The Ellen G. White Letters and Manuscripts: Volume 1

TENNEY, Elizabeth (née White) (1818-1885) and Thomas Boynton (1800-1875)

Elizabeth Tenney was a sister of James Springer White's. Born in Palmyra, Maine, she married Thomas Tenney, from nearby St. Albans, in 1851. Thomas, a farmer, served several times as a member of the Maine legislature. In 1852 James White refers to the Tenneys as “Bro. and Sr. Tenney,” which suggests that they were associated with the Sabbatarian Adventists. If that was the case, it was not a lasting association, since death notices of both Thomas and Elizabeth appear in Congregationalist publications. Thomas Tenney is there commended as “a strict keeper of the Sabbath” (i.e., Sunday). 1EGWLM 898.1

Whatever her relationship to the Adventist Church may have been, Elizabeth Tenney, or “Lizzie,” as she was affectionately called, appears to have had a very good personal relationship with James and Ellen White. The two families made a special effort to meet when the Whites visited central Maine. At least six such occasions are on record. In 1871 Thomas came to hear Ellen White speak at a camp meeting in nearby Skowhegan. Probably the last meeting of Ellen with Elizabeth took place in 1876 after Elizabeth's husband had died and left her living in very meager circumstances with in-laws. “I felt not a little indignant,” wrote Ellen White. “Lizzie sleeps in an unfinished open stairway. … I said when I saw it, my sister Lizzie shall never live in such a place like this.” Exactly what action Ellen White subsequently took is not known, but it does illustrate Ellen's warm feelings for her sister-in-law. 1EGWLM 898.2

See: M. J. Tenney, The Tenney Family or the Descendants of Thomas Tenney of Rowley, Massachusetts, 1638-1904 (Concord, N.H.: Rumford Press, 1904), p. 167; General Conference of the Congregational Churches in Maine—Forty-ninth Annual Meeting, Maine Missionary Society, Sixty-eighth Anniversary (Bangor: Barr & Robinson, 1875), p. 95; General Conference of the Congregational Churches in Maine, Sixtieth Anniversary, Maine Missionary Society, Seventy-ninth Anniversary (Bangor: John H. Bacon, Printers, 1886), p. 97; “Eastern Tour,” Review, Oct. 14, 1852, p. 96; 1860 U.S. Federal Census, “Thomas B. Tenney,” Maine, Somerset, St. Albans, p. 42; 1870 U.S. Federal Census, “Thomas B. Tenney,” Maine, Somerset, St. Albans, p. 14; search terms “Tenney” and “Tenny” in Words of the Pioneers; Ellen G. White, Lt 13, 1871 (Sept. 2); Lt 47, 1876 (July). 1EGWLM 898.3