Footprints of the Pioneers

Chapter 16—The Apostle and the Blacksmith

Dan Palmer

THE beginnings of the Seventh-day Adventist people were in New England and New York. Joseph Bates, James White, Ellen Harmon-White, George W. Holt, John N. Andrews, Uriah Smith, were all of New England, and with the exception of the last began their work there. Hiram, Edson, Samuel Rhodes, John N. Loughborough, Roswell F. Cottrell, John Byington, C. W. Sperry, C. O. Taylor, were New Yorkers, and their service started in that State. Besides these more prominent leaders, there were a host of less noted but no less devoted couriers of the faith who set their torches ablaze in the East. FOPI 137.3

But only half a decade had passed after the day of glory which unhappily is called among us the Day of Disappointment, when another field was opened, a field which was to prove the most fertile ground for the threefold message of the everlasting gospel, which was to become the headquarters of our work for half a century, and which today presents to us historical monuments of the early times no less alluring than those of the first scenes. FOPI 137.4

In the year 1849 that prime apostle of the Second Advent and the Sabbath, Joseph Bates, came to Michigan. In his middle fifties, and therefore double the age of his co-workers, James and Ellen White, Joseph Bates was yet strong, enduring, enterprising, beyond all his associates. He retained all the spirit of ardor and venture which in his youth and young manhood had thrust him over the seas on voyages to Europe and South America. Now a lands man and a preacher, he could not be content to settle down in a pastorate, but with all the zeal of a Paul he ranged the land, from Massachusetts to Maine, from Canada to Maryland, and at last into the West. FOPI 139.1

It was the year of the Forty-niners, when the newly discovered California gold fields were calling thousands upon thousands across the plains and around the Horn, to make, if possible, their fortunes. Joseph Bates had the gold fever too; but the gold he sought was the souls of men, and for this gold he thrust westward first of our pioneers. He had heard there was a company of Adventists, remnant of the 1844 believers, in Jackson, Michigan, and so to Jackson he went to find them. There was no Seventh-day Adventist denomination in those days, there was no organization, no directing head. Every man was pioneer, self-directing, self-supporting. If he had a message, he selected his own field, entered homes, hung up his charts, taught “the truth.” The world was wide, and opportunity everywhere. FOPI 140.1

Michigan was a frontier then, and physically a formidable frontier. The westward migration, through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and across the River, which in sixty years had put four million souls into the Northwest, had left the mitten-shaped territory between the Great Lakes for tardy settlement. Michigan State in 1849 was but twelve years old. Its settlers had battled with forests, swamps, snows, mosquitoes, fevers, yet had found a reward in fertile soils and lakeside homes. The southern part of the State was not so densely wooded as farther north: it was dotted with small prairies and “oak openings,” as the settlers called the park like areas characterized by the growth of scattered post oaks. The extensive swamps, indeed, were difficult impediments; for roads could not skirt all of them but must go through, and the corduroys or “crossways” (log roads surfaced with brush and muck) that ventured their passage, rotting out or tipping, left many a mire that engulfed teams and wagons. The ox team was the standby, and sometimes it took six or eight yoke to extricate the swamped outfit. But even within these few years Michigan had advanced to a population of four hundred thousand, fruitful farms were emerging, orchards were bearing, mills were running at many a waterpower site and future manufacturing center. Merchants were thriving and mechanics were busy. Jackson had become a town of some three thousand. FOPI 140.2

Joseph Bates came to Jackson that year of 1849, and sought out the leader of the little company of Adventists, Dan R. Palmer, at his blacksmith shop on the north side of East Main Street, near Van Dorn. He found him at his forge, introduced himself, and immediately began his exposition to the accompaniment of an anvil chorus, for Dan Palmer was not much minded to listen. But very soon the message was beating in upon him with every hammer stroke. More and more frequent were his pauses while he considered this point and that; and at last, laying down his hammer, and stretching out his grimy hand, he said, “Brother-what did you say your name was? Bates, you have the truth.” ¹⁰⁰ FOPI 141.1

He invited Elder Bates to address the company of some twenty Adventists the next Sunday, and in the meantime directed him to the homes of most of them, whom Bates visited with much the same results as with Palmer. The next Sunday all who were present at the meeting accepted the message, and formed the first church of Sabbath keeping Adventists in the West. Church, I say, but they would not call it a church in those anti organization days; it was a “band” or a “1ittle flock,” with a “leader” or “shepherd.” It was twelve years later before church and conference organization, after a battle, was adopted by this people, and the denominational name determined as Seventh day Adventist. FOPI 141.2

However, there was one important member of the band who did not meet with them that Sunday. This was Cyrenius Smith, a farmer. So Sunday afternoon Dan Palmer hitched his horse to his buggy, and took Joseph Bates for a ride out to Smith’s farm. The result was another acquisition to the little company of Sabbath keepers. Cyrenius Smith became one of the pillars of the infant church in Michigan, and the first deacon, which in that beginning meant the sole church officer. Soon he sold his farm, to have money to put into the cause, and moved to Battle Creek, renting a farm to till. ¹⁰¹ With Dan Palmer, John P. Kellogg, and Henry Lyon, he was one of the four who furnished the first $1,200 which bought the lot and built the first little wooden building for the Review and Herald in Battle Creek, by this act inducing James White to move the insecure headquarters from Rochester, New York, to Michigan. FOPI 142.1

Dan Palmer, alone of the four, stayed where he was found. He continued his blacksmithing yet for twenty-eight years, until 1877. His home was several blocks east of his shop, on East Main, now East Michigan Avenue. It still stands, and is numbered 1705. This was his residence in the early days; he later built and lived in a house next door west of the first. Either then or later he owned considerable real estate and rental property in that section. FOPI 143.1

On a recent visit to Jackson I was conducted on a trip to points of interest by Brother William Schamehorn and wife; the latter as a girl lived for a time in the Palmer household. They took me to the Palmer house, but strangers live there now, and we did not enter. However, I could remember the entry way which I passed as a four-year-old visitor. And I remembered from our denominational annals various important conferences held there: the early meeting in 1853, when Case and Russell were rebuked for their spirit of harshness, and they started the Messenger party; the council of the brethren in 1854, when it was decided to buy a tent for evangelistic meetings, and Cornell dashed from the house to catch the train for New York to purchase it. The solemn prayer meeting as Brother and Sister White were about to take the train for Wisconsin, the railway accident and their miraculous deliverance. The visit in 1858, just after the decision to begin writing The Great Controversy, and Sister White’s prostration there by her third stroke of paralysis, and her recovery through prayer. This house, this house! FOPI 143.2

The graves of Brother and Sister Palmer will be a Mecca to Adventist pilgrims. They lie together in Woodlawn Cemetery. Turn north on Francis Street from Michigan Avenue; the cemetery lies several blocks out on this street. The Palmer monument is a short distance inside the gates, in the second block, on the left, a red granite stone, with an open Bible carved on top, bearing the text references: “Genesis 2:2-3; Exodus 20:8, 9, 10.” Side by side on the face of the stone are carved the records: FOPI 143.3

D. R. Palmer	Abigail, his wife,
August 25, 1817	March 21, 1823
January 18, 1897	November 27, 1902

I trod as on sacred ground, in my itinerary in Michigan, when at Jackson I viewed these graves and at Battle Creek the resting places of Cyrenius Smith, John P. Kellogg, and the Cornells, daughters and sons-in-law of Henry Lyon-his grave is not marked. Dan Palmer it was who brought my father and mother into the Adventist faith, in the year that I was born in Jackson; and I remember at least one occasion of our visiting his home after we moved away. Dan Palmer was always forward to help with his means as well as with his message. He was a lay evangelist, as were his three friends, never ordained to preach the Word, yet always preaching it by voice and life. FOPI 144.1

Elder W. E. Videto and wife, veteran workers, whom I visited near Jackson, had many a tale to tell of him and of other familiar figures of those early times: Brother Hatt, Brother Bristol, Elder Fargo, Mary Lewis, Elder Frisbie, and so on. Brother Videto said that Dan Palmer never spoke of giving: to him all his benefactions were investments. Whenever he heard of a need or a call of the cause, he would say eagerly, “I must have an investment in that,” and forthright gave. FOPI 144.2

How those early pioneers found so much money to give (not more than many a gift today, it is true, nor so much, yet far more proportionately to their incomes) is explained by two facts: they were handy and thrifty, and they were intensely devoted. They carved out their farms, they built their homes, they developed their businesses with their own hands, and often traded labor when help was necessary, rather than pay out cash. They saved their cash, and their living came mostly out of their tilling rather than their tills. Then, when they accepted the third angel’s message, they did it with whole souls, and they made it their one interest. I am speaking of such men as Dan Palmer, Cyrenius Smith, J. P. Kellogg, and Henry Lyon. FOPI 144.3

There were others, it is true, who were halfhearted, more self-indulgent (measured by the standards of that day), less ardent and devoted, as there are today; but these men who built the work of God never used their money for nonessentials or self-indulgence. Their recreations and pleasures were simple and more fully connected with their work and religion than with an expensive world. FOPI 145.1

And their children helped. Instead of being financial burdens, they were assets almost from the cradle, especially on the farm-and most Michigan people then had farms. John Preston Kellogg had sixteen children, five of his first wife and eleven of his second wife, Ann, the mother of Dr. J. H. Kellogg and W. K. Kellogg and of vigorous brothers and sisters, Yet J. P. Kellogg had $500 to put down first on the subscription list of the proposed Health Institute-the Battle Creek Sanitarium; and though he did not fling his money around, there was many and many a gift, listed and unlisted, besides the enterprises of the publishing house and the sanitarium. FOPI 145.2

Cyrenius Smith had a family mostly of girls-two sons, one of whom died in early manhood. I had a very pleasant and fruitful visit with the widow of the surviving son, Asahel, in Battle Creek. Mrs. Mary Smith is one hundred years old this July month, but I am sure more bright and chipper than I, who trail thirty years behind her. She had many a memory and story of the early days for me. As Cyrenius Smith was my father’s uncle, and one of his daughters, Asenath, became the wife of Elder R. M. Kilgore, who befriended me as a boy and gave me my start in the sacred work, Mrs. Mary Smith seems a sort of godmother to me. Well, Cyrenius Smith, like many another pion6er, had girl help on his farm; his five or six “hands” were his children. Beautiful voices they had, too, and I fancy the home and the barn, and the field and the woods echoed to many a tuneful hymn. FOPI 145.3

The church building in Jackson is on the land which Dan Palmer gave. One early day, when the growing number of the church company crowded his house on Sabbath, he remarked to Brother Butcher, the father of Sister Videto: “I have a lot over there on Summit Street. I might as well invest it in the cause. Let’s build a meeting house on it.” And the meeting house was forthwith built. It is not the present church, of course, but it was on the same spot. FOPI 146.1

They sleep, these pioneers. They closed their eyes in perfect confidence that Jesus was soon coming, and that they would rise in the resurrection of the just. They sleep, but while they waked they labored not in vain. The seed they dropped has come to great fruition. Far beyond their ardent hopes and expectations, it has engirdled the earth, and tongues unknown by name to them shout today the praises of our coming Lord. They sleep, but they shall awake; and as they chanted in the old Advent hymn: FOPI 146.2

“We shall rise, hallelujah! We shall rise, hallelujah!
In the resurrection morning we shall rise!”