Footprints of the Pioneers

Chapter 13—The Peripatetic Press

James White

THE pioneers of the Seventh-day Adventist movement had no fixed abode. They were first of all preachers, evangelists, teachers, and they were itinerant. The word was in their mouths, only secondarily in their pens. They labored personally for souls; they wrestled face to face with the powers of darkness; they went from place to place as the calls came and the Spirit moved. Joseph Bates indeed had a home, that is, a place where his wife stayed; as for him, he ranged back and forth across the land, seeking out “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But James and Ellen White owned neither house nor land. They sojourned here and there, accepting the hospitality of friends of the message, at times renting quarters; but not until the first ten years had passed did they own a house and a strip of soil. FOPI 116.2

In these circumstances the enterprise of publishing a paper was understandably difficult. Should they settle down and start to build a business, the field would be left vacant, save for Bates. They must travel, travel, travel, strengthening the weak hands, confirming the feeble knees, saying to them of fearful heart: “Be strong; fear not. Behold, your God will come!” Beset on every hand by cavil, criticism, slander, and fanaticism, and burdened with illnesses, they fought on in the good fight of faith, crying with Patrick: FOPI 116.3

“Christ before us, Christ behind,

Christ on every side!”

But the commission came to publish a paper, and James White obeyed. The little Present Truth was started at Middletown, Connecticut, while the Whites were staying at Albert Belden’s in Rocky Hill. That was for three months only; then they were out in the field again, and the paper lapsed. Next they sojourned in Oswego, New York, and during six months they published six numbers of the paper. But they must needs move again, and the summer of 1850 saw the brief career of another paper, the Advent Review, in Auburn. No roots as yet, however. They went to Paris, Maine, and everywhere they went the paper went. A final issue of Present Truth, and then the new publication, Second Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, which, with the dropping next year of the word Second, has continued to the present time. Thus a permanent name; now for a local habitation. FOPI 118.1

Paris seemed allergic to the Whites. Like Lystra in Asia Minor, it furnished a Timothy, John N. Andrews, to James White’s Paul; and at first it brought oxen and garlands; but in the end the stones of criticism left their Paul almost dead. ⁸³ Calls came again from the field; and after journeys to Massachusetts and Connecticut, James and Ellen White ended in New York. FOPI 118.2

Near the little town of Ballston Spa, a few miles from Saratoga Springs, lived Jesse Thompson, a prosperous lawyer with a splendid farm. He had also been a Christian minister, preaching for twenty years in that communion. He was one of the early converts to the Sabbath-and-sanctuary faith, and wrote some vigorous letters to the Review and Herald, defending the slandered messengers. He now invited the Whites to accept his hospitality while they worked in that section and investigated the possibility of publishing the paper in the near-by city. They stayed there for several weeks. ⁸⁴ FOPI 118.3

We went out to visit the former home of Jesse Thompson, and were graciously received by the lady of the house, Mrs. Welch. It is a magnificent house of twenty-one rooms, a house one hundred and forty years old, set in beautiful grounds. It must have been a restful period for the weary pilgrims, and they never forgot the kindness of their generous supporter and friend. Meanwhile they were seeking to find printing accommodations and living quarters in Saratoga Springs. This at last they succeeded in doing, and the peripatetic paper took another lap on its journey. FOPI 118.4

The printer was Davison’s Printing and Stereotyping Establishment, but no record and no tradition remain of the location of the Whites’ home in Saratoga Springs. In June, 185 1, the Whites came, and from August of that year to March of 1852 published here the second volume of the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald. ⁸⁵ Annie Smith came from West Wilton, New Hampshire, to help them; she was the first editorial help acquired. Her cheerful, capable personality, her songful talent, made her a great asset to the work, and she was the forerunner and doubtless the magnet of her brother Uriah, who in less than two years was added to the force. FOPI 119.1

But Saratoga Springs was only an encampment in the wilderness journey. In March, 1852, there was held at the home of Jesse Thompson a conference of workers, to consult upon the advisability of changing the place of publication and strengthening the publishing work. ⁸⁶ Among them were James and Ellen White, Joseph Bates, J. N. Andrews, Hiram Edson, Frederick Wheeler, Samuel W. Rhodes, Washington Morse, W. S. Ingraham, Joseph Baker, E. A. Poole, and Lebbeus Drew, besides the host, Jesse Thompson. FOPI 120.1

We sat, ninety-four years later, in the spacious parlor of Jesse Thompson’s house, the room where probably the meeting was held, and pictured in our minds the gathering there. We faced the great fireplace, now bricked up, and behind us was a deep recess where stood the grand piano. On the right a wide, square archway opened into the entry, large enough to be a sitting room; if need were, it could be used as an anteroom for the overflow. FOPI 120.2

The talk was not of retrenchment but of enlargement. Poor to the verge of indigence were the Whites: their house held borrowed furniture. Nearly every dollar they received went into the publication of the paper, which had no subscription price, but was dependent solely upon the gratuity of readers. Joseph Bates had spent his fortune; the young John Andrews had neither scrip nor purse; Samuel Rhodes, traveling far and wide, was, like Bates, dependent upon the meager support of his hearers. Three or four men among them might be called the small capitalists of the little band: Jesse Thompson, doubtless the most prosperous, and generous with his means; Hiram. Edson, who had sold his farm and used much of the money already in the work; Wheeler and Morse and Baker possibly had farms, but were supporting their own labors. FOPI 120.3

Nevertheless, with great unanimity it was determined to establish the work upon a firmer foundation, by purchasing a press and type, and setting up their own office. It was ascertained that the outfit would cost about $650. Subscriptions were made at the meeting, and ah appeal was sent out in the last number of the Review published in Saratoga Springs, for donations from friends. In the meantime Hiram Edson advanced the necessary amount to make up the purchase price, and the outfit was obtained. FOPI 121.1

They decided to locate the press in Rochester. What determined the location is not stated; but Rochester was a thriving city on the Erie Canal, a first-day Adventist periodical was already being published there, and it looked westward, where the field had been opened by Bates and Rhodes, and gave great promise. Rochester was the sixth location of the publication, and destined not to be the last. But the editorial staff gladly followed the decision, and moved there though they had not enough money to prepay the freight. It came, however. Arrived, they sought and found a house, at 124 Hope Avenue, a house large enough to contain the family and workers, to house the press for the first year, and to furnish a meeting hall. Though the furniture was rescued from the retired list and required repairs, though the fare was meager, the cheerful company drove on with single mind toward their goal. FOPI 121.2

A young man, L. V. Masten, foreman of the shop in Saratoga Springs where they had had their printing done, went with them. He was a young man of good habits, though not at first an Adventist; his religious experience came a year later, with his healing by prayer from an attack of cholera. Stephen Belden of Rocky Hill, and Oswald Stowell of Paris, were apprentices, soon joined by J. W. Bacheller and George W. Amadon. FOPI 121.3

For three years they published and grew here, until in 1855 they were invited to Battle Creek, where the office remained for forty-eight years. That little old Washington hand press went west with them; and in my brief apprentice days in the type room I pulled many a proof sheet on the quaint little skeleton, which was the symbol of those scanty, famished, footloose days when our publishing work wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, a peripatetic press. FOPI 122.1