O Incidente de Atkinsons

ROOTSREVISITED
INCIDENTIN ATKINSON:
TheArrestand Trialof IsraelDammon
by Bruce l#aver
Grateful appreciation is due the following individuals for their invaluable assistance with the research involved in this article: Robert Taylor,
president, Androscoggin County Historical Society; Stephen Trent Seames, Portland Telegram archivist (Seames was at one time assistant curator
of manuscripts at the Maine Historical Society); James B. Vickery, retired former president, Bangor Historical Society, widely recognized as "the
dean" of Maine State history; J.B. Goodner, semi-retired manager, refractory division, Goodner Construction Co., the lay-expert on early SDA
historical documents; the staff of the Greensboro interlibrary loan department for dozens of transactions; and the University of Maine Fogler
Library for all Maine newspaper microfilm loans.
or more than a century, Seventh-day Adventists have relied The great disappointment was nearly three months past, and the
F unquestioningly on Ellen G. White's personal account of her

first, postdisappointment travels (first published in 1860) for
their understanding of her initial calling and her earliest ministry.'
conservative New England populous could not understand why Miller-
ism had outlived the bitter disappointments of 1843 and 1844. Even
before Christ's failure to appear many believed that there were "argu-
In a personal letter to J. N. Loughborough in 1874, Mrs. White ments enough in favor of holy living without resorting to the possibility
describes how she spent the winter/spring of 1845 traveling from town of the speedy end of the world for motives with which to address men.,,.
to town, primarily in Maine, fighting the various forms of fanaticism While most Millerites quietly rejoined the mainstream denomina-
that preoccupied those Millcritcs who (following the disappointments tions and society as a whole, small pockets of fanatical true believers
of 1843 and 1844) still refused to believe that God had not shared His were scattered throughout the northeast. Some of them, in Ellen Har-
timetable with them.· mon's home town of Portland, worshipped "with propriety of conduct
However, recently resurrected newspaper accounts of a February ... at Beethoven Hall."' The meetings of others (attended by Miss Har-
1845 weekend incident in Atkinson, Maine, involving Ellen Harmon, mon), who met almost exclusively in private homes, were character-
James White, Dorinda Baker, Israel Dammon, and others, call into ized by the "holy" salutation kiss, loud shouting and singing, physical
question the reliability of Ellen White's autobiographical sketches.' prostrations, promiscuous (mixed) footwashing, multiple baptisms by
While Mrs. White's retrospective of her earliest travels emphasizes immersion, odd exhibitions of voluntary humility (i.e., crawling, bark-
her fanaticism-fighting role, she also frequently dwells upon startling ing), and the presentations of a few (mostly female) visionaries. 9
miracles that she says either attended her ministry or that took place in But it was the no-work policy advocated by a number of leading
its presence. Mrs. White's three-page, published account of the arrest Adventist extremists that most attracted them to municipal authorities.
and trial of Israel Dammon' is so remarkable that, while reading it over Piscataquis County was the first to bring serious civil intervention to
in March of 1986, it occurred to me that some specific contemporary the fanatical Millerites of Maine. This precedent was soon followed by
reference to it must have survived in the New England newspapers- arrests, trials, and imprisonments or guardianships in Orrington, Ban-
especially since it involved the police and the courts. gor, Paris, Norway, Poland, Woodstock, and Portland.'°
My research was soon and richly rewarded. It turned up the earliest Ellen Harmon moved continuously among these Adventist extrem-
existing eyewitness accounts of Ellen Harmon in vision-accounts ists, and it is likely that she narrowly avoided arrest in Orrington by
included as part of sworn courtroom testimony regarding the activities fleeing the scene." And it is possible that she was arrested-along with
that led to Dammon's arrest. The most historically significant find was Joseph Turner-at Poland in April 1845 (see below, "Was Ellen Har-
an article in the 7 March 1845 Piscataquis Farmer under the heading mon arrested?")." But there is no question about Ellen Harmon's pres-
"Trial of Elder I. Dammon." This Dover, Maine, weekly newspaper ence during and involvement with the incident in Atkinson that led to
provided a 124-column-inch abridgement of the court reporter's tran- the arrest ofisrael Dammon.
script of Dammon's February 17 and 18 arraignment and trial. The following paragraphs from the second volume of Spiritual Gifts
Ellen Harmon's presence at the arrest of Dammon, and references at (pp.40-42) contain Ellen White's only account of the February 1845
his trial to her behavior during the activities that led to his arrest, make incident in Atkinson.
this document particularly fascinating to Adventists. Fascination turns
to concern, however, when Mrs. White's account of the affair is com- Ellen White's account
pared with that of the witnesses at the trial. But before making those From Exeter we went to Atkinson. One night [February 15)I was
comparisons it is necessary to establish context and to read the docu- shown something that I did not understand. It was to this effect, that
ments in question. we were to have a trial of our faith. The next day, which was the first
day of the week, while I was speaking, two men looked into the win-
"Misty, snowy, and hail[ing)" dow. We were satisfied of their object. They entered and rushed past
Ellen Harmon left her Portland, Maine, home in January 1845 and me to Eld. Damman [sic]. The Spirit of the Lord rested upon him,
travelled by sleigh with her brother-in-law, Samuel Foss, to visit her sis- and his strength was taken away, and he fell to the floor helpless. The
ters in Poland.' She had experienced one vision in December of 1844 as officer cried out, "In the name of the State of Maine, lay hold of this
well as a "call" to travel and share her ,,ision with other Maine man." Two seized his arms, and two his feet, and attempted to drag
Millerites." him from the room. They would move him a few inches only, and
then rush out of the house. The power of God was in that room, and
An early victim among Andrews University seminary graduate stu- the servants of God with their countenances lighted up with his
dents of the Glacier View era, Bruce Weaver is a field instructor for the glory, made no resistance. The efforts to take Eld. D. were often
copy division of Canon USA. He writes from Greensboro, North repeated with the same effect. The men could not endure the power
Carolina. of God, and it was a relief to them to rush out of the house. Their
16 ADVENTIST CURRENTS, April 1988

number increased to twelve, still Eld. D. was held by the power of as "misty, snowy, and hail[ing]." The high temperature for the day was
God about forty minutes, and not all the strength of those men could 33 F, but it was 18 F by nine o'clock that evening." The visitors-more
move him from the floor where he lay helpless. At the same moment than a score of whom had arrived by sleigh from other towns such as
we ail felt that Eld. D. must go; that God had manifested his power Exeter, Garland, and Orrington-were groping for meaning in their
for his glory, and that the name of the Lord would be further glori- disappointment. 11 Although the Ayer household was alive with warm
fied in suffering him to be taken from our midst. And those men worshippers, nearby Dead Stream or one of its tributaries"' would be the
took him up as easily as they would take up a child, and carried him site of at least two icy baptisms later that night."
out. The meeting was presided over by a former sea captain from Exeter,
After Eld. D. was taken from our midst he was kept in a hotel, Israel Dammon, '" and featured two visionaries (Miss Dorinda Baker of
and guarded by a man who did not like his office. He said that Eld. Orrington and Miss Ellen Harmon of Portland) as well as Elders Hall,
D. was singing, and praying, and praising the Lord all night, so that White, and Wood.'"
he could not sleep, and he would not watch over such a man. No one Prosecution witness William Crosby. a thirty-seven-year-old attor-
wished the office of guarding him, and he was left to go about the ney"' who attended the Saturday night meeting. described it in court two
village as he pleased, after promising that he would appear for trial. days later:
Kind friends invited him to share their hospitalities. At the hour of
trial Eld. D. was present. A lawyer offered his services. The charge They would at times all be talking at once, halloing at the top of
brought against Eld. D. was, that he was a disturber of the peace. their voices .... There was a woman on the floor who lay on her back
Many witnesses were brought to sustain the charge, but they were at with a pillow under her head; she would occasionally arouse up and
once broken down by the testimony of Eld. D. 's acquaintances tell a vision which she said was revealed to her. ... By spells it was
present, who were called to the stand. There was much curiosity to the most noisy assembly I ever attended-there was no order or reg-
know what Eld. D. and his friends believed, and he was asked to give ularity, nor anything that resembled any other meeting I ever
them a synopsis of his faith. He then told them in a clear manner his attended .... "
belief from the Scriptures. It was also suggested that they sung curi-
ous hymns, and he was asked to sing one. There were quite a number It may be useful to say about the full report from the Piscataquis
of strong brethren present who had stood by him in the trial, and Farmer which follows that its publisher, George V. Edes, was a fifty-
they joined with him in singing, eight-year-old justice of the peace." His civil appointment may explain
"When I was down in Egypt's land, why he assigned a volunteering layman to abridge the trial transcript for
I heard my Saviour was at hand," &c. the Farmer's readers. But it also suggests the reason that so much space
Eld. D. was asked ifhe had a spiritual wife. He told them he had was given to its coverage in his paper.
a lawful wife, and he could thank God that she had been a very spir- A typical Maine newspaper of the period consisted of four pages,
itual woman ever since his acquaintance with her. The cost of court, half of which usually contained public notices and advertisements for
I think, was thrown upon him, and he was released. patent medicines. It was highly unusual for news items to exceed one
column in length. Only speeches by the president of the United States
Newspaper accounts and other records provide additional context or other important national figures claimed the amount of space allotted
for the incident which Mrs. White described with such economy. to the Dammon trial-seven long columns.
Saturday evening, 15 February 1845, found a number of disap- The entire Piscataquis Farmer report is reproduced below. All
pointed Millerites (probably fifty or sixty) gathered "at the house of material appearing within brackets has been added for clarification,
James Ayer. Jr., in the southwest part" of the small eastern Maine town and some cosmetic editorial corrections have been made for easier
of Atkinson." Nearly nine inches of snow had already fallen at nearby reading. My commentary on the incident and the documents that illu-
Bangor that month. The Bangor meteorologist described that Sabbath minate it resumes at the conclusion of the Farmer report.
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1 Dorinda Baker, 2 ??, 3 Wm. C. Crosby, 4 James White, 5 Ellen Harmon, 6 Joel Doore, 7 Israel Dammon, 8 Mrs. George S. Woodhury.
ADVENTIST CURRENTS, April 1988 17

DEVOTE.I) 'fO l-'OLtTlcs, AGH.ICULTURR, J.ITEIL\TUU.E, J\IOHALS.
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VOL- 3 DOVER ,uJNE, FIUDAY ~IOitNING, MARCH 7, IS-1.;. NO 31
TRIAL OF ELDER I. DAMMON "HARTFORD J. ROWE, of Dover, in the that took place at the meetings, where the
Co. of Piscataquis, Yeoman, upon his oath respondent was presiding elder.
REPORTED FOR THE complains, that Israel Dammon, Commorant Witness [Blethen]. The first meeting I
PISCATAQUISFARMER of Atkinson, in said County, Idler, is, and for attended was two weeks ago yesterday [2 Feb-
several days last past, has been a vagabond ruary 1845)-saw people setting on the floor,
In offering the public the following report and idle person, going about in the town of and laying on the floor; Dammon setting on
I feel it due to them as well as myself, to make Atkinson, aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, floor; they were leaning on each other. It did
a few remarks. When I volunteered to do it, I from place to place, begging:-that he the not have the appearance of a religious
had no doubt but that the examination would said Israel Dammon is a common railer or meeting.
have been gone through with in the course of a brawler, neglecting his calling, or employ- Cross-examination. Saw nothing like
few hours. Judge then, what must be my sur- ment, misspending his earnings, and does not licentiousness-there was exhortation and
prise on finding the Court House filled to provide for the support of himself family, & prayer each evening. Was there last time after
overflowing, and having it occupy such a against the peace of the State of Maine, and [for the purpose of retrieving] part of my
length of time. To the witnesses I will say, I contrary to form of Statute in such cases made family.
have abridged your testimony as much as pos- and provided. J.W.E. Harvey, sworn. Have attended
sible, and have omitted much of the most He therefore prays that the said I. Dam- their meetings two days and four evenings.
unimportant part, in order to shorten the mon, may be apprehended and held to answer First meeting lasted eight days-have known
work, but have endeavored in no case to mis- to said complaint and dealt with relative to the Dammon six weeks-Dammon, White and
represent you, and if you find an error, I beg same as law and justice may require." Hall were leaders. Dammon said the sinners
you to impute it to my head, instead of Plead Not Guilty. were going to hell in two days. They were
heart.-To the reader I will remark, that Court adjourned to one o'clock, P.M. hugging and kissing each other-Dammon
much of the testimony was drawn out by ques- Opened agreeably to adjournment. would lay on the floor, then jump up-they
tions, and I have omitted the questions in all C.P. Chandler, H.G.O. Morison, for would frequently go into another room. Dam-
cases where it could be dispensed with and State. J.S. Holmes, for Respondent. mon has no means to support himself that I
shorten the work. To all, I offer it as an imper- Opened by Chandler. Cited chap. 178, sec. know of. The meeting appeared very
fect and impartial report. In consequence of 9, Revised Statutes. Adjourned to Court irreligious-have seen him sit on the floor
my total inexperience, being but a laboring House. with a woman between his legs and his arms
man, I should shrink from publishing it, but Ebenezer Blethen, sworn. Have been around her.
from the urgent solicitation of others. Thank- in the house three times, saw nothing out of Cross-examined. The room they went into
ing the Court for the favor of a seat, by them, the way in Elder Dammon. Have seen others. was a back room; don't know what was in it-I
and the Court and Counsel for the use of their Objected to by Holmes. Confine your was in two rooms where there was a fire. In
minutes, I sign myself this once THE remarks to prisoner, he can in no ways be the back room they said the world's people
REPORTER. accountable for the conduct of others, and I must not go. Damm on said the meeting was to
N. B. I have preserved the language of the object to any testimony except what goes to be a private meeting and they wanted no one to
witnesses as much as possible. show what respondent [Dammon] has said or come unless they believed as he did in the
done, as wholly irrelevant. Advent doctrine. I did go considerably-if the
meetings were religious ones I thought I had a
right to go to them-I went to satisfy myself
Dammon, [James] White and Hall were what was done. I had no hostile feeling
against them. I think they held the first meet-
leaders.Dammonsaidthesinnersweregoing ing a fortnight [two weeks before]. Dammon
said he wanted no one to attend their meetings
to hell in two days. unless they believed in the advent doctrine.
Wm. C. Crosby, Esq. sworn. I was at the
meeting last Saturday night, from about 7
Monday, Feb. 17, 1845. Question by Chandler. Who was the pre- o'clock to 9. There was a woman on the floor
STATE OF MAINE, siding elder at the meeting? who lay on her back with a pillow under her
VS. Ans. Elder Dammon presided and took head; she would occasionally arouse up and
ISRAEL DAMMON. the lead of the meetings that I attended. tell a vision which she said was revealed to
Chandler and Morison. The meetings her. They would at times all be talking at
Prisoner arraigned before Moses Swett, appear to be Elder Dammon's meetings-he once, halloing at the top of their voices; some
Esq. of Foxcroft, associated by Seth Lee, took the lead and guided them, and is of them said there was too much sin there.
Esq. of Atkinson, on the following com- accountable for any public misconduct, and After the cessation of the noise, Dammon got
plaint, to wit. ought to check it: we propose to show the up and was more coherent-he complained of
To Charles P. Chandler, Esq. one of the character of his meetings, to show the charac- those that came there who did not believe in
Justices of the Peace within and for the ter of the man. the advent doctrine. At one time Dammon
County of Piscataquis. By the Court. You may relate any thing said there was hogs there not belonging to the

band, and pointed at me, and said, I mean Miss Baker and a man went into the derers, &c. He said read the Star. By spells it
you, Sir. Subsequently he addressed me bedroom-subsequently heard a voice in the was the most noisy assembly I ever attended-
again-said, you can't drive us out of town; he room hallo Oh! The door was opened-I saw there was no order or regularity, nor anything
stared me in the face and said, I am an honest into the room-she was on the bed-he was that resembled any other meeting I ever
man, or I could not look you in the face, and hold of her; they came out of the bedroom attended-Dammon seemed to have the lead
you have hell's brass or you could not look me hugging each other, she jumping up and and the most art. I don't say Dammon shouted
in the face. Dammon said if he was owner of would throw her legs between his. Miss Baker the loudest; I think some others stronger in
the house he would compel all unbelievers to went to Mr. Doore and said, you have refused the lungs than he.
leave it-they were setting and laying on the me before, he said he had-they then kissed Deacon James Rowe, sworn. I was at
floor promiscuously and were exceedingly each other-she said "that feels good''-just Ayer's a short time last Saturday evening-
noisy. before they went to the water to baptize, Miss Elder Dammon found fault with us for com-
Cross-examined. Did he not say if there Baker went into the bedroom with a man they ing to his meeting-he spoke of other denomi-
was any there who did not come for instruc- called Elder White-saw him help her on to nations as Esq. Crosby has just testified-said
tion he did not want them there. the bed-the light was brought out and door the church members were the worst people in
Ans. That is not what he said-he pointed closed. I did not see either of them after- the world. I have been young, and now am
to me and said he meant you-I never was wards. Once I was in the other room talking old, and of all the places I ever was in, I never
more pointedly addressed in my life-we with my cousin. Dammon and others came saw such a confusion, not even in a drunken
stood five or six feet apart, most of the men into the room and stopped our discourse, and frolic. Dammon stood up on the floor and
were on the floor-most of the women in called her sister and me the devil. Imitation of said, I am going to stand here-and while I
chairs- Do not know how long Dammon has Christ lay on the floor during the time they stand here, they can't hurt you, neither men
been in town. went down to the water to baptize, and she nor devils can't hurt you.
Thomas Proctor, sworn. Saw the pris- continued on the floor until I left, which was Cross-examined: He said all churches,
oner last Saturday-was present when he was between the hours of 12and 1 o'clock at night. made no distinction. I put no meaning to what
taken; know nothing of the meetings myself. Cross-examined. Answer. The visionist he said, I only state what he did say. I have
Moses Gerrish, sworn. I have never lay down on the floor I should think about 7 been acquainted with the prisoner twenty or
attended any of their meetings, when the pris- o'clock-she lay there from that time until I thirty years; his character was good until
oner was present. left. Dammon and others called her Imitation recently.
Laton La,mbert,sworn. They were sing- of Christ. Part of the time Dammon was down Jeremiah 8. Green, sworn. I attended
ing when I arrived-after singing they sat on the floor on his back-can't say certainly an afternoon meeting a fortnight ago
down on the floor-Dammon said a sister had who first said she was Imitation of Christ, but yesterday-they had an exhortation and
a vision to relate-a woman on the floor then can say Dammon repeatedly said so- prayer in the evening-I saw men wash men's
related her vision. Dammon said all other Dammon said Christ revealed to her and she feet, and women wash women's feet-they
denominatioPs were wicked-they were liars, to others. I am not acquainted with Elder had dishes of water-Elder Dammon was the
whoremasters, murderers, &c.-he also run White. They called him Eld. White. They presiding elder-I saw Dammon kiss Mrs.
upon all such as were not believers with him. said if the Almighty had anything to say he Osborn.
He ordered us off-we did not go. The revealed it to her, and she acted as mediator. Ebenezer Trundy, sworn. I was at meet-
woman that lay on the floor relating visions, Wm. Ricker, sworn. Know Elder ing week before last,-I heard Dammon say,
was called by Elder Dammon and others, Imi- Dammon-I went to attend their meeting "God's a coming! God's a coming!!" Mr.
tation of Christ. Dammon called us hogs and once: they told me there would be none-I Boobar was telling of going into the woods to
devils, and said if he was the owner of the asked them where it would be on the next Sab- labor-Dammon said he ought not to go.
house he would drive us off-the one that they bath? They told me they know not where; but Boobar said he had a family to support and
called imitation of Christ, told Mrs. Wood- they did not admit any but the advent band. I was poor. Dammon told him he must live on
bury and others, that they must forsake all asked Dammon if that was Christ's religion? them that had property, and if God did not
their friends or go to hell. Imitation of Christ, He said it is ours. come then we must all go to work together.
as they called her, would lay on the floor a Leonard Downes, sworn.-Went to Joseph Moulton, sworn. When I went
while, then rise up and call upon some one meeting with Loten Lambert, and kept with to arrest prisoner, they shut the door against
and say she had a vision to relate to them, him; heard him testify, and know what he has me. Finding I could not gain access to him
which she would relate; there was one girl that related to be true. He omitted one thing. I saw without, I burst open the door. I went to the
they said must be baptized that night or she Dammon kiss other people's wives. (Witness prisoner and took him by the hand and told
must go to hell; she wept bitterly and wanted
to see her mother first; they told her she must
leave her mother or go to hell-one voice
said, let her go to hell. She finally concluded
Imitationof Christ told her vision to a cousin
to be baptized. Imitation of Christ told her
vision to a cousin of mine, that she must be of mine, that she must be baptized that night
baptized that night or go to hell-she
objected, because she had once been bap- or go to hell....
tized. Imitation of Christ was said to be a
woman from Portland. A woman that they underwent a severe cross-examination, in him my business. A number of women
called Miss Baker, said the devil was here, which his testimony was so near a repetition jumped on to him-he clung to them, and they
and she wanted to sec him-she selected me of Mr. Lambert's, that it is by me, considered to him. So great was the resistance, that I with
and said, you are the devil, and will go to hell. useless to copy it.) three assistants, could not get him out. I
I told her she want [was not] my judge. Mr. Wm. C. Crosby, reexamined. I saw no remained in the house and sent for more help;
[James] Ayer [,Jr., owner of the house] then kissing, but heard about it. I did not stay late, after they arrived we made a second attempt
clinched me and tried to put me out door. I went about 7, left about 9 o'clock. After the with the same result-I again sent for more
told him we had not come to disturb the meet- visionist called them up she told them they help-after they arrived we overpowered
ing. The vision woman called [to] Joel Doore, doubted. Her object seemed to be to convince them and got him out door in custody. We
said he had doubted, and would not be bap- them they must not doubt.-Dammon called were resisted by both men and women. Can't
tized again-she said Br. Doore don't go to the churches whoremasters, liars, thieves, describe the place-it was one continued
hell. Doore knccled to her feet and prayed. scoundrels, wolves in sheep's clothing, mur- shout.

Wm. C. Crosby, Esq., called again. has had no other business, but to attend meet- exhortation for that. Sister Baker has a good
Prisoner has been reported to have been there ings. He and another man from Exeter, came character-the wickedest man in Orrington
about a fortnight, with no visible means of with a young girl. Dammon said he had a spir- says she has a good character, and that's
support. itual wife and he was glad of it. I went to Mr. enough to establish any character, when the
J.W.E. Harvey, reexamined. Prisoner Lambert and said ifhe disturbed the meeting, worst man admits it. (roar of laughter) We
has been there considerable. I know of no he must go out door. We went to the water wish to go through the ordinance of washing
means he has of support, other than to live on after 11 o'clock-Brother Dammon baptized feet in secret. Did not see any kissing, but pre-
his followers. two. I know nothing about Sister Baker's sume their was, as it is a part of our faith.
T. Proctor, reexamined. Prisoner has character-seen her at meeting in Orrington. Think Esq. Crosby's testimony correct.
been reported as a man who has no means of I understood Sister Harmon had a vision at By Court [a question]:-
support-I do not know of his having any. Portland, and was travelling through the Answer. Elder Dammon does advise us to
Jacob Martin, sworn. It is the common country relating it. quit all work.
report that the prisoner is living upon his fol- Job Moody, affirmed. I was at meeting Abraham Pease, affirmed. Reside in
lowers. I have attended no meetings of their's. Saturday evening. Brother Dammon said in Exeter, prisoner's character is as good as any
Have seen a number of sleighs there, and fif- relation to other churches they were bad man in Exeter. He has a small farm, and small
teen or twenty strangers. enough; said they were corrupt; he spoke of family. He is a reformation preacher-
Benjamin Smith, Esq., Selectman of
Atkinson, sworn. I have been called upon by
the citizens of Atkinson to interfere and put a
stop to these meetings-they gave as a reason,
I again sent/or more help ... We were resisted
that the defendant and others were living upon
certain citizens of said town-and that they
by both men and women. Can't describe the
were liable to become town charge. I started
today to go there, but learned that the prisoner place - it was one continued shout.
had been arrested and that the others had
dispersed. the Star-he did not say they were thieves, reformation has followed his preaching.
Here the government stopped. Court &c. I am not certain, but think he said that Gardner Farmer, affirmed. Reside in
adjourned to half past 6 o'clock. evening there was exceptions. Sister Harmon Exeter-prisoner provides well for his family.
Evening-Respondent's [defense] would lay on the floor in a trance, and the He has been to my house, and I to his-he
witnesses. Lord would reveal their cases to her, and she always behaves well. I saw him in Atkinson a
James Ayer, Jr., affirmed. The most of to them. fortnight ago last Tuesday.
the meetings were at my house. I have gener- By the Court [a question of Moody]. Court adjourned to Tuesday morning
ally attended them-sometimes I was out. I Answer. Mr. Dammon repeatedly urged 9 o'clock.
have heard the testimony on the part of the upon us the necessity of quitting all labor. Tuesday, [Feb.] 18.
State. Some things stated I do not recollect. I Kissing is a salutation of love; I greet them Jacob Mason, affirmed. Reside in Gar-
was there last Saturday evening-saw no kiss- so-we have got positive scripture for it-I land. Brother Dammon said the churches
ing. I agree with Crosby and Lambert sub- reside in Exeter. were of that description-said they were
stantial!y. I understood prisoner to say there Here the witness was told he might take his lyers, rogues, &c. I did not understand him to
were members of the churches who he seat. He said I have some testimony in rela- include all, but individuals. Sister Baker's
referred to instead of the whole. Saw the tion to Brother Dammon's character, if I am character is good. Do not recollect of Brother
woman with a pillow under her head-her not a going to be called again. He then stated Gallison using any compulsion, to make his
name is Miss Ellen Harmon, of Portland. I that he had been acquainted with Brother daughter go forward in baptism. I saw Elder
heard nothing said by her or others about imi- Dammon five or six years, and his character White after Sister Baker went into the bed-
tation of Christ. I saw Miss Baker laying on was good. He works part of the time, and room, near Sister Harmon in a trance-some
the floor. I saw her fall. Saw Miss Baker and preaches a part of the time. I have been serv- of the time he held her head. She was in a
Sister Osborn go into the bedroom-Sister ing the Lord and hammering against the devil vision, part of the time insensible. Saw noth-
Osborn helped her on to the bed, came out oflate. ing improper in Brother Dammon that eve-
and shut the door. There was no man in the Isley Osborn, affirmed. I know nothing ning. I never knew him [to be] a begger, or
bedroom that evening. I heard the noise in the bad in Brother Dammon's character. He wasting his time.
bedroom-Brother Wood of Orrington and I believes there is good, bad, and indifferent in Cross-examined. Do not know who it was
went in; asked her what was the matter, she all churches-he thinks it best to come out that went into the bedroom with Sister
made no reply, and I went out. Brother Wood from them, because there is so many that has Baker-he was a stranger to me; he soon
assisted her off of the bed, and helped her fallen from their holy position.-Do not rec- came out. Can't say how soon he went in
out-she appeared in distress. She told ollect hearing him use the expressions about again. I have heard Crosby testify, and think
brother Doore she was distressed on his churches they have sworn to, but have heard him correct. I thought her visions were from
account-was afraid he would loose his soul, him use as strong language against them. Do God-she would describe out their cases cor-
and advised him to be baptized. Did not see not call Sister Harmon Imitation of Christ. rect. She described mine correct. I saw kiss-
them kiss each other. It is a part of our faith to They lose their strength and fall on the floor. ing out door, but not in the house. A part of
kiss each other-brothers kiss sisters and sis- The Lord communicates to them through a the time we sat on the floor-both men and
ters kiss brothers, I think we have Bible vision, so we call it the Lord. Brother White women promiscuously. I saw no man go into
authority for that. I understood the prisoner to did not go into the bedroom, nor any other the bedroom. They wash feet in the evening. It
say, there was an account in the Star of a dea- man. is a practice in our order to kiss, on our meet-
con who had killed seven men. The reason of Cross-examined. She told them their cases ing each other. Sister Harmon was not called
our kneeling, I consider an object of had been made known to her by the Lord, and Imitation of Christ to my knowledge. I think I
humiliation. if they were not baptized that evening, they should have heard it if she was. I believe in
would go to hell. We believed her, and visions. Sister Harmon is eighteen or nine-
Cross-examined.-! know nothing about Brother Dammon and I advised them to be teen years of age; she is from Portland.
Miss Harmon's character. I did not say there baptized. Brother Dammon thought it best to Joel Doore, affirmed. Reside in
was no kissing-I saw none. Did not hear her keep the meetings secret, so they would not Atkinson-Elder Dammon said there was bad
called Imitation of Christ. Elder Dammon crowd in. Hold to kissing-have scripture characters in the churches; I did not under-

stand him to say all. He preaches louder than edge any leaders, but speak according to the what others have testified to, of which the
most people; no more noisy than common impulse. The elders baptize. I believe in Miss reader I think must be weary.)
preachers of this faith. The vision woman Harmon's visions, because she told my wife's I did not see White go into the bedroom
would lay looking up when she came out of feelings correctly. It is my impression that with Miss Baker-heard the noise in the bed-
her trance-she would point to someone, and prisoner kissed my wife. I believe the world room. Others did go in. Elder D[ammon] said
tell them their cases, which she said was from will come to an end within two months- the churches were in a fallen state, and he had
the Lord. She told a number of visions that prisoner preaches so. I believe this is the faith rather risk himself in the hands of the
evening. Brother Gallison's daughter wanted of the band. It was said, and I believe, that Sis- Almighty as a non-professor, than to be in the
to see her mother before she was baptized, but ters Harmon and Baker's revelations as much place of some of the churches. I believe fully
finally concluded to be baptized without see- as though they came from God. Sister Har- in the faith. (Witness affirmed the story of
ing her. Sister Baker got up off the floor, and mon said to my wife and the girls if they did kissing, rolling on the floor, and washing of
went to Lambert to talk with him. I saw no not do as she said, they would go to hell. My feet.)
more of her, until I heard a noise in the wife and Dammon passed across the floor on Joshua Burnham, sworn. I have known
bedroom-they went and got her out, as the their hands and knees. Some man did go into Miss Dorinda Baker from five years of age-
other witnesses have stated. After she came the bedroom. Heard Brother Dammon say the her character is good-she is now twenty
out, she said she had a message to me. She gift of healing the sick lay in the church. three or twenty-four years of age. She is a
said I had thought hard of her, (I acknowl- By the Court [a question]. sickly girl, her father has expended $1,000 in
edged I had) but I became satisfied of my Answer. Elder Dammon advises us not to doctoring her. I was at the meeting Saturday
error, and fellowshiped her. We kissed each work, because there is enough to live on until night-it was appointed for the lady to tell her
other with the holy kiss-I think Elder White the end of the world. visions.
was not in the bedroom that evening; but I John Gallison, affirmed. (Chandler Adjourned to half past one o'clock.
don't know how many, nor who were there. observed that he had thought of objecting to Levi M. Doore, sworn. I have attended
The girls that was baptized were seventeen this witness on the ground of insanity, but more than half of the meetings-my brother's
years old, one of them had been baptized upon reflection, he would let him proceed, as testimony is correct-agree also with Mr.
before. We have Scripture enough for every- he believed it [his insanity] would sufficiently Boobar.
thing that was done. There was not one tenth appear in the course of the examination.) Question by Respondent. Answer. Elder
part of the noise Saturday evening, that there I have been acquainted with Elder Dam- Dammon's mode of worship now is similar to
generally is at the meetings I attend. As far as mon as a Freewill elder a number of years. He what it used to be.
I am acquainted with Elder Dammon, I con- asked Dammon how long it was. D. answered Cross-examined by Morison. Did they use
sider him a moral good man. six years. I have been at his house to sit on the floor? Ans. No. Did they use to
Cross-examined. When she kissed me, frequently-everything was in order and in its lay or crawl on the floor? Ans. No. Did they
she said there was light ahead. We believe her proper place. I have attended every meeting. I use to kiss each other? Ans. No. Did they use
(Miss Baker's) visions genuine. We believe have seen some laying on the floor, two or to go into the bedroom? Ans. No. Did they
Miss Harmon's genuine-t'was our under- more at a time-have seen nothing bad in the use to tell visions? Ans. No.
standing that their visions were from God. meetings. (Witness here described the posi- By Morison. Why do you say that his
Miss Hammond [Harmon] told five visions tion Miss Harmon lay in on the floor, when mode of worship is similar to what it used to
Saturday night. I did not tell any person yes- she was in a trance, and offered to lay down be? Because he preaches similar. Did he use
terday that it was necessary to have anyone in and show the Court if they wished to see. to preach that the end of the world was at
the room with her to bring out her trances. I Court waived it.) hand, and baptise in the dead hours of night?
did engage counsel in this case to defend the Witness related the visions similar to the Ans. No. The reason we sit on the floor is to
prisoner. other witnesses, but more unintelligible. convene more people-sometimes we take
John H. Doore, sworn. I was not at Did not hear her called Imitation of some in our laps, but not male and female.
meeting Saturday evening. I belong to the Christ. I know she won't [was not], for we Don't know of Brother D[ammon] spending
society, and have seen nothing out of charac- don't worship idols. money uselessly. I am a believer. Sometimes
ter in anyone. Don't consider Elder Dammon Cross-examined. I believe in visions, and we sit on the floor for formality. Our faith
a bad man-he a man I highly esteem. My perfectly understand that, but suppose we are don't hold it to be essential. (Witness repeated
the mode of kissing, visions, &c. similar to
the others.) I never heard Brother Dammon
We kissed each other with the holy kiss - I say he wished to destroy the marriage cove-
nant. (Respondent here reexamined a number
think.Elder Whitewas not in thebedroomthat of witnesses, all of whom testified that he
used his wife well, and appeared to love her.)
evening. Stephen Fish, Exeter, sworn. I attended
the meetings at Atkinson, last summer-have
attended most all of the Quarterly Meetings
daughter was baptized Saturday evening-she not before an Ecclesiastical Council.-Elder for seven years-have been to Elder Dam-
has been baptized before. I have seen both Dammon does not believe as he used to. (Wit- mon's house, and he to mine-he provides
men and women crawl across the floor on ness read from the Bible.) We do wash each well in his house-he has always opposed the
their hands and knees. other's feet-do creep on the floor very mode of paying the ministry by regular salary.
George S. Woodbury, sworn. I am a decently. I think he has baptized about eleven, (Here the defense closed.)
believer in the Advent doctrine-I have but can't say certain how many-I have the
attended every one of the meetings in privilege of knowing how they behave as well WITNESSES FOR STATE.
Atkinson. as anyone else. I have no doubt Sister Har-
(This witness was very lengthy in his testi- mon's visions were from God-she told my Ebenezer Lambert, Esq., sworn. Last
mony, both on examination and cross- daughter so. I was in favor of my daughter Sunday evening Loton Lambert told me the
examination. It amounts to the same as the being baptized-I could not see ahead to see story of the meeting the evening before-he
preceding witnesses for the defense with the the devil's rabble coming, but since they have related as he testified yesterday almost
following additions.) come, I am certain we did just right. verbatim.
He thinks Elder White was not in the bed- Abel S. Boobar, affirmed. (Most of the John Bartlett, of Garland, sworn. I have
room, but others were in. We don't acknowl- testimony of this witness was a repetition of heard the respondent say that one of their

band was as near to him as another-he con- the meetings a number of times-I have seen While I was down in Egypt's land,
sidered them all alike. It is the general opin- prisoner on the floor with a woman between I heard my Saviour was at hand;
ion in our town that the prisoner is a disturber his legs-I have seen them in groups hugging The midnight cry was sounding,
of the peace, and ought to be taken care of. I and kissing one another. I went there once on And I wanted to be free,
have been acquainted with Elder Dammon an errand-Dam[mon] halloed out "Good So I left my former brethren
seven years-his character was always good God Almighty, drive the Devil away." I once To sound the jubilee.
until within about six weeks. saw Elder Hall with his boots off, and the
Loton Lambert, reexamined. He women would go and kiss his feet. One girl They said that I had better stay
affirmed all his former testimony-does not made a smack, but did not hit his foot with her And go with them in their old way;
know Elder White, but Joel Doore told me it lips. Hall said "he that is ashamed of me But they scoff at my Lord's coming-
was White that was in the bedroom with Miss before men, him will I be ashamed of before With them I could not agree,
Baker. my Father and the holy angels." She then And I left their painted synagogue
Cross-examined. There was nothing to gave his feet a number of kisses. To sound the jubilee.
Then soon I joined the Advent Band,

Theprisoner having taken his seat, rosejust Who just came out from Egypt's land;
They were on the road to Canaan,
as the Courtcame in,andshoutedGloryto the A blcst praying company,
And with them I am proclaiming
strengthof his lungs. That this year's the jubilee.
They call us now a noisy crew,

obstruct my views-the man had on a dark Joel Doore, Jr., called for the defense. I And say they hope we'll soon fall thro';
colored short jacket, and I think light have heard Brother Dammon preach that the But we now arc growing stronger,
pantaloons. day of grace was over with sinners. Respon- Both in love and unity,
Leonard Downes, reexamined. Did see dent said "that is my belief." Since we left old mystic Babylon
Miss Baker come out of the bedroom with a Levi M. Doore, called. Br[other] Wood To sound the jubilee.
man he had his arm around her-see her go in was dressed in light pants and dark jacket.
with a man and shut the door. He had on a Joel Door, Jr., called. Brother Wood had We're now united in one band,
short jacket, dark colored, and light colored light pants and dark jacket. Believing Christ is just at hand
panataloons-saw her kiss Mr. Doore-she Abel Ayer, called. Brother Wood went to To reward his faithful children
said "that feels good." the baptism and was about all the evening. Who arc glad their Lord to sec;
Thomas Proctor, reexamined. Prisoner James Boobar, called. Sister Baker and Bless the Lord our souls arc happy
stated to me that Miss Baker had an exercise Br[other] Wood were about all the evening. While we sound the jubilee.
in the bedroom, and he went in and helped her Elder White had a frock coat and dark pants.
out. Prisoner opened his defense and cited Though opposition waxes strong,
Cross-examined. I have said I wished they Luke 7 chapter 36 verse-John 13 chapter- Yet still the battle won't be long;
were broken up, and wished somebody would Last chapter in Romans-Phillipians 4th Our blessed Lord is coming,
go and do it. I have said Elder Hall ought to be chapter- I st Thessalonians 5th chapter. "His glory we shall see;"
tarred and feathered if he was such a character Holmes followed with the defense. Court Keep up good courage brethren-
as I heard he was. I was at one meeting, but as adjourned one hour. (Holmes closed the This year's the jubilee.
to divine worship there was none. They told defense with signal ability. Chandler com-
us they allowed none there but believers. menced in behalf of the State. Cited 178chap- If Satan comes to tempt your mind,
A.S. Bartlett, Esq., sworn. Yesterday I ter 9th and 10th sections Revised Statutes; he Then meet him with these blessed lines,
saw Mr. Joel Doore and Loton Lambert con- dwelt upon the law; after which Saying, "Get behind me, Satan,"
versing together. I went to them-I heard Morison summoned up the testimony I have naught to do with thee;
Doore say to him, it was Elder White that was and closed with a few brief and appropriate I have got my soul converted,
in the bedroom with Miss Baker-Lambert remarks. And I'll sound the jubilee.
said that was what I wanted to know. I so Elder Dammon again rose for further
understood, and think I am not mistaken. I defense. Court indulged him to speak. He The battle is not to the strong,
also heard Doore say there was a noise in the read 126th Psalm, and the 50th Psalm. He The weak may sing the conqueror's song;
bedroom. argued that the day of grace had gone by, that I've been through the fiery furnace,
Elder Flavel Bartlett, sworn. I think the believers were reduced; but that there was And no harm was done to me,
Prisoner does not belong to the Free Will too many yet, and that the end of the world I came out with stronger evidence
Baptist Church. He is not in fellowship with would come within a week. This year's the jubilee.
them. The Court after consultation sentenced the
Joseph Knights of Garland, sworn. I prisoner to the House of Correction for the A little longer here below,
attended one of Dammon's meetings in Gar- space of Ten Days, From this judgment And home to glory we will go;
land, he behaved well until meeting was over. Respondent appealed. I believe it! I believe it!
After meeting was over I saw him hugging Tuesday morning the prisoner having Hallelujah, I am free
and kissing a girl. It is the common report in taken his scat, rose just as the Court came in, From all sectarian prejudice-
Garland, that he is a disturber of the peace. and shouted Glory to the strength of his lungs. This year's the jubilee.
Plyn Clark, sworn. I attended their meet- Tuesday afternoon, after the Court had
ing a week ago last Wednesday or Thursday came in and were waiting for the counsel, the We'll soon remove to that blest shore,
night. (This witness gave a general character prisoner and his witnesses asked permission, And shout and sing forever more,
of the meeting as described by others.) and sung as follows: Where the wicked cannot enter
I heard one hallo out "I feel better''-- To disturb our harmony;
others said "good enough." I think the whole "COME OUT OF HER, MY PEOPLE." But we'll wear the crowns of glory
character of the meeting was demoralizing. Sec Rev. 18th Ch. 4th V. With our God eternally.
J.W.E. Harvey. called. I have attended By John Craig.

(Note: In what follows, all unreferenced quotes will be from the 7 witnesses were attorneys and justices of the peace who had a vested
March 1845Piscataquis Farmer story. After each unreferenced quote, interest in the integrity of their legal system); (4) the almost total agree-
two numbers separated by a colon (for instance, 19:3) will be printed in ment among the witnesses-both for the defense and the prosecution-
parentheses. These indicate the page and column in this journal where about the incident; (5) the contemporaneity of the testimony to the event
the quote may be found.) (two days later); (6) the obvious authenticity of the dialogue; (7) the
exceptionally long and verbatim reporting; (8) the reporter's use of
Under oath or under inspiration-who to believe? court and counsel minutes; and (9) the reporter's expressed concern for
The Piscataquis Farmer report of the Dammon trial raises two the faithfulness of his report to the witnesses' testimony: "I ... have
important questions for Seventh-day Adventists. One, are Mrs. White's endeavored in no case to misrepresent you, and if you find an error, I
retrospectives on her own lifework reliable, even in a general way? beg you to impute it to my head, instead of heart .... I offer it as an
And, two, to what extent did she participate in post-1844, Millerite imperfect and impartial report." ( 18:1)
fanaticism? White Estate undersecretary Paul Gordon grasped at the reporter's
A start can be made in answering question one by comparing and candor and modesty to denigrate his report: "I think we must remem-
contrasting Mrs.White's account of Dammon's arrest and trial with the ber that the reporter. .. apologizes for it not being perhaps as accurate as
Farmer reporter's abridgement of the trial testimony. it could be .... At any rate, it appears to be one reporter's account of the
The Piscataquis Farmer coverage of the Israel Dammon trial has trial that is imperfect, to say the least.""
overwhelming face-value credibility: (1) the number of witnesses (20 Actually the reporter was telling the witnesses and the Farmer's
for the prosecution, 18 for the defense); (2) the integrity of the wit- readers just what pains he had taken to be accurate. "I have abridged
nesses, most of whom were God-fearing people who would not take an your testimony as much as possible" from the minutes of "the Court
oath lightly; (3) the quality of the witnesses (several of the prosecution and the Counsel," omitting only "the most unimportant part. "(18:1)
Dammon TrialWitnesses
Thirty-eight individuals (including Dammon) testified during the two-day trial of Israel Dammon at the Piscataquis County courthouse
in Dover, Maine. Twenty witnesses appeared for the prosecution and eighteen spoke for the defense. Two state and six defense witnesses
(including Dammon) were from adjacent Penobscot County.
The 1850United States Census Bureau records for Piscataquis and Penobscot counties contain entries for fifteen of the state and twelve of
the defense witnesses. An alphabetical listing of all the witnesses is printed below. Ages are extrapolated from the age given in the 1850cen-
sus. Place of residence, profession, and marital status are also provided. (Hartford J. Rowe is included among the prosecution witnesses
because he brought the complaint against Dammon.)
Witnesses for the prosecution Witnesses for the defense

1. A. S. Bartlett, Esq. (31). Dover trader. Wife, 4'dia (25). Lived 1. Abel Ayer.
next door to Elder Flavel Bartlett. 2. James Ayer, Jr. (39). Atkinson farmer. Wife, Elmira (22). 15
2. Elder Flavel Bartlett (53). Dover trader. Wife, Hannah February 1845 Saturday night meeting was held in his home.
(50). Lived four houses from John Doore.
3. John Bartlett (23). Garland farmer. Wife, Sarah (23). 3. Abel S. Boobar (30). Atkinson farmer. Wife, Sarah (25).
4. Ebenezer Blethen (40). Atkinson farmer. Wife, Margaret (43). 4. James Boobar.
5. Plyn Clark (54). Atkinson farmer. Wife, Deliverance (54). 5. Joshua Burnham (59). Atkinson farmer. Wife, S. (57).
6. William C. Crosby, Esq. (37). Attorney who moved to Bangor. 6. Elder Israel Dammon. Exeter, former sea captain.
Wife, Mary (33). 7. Joel Doore (65). Atkinson. Wife, Hannah, 64. His son, Joel,
7. Leonard Downes (19). Dover farmer. Wife, Mary J. (20). Lived Jr., and family lived.with him. Neighbor to Isley Osborn and
near Ebenezer Lambert and Hartford J. Rowe. Levi Doore.
8. Moses Garrish (25). Greenville farmer. 8. Joel Doore, Jr. (31). Atkinson. Wife, Sally (27).
9. Jeremiah B. Green. 9. John H. Doore (43). Atkinson.
10. J.W.E. Harvey. Any one of three census entries could have been 10. Levi M. Doore (35). Atkinson. Wife, Patience (22).
this Harvey. 11. Gardner Fariner. Garland.
11. Joseph Knight (28). Garland farmer. Wife, Lydia A. (21). 12. Stephen Fish (34), Corinth blacksmith. Wife, Betsey (38).
12. Ebenezer Lambert, Esq. (51). Dover farmer. Wife, Sarah (53). 13. John M. Gallison (50-60). Dover.
Lived between Hartford J. Rowe and Leonard Downes. 14. Jacob Mason (27). Garland farmer. Wife, Elizabeth (26).
13. Loton Lambert. Probably the son of Paul Lambert and brother 15. Job Moody (32). Bangor porter. Wife, Abagail (30). Lived
of Ebenezer. near Danial Oakes and his daughters who were imprisoned
14. Jacob Martin (52). Atkinson farmer. Wife, Abagail (43). briefly in April 1845 for being "Idlers, and Vagrants and
Neighbor to Ebenezer Blethen. disturbers of the public peace" in Bangor.
15. Joseph Moulton (47). Township . 8, Range 8 farmer; also 16. Isley Osborn (35). Atkinson. Wife, Susan (31). Lived next to
deputy sheriff. Wife, Abagail (47). Joel Doore.
16. Thomas Proctor (40). Dover farmer. Wife, Margaret (39). 17. Abraham Pease. Possibly Abram (69) or Abram Jr. (40) of
17. William Ricker (37). Dover farmer. Wife, Mary (38). Wellington.
18. Deacon James Rowe. Pioneer resident of Dover, settling there 18. George S. Woodbury (23). Dover millman. Wife, Jane (21).
in 1808. Famous for his role in apprehending the "Exeter
counterfeitors" in 1829. Information not supplied by the 1850census was drawn from Amasa
19. Hartford J. Rowe (33). Dover farmer. Loring's History of Piscataquis County Maine. From its Earliest
20. Benjamin Smith, Esq. Atkinson Selectman and Justice of the Settlement to 1880 (Hoyt, Fogg & Donham, Portland, ME.: 1880).
Peace. Data regarding the Daniel Oakes fauilly is from the Bangor Whig
21. Ebenezer Trundy (41). Dover farmer. Wife, Hannah P. (38). and Courier, 2 April 1845.

Gordon has another argument: "You can quickly see that their
[defense and prosecution witnesses] testimony contradicted each other Witnessingfor Dammon
in almost every case .... It would appear that those against Dammon
were telling one story, and those that were for him told another. " 2' Servingasa witnessforIsraelDammonwasn'tnecessarily
easy,
Apparently Gordon had not taken the opportunity to read the as Levi M. Doore discovered. Neither did his experience in the wit-
reporter's abridgement of the trial minutes very carefully. The witness box corroborate Mrs. White's assertion that the prosecution
nesses all agreed on all points of any substance except whether or not witnesses "were at once broken down by the testimony of Eld. D.'s
Ellen Harmon was referred to as "imitation of Christ," and who was in acquaintances, who were called to the stand." Assistant prosecutor
the bedroom with Dorinda Baker and why. H.G.0. Morrison cross-examined Doore following his testimony
Three defense witnesses, each represented at length in the Farmer that "Elder Dammon's mode of worship now is similar to what it
report, expressly affirmed the testimony of prosecution witness Wil- used to be."
liam Crosby, Esq. James Ayer, Jr., host for the Saturday evening meet-
ing, testified: "I agree with Crosby and Lambert substantially. "(20:1) Morrison:Did they use to sit on the floor?
Isley Osborn said, "Think Esq. Crosby's testimony correct."(20:3) Doore:No.
And Jacob Mason added, "I have heard Crosby testify, and think him Morrison:Did they use to lay or crawl on the floor?
correct. "(20:3) Doore:No.
It does appear, as Gordon surmises, that Dammon did not serve his Morrison:Did they use to kiss each other?
sentence. But it was not, as Gordon further speculates, "because there Ooore:No.
was such conflicting testimony."" Had the testimony been as conflict- Morrison:Did they use to go into the bedroom?
ing as Gordon claims, the Dover Court would not have "sentenced the Ooore:No.
prisoner to the House of Correction for the space of Ten Days." Morrison:Did they use to tell visions?
Apparently, defense counsel Holmes appealed. Because Dammon Doore:No.
himself wrote that after his sentencing he "was put over until May term Morrison:Why do you say that his mode of worship is similar to
[district court session], then the warrant was quashed; and I was acquit- what it used to be?
ted without date."" Doore:Because he preaches similar.
Calling it "one of the grandest defenses of religious toleration and Morrison:Did he use to preach that the end of the world was at
freedom, that it has ever been my pleasure to listen to," one of Holmes' hand, andbaptize in the dead hours of night?
contemporaries, Joseph D. Brown, remembered Holmes' representa- Doore:No.
tion of Dammon as an "eloquent argument for religious freedom and
toleration and the right of every person to worship God according to the
dictates of his own conscience, under his own vine and fig tree. " 27 Orrington, Garland, Exeter, and Atkinson (see map p. 27)."
Dammon did not get off, as Gordon suggests, "because there was Before the arresting weekend in Atkinson, Miss Harmon had been
such conflicting testimony"; or, as Mrs. White remembered, because to Orrington, where she joined forces with James White. At Garland
the testimony of the prosecution's "many witnesses ... were at once she received a letter from her mother "begging" her to come home to
broken down by the testimony of Eld. D. 's acquaintances present, who Portland because "false reports were being circulated concerning me."
were called to the stand."" It was argument from law, not testimony, But she had "great freedom" in bearing her testimony there, and
that rescued Dammon from ten days in jail. "heart-felt shouts of glory and victory went up from that house" in Gar-
It is ironic that this defender of a fanatical Adventist was a veteran I and." At the very least, the Garland meeting must have been a bit
Free Mason who became the first Master of the Masonic Lodge orga- noisy.
nized at Foxcroft in the year of Dammon's trial. "Religiously he was a Miss Harmon's next stop was Exeter, Israel Dammon's home town.
Free Thinker, though he affiliated with the Universalists. " 29 Two years later Mrs. White wrote to Joseph Bates about her part in that
Former White Estate associate secretary Ronald Graybill wove an meeting:
apologetic of his own-suggesting that in Atkinson, James White and
Ellen Harmon were caught off their guard and out of their element: The view about the bridegroom coming I had about the middle of
February, 1845. While in Exeter, Maine, in meeting with Israel
I don't know how much of this fanatic behavior went on in Port- Dammon, James, and many others, many of them did not believe in
land. But in a sense she had her own first exposure to it in Atkinson. a shut door. I suffered much at the commencement of the meeting.
After she went through this experience, she rode calmly to the next Unbelief seemed to be on every hand.
town with James and Sister Foss in the carriage. James may have There was one sister there that was called very spiritual. She had
said, "Boy, I hope we never get into one of those again. "'0
traveled and been a powerful preacher the most of the time for
twenty years. She had been truly a mother in Israel. But a division
It can be established clearly from Mrs. White's publications and letters had risen in the band on the shut door. She had great sympathy, and
that Atkinson was not Miss Harmon's "first exposure" to fanaticism. could not believe the door was shut. (I had known nothing of their
differences.) Sister Durben got up to talk. I felt very, very sad.
At length my soul seemed to be in an agony, and while she was
It can be established clearly from talking I fell from my chair to the floor. It was then I had a view of
Mrs. White'spublications and letters Jesus rising from his mediatorial throne and going to the holiest as
bridegroom to receive His kingdom. They were all deeply interested
that Atkinson was not Miss Har- in the view. They all said it was entirely new to them. The Lord
worked in mighty power setting the truth home to their hearts.
mon's 'first exposure' to fanaticism. Sister Durben knew what the power of the Lord was for she had
felt it many times; and a short time after I fell she was struck down,
On an autumn evening in 1842 she was for the first time prostrated by and fell to the floor, crying to God to have mercy on her. When I
the power of the Holy Spirit-what was termed the "second" came out of vision, my ears were saluted with Sister Durben singing
blessing-and was unable to return home that night." and shouting with a loud voice. Most of them received the vision
Before she met Israel Dammon, Ellen Harmon's very first vision and were settled upon the shut door."
(December 1844) clearly indicates that she believed in "wash[ing] one
another's feet and salute[ing] the brethren with a holy kiss."" What Mrs. White wrote Joseph Bates of the Exeter meeting with
In her earliest published account Mrs. White names some of the Dammon, James, and others obviously was not intended as a descrip-
towns that she visited on her first journey to eastern Maine: Poland, tion of the meeting as a whole; but what she did portray had the flavor of

a charismatic service. She and Sister Durben were both "struck down" "Sister Foss" most likely was not "in the carriage." This is proba-
or "slain upon the floor," and Durben was shouting while Harmon was bly why Ellen's mother was "begging" her "to return home. "'·1 The
in vision. What else happened is not mentioned; but given Israel Dam- available documentation suggests that Louisa Foss first accompanied
mon's presence and probable leadership of the meeting, there is no Ellen some time later, upon her initial journey to New Hampshire."
good reason to doubt that he was involved in those "exercises" that he And, whoever she was traveling with, they were transported in a sleigh,
had been performing since the new year began. not by carriage.
Witnesses at the Dammon trial agreed that for several weeks he had James White would not have said, "Boy, I hope we never get into one
been presiding over meetings at Garland, Exeter, and Atkinson; and of those again." As indicated by J.W.E. Harvey at the Dover court-
that he was teaching and practicing no work, no more salvation for sin- house, "Dammon, White and Hall were leaders" at an earlier meeting
ners, "holy kissing," footwashing, creeping, and rebaptism. that "lasted eight days." ( 18:3) And later in the summer of 1845 White
John Bartlett of Garland testified that he had known Dammon for identified closely with the fanatical Adventists, writing, "Most of our
seven years and that "his character was always good until about six brethren are under guardianship," and defiantly paraphrased part of his
weeks [ago]."(22:1) lady friend's first vision:
Jeremiah B. Green, under oath, said: "I attended an afternoon
meeting a fortnight ago yesterday [Sunday, 2 February 1845]... elder By this time God made them [non-Millerite Christians] to know
Dammon was the presiding elder." There Green witnessed footwash- that he had loved the "fanciful," "fanatical," "disgraceful," band,
ing and "saw Dammon kiss Mrs. Osborn. "(19:3) who could wash "one another's feet.""
J.W.E. Harvey told the court that he had attended several meetings.
"First meeting lasted eight days-have known Dammon six weeks- A year later, and four days before his wedding to Ellen, James White
Dammon, [James] White and Hall were leaders. "(18:3) complained to "Brother Collins" about "a congregation of hard, ugly
The Atkinson meeting obviously was not James White's initiation; Congregationalists and Methodists" before which he was to preach a
and Ellen Harmon had been traveling with him for at least a couple of funeral service. He made certain that Collins understood that he was
weeks." not "going to try to convert people to the Advent faith. No; it's too late.
John Gallison testified that he had been acquainted with Dammon But it's our duty on some occasions to give a reason of our hope I think,
"a number of years," had "attended every meeting" (including those even to swine." A few lines later White mentioned a recent visit with
"at his house"), and he believed Dammon had "baptised about some of his Adventist friends, concluding, "We had a Holy Ghost time
eleven."(21:2) The baptism rate began to pick up in the month after together. "' 8
Dammon's trial, as the new date (April 1845) set by O.R.L. Crosier and
others for the Lord's return approached.,, March 20-24 found ten to fif- Ellen White in the dock
teen candidates being baptised daily from among those still meeting at Both the prosecution and defense witnesses agree essentially on
the James Ayer, Jr., home in Atkinson.'" And, according to the Oxford what took place at the Ayer home in Atkinson on Saturday night, Febru-
Democrat, Dammon was still "their presiding cider.'"'' ary 15, 1845. But there is substantial disagreement between Mrs.
That Mrs. White was not put off by Dammon's behavior in Atkinson White's 1860account-fifteen years after the fact-and the testimony of
is easily inferred from her own writing. In 1860 she recalled the meet- the witnesses as reported in the Piscataquis Farmer. The record and the
ing at Exeter and "what I had been shown concerning some fanatical witnesses contradict her on major and minor points, and no witness
persons present, who were exalted by the spirit of Satan.""' This cannot supports her on any contested point (see box).
refer to Dammon whom "the Spirit of the Lord rested upon" a few days The contradiction that matters most is between the testimony of the
later (and on the next page)" during his arrest in Atkinson. Mrs. White arresting officer, Joseph Moulton, and the memory of Mrs. White over
lionized Dammon at the trial; and not long thereafter she and Dammon whether or not the participants in the Ayer home resisted Dammon's
were together in Topsham, Maine, where, she wrote, "Brother D. cried arrest. Deputy sheriff Moulton testified that when he notified Dammon
out in the Spirit, and power of God," to encourage a prayer of healing that he was under arrest, "a number of women jumped on to him-he
for Frances Howland." clung to them, and they to him." Moulton said that "so great was the
Graybill says that "after she went through this [Atkinson] experi- resistance" that he had to send twice for reinforcements to help him and
ence, she rode calmly to the next town with James and Sister [Louisa] the three assistants who accompanied him. "We were resisted by both
Foss in the carriage."" !tis unlikely that Miss Harmon "rode calmly to men and women," Moulton said. (19:3)
the next town." She and James were departing the scene of an arrest. Ellen White says that when the sheriff and his three deputies tried to
Had they been feeling calm and courageous, they might have joined arrest Dammon, "the Spirit of the Lord rested upon him, and his
their supporting testimony with that of the "strong brethren present strength was taken away, and he fell to the floor helpless." In their
who" Mrs., White later wrote, "had stood by him [Dammon] in the efforts to drag Dammon from the house, she recalled, the men "would
trial.""' move him a few inches only, and then rush out of the house" because
"the power of God was in that room, and the servants of God with their
countenances lighted up with his glory," she insisted, "made no resist-
ance." But, despite a dozen men's efforts, "Eld. D. was held by the
power of God about forty minutes, and not all the strength of those men
WilliamC. could move him from the floor where he lay helpless."'''
Not only does Mrs. White contradict the arresting officer's account
Crosby,Esq., of what he and his men experienced, but her version describes an event
that clearly is beyond ordinary human experience. True or false, her
witness version is fantastic. If Mrs. White was accurately describing a super-
§
;=
natural event, then the response of the people who witnessed or cxperi-
for the ~
2
cnced it seems very unnatural. Such a remarkable event certainly
would have become the focus of much attention. Yet not one of the
prosecution. ~ many witnesses for either the defense or the prosecution contradicts
o; Sheriff Moul ton's terse description of the arrest.
~ In fact, if twelve men worked strenuously and unsuccessfully to
-"; budge one prone and otherwise unimpeded individual, and if there had
t been such a powerful but invisible aura in the room that "it was a relief
G to them to rush oui of the house" periodically, normal men would have
been sufficiently spooked (or converted) by the experience to abandon
their mission long before forty minutes had expired.

Mrs. White's errors on lesser points involving the trial itself further It became my unpleasant duty to meet this [fanaticism], and we
weaken the credibility of her account: labored hard to suppress it. We had no part in it, only to bear a testi-
White: "A lawyer offered his services. "' 0 Witness Joel Doore, a mony decidedly against it wherever we met it .... ' 1
Dammon partisan: "I did engage counsel in this case to defend the pris- The nominal Adentists charged me with fanaticism, and I was
oner. " (21 :1) falsely, and by some, wickedly, represented as being the leader of
White: Dammon "was asked to give them [the court] a synopsis of the fanaticism that I was laboring to do away. 54
his faith. "' 1 Piscataquis Farmer: "Court indulged him to

speak." (22:2) It would be unfair to find Mrs. White guilty of fanaticism merely
White: Dammon "was asked to sing one" of their "curious because she continually associated with fanatics. After all, how could
hymns.'"' Farmer report: "The prisoner and his witnesses asked per- she fight fanatics without being where they were? However, the wit-
mission. and sung as follows: ... 'While I was down in Egypt's land, nesses at Dammon's trial, along with independent documentation, sug-
... '"(22:2) gest that she participated in some of the very activities she later
denounced and remembered combatting (see box: "Fanaticism and
This incident from early 1845 presents modern Adventists with the Miss Harmon" p. 29 ) .
unhappy choice between contemporaneous witnesses and the memory
of their prophet-between testimony given under oath and statements Reba pt ism
made under inspiration. "Some had distressed spells (or pretended to) declaring it was the
duty of some particular person to be baptized again," wrote John Cook
Mrs. White a fanatic? to the editor of the Morning Star." Cook, ifhe read the newspaper, may
Adventists who are willing to let the accumulating weight of evi- have had Ellen Harmon in mind. Because both friendly and unfriendly
dence influence their assessment of Mrs. White's memory will find witnesses at Dammon's trial (quoted in the Piscataquis Farmer) testi-
helpful an overview of her participation in the fanaticism she insists she fied that Miss Harmon presented some individuals visiting the James
was fighting. The sworn testimony of the witnesses at the Dammon Ayer, Jr. home that Saturday evening with painful alternatives: they
trial-for both the prosecution and the defense-suggests that Ellen could undergo an icy baptism that very night or "go to hell." Laton
Harmon was more involved in the bizarre "exercises" that precipitated Lambert informed the court that Harmon
Israel Dammon's arrest than Seventh-day Adventists have ever
imagined. told her vision to a cousin of mine, that she must be baptized that
All of Mrs. White's later published and unpublished statements night or go to hell-she objected, because she had once been
about her earliest experience deny any participation in fanaticism. In baptized.
fact, she strongly insists that her primary duty was to travel among the
disappointed Adventists and fight fanaticism: Lambert further testified that Harmon
Contradicting Stories
Mrs. White's Spiritual Gifts 2 account of the arrest and trial of Israel Dammon contradicts-on major and minor points-the testimony of
both friendly and unfriendly witnesses and the court record as reported in the 7 March 1845 Piscataquis Farmer. Those contradictions are
presented in adjacent columns helow.
Mrs. Ellen G. White Witnesses and trial record abridgment

(Spiritual Gifts 2, 1860) (Piscataquis Farmer 7 March 1845)
The power of God was in that room, and the servants of God with Joseph Moulton; "When I went to arrest prisoner, ... so great
their countenances lighted up with his glory, made no resistance. was the resistance, that I with three assistants, could not get him
out. ... We were resisted by both men and women."
They would move him a few inches only, and then rush out of the "I remained in the house and sent for more help .... "
house .... The men could not endure the power of God, and it was
a relief to them to rush out of the house.
Elder D. was held by the power of God about forty minutes, and not "We overpowered them and got him out door in custody."
all the strength of those men could move him from the floor where
he lay helpless.
A lawyer offered his services. Joel Doore, under cross-examination; "I did engage counsel in
this case to defend the prisoner."
Many witnesses were brought to sustain the charge, but they were The Court after consultation sentenced the prisoner to the House of
at once broken down by the testimony of Eld. D. 's acquaintances Correction for the space of Ten Days, . . .
present, ...
He was asked to give them [the court] a synopsis of his faith. Court indulged him to speak.
It was also suggested that they sung curious hymns, and he was The prisoner and his witnesses asked permission, and sung as
asked to sing one. follows ...

•~··w- ••
Ellen Harmon's first missionary journey took her from her Portland, Maine,
home to Poland (thirty miles north) where she first related (away from home)
what God had shown her in vision a few weeks earlier. She proceeded to Orrington
(ninety miles northeast) where she met - she thought for the first time - James
White. The two young zealots travelled together to Garland and then backtracked
slightly to Israel Dammon's home at Exeter where Mrs. White says she had her
second substantive vision during a meeting with Dammon.
Their next stop, Atkinson, eventuated in the arrest of Dammon and his trial
at the new courthouse in nearby Dover, the Piscataquis County seat. Some evidence
···~'"\.,,. suggests that James and Ellen fled the scene of the arrest on a southwesterly
··········.-. ....
·--
course via James White's home town of Palmyra.
Other towns on the map are mentioned incidentally in the Dammon story.

James S. Charles P.
Holmes,Esq., Chandler, Esq.,
attorney attorney .
.2
"" ]
for the w.8 ~ for the ~
C:•
-0 ~
6 ~
defense. ·"" prosecution. o;
1 C
!i
"v "';
::;:: ~
~
§
c:; d
Loughborough in 1874 that "after the time passed in '44, I did believe
called Joel Doore, said he had doubted, and would not be baptized no more sinners would be converted." This is accurate. However, her
again-she said Br. Doore don't go to hell. Doore kneclcd to her feet next words suggest that the door was shut on both her memory and her
and praycd.(19:1) theology:
Isley Osborn, a friendly witness, stated: I never had a vision that no more sinners would be converted,
and I am clear and free to state no one has ever heard me say or has
She told them their cases had been made known to her bj the read from my pen statements which will justify them in charges they
Lord, and if they were not baptized that evening, they would go to have made against me upon this point.'''
hell. We believed her, ... (20:2)
The "they" who had made "charges" were four of Mrs. White's
On this point and at that time Ellen Harmon was no hypocrite. She friends and acquaintances from the early days. They remembered her
was first baptized at the age of fourteen on June 26, 1842, in Casco relationship to the shut door differently. Israel Dammon, of course, was
Bay."·Later. James White wrote, she received "baptism at my hands, at there:
an early period of her experience.,,,. And she preached from vision
what she practiced-at least into 1850. On July 29 of that year, while in It has been some twenty years or more since we were associated
Oswego. New York, she had a vision that those who since 1844 had kept with Mrs. W., but we remember very perfectly that her first visions,
Sunday for the Sabbath or vision, was told both by herself and others (especially by Mrs.
W.) in connection with the preaching of the "shut door," and went
would have to go into the water and be baptized in the faith of the to substantiate the same."
shut door and keeping the commandments of God and in the faith of
Jesus coming to sit on the throne of his Father David and to redeem The first time Ellen Harmon related her first vision away from her
Israel. Portland home was in January of 1845 at Megquier Hill (pronounced
I also saw those who have been baptized as a door into the pro- Me-gweer) in Poland.'" John Megquier remembered:
tcssed churches will have to be baptized out of that door again, into
the faith mentioned above, and all who have not been baptized since About the first visions that she had were at my house in Poland.
'44 will have to be baptized before Jesus comes and some will not She said God had told her in vision that the door of mercy had
gain progress now until that duty is done.'" closed, and there was no more chance for the world, and she would
tell who had got spots on their garments; and those spots were got on
Later, Mrs. White backed away from both her Oswego Vision theol- by questioning her visions, whether they were of the Lord or not."'
ogy and her Atkinson meeting methodology:
Mrs. Lucinda S. Burdick met Ellen Harmon several times in 1845 at
Several ... of our ministers I was shown were making a mistake her uncle's house in South Windham, Maine. Mrs. Burdick recalled
.. -1by] making a test question of re baptism. This is not the way that that during one of Miss Harmon's visions "her position upon the
the subject should be treated .... These good brethren were not ground seemed so uncomfortable that I placed her head in my lap and'
supported her thus throughout the event."'° Wrote Mrs. Burdick:
She told them their cases had been Ellen ... said God had shown her in vision that Jesus Christ arose
made known to her by the Lord, and on the tenth day of the seventh month, 1844, and shut the door of
mercy; had left forever the mediatorial throne; the whole world was
if they were not baptized that doomed and lost, and there never could be another sinner saved .
. . . . I have been told that they deny on this [west] coast that she
evening, they would go to hell. ever saw the door of mercy closed; but there arc thousands of living
witnesses who know that a blacker lie could not be invented, and I
bringing those newly come to the faith along step by step, cautiously am one of the number.'''
and guardedly, and ... some were turned from the truth. when a little
time and tender, careful dealing with them would have prevented all Pastor I. C. Well come, who was re baptized by James White,"
such sad results.,., remembered that he "several times caught her [Miss Harmon], while
[she was] falling to the floor, at times when she swooned away for a
The shut door'"' vision.
In 1845 Miss Harmon be! icved that probation had closed for "all the
wicked world"'·' on October 22. 1844. She admitted in a letter to J.N. I have heard her relate her visions of these dates. Several were

published on sheets [he probably refers to the early broadside, To the
Little Remnant Scattered Abroad]" to the effect that all were lost FanaticismandMissHarmon
who did not endorse the '44 move, that Christ had left the throne of
mercy. and all were sealed that ever would be, and no others could
repent. She and James taught this one or two years."'
Postdisappointment Evidence
indicates
fanaticism Ellen Harmon-
Although these four witnesses contradict Mrs. White's 1874 state-
Mandatory rebaptism taught/participated.
ment in which she says "I never had a vision that no more sinners would
be converted. and ... no one has ever heard me say or has read from my
Shut door taught it from vision,
pen" such statements. it is not a case of their word versus hers. It is Mrs.
White versus Mrs.White. Twenty-seven years earlier-on July 13,
"Goto hell" used phrase repeatedly;
1847-while she still believed in an irrevocably shut door, Ellen White
(intemperate expressions) trial witnesses agree.
had written to Joseph Bates about a vision she had received in February
of 1845on her first missionary journey:
The holy kiss taught it from vision.
While in Exeter, Maine, in meeting with Israel Dammon, James,
The holy laugh described an instance of it
and many others, many of them did not believe in a shut door. ... It
affirmatively.
was then I had a view of Jesus rising from His mediatorial throne
and going to the holiest as Bridegroom to receive His kingdom ....
Mixed footwashing taught it from vision.
Most of them received the vision and were settled upon the shut
door.-, (women wash men's feet)
Shouting participated actively.

By 1883 Mrs. White not only denied having had a vision that "no
more sinners would be converted," but she added the contradiction that
Slain by the Spirit fell on many occasions.
her first visions had disabused the little band of their shut-door error:
For a time after the disappointment in 1844, I did hold, in com- The dead are raised denied this belief, and no
mon with the advent body. that the door of mercy was then forever evidence refutes her.
closed to the world. This position was taken before my first vision
was given me. It was the light given me of God that corrected our Time setting does not deny it; early
friends say she was.
error. and enabled us to see the true position. --
No work doctrine did not work; but says she
Damned to hell
Five times witnesses (two friendly and one unfriendly) at the Dam- fought this doctrine.
mon trial attributed to Ellen Harmon the specific words "go to hell" as
the option afforded individuals at the James Ayer, Jr., home who either
would not "be baptized," "be baptized again," or "forsake all their tain expressions; she did not deny having told individuals (or a class of
friends." It is clear from her vision at Oswego, New York (29 July people) that they were, or would be, lost. She was very clear that Wil-
1850), that Ellen White believed those who would not be rebaptized liam Miller's associates, who did not maintain their faith in the shut
were lost. But some Adventists-who won't mind the unbiblical theol- door and adopt the seventh day Sabbath, were al I lost.'"
ogy involved-ironically, might be troubled to learn that she would use In fact, the day following a vision given in late 1850 at Paris, Maine,
the expression "go to hell." she wrote of "Laodiceans" who had "said the shut door was of the
In July of 1874 Mrs. Burdick recalled that Miss Harmon had used devil, ... They shall die the death." Why? Because, she explained, "the
the expressions "doomed and damned" to describe the whole world sin against the Holy Ghost was to ascribe to Satan ... what the Holy
after 1844, and to describe individuals "as soon as they took a stand Ghost has done. ""0
against" her visions_-, The next month, in a private letter to J.N.
Loughborough, Mrs. White denied Burdick's statement: The holy kiss
The New England populous was both amused and scandalized by
I never have under any circumstances used this language to any- newspaper accounts of the promiscuous public kissing that attended the
one, however sinful. I have ever had messages of reproof for those home meetings of fanatical, postdisappointment Millerites. One paper
who used these harsh expressions .... I have never stated that this reported a Millerite meeting in Portland at which
one or that one was doomed or damned. I never had a testimony of
this kind for anyone. I have ever been shown that God's people Brother M. stated that he had a special impression that he must
should shun these strong expresions which are peculiar to the first- kiss sister N. Her husband being present, thought such an impres-
day Adventists.-,
In the third issue of The Present Truth, Ellen White appears to have It is clear from her vision at Oswego,
slipped while recounting a vision and to have used one of those "strong
expressions" so "peculiar to the first-day Adventists":
New York, that Ellen White believed
I saw that Satan was working through agents, in a number of
those who would not be rebaptized
ways. He was at work through ministers, who have rejected the truth were forever lost.
[that October 22, 1844, was an eschatologically crucial date], and
are given over to strong delusions to believe a lie that they might be sion must come from the Devil-as no good impression would
damned_-, expose his wife to be kissed by such an "ugly looking mug" as that
brother were. So he took her away unkissed, and will probably keep
Usually, however, Mrs. White got across the same message through her away."
euphemisms such as "spots on their garments,""· or "hearts ... as black
as ever.,, __or "forever lost.,,_, The subject of kissing came up repeatedly at the trial oflsrael Dam-
It does seem clear that Mrs. White was denying only the use of cer- mon, with variations on the word (e.g., kiss, kissed, kissing) occurring

at least twenty-six times. Witnesses for the accused stoutly defended the feet, and women wash women's feet." ( 19:3) John Galli son testified that
practice. "we do wash each other's feet";(21 :2) Jacob Mason referred to "wash-
One particular instance of this "exercise" that received so much [ing] feet in the evening";(20:3) and Isley Osborn said they preferred
attention at the trial had more the flavor of a make-up kiss than a holy "to go through the ordinance of washing feet in secret." (20:3)
kiss. Dorinda Baker, the other visionist present, approached Joel Ellen White's footwashing practice in 1851 was more progressive
Doore saying, "You have refused me before." Doore recalled Miss than the trial record indicates was Dammon's 1845 protocol in Atkin-
Baker saying that he "had thought hard of her." Doore became "satis- son. Citing "duties ... the performance of which will keep the people of
fied of my error, and .... we kissed each other with the holy God humble and separate from the world, and from backsliding, like
kiss. "(21 :1) Loton Lambert was watching and testified that Miss Baker the nominal churches," Mrs. White wrote: "I saw that the Lord had
had said, "that feels good." ( 19:2) Joel Doore remembered, "When moved upon sisters to wash the feet of the brethren and that it was
she kissed me, she said there was light ahead." (21:l) according to gospel order." But, she cautioned, "there is no example
Job Moody testified that "kissing is a salutation of love ... we have given in the Word for brethren to wash sisters' feet.""
got positive scripture for it .... "(20:2) And Isley Osborn added, "It is a In her very first vision (December 1844), Ellen Harmon was shown
part of our faith. "(20:3) that her enemies "knew that God had loved us who could wash one
Ellen White later wrote in agreement. Including herself among the another's feet.'"" (This phrase also was deleted from the vision as pub-
144,000, she stated: lished in 1860 in Spiritual Gifts 2.)
Then it was that the synagogue of Satan ["fallen Adventists," Voluntary humility (creeping)
who had given up 1844 as a mistake, and "the nominal churches"]"' Crawling was another exercise, intended to promote and demon-
knew that God loved us who could ... salute the brethren with a holy strate humility, that was in vogue at Dammon's meeting in Atkinson.
kiss, and they worshipped at our feet."' (Curiously, the italicized John Doore testified on the witness stand that he had "seen both men
words were omitted from the sixth edition of Spiritual Gifts 2.) and women crawl across the floor on their hands and knees. "(21:1)
And George S. Woodbury said, "My wife and Dammon passed across
There are several appendix notes in the fifth edition of Early Writ- the floor on their hands and knees. "(21:2)
ings (placed there in 1963 by the trustees of the Ellen G. White Estate) A description of the creeping that took place at the home of Captain
that are "provided to explain expressions and situations not so well John Megquire in Poland, Maine, was provided by a correspondent of
understood now.... " The trustees write: the Norway Advertiser:
It was the custom among the early Sabbath keeping Adventists to They seldom sit in any other position than on the bare floor .... A
exchange the holy kiss at the ordinance of humility. No reference is woman, at the meeting he attended, got on her hands and knees, and
made to obvious impropriety of exchanging the holy kiss between crept over the floor like a child. A man, in the same position, fol-
men and women, but there is a call for all to abstain from all appear- lowed her, butting her occasionally with his head. Another man
ance of evil."' threw himself at full length upon his back on the bed, and presently
three women crossed him with their bodies.'"
Perhaps the next edition of Early Writings will contain a rewrite of that
appendix to "explain expressions and situations not so well under- This creeping was a humiliation that-however literally biblical
stood" by the trustees in 1963. ("except ye become as little children" Matt. 18:1-6)-Ellen White,
James Ayer, Jr., the man in whose Atkinson home Dammon was thirty years later, insisted she had not been prepared to bear:
arrested, witnessed to the court that "it is a part of our faith to kiss each
other-brothers kiss sisters and sisters kiss brothers, I think we have Duties were made by men, tests manufactured that God had
biblical authority for that." (20: I) Mrs. White concurred, citing I never required, and which found no sanction in His Word. I state
Thessalonians 5 :26." In fact, all of the specific instances of kissing definitely I never crept when I could walk, and have ever opposed it.
mentioned in the Dammon trial abridgment were kisses between mem- I was shown in vision, after I refused to accept this as a duty, that it
bers of the opposite sex: Joel Doore and Dorinda Baker, Israel Dam- was not a requirement of God, but the fruit of fanaticism."
mon and Mrs. Isley Osborn, and Dammon and Mrs. George S.
Woodbury. Mrs. White was reacting-although not publicly-to the remarks of
Mrs. Lucinda Bodge Burdick published in an 1874 issue of The World's
The holy laugh Crisis. Mrs. Burdick had become well acquainted with Ellen Harmon
Neither as biblical nor perhaps as controversial as the holy kiss, the and James White when the three of them stayed together several times
"holy laugh" is mentioned in a Bangor Whig and Courier report of the
arraignment of nine Millerites and in a list of postdisappointment Mil-
lerite fanatical manifestations contributed by a reader to the Morning ''I saw that the Lord had moved
Star."·
In an August 1850 letter, Mrs. White seemed to acknowledge and
upon sisters to wash the feet of the
affirm the holy laugh. James White had taken suddenly and seriously
ill. Ellen, Sister Harris, Clarissa Bonfoey, and Ellen's sister, Sarah,
brethren and that it was according to
who were alone with the sick man, united their prayers on his behalf: gospel order. " - Ellen G. White
Sister Harris and Clarissa were set entirely free and they prayed in 1845 at the home of Josiah Little (Burdick's uncle) in South Win-
God with a loud voice. The spirit caused Clarissa to laugh aloud. dham, Maine, a few miles from Harmon's parent's home in Portland.'"
James was healed every whit; ... '' It was this 1874 statement hy Burdick. published in The World's Crisis,
that Mrs. White objected to so strongly:
It seems odd that when Mrs. White wrote this story for publication,
she did not mention a charismatic prayer session nor did she indicate At the time of my first acquaintance with them !James White and
that "the spirit caused Clarissa to laugh aloud."'" Ellen Harmon in "early 1845" they were in a wild fanaticism,-
used to sit on the floor instead of chairs, and creep around the floor
Promiscuous footwashing like little children. Such freaks were considered a mark of
Prosecution witness Jeremiah B. Green testified that he had wit- humility.''
nessed footwashing during an earlier Mille rite meeting at which "Elder
Dammnn was the presiding cider"; but he only "saw men wash men's Although the absence of independent, contemporary evidence on

this point leaves the 1874statements of Mrs. White and Mrs. Burdick in Shouting
apparently unresolvable tension, the uncommitted reader will have to The incoherent din that marked the proceedings at the Ayer house-
give Burdick the edge because of Mrs. White's unwillingness to make a hold on the night before Israel Dammon's arrest was not unusual for a
public refutation." Millerite home meeting. Defense witness Joel Doore minimized the
Mrs. White'sWeak References

A t the end of Spiritual Gifts 2, the only publication in which
Ellen White tells the Israel Dammon story, there are fifteen
lists of individuals whose names are published as vouching for vari-
of five individuals who were supposed to have signed the following
statement:
ous segments of Mrs. White's autobiographical sketches. We bear cheerful testimony to the truthfulness of the statements
Of these fifteen lists, five pertain specifically to events she expe- relative to Elder Dammon, on pages 40, 41 [of Spiritual Gifts 2].
rienced in the state of Maine (including the Damrnon incident in As near as we can recollect we believe the circumstances of his
Atkinson) during the first fifteen to eighteen months of her public arrest and trial to be fairly stated.
ministry (roughly January 1845to June 1846). These five lists of tes- H.A. Hannaford,
timonials include sixty-one entries; but when they are sifted for rep- Wm. T. Hannaford, D.S. Hannaford,
etition, thirty-eight different names remain. James Ayer, Sen., Mrs. R. W. Wood.
By examining the 1850 United States Census Bureau records for
Maine, and reviewing dozens of Maine local histories housed at the As references go, this list of five is not very impressive. None of
Library of Congress, I was able to identify twenty-eight of the thirty- the five were witness at Dammon's trial. James Ayer, Jr., owned the
eight individuals (73 percent) printed on the five lists. (Three or four home in which Dammon's arrest took place and he did testify at the
others have been identified only tentatively.) trial. But it is his father who was seventy-two at the time of the inci-
Twenty of the twenty-eight witnesses (71 percent) I was able to dent, and eighty-seven when Spiritual Gifts 2 was published, whose
identify were from five families. Nine of the twenty-eight were signature apparently was obtained.
sixteen-years-old or younger (the youngest being six) when the time The remaining four witnesses resided in Orrington, across the
passed in 1844. Twowere charged in 1845with vagrancy and/or dis- Penobscot River from Bangor. The four were sufficiently dose
turbing the peace. Two others were deceased before 1859 or 1860 neighbors to be included on the same page of the 1850 federal cen-
when the lists probably were compiled. One of those, Uriah Smith's sus. Laborer William Hannaford, his wife, Dorcas, and their daugh-
father-in-law, Cyprian Stevens, died on September 6, 1858, five ter, Hester A., comprised three of the four Orrington testimonials.
days after being bitten by a rattlesnake. They were ages forty-three, forty, and sixteen, respectively, in 1845.
It seems surprising that eight (or 29 percent) of the twenty-eight It is quite possible that William was the Mr. Hannaford who figured
individuals I was able to identify were strongly denounced by Mrs. reluctantly in a 28 March 1845 report from a Piscataquis Fanner
White in 1860-the same year that she published their names-for correspondent in Atkinson:
fanaticism and for not receiving her visions, including Cyprian
Stevens' daughter, Harriet (Mrs. Uriah) Smith: The Millerites have been collecting for the past four days and
held their meetings at the house of Mr. James Ayer, Jr., in the
Harriet, I was carried back and shown that there has never been a southwest part of this town. All secular business has been sus-
reception of the visions given in Paris .... I was pointed back, pended by them, to await the coming of the Lord, which they say
away back to the time when those in Paris, especially Bro. will take place on the 4th day of April next. From 10to 15 have
Andrews' and Stevens' families were ensnared in error, and for been baptised daily, many of them six or eight times each. Last
years were in a perfect deception of Satan. They suffered while evening a party of Indians or anti-Routers arrived on the ground
in this error, but they will never obtain a particle of reward for it. about nine o'clock, and upon being refused admittance, burst
If they had been willing to be taught, and receive light in God's open the doors and took the Millerites belonging out of town and
appointed way, they would not have been held in error, fanati- carried them off with them. They harnassed Mr. Ayer's horse to
cism and darkness all that length of time. ("To Brother J.N. a sled, and packed on a load, and pressed a Mr. Hannaford one of
Andrews and Sister H.N. Smith," W58, 1860, Advent Source their number to drive the team through the woods to Dead
Collection, pp. 7 & 10.) Stream, about five miles distant, where they intended to deposit
them-and I understand they have threatened to tar and feather
The lists of names at the end of Spiritual Gifts 2 vouching for Mrs. them in case they continue to hold their meetings any more.
White's stories were discussed in 1874by Isaac Wellcome in his His-
tory of the Second Advent Message and Mission, Doctrine and Peo- The final name published as vouching for Mrs. White's account
ple, page 408: of Dammon's arrest and trial; a Mrs. R. W. Wood, was twenty-three
in 1845 and married to a twenty-nine year old farmer named Newall
The most of these signers were as deeply in fanaticism as [James Wood (probably the Brother Wood mentioned at the trial). A trou-
and Ellen White] themselves; some were leading ones. But sign- bling reference to Mrs. Wood's Spiritual Gifts 2 testimonial appears
ers who had not been personally associated in the fanaticism on page 117of E.S. Ballenger's unfinished manuscript entitled
being scarce, to certify in these prepared papers, the names of "Early History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church":
two young ladies (perhaps more) are added, who, at the time
specified for the events, were aged, respectively, nine and four- In a private letter dated May 16, 1888, Mrs. Wood denies that she
teen years. Prodigies in intellect and judgment, surely, or, per- ever signed this statement and she did not know that her name
haps, endowed with the "gift of discerning of spirits." But it is was attached to it until many years after. She also denies the
no difficult task to procure the names of partisans, associates, accuracy of Mrs. White's statements regarding the [Dammon]
accomplices, their children, cousins, and aunts, to certify to affair. She was present and remembered the experience very
one's rectitude, sanity, or orthodoxy. It is more safe and impor- well, and her account does not agree with Mrs. White's account.
tant, however, to have a good "record in heaven." If they will forge Mrs. Wood's name to a document they would
forge other names; therefore we have good reason for doubting
Of the five lists of names under scrutiny, one list was made up the value of their testimonials.

reprimanded fanatics for their ··shouting and hallooing." Just before
she left Orrington, a few assembled with her, she said; and "'God was
Universalistchurch worshipped without boisterous noise and confusion. but with calm
dignity." "12
By 1900Mrs. White'smemoryhadjoined her childlikesimplicity:
where Israel
I bore my testimony, declaring that these fanatical movements,
Dammon was this din and noise, were inspired by the spirit of Satan, who was
working miracles to deceive if possible the very elect.""
arraigned.
~ "Slain by the Spirit"
] Nine Millerites were arraigned before the Bangor, Maine, police
2 court on 2 April 1845, charged with being
,.
J::
~ Idlers and Vagrants and disturbers of the public peace, and sen-
"' tenced to the House of Correction for a term of time varying from
~ five to thirty days. These trials caused great excitement and the City
"' Hall was crowded to its utmost capacity ....
There was evidently a misunderstanding among the spectators,
of many of the technical terms in use among the Adventists ... such
as "salute," "embrace," "slain upon the floor," "shouting,"
"laughing," &c. Whenever these terms occurred in the testimony,
volume: "There was not one tenth part of the noise Saturday evening, they created much merriment, ... This was especially the case when
that there generally is at the meetings I attend. "(21:1) But it was loud the acts which these terms express were described.""
enough to astonish the prosecution witnesses.
William C. Crosby described it as "exceedingly noisy." "They The expression "slain upon the floor" or "slain by the Spirit" was
would at times all be talking at once, halloing at the top of their voices." used to designate a sudden and total loss of physical strength that some-
In fact, he added, "by spells it was the most noisy assembly I ever times overcame Millerites during their ecstatic worship services.
attended .... I don't say Dammon shouted the loudest; I think some Isaac Wellcome, a minister of the Advent Christian Church and
stronger in the lungs than he." (I 9:3) author of History of the Second Advent Message, "was often in meeting
Dammon's shouting was not limited to the Saturday night meeting: with Ellen G. Harmon and James White in 1843 and 45. "'"' Wellcome
"Tuesday morning the prisoner having taken his seat, rose just as the recalled Miss Harmon's actions:
Court came in, and shouted Glory to the strength of his lungs. "(22:2)
Ellen Harmon, and Ellen White up to at least the age of twenty-five She was strangely exercised in body and mind, usually talking in
or thirty, would have appreciated Dammon's outburst had she been assemblies until nature was exhausted and then falling to the floor,
there: "Singing, I saw, often drove away the enemy and shouting would unless caught by someone sitting near (we remember catching her
beat him back. I saw that pride had crept in among you, and there was twice to save her from falling upon the floor), remaining a consider-
not childlike simplicity among you.""' able time in the mesmeric state, and afterwards, perhaps not until
Ellen White's letters. from 1853 and previously, indicate her early another meeting, she would relate the wonders which she claimed
support for unreserved worship. She admonished one.Adventist con- had been shown her in spirit .... "'"
gregation in 1850: "I saw you should rise together, and unitedly get the
victory over the powers of darkness and sing and shout to the glory of Reacting privately in 1874 to Wellcome's testimony, Mrs. White
God.,,,. "I saw there was too little glorying God, too little childlike wrote:
simplicity among the remnant."'"
On November 7, 1850, Ellen White described a conference she had It might have been, but I have no acquaintance with him, and
recently attended of twenty-eight Adventists at Topsham, Maine: never knew him by sight. Before '44, I sometimes lost my strength
under the blessing of God. I.C. Wellcomc may have confounded
Sunday the power of God came upon us like a mighty rushing these exercises of the power of the Spirit of God upon me with the
wind. All arose upon their feet and praised God with a loud voice visions.'""
.... The voice of weeping could not be told from the voice of shout-
ing. It was a triumphant time .... I never witnessed such a powerful Mrs. White seemed to be trying to say that while she had visions
time before.'''' after 1844, she was not thereafter "so overpowered by the Spirit of God
as to lose all strength .... """ Arthur White does not agree. And, for evi-
In late 1851James White wrote of a "powerful vision" that "had a dence, he quotes from his grandmother's account of an experience she
mighty effect. Ellen came out of vision," he said, "then shouted till she had "several days" after her second vision. As Father Pearson was
went off in vision again."'"' praying for her, Mrs. White remembered: "My strength was taken
According to Ron Graybill, "In the 1870s, feeling still ran high on away, and I fell to the floor. I seemed to be in the presence of the
some occasions"; and he quotes from an Ellen White letter to her boys angels."""
in 1872: In 1847 Mrs. White described how she "fell from my chair to the
floor," at the onset of her third vision (February 1845); "and a short
The blessing and power of God rested upon your father and time after I fell," Sister Durben "was struck down" by "the power of
mother. We both fell to the floor. Your father, as he rose upon his feet the Lord.,,,,,,
to praise God, could not stand. The blessing of God rested upon him "Such experiences were repeated again and again," says Arthur
with remarkable power. ... Elder Loughborough felt the power of White, who has had the opportunity to browse for decades through tens
God all through his body. The room seemed holy .... We shouted the of thousands of pages of Mrs. White's unpublished letters and
high praises of God."" manuscripts.'''
Limited-access policies of the Ellen White Estate force us to leave
But by 1874 Mrs. White had lost much of her "childlike simplicity." the disagreement on this point between Mrs. White and her grandson
She recalled somewhat censoriously an early 1845 meeting in unresolved. But Mrs. White's belief that others around her were being
Orrington, Maine, a few weeks after Dammon's trial, at which she had slain by the Spirit throughout the late 1840s has been clearly demon-

strated by her descendent and by former associate secretary of the
White Estate Ron Graybill. 112
Also, it is clear that whether she was ''slain upon the floor" (in or
Dover
out of vision)duringher early travels,EllenHarmonspenta lot of time
ministering prone from the floor. In Atkinson, on the evening of 15Feb- courthouse
ruary 1845, according to witness Lotan Lambert, she lay on the floor
having and telling visions for more than five hours. ( 19:2) Jacob Mason whereIsrael
testified that James White "some of the time ... held her head." (20:3)
Later, Lucinda Burdick recalled that in the autumn of 1845 on a Sun- Dammon
day afternoon in South Windham, in a grove near the home of Andrew
Badge, that "suddenly, Ellen Harmon became rigidly prostrate upon was tried.
the ground .... Her position upon the ground seemed so uncomfortable
that I placed her head in my lap and supported her thus throughout the
event." 11'
Months later, in Randolph, Massachusetts, Ellen Harmon spent
most of four hours "in vision ... inclined backward against the wall in
the corner of the room." Mrs. White was quoting Otis Nichols for her
description of that session, except that where he described her "talking
in vision with a shrill voice," she changed the word "shrill" to 30, 1846, more than a year after he became Mrs. White's "enemy."
''clear. " 11
-4 What Ron Graybill wrote about Mrs. White's memory of her
childhood- "she consistently dates events ... too early':__appears to be
The dead are raised true for her early adulthood as well. 11'1
In 1874 Mrs. White recalled encountering and rebuking fanatics at
Orrington in the summer of 1845, who "believe[d] the dead are Time setting
raised," and telling them "I know this is all a delusion." She also The lessons to be learned from the uneventful passing of firm dates
recalled that at Garland in 1845 "Elder Dammon and many others ... set by William Miller's followers in 1843 and 1844 for the second com-
were in error and delusion in believing that the dead had been raised." ing of Christ were lost-for varying lengths of time-on those Advent-
ists who were later to be seen as pioneers of the Seventh-day Adventist
While I was repeating this Scripture, Elder Damon [sic] arose movement. O.R.L. Crosier, James White, and Joseph Bates all set dates
and began to leap up and down, crying out, "The dead are raised after 1844 for the Lord's return-each later than the other. 1'"
and gone up; glory to God! Glory, Hallelujah!" Others followed his Ellen Harmon may well have been among the time setters of 1845.
example. Elder Dammon said, " ... I cannot sit still. The spirit and John Cook wrote on 5 April 1845 that some Millerites "were confirmed
power of the resurrection is stirring my very soul." in the be! ief that the appointed time was the 4th day of April, on account
of the visions (?) of a girl."
"Our testimony," Mrs. White recalled, "was rejected, and they clung
tenaciously to their errors." "Elder Dammon .... became my enemy In these exercises she wrote with her finger on her hand April
only because I bore a testimony reproving his wrongs and his fanatical 4th, 1845, and then counted over her fingers each one for a day from
course .... " 11' the time of the vision (so called) to the 4th of April . 121
Ellen Harmon may never have taught, as Dammon did, that the dead
are raised. But it is difficult to believe that she strongly rebuked those Mrs. Burdick was very specific in her personal memory of Ellen
(especially Dammon) who did believe it. Although Mrs. White wrote in Harmon's time setting:
1860 that "distracting influences" had "separated Eld. D. from his
friends who believe the third message," she recalled that Dammon At one time, she saw that the Lord would come the second time
in June, 1845. The prophecy was discussed in all the churches, and
in a little 'shut-door paper' published in Portland, Me. During the
Dammon's travels with the married summer, after June passed, I heard a friend ask her how she
Whites would have followed their accounted for the vision'l She replied that "they told her in the lan-
guage of Canaan, and she did not understand the language; that it
wedding, more than a year after he was the next September that the Lord was coming, and the second
growth of grass instead of the first in June."'"
became Mrs. White's "enemy."
Mrs. Burdick's statement was published in the July I, 1874 issue of
joined with her at Topsham in the healing of Frances Howland, some The J.tbrld's Crisis. Two months later, Ellen White privately denied all
time after his Atkinson arrest: of Mrs. Burdick's claims (and there were several)-except her state-
ment regarding time setting.,.,
Bro. D. cried out in the Spirit, and power of God, "Is there some In 1847,James White claimed that Miss Harmon had experienced a
sister here who has faith enough to go and take her by the hand, and vision a few days before October 22, 1845, that indicated "we would be
bid her arise in the name of the Lord?" 111' disappointed" again.'" True or not,'" Ellen, like James, continued to
believe that Jesus' second coming was truly imminent. This belief
If Dammon became Mrs. White's "enemy" over her rebuke (in the delayed both their effort "to try to convert people to the advent faith"
spring or summer of 1845) of his fanatical belief that the dead were and their ability to see "that the way ... [was] made plain" for them to
being raised, it seems odd that both Joseph Bates and R.S. Webber marry."'
placed Israel Dammon in the wagon with Elder and Mrs. White and Even after she surrendered the notion of time setting, Mrs. White
Bates, behind a "refractory colt," shortly after the November 1846 had trouble admitting that those who had done so during the Millerite
Topsham meeting at which Mrs. White had the vision of the planets, period were really, biblically, mistaken (see Early Writings, pp. 232-
that convinced Bates her visions were genuine. 11' Furthermore, Uriah 237).
Smith, J.N. Andrews, and G.H. Bell substantiate references "to Eld. But whether or not she was setting specific dates for the Lord's
Damman [sic] as ... having traveled with Bro. and Sr. White, and [hav- return in 1845, during the 1850s Mrs. White was placing clear limits on
ing] been well acquainted with their early labors. " 1" Dammon's travels God's timetable. In a 27 June 1850 vision, she was told that "now time
with the married Whites would have followed their wedding on August is almost finished." Her "accompanying angel" indicated that "those

who have of late embraced the third angel's message" would "have to couraged Millerites with what the Lord had shown her in vision.'" Yet
learn in a few months" "what we have been years learning." w "financial resources for her journey did not concern her," says Arthur
At an early morning meeting in Battle Creek in late May 1856 Mrs. White, because "she had now assumed a confident trust in God. " 1' 0 But
White stated: so, of course, had those like Dammon, Stevens, and Turner, who advo-
cated the no-work doctrine, "assumed a confident trust in God."
I was shown the company present at the Conference. Said the During her travels Miss Harmon was transported, fed, and boarded
angel: "Some food for worms, some subjects of the seven last by new-found friends. The Nichols family boarded her for eight months
plagues, some will be alive and remain upon the earth to be trans- (between August 1845 and June 1846) at their home near Roxbury,
lated at the coming of Jesus." Solemn words were these, spoken by Massachusetts.''' Mrs. White remembered that "they were attentive to
the angel .... 128 my wants, and generously supplied me with means to travel. " 1"
While Ellen Harmon herself did not work, she remembers laboring
Mrs. White did not (and logically could not) Jive to see her prophecy strenuously with those in Paris, Maine, "who believed that it was a sin
fail. to work."
No work The Lord gave me a reproof for the leader [Jesse Stevens] in this
While some of the Millerites annoyed their fellow citizens by crawl- error, declaring that he was going contrary to the Word of God in
ing in public places,'" and others disturbed their neighbors (as Noah abstaining from labor, [and] in urging his errors upon others .... '"
Lunt did) with late night warnings under their windows, "11 it was pri-
marily the no-work teaching and practice that caused civil authorities to Stevens rejected Harmon's counsel; and she recalled having seen,
place fanatical Millerites under guardianship or, for brief periods, in before the fact, "that his career would soon close." "At length," she
jail. Ill wrote, "he made a rope of some of his bed clothing with which he hung
These actions were taken in the best interest of both the community himself." 144
and the individuals arrested. Atkinson, where Dammon was appre- It may be that Ellen Harmon was speaking out against the no-work
hended, was little more than a village. In 1850 its population numbered doctrine in 1845, but a subsequent issue of Adventist Currents will dem-
895-474 men and 421 women.m When a few individuals left their onstrate just how unlikely it is that Jesse Steven's suicide was related to
crops to rot, their cows unmilked, their chickens unfed, or failed to his rejection of her counsel.
show up somewhere for work, the impact on the tiny community was
severe. The Bangor Whig and Courier reported: Was Ellen Harmon arrested?
Was Ellen Harmon arrested in 1845 for her fanatical behavior? Otis
An industrious farmer, living in Orrington [35 miles southeast Nichols, writing to William Miller in April 1846, said that
of Atkinson] who has for several years, supplied customers in this
city [Bangor-five miles from Orrington] with milk has recently there have been a number of warrants for her arrest, but God has sig-
.... abandon[ed] selling milk ... to ... make earnest preparation for nally protected her. At one time a sheriff and a number of men with
the immediate end of the world. He has not since waited upon his him had no power over her person for an hour and a half, although
customers .... '" they exerted all their bodily strength to move her, while she or no
one else made any resistance.'"
The Selectmen of Orrington placed several Millerites under guardi-
anship in February 1845 and cautioned the public "against purchasing Arthur White believes that Nichols was confusing Ellen Harmon
any property, real or personal of them, as all contracts or deeds will be with Israel Dammon, ''° even though Nichols-writing within months of
void on account of their incompetency to manage their affairs." "4 the alleged arrest attempt-had reason to tell Miller, "What I have writ-
These legal actions began too late to save some Adventists from "expos- ten I have knowledge of and think I can judge correctly." Why? "Sister
!ingj themselves and their families to the peltings of the pitiless storm Ellen has been a resident of my family much of the time for about eight
of poverty."'" months." '4 "
The Adventists' theological misjudgment left many of them and Whether or not Nichols was confused, Arthur White proceeds on
their children to the mercy of generous and more farsighted neighbors. his next Early iears page to confuse the "hour and a half' that Nichols
Mrs. M.C. Stowell Crawford recalled: says the sheriff and his men spent trying to arrest Miss Harmon with his
After the time passed [1844] there were several large families
that father had to supply with everything. He would purchase eight
barrels of flower at a time."''
One of the leaders, well known as Joe
Turner, another named Harmon, . ..
Ellen Harmon appears to have lived (but perhaps not taught) the no-
work fanaticism of Millerite leaders such as Jesse Stevens, Joseph were arrested at the house of Mr.
Turner, and Dammon. The no-work doctrine-like the shut-door
teaching-was the logical outgrowth of sincere belief in the imminent Megquier, in Portland, ...
return of Christ. While Miss Harmon was certain that no sinners could
be brought to Christ, she did believe that the saved could lose their faith own account of the Dammon arrest-even though Arthur's only source
and thereby their salvation while the Bridegroom tarried (Matthew 25). for the Atkinson incident is his grandmother who was there and says
The Piscataquis Farmer account of the Dammon trial and some of Dammon's arrest took forty minutes.'"
Mrs. White's own memory statements indicate her preoccupation with The most tantalizing piece of this puzzle is found in an April 1845
the mortal sin of doubt.'" Prosecution witness William Crosby testi- issue of the Daily Eastern Argus, a newspaper from Miss Harmon's
fied: "After the visionist called them up she told them they doubted. home town of Portland:
Her object seemed to be to convince them they must not doubt."( 19:2)
Neither Ellen Harmon nor Ellen White believed that anyone could Millerism. The proceedings of the professors of this belief, have
be saved who had once believed in the 1844 movement and then gave it been such, that the officers of Norway and some other towns in the
up-except William Miller.'" And so those who believed their Saviour vicinity have felt it their duty to take means to put a stop to them ....
would appear momentarily had only two responsibilites: one, to keep On Wednesday [April 23], one of the leaders, well known as Joe
the faith; and, two, to bolster the faith of their brethren. Turner, another named Harmon, with one or two others were
By her own estimate, Ellen Harmon "journeyed for three months" arrested at the house of Mr. Megquier, in Poland, by the Selectmen
during the winter/spring of 1845 encouraging the scattered flock of dis- of that town, as was reported .... ''''

Mrs. White remembered that she initially related her first vision Three paragraphs after seeming to predict her own imprisonment,
away from home in Poland, 1"' in (Otis Nichols says) January 1845.1" she writes of
And John Mcgquier, at whose house Turner and Harmon were
arrested, remembered that "about the first visions that she had were at brethren believing the truth ... [who] were imprisoned and beaten.
my house in Poland. " 1" By her own account she was in Poland on two But we rode through these very places in broad daylight, visited
occasions during the winter/spring of 1845. And her second visit to that from house to house, held meetings, and bore our testimony .... 1"
town came after her initial, three-month journey east, which began
There is presently not available sufficient evidence to indicate con-
clusively whether or not Ellen was the Harmon who was arrested along
The records suggest that it would with Joseph Turner in Poland, Maine. on April 23. 1845.
have been convenient for Miss Har- Conclusion
mon to have been at John Megquier's Most Adventists who learn of it will probably be able to accommo-
date the revised image of Ellen Harmon as a "shrill'c voiced, lounging,
house on April 23, 1845, in Poland. shouting, kissing, condemning, fainting, and footwashing. postdisap-
pointment, Millerite fanatic. It may take some Adventists a little longer
sometime in January. 1" The records, the date, the geography, and the to assimilate the implications of Mrs. White's inability to remember her
relationships, suggest that it would have been convenient for Miss Har- early ministry the way it actually took place. They will either have to
mon to be at John Megquier's house on April 23, 1845, in Poland, assume that she possessed a particularly fecund delusional system, as
Maine. Jack Provonsha does,"- or that she consciously distorted the past for her
Added to all of this, Miss Harmon was a friend and admirer of the own (however complicated and even, perhaps, well-intended)
arrested Joseph Turner. In 1847 she described to Joseph Bates her great purposes.
relief upon learning that the shut-door position that she received from Those who have the fortitude and the wits will recognize what the
her first vision was compatible with what Turner was teaching from implications arc for so many other stories of Providence that dot the
Scripture. 1" And so it would not be surprising to find them together in landscape of Adventist history. And it will become easier to identify
late April 1845,at a popular Millerite gathering spot-the home of John with A.G. Daniells' question at the 1919Bible Conference about "just
Mcgquier. how much of that is genuine, and how much has crawled into the
Thirty years later Mrs. White remembered being shown in advance story?"'"
lt was Ellen White who advised that it is only as we see how the Lord
that we would be in danger of imprisonment and abuse. has led us in the past that we can set our faces courageously and confi-
.... the emissaries [sic] of Satan were on our track, and we dently to the future."" Can Adventists be blamed then for moving for-
would fare no better than those who had been fanatical and wrong, ward timorously'l Because it is becoming increasingly clear that Mrs.
and suffered the consequences of their inconsistent, unreasonable White did not leave us a credible picture of her pivotal place in our reli-
course by abuse and imprisonment. 1" gious roots. □
ENDNOTES
1. Ellen G. White Spiritual Gifts 2 (James White, Battle Creek, MI. 1860). 19. Piscataquis Farmer, 7 March 1845.
2. Ellen G. White to J.N. Loughborough, 24 August 1874. 20. United States Census. 1850, Piscataquis County. Maine.
3. "'Trial of Elder I. Dammon." Piscataquis former, 7 March 1845. 21. Piscataquis Farmer, 7 March 1845.
4. White. Spiritual Gifts 2:40, 41, 42. 22. Maine Re1;ister. 1843, p.63.
5. Otis Nichols to William Miller, 20 April 1846. Arthur White, in his 23. Paul Gordon to Ingemar Linden. 17 February 1987.
book. The Earl_vYears. p.75, quotes Nichols; but he arbitrarily changes 24. Ibid.
Nichols' "(January, 1845)" to "[February. 1845]." In so doing White 25. Ibid.
also contradicts his own "'mid-January" statement, from The Early 26. Israel Dammon to Samuel S. Snow. 28 May 1845. published in The Jubi-
Years. p. 65. lee Standard I (5 June 1845): 104.
6. Ellen G. White, Life Sketches (Steam Press. Battle Creek, MI.: 1880):72. 27. John F. Sprague. Esq .. "'James Stuart Holmes. The Pioneer Lawyer of
7. Ban1;or Whig and Courier. 26 October 1842. Piscataquis County," The Ban1;or Historical Maga~ine IV (July 1888~
8. Daily Eastern Argus, 13March 1845. June 1889):34.
9. Dorinda Baker: Piscataquis Farmer. 7 March 1845; Emily C. Clemons: 28. White. Spirilllal Gifts 2:38,39,40.
J. V. Himes to William Miller, 12and 29 March 1845, as quoted in Ronald 29. Sprague. "'Holmes. The Pioneer Lawyer." 35.
Numbers. Prophetess of Health (Harper & Row, New York. 30. "Scandal or Rite of Passage'' Historians on the Dammon Trial." Spec-
N. Y.: 1976): 17; Mary Hamlin: M.C. Stowell Crawford to Ellen White. 9 trnm 17 (August 1987):44.
October 1908: Phoebe Knapp: White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874. 31. White. Life Sketches. 38. 39.
10. Dail_r Eastern Arf;llS. 28 April & 28 May 1845; Oxfi,rd Democrat. 8 32. Ellen White. Ear!_y Writings (Review & Herald Pub. Assoc .. Battle
April & 18November 1845; The Norway Advertiser. 28 March 1845: The Creek, Ml.: 1882): 15.
Ban1;or Whig & Courier. 19 February and 5 March 1845; "Letter from 33. White. Spiritual Gifts 2:38-40.
Bro. White,·· Day-Star. 6 September 1845. 34. Ibid, p.39.
11. White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874. 35. Ellen White to Joseph Bates. 13July 1847. This letter is photographically
12. Otis Nichols to William Miller. 20 April 1846: Daily Eastern Ar1;us. 28 reproduced in Ellen White's handwriting in Ath-emist Currellts 1 (July
April 1845. 1984): 13-15.
13. Piscataqllis Farmer. 25 March 1845. 36. White. Spiritual Gifts 2:38; Life Sketches. 73.
14. Meteorological journal for Bangor, ME .. February 1845. National 37. O.R.L. Crosier. "Prophetic Day and Hour.·· The vi,ice of Truth and Glad
Archives microfilm. Tidin1;s (9 April 1845): 15.
15. Piscataquis Farmer. 7 March 1845. 38. Piscataquis former. 25 March 1845.
16. This is deduced from the location of James Ayer. Jr.\, home as given in 39. Oxj,ml Democrat. 1 April 1845.
the Piscataquis former. 25 March 1845; an 1880 atlas of Atkinson; and a 40. White. Spirilllal Gifts 2:39.
description of the size and location of Dead Stream and its branches in 41. Ibid. 40.
"Atkinson•:___chapter XI of Amasa Lo ring's, Historv of Piscataquis 42. Ibid. 40.
County (Hoyt. Fogg & Donham. Portland. ME.: 1880):89. 43. "Scandal or Rite of Passage.·· Spectrum. 44.
17. Piscataqllis Farmer, 7 March 1845. 44. White. Spiritual Gifis 2:42.
18. Oxford Democrat, 1 April 1845. 45. !hid. 39.

46. White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874; Spiritual Gifts 2:46. IOI. Ellen White to sons Edson and Willie, 7 December 1872. a, quoted 111
47. James White to "Dear Bro. Jacobs," 19 August 1845, published in The Ronald D. Graybill, The Power of' Prophecy: f!lrn G. White wul th<'
Day-Star 7 (6 September 1845). Women Religious founders of the Nineteenth Century, doctoral diw:rta-
48. James White to "My Dear Brother Collins," 26 August 1846. tion (Johns Hopkins University. Baltimore, MD.: 1983):96.
49. White, Spiritual Gifts 2 :40,41. 102. White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874.
50. Ibid, 41. 103. Ellen White to Bro. & Sis. Haskell, 10 October 1900.
51. Ibid. 104. Bangor Whig and Courier, 3 April 1845.
52. Ibid. 42. 105. Wellcome, Crisis, l July 1874.
53. White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874. I 06. Wellcome, History of the Second Mvent Messa,;e, 397.
54. White, Spiritual Gifts 2:58. 107. White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874.
55. John Cook, 5 April 1845 letter to the editor. Morning Star. 16April 1845. 108. Ellen White, Testimonies I (Review & Herald Pub. Assoc., Battle Creek,
56. SDA Encyclopedia (Review & Herald Pub. Assoc., Wash .. MI.: 1885):31.
D.C.: 1976): 1585. 109. White, Life Sketches (1915):69,71.
57. James White. Life Incidents (Steam Press, Battle Creek, MI.: 1868):273. I 10. White to Bates, 13July 1847.
58. Ellen White, Oswego vision, 29 July 1850 (Advent Source Collection). 111. Arthur L. White, "Tongues in Early SDA History," Review and Herald
59. Ellen White to G.l. Butler, 13 December 1886, quoted in Evangelism, (15 March 1973):5.
375. 112. A.L. White, ibid; Graybill, The Power of Prophecy, 95,96.
60. For a parsimonious discussion of the shut-door problem, sec Adventist 113. Burdick, notarized statement, 26 September 1908.
Currellls I :4 (July 1984). 114. White, Spiritual Gifts 2 :77, 78.; Otis Nichols, eight-page (pre-1860)
61. Ellen White. A \ford to the Little Flock (30 May 1847): 14. statement (White Document File 733).
62. White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874. l 15. White to J.N. Loughborough, 24 August 1874.
63. Israel Dammon, The 1#.,rld's Crisis, I July 1874. 116. White Spiritual Gifts 2:42,43.
64. Arthur L. White, The Early Years (Review & Herald Pub. Assoc., 117. J. N. Loughborough, The Great Second Mvent Movement (Review &
Wash., D.C.: 1985):65, referencing Letter 37. 1890. Herald Pub. Assoc., Wash., D.C.: 1909):261,262,263.
65. John Megquier, The ltbrlc/ 's Crisis. I July 1874. 118. White Spiritual Gifts 2:42,43.
66. Lucinda S. Burdick, notarized statement. 26 September 1908. I I 9. Graybill, The Power of Prophecy,190.
67. Lucinda S. Burdick, The World's Crisis. I July 1874. 120. O.R.L. Crosier, "Prophetic Day and Hour," The Voiceof Truth and Glad
68. Isaac C. Wellcome, Historv of the Second Mvent Message, (Isaac C. Tidings (9 April 1845): 15; James White, Letter to the editor, The Day
Wellcome, Yarmouth, ME.: 1874):403. Star, 6 (20 September 1845); A Word to the Little Flock (30 May
69. James White. publisher. 6 April 1846. 1847):22; Joseph Bates, An Explanation of the Typical and Anti-t;pical
70. Isaac C. Wellcome, The World '.1Crisis, I July 1874. Sanctuary (1850): 10,11.
71. This letter is reproduced in Ellen White's handwriting in Ml'ell/ist Cur- 121. Cook to Burr, Morning Star, 16April 1845.
rents [(July 1984): 13-15. 122. Burdick, Crisis, I July 1874.
72. Ellen White. Selected Messages I (Review & Herald Publishing Associ- 123. White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874.
ation, Wash .. D.C.: 1958):63. 124. James White, 1#.,rdto the Little Flock (30 May 1847):22.
73. Burdick, Crisis, I July 1874. 125. Wesley Ringer, The Shut Door and the Sanctuary: Historical and Theo-
74. White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874. logical Problems, (April 1982):53,54. This 128-page monograph was
75. Ellen White, The Present Truth I (August 1849):21,22. written at the request of the Southern California Conference. In it Ringer
76. Megquier. Crisis, I July 1874. argues compellingly that the contemporary evidence does not support
77. White. The Present Truth I (August 1849):22. James White's claim that his wife had predicted the disappointment of22
78. White to Eli Curtis. A Word to the Little Flock (30 May 1847): 12. October 1845.
79. White, Early Writings. 257,258. 126. James White to Bro. Collins, 26 August 1846.
80. Ellen White vision given 24 December 1850. written 25 December 1850, 127. White, Early Writings, 64-67.
published in Alfremist Currents I (June 1985):9. 128. White, Testimonies for the Church I: 131,132.
81. Piscataquis former, 4 April 1845. 129. Bangor Whig and Courier, 21 February 1845.
82. James White, Dar-Star, 6 September 1845: Ellen White, Spiritual Gifts 130. Oxford Democrat, 8 April 1845.
I, 171, 172. 131. Day-Star, 6 September 1845, "letter from Bro. White."
83. White, Early Writings, 15: or Spiritual Gifts 2:32. 132. United States Federal Census, 1850.
84. White, Early Writings, appendix, 302. 133. Bangor Whig and Courier, 5 March 1845.
85. White, Early Writings, 117. 134. Bangor Whig and Courier, 19 February 1845.
86. Bangor Whig and Courier, 3 April 1845; John Cook to Bro. Burr, 5 april 135. Ibid.
1845, letter published in Momin,; Star, 16April 1845. 136. M.C. Stowell Crawford to Ellen White, 9 October 1908.
87. Ellen White to Bro. and Sis. Howland, 15August 1850. 137. White. Life Sketches, 89,90.
88. White, Spiritual Gifts 2 ( 1860): 138; Life Sketches ( 1880):274; Life 138. White, Early Writings, 257,258.
Sketches ( 1915):137. 139. White. Spiritual Gifts 2:38.
89. White, Early Writings, 116,117. 140. A.L. White, The Early lears, 69.
90. Ibid. 15. 141. Otis Nichols 8-page, prc-1860 statement; Otis Nichols to William
91. Norway Mvertiser, 28 March 1845. Miller, 20 April 1846.
92. White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874. 142. White, Spiritual Gifts 2:68.
93. Burdick, notarized statement, 26 September 1908. 143. White, Life Sketches, 86.
94. Burdick. Crisis, I July 1874. 144. White, Spiritual Gifts 2:65.
95. Mrs. White should have directed her objections and any evidence for 145. Nichols to Miller, 20 April 1846.
them to the source of her displeasure, The 1#.,rld'., Crisis, not to J. N. 146. A.L. White, The Early Years, 76.
Loughborough, a man who worshipped her. A few excerpts from her 24 147. Nichols to Miller, 20 April 1846.
August 1874 letter to him were first published in the 14 January 1932 148. A.L. White, The Early lears, 77.
Review and Herald, fifty-seven years after she wrote it. But the bulk of 149. Daily Eastern Argus, 28 April 1845.
the letter remained off the record until 13 December 1977, when its 150. White, Spiritual Gifts 2:38.
twelve, double-spaced pages were provided Andrews University Semi- 151. Nichols to Miller, 20 April 1846.
nary graduate student Rolf Poehler as part of manuscript release #592. 152. Megquier. Crisis, I July 1874.
96. Ellen White, Manuscript Sa, 1850; July 1850 from East Hamilton, N.Y. 153. White, Spiritual Gifts 2:38,50.
97. Ibid. 154. White to Bates, 13July 1847.
98. Ellen White, Manuscript 5, 1850; vision July 29, 1850. 155. White to Loughborough, 24 August 1874.
99. Ellen White to "The Church in Brother Hasting 's house." Letter 28, 156. Ibid.
November 7, 1850. 157. Jack W. Provonsha, "Was Ellen G. White a Fraud?" unpublished
l00. James White to "Dear Brethren," II November 1851, quoted by Ron 25-pagc monograph (Loma Linda, CA.: 1980).
Graybill in "Glory' Glory! Glory!" Adventist Review (1 October 158. "The Bible Conference of 1919," Spectrum IO(May 1979):28.
1987): 13. 159. White, Life Sketches, 196.

O Incidente de Atkinsons

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ROOTSREVISITED

F unquestioningly on Ellen G. White's personal account of her

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Then soon I joined the Advent Band,

They call us now a noisy crew,

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Witnesses for the prosecution Witnesses for the defense

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his faith. "' 1 Piscataquis Farmer: "Court indulged him to

Mrs. Ellen G. White Witnesses and trial record abridgment

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Shouting participated actively.

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Mrs. White'sWeak References

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