Footprints of the Pioneers

Chapter 18—The Most Honest Man in Town

Merritt E. Cornell

ON JOSEPH BATES’ third visit to Jackson, Michigan, in 1852, he had a dream that he was on a ship going west, and it was said to him that he should get off at a place called Battle Creek. The ship, of course, was an adumbration of his sailing days, but the port was not on the seacoast. He inquired of Dan Palmer in Jackson whether there was a place called Battle Creek. FOPI 156.2

“Yes,” he said; “it is about forty miles down the railroad.” FOPI 156.3

“Are there any Adventists there?” FOPI 156.4

“Not that I know of.” FOPI 156.5

“Well,” said Elder Bates, “I must go there; for in my dream I was told there was work there for me to do.” ¹¹¹ FOPI 156.6

He had inquired whether there were any Adventists there, because so far he had gone only to what he called “the lost sheep of the house of Israel”; that is, first-day Adventists. As the apostles of Christ in the beginning of their ministry held to the belief that the gospel was to go only to the Jews, until Peter was given his dream at Joppa, so Bates and his fellow workers believed that the third angel’s message was to go only to those who had accepted the first and the second angels’ messages in 1844. He was not looking for any Methodists or Baptists or Presbyterians. But he was now come to his Joppa experience. FOPI 156.7

As he boarded the train and rode those forty miles on the Michigan Central, he turned over in his mind all the while what this mission might mean. Battle Creek in 1852 was a village of some two thousand inhabitants, and Bates had no acquaintance there, nor any reference. So he prayed the Lord to give him light. Then it was impressed upon his mind, as distinctly as though spoken with an audible voice: “Go at once and inquire of the postmaster for the most honest man in town. He will give you the name and address of the man with whom you are to work.” This he did, obeying the Voice. FOPI 157.1

Now, it happened that there was in that village an itinerant merchant, a peddler of small articles like pins and needles, a sort of premature ten-cent-store on wheels-or maybe feet. Presumably the postmaster had recently had some dealings with this peddler which impressed him with his Lincolnesque qualities. So he did not name the president of the village council, nor the leading clergyman, nor the banker, nor even the postmaster; but he said, with no hesitation, “The most honest man in town is David Hewitt. Church? He’s a Presbyterian.” FOPI 158.1

“Where does he live?” FOPI 158.2

“Go up Main Street, cross the bridge over the Battle Creek to Van Buren Street, and go west just short of Cass Street. David Hewitt’s is the only house on the right side. There is a little log cabin on the opposite side.” ¹¹² FOPI 158.3

So, if you are familiar with Battle Creek, you see Joseph Bates trudging up West Main (now Michigan Avenue), crossing the timbered bridge over the Battle Creek just above its junction with the Kalamazoo, and up a block on Tompkins Street to Van, Buren, where he turned west. FOPI 158.4

Here I correct two common misapprehensions. With others, I have always thought that David Hewitt lived on that corner of Van Buren and Tompkins; and I have been assured again and again that the first tent meeting, held by J. N. Loughborough and M. E. Cornell in 1854, was on the northeast corner, where a flower shop is now located. But in the Public Library in Battle Creek I found a sketch of David Hewitt, ¹¹³ which states that his residence was on Van Buren at the place now numbered 338, and this is but four doors east of Cass Street. Loughborough’s late narrative also indicates this. And he states that the tent meeting was held on the southeast corner of Van Buren and Tompkins, which is across the street from the flower shop. ¹¹⁴ FOPI 158.5

It was early in the morning, and as Bates knocked at Hewitt’s door, he found him just ready for breakfast. FOPI 159.1

“I have been directed to you,” said he, “as the most honest man in town. If this is so, I have some important truth to present to you.” FOPI 159.2

“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers,” quoted Hewitt to himself, “for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” To Bates he said, “Come in. We are just sitting down to breakfast. Eat with us, and we will then listen to you.” During breakfast the most honest man was sizing up the most direct man, and his measurement was favorable. After breakfast he invited Elder Bates to conduct family worship; and when prayers were concluded, he said, “Now let us hear what you have to tell us.” FOPI 159.3

Joseph Bates hung up his chart, which he carried as faithfully as the London statesman carries his umbrella, and “beginning at Moses and all the prophets,” he discoursed to them upon the whole Second Advent Movement; for these, unlike Bates previous audiences, were no Adventists who knew all that history. Then in the afternoon, until five o’clock, he talked to them about the Sabbath and the third angel’s message. “The most honest man in town” and his wife were convinced. They kept the next Sabbath; and until the first little wooden church was built, three years later, his home was the meeting place of the company in Battle Creek. That first church, only 18 by 24, was built “near the west end of the block in which Brother Hewitt lived” ¹¹⁵ “about a dozen feet south of the flat ... on the west side of Cass street.” ¹¹⁶ There is now on Cass Street, at that identical spot, an ancient building of apparently these dimensions, which is temptingly like the description of that little church, but authorities in Battle Creek say it is not. Still. FOPI 159.4

The next spring, May of 1853, James White, visiting there, said to the little group, “Brethren, if you are faithful to the work, God will yet raise up quite a company to observe the truth in Battle Creek.” ¹¹⁷ Quite a company, indeed, there came to be; and Battle Creek was the headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist work for over half a century. There began the health work of the denomination, and their educational work, and there the publishing work first got its independent, stable start. FOPI 160.1

The little town grew, and not an unimportant part of it was the West End, where the Seventh-day Adventists settled, and where they built their Tabernacle and their publishing, health, and educational institutions. This part of the city, lying on pleasant high ground above the Kalamazoo River, was indeed intended by the founder of Battle Creek, Sands McCamly, as the center of the city. When the village applied for a charter in 1836, the map they furnished showed it platted in this section as far west as what is now Wood Street. Here, near the center, McCamly set aside a square for a public park, expecting that around it would be built the civic buildings and the business of the town. That square, then treeless and grassy, but now with great trees and flowing fountain, is still called McCamly Park. But McCamly himself, by building a millrace farther east, across the neck of land between the Kalamazoo and the Battle Creek, drew the manufacturing interests and the business section to that spot. And thus the West End was left for the development of the Adventists, whose headquarters were brought there in 1855. FOPI 160.2

Merritt E. Cornell, a young preacher brought into the faith by Bates in 1852, was an impetuous and energetic worker. He bought the first tent and was associated with Loughborough in the holding 6f evangelistic meetings, the first pitch being at Battle Creek, for two days only, short stops then being the rule. He liked Battle Creek so much that, being foot free, he brought his wife Angle to live there while, like all Adventist preachers not bound to farm or business, he ranged through the widening field. FOPI 160.3

Angeline Lyon Cornell was a fit companion to her husband, a slender young woman of energy, initiative, and decided opinions, which happily comported with her husband’s, and with a gift of speech which shows in her early letters to the Review and Herald. There was no provision then for the regular payment of preachers, still less for their wives to accompany them; yet Angie Cornell was much with her husband, often remaining at a place after his departure, visiting and teaching the interested ones as the later phrase ran, “binding off the effort.” She was indeed the pioneer and the exemplar of today’s Bible instructors and evangelists’ assistants. FOPI 161.1

Shortly her father, Henry Lyon, living near Plymouth in the eastern part of the State, sold his farm in order to have money to invest in the cause. He and his wife moved to Battle Creek in 1854, and he engaged in carpentry to support his family. It was Henry Lyon, doubtless strongly abetted by his energetic son-in law, who conceived the idea of getting James White to come to Battle Creek, and who induced his three friends, Palmer, Smith, and Kellogg, to go in with him in the investment which built the first owned home of the Review and Herald. FOPI 162.1

David Hewitt was not a man of even the moderate means of these four. Mrs. Mary Smith, the centenarian to whom I have referred before, told me that Hewitt did not own his home, but rented from a friend-at a price, if consonant with Dan Palmer’s rental properties, of about $9 a month. Hewitt did not have money, but he was as earnest a lay missionary as the others. He labored not only in Battle Creek but in towns round about, and brought not a few into the faith. He was highly respected, and his counsel was listened to. It was on motion of David Hewitt, in the conference of 1860, when the initial steps were taken for organization, that the name, Seventh-day Adventists, was adopted for the denomination. FOPI 162.2

In the northeast corner of Oak Hill Cemetery lie the mortal remains of David and Olive Hewitt. Until 1935 few persons, if any, knew of their resting place, and some supposed that they were not buried there. But in that year Elder L. T. Nicola looked up the record, and found the spot. In anticipation of a Fall Council held in Battle Creek that year, he placed a wooden marker on the grave of David Hewitt, and conducted a large party to view it. By 1938, when another Fall Council was gathered there, this marker had decayed, and Elder Nicola replaced it with another. It looks shabby today, and there is no Elder Nicola to take further interest in it. But Elder Pingenot, pastor of the Battle Creek church, writes me that the Young People’s Society there intends to remedy this. It would be to the honor of the Seventh-day Adventist Church to place a modest stone, in keeping with those of other pioneers near by, in memory of David and Olive Hewitt, the first Seventh-day Adventists in Battle Creek. ¹¹⁸ FOPI 162.3