Ellen G. White: The Lonely Years: 1876-1891 (vol. 3)

The Plano Camp Meeting

After spending a week at the McDearmon home, James and Ellen White went on north some twenty miles to Plano. The camp meeting had opened there, three miles from the village, on Tuesday, November 12. About two hundred believers came in for a very successful camp meeting. From Peoria, about a hundred miles away, nine families came by private conveyance (Manuscript 3, 1878). 3BIO 100.3

Ellen White pictured the accommodations awaiting her and her party. 3BIO 100.4

We found a tent prepared for us with board floor, and carpeted, provided with bedsteads, tables, chairs, and stove. Nothing was wanting to make us comfortable. Our friends who had recently embraced the truth at Plano had anticipated our wants and liberally supplied them in the furnishing of our tent.—Ibid. 3BIO 100.5

As to the meetings, wrote James White: 3BIO 100.6

Twenty-four discourses were preached during the camp meeting. Elder Haskell was on the ground two days in advance and gave eleven discourses. Mrs. White and the writer gave six discourses each, and Elder Kilgore, one. In consequence of the distance, the rains, and deep mud, the outside attendance was small. Sunday afternoon Mrs. White gave a discourse on Christian temperance before a large congregation.—The Review and Herald, December 5, 1878.

During the camp meeting thirteen people were baptized, the Texas Conference was formed, and aggressive plans were laid for tent evangelism. It was decided to purchase two evangelistic tents, one sixty feet in diameter and the other fifty feet. 3BIO 101.1

The Whites elected to settle for the winter in Denison, some sixty miles to the north of Dallas and not far from the Red River, which forms the boundary for the northeast part of the State. Denison was somewhat of a railroad center, situated on sandy land. Roads were fairly good and the surroundings pleasant. 3BIO 101.2