The Ellen G. White Letters and Manuscripts: Volume 1

STEVENS, Angeline S. See ANDREWS, John Nevins and Angeline.

STEVENS, Cyprian (1795-1858) and Almira T. (c. 1803-1873)

Among the earliest Sabbatarian Adventists in the state of Maine, the Stevenses were the parents-in-law of J. N. Andrews and Uriah Smith. For more than 30 years Cyprian and Almira farmed in Paris, Maine, before moving west to Waukon, Iowa, in 1856, where Cyprian died two years later from a rattlesnake bite. 1EGWLM 892.4

During the spring of 1845 several Adventist families in Paris, including Cyprian and Almira Stevens, became Sabbathkeepers after studying T. M. Preble's tract on the Sabbath, published in March 1845. Together with a certain segment of ex-Millerites in Maine after the disappointment of 1844, Cyprian Stevens descended for a time into rank fanaticism, including religious crawling. His son, Charles F. Stevens, later to become a Seventh-day Adventist minister and administrator, recalled that local authorities in Paris took his brothers and sisters from their parents for a time, “except myself who was the youngest,” placing them with other families in the area “who were supposed to know how to train them up in the way they should go.” 1EGWLM 892.5

The Stevens family did not take kindly to testimonies of reproof received from Ellen White, nor to James White's leadership during the Whites’ stay in Paris in 1850-1851. Their opposition continued through the 1850s. “They have despised reproof, despised the visions,” wrote Ellen White in 1860. She also noted that two of the Stevens daughters married eminent church leaders (Angeline married J. N. Andrews and Harriet married Uriah Smith), thus spreading their views of the visions and of James White to the very core of church leadership. By the early 1860s, however, various members of the Stevens family appear to have had a change of heart. “I no [sic] that I have not taken that stand on the visions for years past as I should,” Almira acknowledged in a letter to Ellen White in 1862, and in a letter to the Review editor some months later she thanked the Lord “for the strait testimonies that He has sent us through Sister White.” 1EGWLM 892.6

See: Obituary: “Cyprian Stevens,” Review, Oct. 28, 1858, p. 183; obituary: “Almira T. Stevens,” Review, Mar. 3, 1874, p. 95; William Berry Lapham, History of Paris, Maine, p. 733; “General Conference Proceedings, Sixth Meeting … ,” General Conference Bulletin, Apr. 8, 1901, p. 116; T. M. Preble, A Tract, Showing That the Seventh Day Should Be Observed as the Sabbath, Instead of the First Day; “According to the Commandment” (Nashua, N.H.: Murray and Kimball, 1845); M. S. Crawford, “Extracts From Letter of M. S. Crawford to W. C. W.” dated “c. Oct. 9, 1908,” Ellen G. White Estate, DF 439; Charles F. Stevens, [Recollections], Smith/Bovee Collection (Berrien Springs, Mich.: Center for Adventist Research, Andrews University), p. 5; Almira Stevens to Ellen White, Jan. 23, 1862; Almira T. Stevens, “From Sister Stevens,” Review, July 29, 1862, p. 71; Ellen G. White, Lt 8, 1860 (June 11). For a survey of relations between the Stevens and Andrews families of Paris and James and Ellen White, see Ron Graybill, “The Family Man,” in Harry Leonard, ed., J. N. Andrews: The Man and the Mission, pp. 16-19. 1EGWLM 893.1