The Ellen G. White Letters and Manuscripts: Volume 1

STOWELL, Harriet Augusta. See BARTON, Harriet Augusta.

STOWELL, Lewis Barnard (1793-1886) and Laura B. (1805-1868)

Lewis and Laura Stowell were among the first Adventists in Maine to become Sabbathkeepers. Lewis Stowell had served as a corporal in the War of 1812 and later became a merchant in Paris, Maine. Laura, née Tuell, was a schoolteacher before her marriage and is said to have been “a public speaker of unusual ability.” Her cousin, Sidney Perham, served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1863 to 1869 and was governor of Maine from 1871 to 1874. The Stowells left Maine in 1854 and settled in Illinois, later Wisconsin. 1EGWLM 894.1

Lewis and Laura Stowell took part in the Millerite movement of the early 1840s. During the spring of 1845 their 15-year-old daughter, Marion C. Stowell, together with her brother, Lewis Oswald Stowell, studied a Sabbatarian tract by T. M. Preble, and became, perhaps not the first Adventists in Maine to keep the Sabbath, but the first of those Adventists who would later become Seventh-day Adventists. Their parents, as well as several other families in Paris, soon followed their lead. 1EGWLM 894.2

In later reminiscences Marion Stowell strongly suggested that her parents, along with some other Paris Sabbatarians, were for a while caught up in some of the fanaticism and theological confusion that followed the disappointment of October 1844. She recalled that short-term visionaries such as Dorinda Baker and Mary Hamlin stayed in their house for two or three months, probably in 1845. By 1849 Lewis Stowell was again involved in theological entanglements. Ellen White was shown in vision that “Brother Stowell of Paris was wavering upon the shut door,” causing her and James to visit Stowell and other Paris members for a week of meetings. As a result “Brother Stowell was established in the shut door and all the present truth he had doubted.” It is the only major mention of Lewis Stowell in Ellen White's writings. Both Lewis and Laura Stowell went on to become lifelong members of the church. 1EGWLM 894.3

See: Obituary: “Lewis B. Stowell,” Review, Jan. 4, 1887, p. 14; obituary: “Laura Stowell,” Review, May 12, 1868, p. 350; W.H.H. Stowell, The Stowell Genealogy: A Record of the Descendants of Samuel Stowell of Hingham, Mass. (Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle Co., 1922), pp. 365-367; Mrs. M. C. Stowell Crawford, “A Letter From a Veteran Worker,” Southern Watchman, Apr. 25, 1905, p. 278; 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); Marion Stowell Crawford to “Sister White,” Oct. 9, 1908; Ellen G. White, Lt 5, 1849 (Apr. 21). 1EGWLM 894.4