The Ellen G. White Letters and Manuscripts: Volume 1

AMADON, George Washington (1832-1913) and Martha Dormer (1834-1937)

George Amadon was baptized by J. N. Loughborough in 1853. At the time he was working on the Erie Canal driving horses that towed canal boats. Probably in the same year Amadon began employment as typesetter at the Review and Herald office in Rochester, New York, moving to Battle Creek, Michigan, when the office was transferred there in 1855. When the “Review and Herald Publishing Association” was incorporated in 1861, George Amadon was elected vice president. Altogether he worked as a printer at the press for about 50 years, also editing the Youth's Instructor (1858-1864 and 1867-1869). Already 70 years old when the Review building burned down in 1902, Amadon did not move to Washington, D.C., when the press was relocated there, but served as visitation pastor in the Battle Creek church during his final years. 1EGWLM 780.1

Martha Byington, daughter of John Byington, first General Conference president, married George Amadon in 1860. In 1853 Martha became the first teacher in a school organized by her father in Buck's Bridge, New York, thought to be the first Seventh-day Adventist school. Later she taught Ellen and James White's sons in Battle Creek for a time, as evidenced by an entry in her diary from 1857. She also did domestic work in the White home prior to her marriage and sporadically thereafter. In 1874 Martha Amadon became the first president of the Dorcas and Benevolent Association, later known as the Dorcas Society. 1EGWLM 780.2

In later years Ellen White liked to recall how, before he came to the Whites in 1853, George Amadon had been “a mischievous boy working on the towpath with the horses” but had become “one of our main pillars in Battle Creek,” whom she regarded “very highly.” Judging by available correspondence, relations between the Amadon and White families appear to have been consistently positive, with the exception of a period in the latter 1860s. Several of Ellen White's letters from 1869 outline the antipathy to James White on the part of Martha Amadon, Harriet Smith, and Cornelia Cornell during this period, to the point where “it would have been good news, had you heard my husband was dead.” All three women were married to prominent church leaders, who in turn had been influenced by their negative views. Letters from Ellen White to George Amadon in the 1890s and early 1900s show that she placed a great deal of confidence in him, asking him to assist in sensitive matters. This included requesting Amadon to help conciliate in the growing rift between J. H. Kellogg and the church. 1EGWLM 780.3

See: Obituary: “Martha D. Amadon,” Review, Feb. 4, 1937, p. 21; obituary: “G. W. Amadon,” Review, Mar. 20, 1913, p. 279; J. N. Loughborough, “Second Advent Experience—No. 8,” Review, Aug. 2, 1923, p. 6; SDAE, s.v. “George Washington Amadon,” “Martha D. (Byington) Amadon”; Martha Byington, 1857 Diary (Center for Adventist Research, Andrews University), entry for Nov. 12, 1857; Ellen G. White, Ms 83, 1910 (Apr. 16); Ms 78, 1910 (Apr. 2); Lt 13, 1869 (Sept. 24). For a biography of G. W. Amadon, see Milton Raymond Hook, Flames Over Battle Creek: The Story of George W. Amadon, Review and Herald Printer, Who Shared in the Early Successes and Tragedies of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1977). 1EGWLM 780.4