a religious group called Millerites who flourished in America in the early 1840's and who believed that the end of the world would take place on October 22, 1844.
1. See William Miller's Confession of Faith, 1822. Manuscript in Aurora College Library, Aurora, Ill.
2. Encyclopedia Britannica, 14th Ed. Article, “Miller, William.”
3. Philadelphia Public Ledger, Jan. 16, 1843; Maine Inquirer (Bath), Jan. 18, 1843.
4. Portsmouth (N. H.) Journal, Feb. 11, 1843.
5. The Midnight Cry, March 10, 1843, p. 45.Google Scholar
6. Letter, January 20, 1843, in Signs of the Times, February 15, 1843, P. 173.Google Scholar
7. United States Gazette, Philadelphia, October 16, 1844.Google Scholar
8. Public Ledger, Philadelphia, October 21, 1844.Google Scholar
9. Cincinnati Chronicle, quoted in United States Saturday Post, Philaelphia, November 9, 1844.Google Scholar
10. New York Independent, February 17, 1870.
11. Idem, Issue of March 17, 1870.
12. Idem, Issue of February 17, 1870.
13. The Outlook, November 24, 1894. See also, issues of immediately preceding weeks.
14. Jane Marsh Parker, daughter of Joseph Parker, who previous to joining the Millerite Movement was editor of the Christian Palladium, organ of the Christian Church. See her article, “A Spiritual Cyclone: The Millerite Delusion,” in The Magasine of Christian Literature, September 1891.Google Scholar
15. See, for example, The Cyclopedia of American Biography; article, “Miller, William,” Press Assn., Compilers, 1915. Also, Dictionary of American Biography; article, “Miller, William.” Chas. Scribner's Sons, N. Y., 1933.
16. Foreman, Kenneth J., The Christian Century, April 9, 1952, p. 432.Google Scholar
17. The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, May 27, 1852, p. 16.Google Scholar
18. Idem, April 14, 1868, p. 281.
19. Idem, October 11, 1881, p. 227.
20. Boston Courier, October 17, 1844.
21. McMaster, John B., A History of the People of the United States, Vol. 7, p. 139, D. Appleton & Co., N. Y., 1910Google Scholar. MeMaster's account of the Millerite Movement is both graphic and documented. He quotes from a number of newspapers and journals of the 1840's. It seems evident to me that his account is the source from which many present-day writers have drawn. Hence my frequent references to his work. If his discussion of Millerism is typical of his work, then he has provided a choice exhibit of how a historian may set down what he finds in the sources and yet fail to be either truly objective or impartial. How is it that almost without exception MeMaster found only those statements in the press that were defamatory? And why did he edit those statements so as to make them appear as a record of undebatable facts instead of printing them as items of rumor and hearsay as the newspapers of the 1840's generally did? These questions I am unable to answer.
22. Minnigerode, Meade, The Fabuions Forties, p. 4Google Scholar. G. P. Putnam's Sons, N. V., 1924.
23. The National Cyclopedsa of American Biography, article, “Miller, William.” James T. White & Co., N. Y. 1893–1943. 30 vols.Google Scholar
24. Sears, Clara Endicott, Days of Delusion, p. 152. Houghton Mifihin Co., Boston, 1924Google Scholar. This work synthesized the wide range of stories about Millerism by various writers, popular and scholarly.
25. See, for example, Clara Endicott Sears' Collection of Letters, giving reminiscences and rumors of approximately 260 persons who wrote to her between the years 1920 and 1923, and on which she very largely based her book, Days of Delusion. Collection now in the library of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, 141 Cambridge Street, Boston.
26. See, for example, Portland Bulletin, March 14, 1843.
27. New York Observer, quoted in Midnight Cry, March 24, 1843, p. 80.
28. McMaster, John B., A History of the People of the United States, Vol. 7, p.137.Google Scholar
29. Jackson, John Pullen, White and Negro Spirituals, p. 103. J. J. Augustin, Publisher, N. Y. 1943.Google Scholar
30. New York Tribune, March 24, 1843. See also retraction in New York Observer, April 1, 1843.
31. United States Saturday Post, October 19, 1844.
32. See Broadside, “Grand Ascension of the Miller Tabernacle,” in the library of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester Mass.
33. See, for example, Bulletin of The Society for the Preservatwn of New Enyland Antiquities, Vol. XX, No. 4, April, 1930, p. 177Google Scholar. Pillsbury, Hobart, New Hampshire, A History. Vol. IV, p. 1063. Lewis Historical Publishing Co., Inc., N. Y. 1927.Google Scholar
34. Portland Advertiser, October 26, 1844.
35. See Gorgas broadside, “In Honor of the King of Kings,” in the library of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.
36. This is the figure given by the critical Pennsylvania Inquirer, in its issue of October 22, 1844. A leader of the encampment gave the figure as “about one hundred and fifty.” See The Midnight Cry, October 31, 1844, p. 141.Google Scholar
37. See, for example, Encyclopedia Britannica, 14th edition, article, “Miller, William.” Tyler, Alice Felt, Freedom's Ferment, p. 77. The University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1944Google Scholar. William Warren Sweet has the Millerites out in the “open-fields,” or on “hilltops” on March 21, 1843, the beginning of the year-of-the-end-of the-world, but puts them in “graveyards” or on “housetops” on October 22, 1944. Sweet, William, Warren, The Story of Religion in America, p. 403. Harper & Brothers, New York. 1939.Google Scholar
38. Pennsylvania Inquirer, October 24, 1844. Also United States Saturday Post, Philadelphia, October 26, 1844Google Scholar. As to adequacy of provisions a leader in the encampment wrote: “We had two large tents, and being quite near the house of our brother, and also within a short distance of several country stores we obtained all the necessaries we wanted.”— George Grigg in The Midnight Cry, October 31, 1844, p. 141.Google Scholar
39. Scharf, John Thomas, and Westcott, Thompson, A History of Philadelphia, 1609–1884, Vol. 2, pp. 1448, 1449. L.H. Everts & Co., 1884. 3 vols.Google Scholar
40. Philadelphia Public Ledger, October 21, 1844.
41. See, for example, Toomey, H. C., American Mercury, November 1942Google Scholar, article, “Gabriel Blow That Horn.” Reprinted in Readers' Digest, January, 1943Google Scholar. See also MeMaster, John B., A History of the People of the United States, Vol. 7, p. 141Google Scholar. Another writer provides a vnriant cold thrill. She has the children in the allegedly numerous camps simply in a “piteous”“plight,” but apparently unfrozen. However, among the adults, she declares, there were “several suicides,” and some “were ledaway insane.” See Tyler, Alice Felt, Freedom's Ferment, p. 77. The University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1944.Google Scholar
42. United States Saturday Post, Philadelphia, November 2, 1844Google Scholar. I found temperature reports only in this newspaper, and only for the daytime. On Oct. 21, at 9 a.m. the temperature was 46°, at noon, 54°, and at 3 p. m., 52°. Oct. 22, 9 a.m., 55°, at noon, 56°.
43. McMaster, John B., A History of the People of the United States, Vol. 7, p. 137.Google Scholar
44. Minnigerode, , Meade, The Fabulous Forties, p. 4.Google Scholar
45. Kennebec Journal, Augusta, Maine, November 8, 1844.Google Scholar
46. McMaster, John B., A History of the People of the United States, Vol. 7, p. 141Google Scholar. Also, Toomey, R.C., Americdn Mercury, November, 1942Google Scholar, article, “Gabriel, Blow that Horn.”
47. Newark Daily Advertiser, February 25, 1843.
48. Albany Evening Journal, February 27, 1843.
49. Chicago Express, March 8, 1843.
50. New York Tribune, March 24, 1843.
51. Baltimore Sun, March 4, 1843.
52. Vermont Chronicle, Windsor, Vt., October 30, 1844.Google Scholar
53. Baltimore Sun, october 28, 1844.
54. Portsmouth (N. H.) Journal, November 9, 1844.
55. See, for example, Kennebec Journal, Augusta, Maine, November 15, 1844.Google Scholar
56. See the Annual Reports of the Asylum Superintendents in the 1840's. A quite complete file may be found in the library of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.
57. See, for example, Annual Report of the Directors of the Maine Insane Hospital, for the year ending December 31, 1842, p. 14 ff.Google Scholar
58. See, for example, Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Massachusetts General Hospital, subsection on McLean Asylum, for the year 1843, pp. 28, 29.Google Scholar
59. The Freeman, Concord, Mass., October 25, 1844.Google Scholar
60. Boston Daily Mail, october 24, 1844.
61. The Spy, Worcester, Mass., September 13, 1843Google Scholar. The story was widely reprinted.
62. Boston Bee, october 24, 1844.
63. Boston Daily Mail, Novembe 4, 1844.
64. Crump, C. G., History and Histirical Research, p. 9. George Routledge & Sons, London, 1928.Google Scholar