The Millerites and the End of the World

Written on Friday but mistakenly not published until Sunday!

Today is Friday, the 21^st of December, 2012. According to some people, the Mayan civilization long ago predicted that today is the day that the world will end, based on a very particular interpretation of the “long count” calendar. It’s now 6:47 PM in Massachusetts, and in some parts of the world it’s already Saturday the 22^nd. I would guess that the world will not be ending today, unless it’s waiting until some point later tonight, maybe after everyone’s asleep. Considerate, those Mayans.

A recurring belief about the end of the world is the ability of humanity to calculate when that end will arrive. Theories about coded messages cluing us in to our expiration date have pointed at sources like the ancient Mayan calendars and the Bible, and even lines of computer code (remember the Y2K scare back in 2000?). Often these predictions are prompted by mistaken interpretation of religious doctrine, sometimes they’re the result of pseudo-scientific theories regarding cosmic cataclysms or technological disasters. Underlying them all is a desire to understand humanity’s fate, and a belief in the power of people to do so.

In 1831, a young New York farmer named William Miller began a career as a preacher to the Baptist community in the Adirondack town of Hampton. Developing a keen interest in Scripture and Biblical prophecy, Mr. Miller soon began closely examining certain passages of the Bible, especially in the dream-like Book of Daniel.

As Miller explained later, “Prophetical scripture is very much of it communicated to us by [… ] highly and richly adorned metaphors; figures such as beasts, birds, air […] are used to represent things prophesied of—such as kingdoms, warriors, principles…”

Viewing scripture as coded prophecy, Mr. Miller then began the laborious task of figuring out just what the heck the prophecies were trying to say. Of particular interest was Daniel, Chapter 8, verse 14, which states: “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” Believing this passage to be a literal warning of future events, Mr. Miller chose for the starting point of his count the year 457 BCE, the year that a Persian King named Artaxerxes issued a call for Jews to rebuild the destroyed city of Jerusalem (supposedly the “sanctuary” referred to in Daniel 8.14).

Mr. Miller than assumed the “two thousand and three hundred days” to refer instead to years. Beginning with Artaxerxes’s decree of 457 BCE and counting forward 2,300 years, he arrived at the prophesied year of… 1843. Further study of the Book of Daniel and related texts led him to the conclusion that 1843, or thereabouts, was the year that the world would witness the second coming of Jesus Christ and the beginning of the end times.

These beliefs had such a profound effect on the normally reserved Miller that he overcame his natural shyness to become an eloquent and forceful preacher. In 1833, the Baptist Church recognized his achievements by making him an ordained minister. In 1838, realizing that if his predictions were correct time was running out to save the souls of his friends and neighbors, the Reverend Miller published a series of lectures on his theories, entitled Evidence from Scripture and History of the Second Coming of Christ, about the Year 1843.

Evangelism was on the rise in America at this time, and the economy was slowing. Many Baptists and evangelicals in New York and western New England were enticed by the idea of Christ’s return, and thousands began to spread Miller’s teachings, earning for themselves the derisive nickname “Millerites.” Newspapers noting the event often referred to Millerites as “deranged” or “addled,” and the sect itself as “madness.” On September 21, 1844, the New York Weekly Herald expressed the hope that Miller’s day of doom would “hold up until we elect Polk.” of Eager to gain more followers, and perhaps stung by the ridicule, Millerites began to press William Miller to announce an exact date of the end of the world.

Somewhat reluctantly, the Reverend Miller announced that Christ would return to Earth in April, 1843, and that true believers would be called to Heaven on October 23, 1844. When a bright comet appeared in the sky in early 1843, it was believed by the Millerites to be God’s affirmation of their beliefs, and many began to prepare for the end.

In October of 1844, thousands of Millerites gathered in homes, underneath tents, and, in New York state, on the banks of the Hudson River. Without much in the way of food, possessions, or even clothing, they set their earthy affairs in order and, speaking to passersby and writing to the newspapers, urged others to do the same. By the time the 23^rd of October had come and gone, one confused group had supposedly inquired as to whether the appointed day should be reckoned in American or Jerusalem time.

Afterwards the 23 of October, 1844 was known as the “Great Disappointment” in Millerite lore, and although the movement didn’t completely die out, it left many sincere believers disappointed and disillusioned. In 1863, the remnants of Reverend Miller’s converts, working with other sects, were formally incorporated into the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, still practicing today.

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Do you have a formula for determining the end of the world? Leave your answer in the space below, and be sure to show your work.

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Jones, Lindsay, ed. “Seventh-Day Adventism.” Encyclopedia of Religion. Vol. 12.2. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005.

Miller, William. Evidence from Scripture and History of the Second Coming of Christ, about the Year 1843. Boston:  Moses A. Dow, 1841.

“News.” The Weekly Herald. New York, NY: September 21, 1844.

Scharnhorst, Gary. “Images of the Millerites in American Literature.” American Quarterly. Vol. 32. No. 1 (Spring 1980): pp. 19-36.

GIS, General Lee, and the Future of Historical Cartography

Unless you’re a professional geographer, you’ve probably never heard of a tool called Geographic Information Systems, or GIS. Until recently, unless you were a student or faculty member at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont, you may not have heard of Associate Professor of Geography Anne Kelly Knowles. Readers of the December issue of “Smithsonian” magazine know her as one of the recipients of the 2012 American Ingenuity Awards, given to individuals recognized for “brilliant new achievements in science, technology, art and society.”

According to the GIS website, the program allows geographers to take location-related data, integrate it onto a map, globe or chart, and analyze and display relationships and trends over a geographic space. I realize that this doesn’t sound very exciting. But the way that this program is being used takes it out of the functional realm of Cartography and into a variety of different fields, including History.

Using the GIS program, Professor Knowles has made new connections between geography and history, applying historical data to maps and topographical charts. For instance, an elevation map of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, created in 1874. Using a scanned copy of the original, Professor Knowles created a highly detailed birds-eye view of the Civil War battlefield, highlighting strategic features such as buildings, roads, woods, and hills. By using robust GIS technology on an ordinary laptop computer, she was able to get the program to run a very complicated, but very revealing simulation.

Looking at the image, it’s hard to tell what all the fuss is about. You see elevations, some grayed out as if in shadow, some illuminated as if by the sun. You see landmarks infamous in Civil War lore; the Black Horse Tavern, the Union battle line, Little Round Top. The thing that stands out most, though, is a red dot marking the site of the Lutheran Seminary; the vantage point from which Confederate General Robert E. Lee stood to view the battlefield.

The illuminated parts of the landscape mark terrain that was within General Lee’s field of vision. The gray bits mark terrain that was hidden from Lee by Gettysburg’s hilly landscape. The GIS software has provided Professor Knowles (and 150 years of Civil War scholarship) with scientifically generated insight into Lee’s actions at the Battle of Gettysburg; actions that led to the Confederacy’s most iconic defeat.

For military historians, Robert E. Lee’s disastrous attacks on the second and third days of the battle have long been enigmatic. General Lee was one of the most celebrated generals on both sides of the conflict, a masterful commander with military experience dating back to the Mexican-American War. The terrain around Gettysburg should have suggested the danger of a frontal assault on Union lines. And yet, he made this mistake two days in a row.

To explain away Lee’s miscalculation, Civil War scholars have often criticized his subordinate general James Longstreet, the commander of the Confederate right. Longstreet has been accused of everything from incompetence to cowardice for his decision to lead his men on a protected but circuitous march on their way to attack the Union flank. But as Professor Knowles has shown, General Longstreet may have been able to see more of the battlefield and understand more about the tactical situation than General Lee did.

From his position near the Black Horse Tavern, Longstreet would have been able to see Union troops on top of the hill known as Little Round Top, the same hill that Lee had ordered him to attack. This pair of maps reveals that Lee had a very different understanding of the battlefield than did his subordinate, resulting in very different tactical decisions. Longstreet’s protected march may have saved the lives of hundreds of his own men, but it also delayed Lee’s strategic assault, allowing the Union line time to advance and prepare their defense.

Professor Knowles points out that the site where Longstreet’s men engaged the Federal defenders is illuminated, meaning that is was visible from the Lutheran Seminary. General Lee’s vantage point would have given him a good view of the bloody skirmish at the extreme end of the Confederate line, as well as Longstreet’s pained withdrawal. She speculates that the psychological pain of Lee watching his troops being killed may have affected his judgment the next day, when he ordered a costly frontal assault known as Pickett’s Charge.

GIS has also been used to examine Massachusetts history. The Director of the Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive in Virginia, Benjamin Ray, has inserted data on the 1692 witchcraft accusations into an interactive map showing the spread and distribution of the disturbances. He notes that the progression of the accusations is similar to that of a disease. You can see the interactive map here.

And the possibilities of GIS go beyond historical cartography, as well. Scientists use the program to study the frequency and pattern of earthquakes. Similar studies are being conducted on the ozone layer and climate change. On an anthropological note, GIS has been used to determine that early hunter-gatherer tribes may have deliberately chosen to settle where they could see the landscape around them, a trait apparently not shared by agricultural societies.

The purpose of Geographic Information Systems is to take a range of data far greater than the scope of a single human being and to put it into a visible, spatial form. In essence, it visualizes human history, far more effectively and reliably than any painting or movie ever could. Perhaps even greater achievements lie ahead.

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You can see Professor Knowles' Middlebury College webpage here. Do you think that you have greater strategic and tactical talents than General Robert E. Lee? If so… are you General James Longstreet? If so… what’s your secret? How in God’s name are you still alive? Answers to all these and more can be left in the space below.

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Ahmed, Akbar. “Cartography, Redefined.” Weekend. October 21, 2011.

Horwitz, Tony. “Mapping the Past.” Smithsonian. December 2012.

Symonds, Craig L. A Battlefield Atlas of the Civil War, 3^rd ed. Mount Pleasant, SC: the Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company , Inc., 1994.

“What is GIS?” ESRI: Understanding our World. Web. 6 Dec. 2012. http://www.esri.com/what-is-gis/overview#overview_panel

Sarah Josepha Hale, President Lincoln, and Thanksgiving

A few days late and a few pounds heavier, I emerge from my turkey coma to bring you my Thanksgiving blog.

The American Thanksgiving tradition didn’t actually begin with the first New England settlers in Plymouth. From time to time, these pious souls would announce a “day of Thanksgiving” in response to some stroke of luck or divine providence. These 17^th century events were not hearty feasts such as we enjoy today, but days of fasting and prayer. Thanksgivings were called in response to rainfalls which saved crops, the arrival of ships bearing additional supplies and settlers, and other fortunate occurrences, but they were not regular scheduled events. Over the next 200 years, however, the tradition seems to have flourished in New England, despite being little known throughout the rest of the country.

One of the first references to a recognizable American Thanksgiving came in an 1827 novel called Northwood. This fictional account of New England family virtues spends an entire page and a half describing the parlor of New Hampshire’s Romelee family, laid out in anticipation of their Thanksgiving feast. Another two pages are then dedicated to the amount and variety of foodstuffs arranged around the dinner table; the quintessential roasted turkey and “savoury stuffing,” “innumerable bowls of gravy,” “the celebrated pumpkin pie,” “a sirloin of beef,” “a leg of pork and joint of mutton,” “a goose and pair of ducklings,” and “that rich burgomaster of the provisions, called a chicken pie.” There’s also a reference to some sort of vegetable, buried somewhere underneath everything else.

The author of Northwood was a prodigy named Sarah Josepha Hale, who would later go on to make a name for herself as the supposed author of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” the editor of the Ladies’ Magazine and Godey’s Lady’s Book, and the organizer of a massive public bake sale that provided the funds necessary for completion of Boston’s Bunker Hill monument. Born in New Hampshire in 1788, she seems to have been fascinated with New England’s Thanksgiving traditions for most of her adult life, writing a short story entitled “The Thanksgiving of the Heart” in 1835.

As the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, Ms. Hale wrote an editorial in 1837 calling for New England’s informal Thanksgiving tradition to become a national, annual holiday, “on the same day in November, say the last Thursday of the month.” Between 1851 and 1871, she would issue a yearly call for a day of National Thanksgiving. As the years passed and no action was taken at the national level, her arguments became more forceful, noting the growing popularity of the custom and the increasing amount of state support. By 1858, perhaps a little exasperated, she was really hammering home her point:

“We are most happy to agree with the large majority of the governors of the different States as shown in their unanimity of action for several past years, and which, we hope, will this year be adopted by all that THE LAST THURSDAY IN NOVEMBER shall be the DAY OF NATIONAL THANKSGIVING for the American people.”

Whether 19^th century readers considered her print version of the Twitter shout bad etiquette is not clear.

As the United States edged closer and closer to civil war, Sarah Josepha Buell Hale coyly suggested that “the fine filaments of the affections are stronger than laws are stronger than laws to keep the Union of our States sacred in the hearts of our people… Thanksgiving Day, if fixed and perpetuated, will be a great and sanctifying promoter of this national spirit.”

In September of 1863, in the midst of war, the gloves came off, and a letter was dispatched to no less a personage than President Abraham Lincoln. “Sir,” it begins, “Permit me, as Editress of the “Lady’s Book,” to request a few minutes of your precious time.”Over the next 8 paragraphs, she laid out her case point by point, and listed supporters that include state and territorial governors, foreign ministers, missionaries, and even naval commanders. She urged the President to make a proclamation to affirm Federal support for the holiday. At one point, she casually mentioned having enlisted her friend William H. Seward (Lincoln’s Secretary of State) to confer with Lincoln and presumably advance the cause. At the end of her letter, Ms. Hale crisply informed the Commander in Chief that “an immediate proclamation would be necessary, so as to reach all the States in season for State appointments.”

Seemingly bowing before the onslaught, Abraham Lincoln issued his Thanksgiving Proclamation on October 3, 1863. In it, he acknowledged that even in the midst of a war of “unequaled magnitude and severity,” the United States had been blessed by good harvests, expanding settlements, and increasing population. He emphasized that these blessings had stemmed not from man, but from God, and that the nation should accordingly give thanks where thanks was due.

“It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”

This Thanksgiving season, in addition to many, many other blessings, I am thankful to President Lincoln and even more to the relentless, indomitable Sarah Josepha Buell Hale.

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The author of this blog has absolutely no authority to make official proclamations of any kind regarding existing or theoretical holidays, days of fasting, days of prayer... days of any kind, really. If you have a non-holiday related comment, post incessantly below.

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Hale, Sarah Josepha Buell. Northwood: A Tale of New England. New York: H. Long and brother, 1852.

--- “Sarah J. Hale to Abraham Lincoln, Monday, September 28, 1863 (Thanksgiving).” Letter to Abraham Lincoln. 28 Sep. 1863. The Abraham Lincoln Papers. Library of Congress, n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2012.

---  "Sarah J. Hale to William H. Seward, Sunday, October 09, 1864 (Thanksgiving)." Letter to William H. Seward. 9 Oct. 1864. The Abraham Lincoln Papers. Library of Congress, n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2012.

Lincoln, Abraham. “Day of National Thanksgiving. By the President of the United States of America: A Proclamation.” 3 Oct. 1863. The Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Licolniana. Library of Congress, n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2012.

Mercy Brown: American Vampire

Bad, Bad Mercy Brown

Let’s face it; it’s Halloween. Every website and every blogger has been talking about creepy things for weeks now, and I’m determined to go with the flow. If you make a quick Google search for the phrase “Halloween Massachusetts,” the number one result will be the website “Salem Halloween City,” supposedly the site of the Salem witch trials and the Halloween capital of the world. Everyone knows the story of Salem’s seventeenth century witch trials (or thinks they do!), its standard New England fare. Today I’m interested in talking about a lesser-known chapter of New England’s spooky past.

In 1892, the town of Exeter, Rhode Island was swept by an hysteria not so different from the Salem Witch Trials that had occurred exactly two hundred years before. In the ancient, settled, and supposedly modern region of New England, an outbreak of tuberculosis (known then as “consumption”) led a furtive group of townspeople to believe that a vampire was loose in Rhode Island. To protect themselves against this supernatural parasite, they exhumed the grave of a recent consumption victim, mutilated it, and reinterred the body in the hope that the corpse would stay dead. The target of their macabre wrath was a girl named Mercy Brown, called “Lena” by her family.

Lena’s family had been ravaged by tuberculosis starting in 1882. Her mother, Mary Eliza, succumbed in December of that year. Lena’s sister, Mary Olive, died of the disease in 1883. Within the next few years, brother Edwin would catch a slower-acting form of TB and move to the supposedly more healthful climate of Colorado Springs. Lena probably contracted the disease sometime in late1891 or early 1982; her obituary was printed in January 1892 and her death appears to have come suddenly.

Soon after the poor girl succumbed, a band of skittish townspeople convinced her father to allow the exhumation of his dead family members to make sure that they were all… staying dead. Having most recently passed on, Lena exhibited symptoms of decomposition that the superstitious farmers took as evidence of an unholy life after death. Even examination by the Brown family doctor and the discovery of TB bacterium in the body’s lungs was not enough to change their minds. The party removed Lena’s heart, burned it to ashes, and gave them in a drink to Lena’s sickly brother Edwin in the hope that he would be cured. Edwin himself would be dead in less than two months.

The whole incident is grimly fascinating. Every culture has its stories of vampires and vampire-like undead creatures, but it’s not a piece of folklore that I find generally associated with New England. Thus from a modern perspective, the case of Lena “Mercy” Brown seems to emerge in a region not known for such stories, in a time when many people—certainly most Americans—were beginning to leave these sorts of dark fairy tales behind. Where did these American vampire tales come from? Why did they wait until 1892 to surface?

In re-examining the historical record, however, we find that vampires had been popping up in New England for at least a century before the incident with the Brown family. One case specifically arose in the Brown’s hometown of Exeter, Rhode Island! In the late eighteenth century, the children of Exeter’s Tillinghast family began to die of consumption. Each child in turn complained of being visited by the first of their siblings to die of the disease, sister Sarah Tillinghast. She came “every night and sat upon some portion of their body, causing great pain and misery.” Being a pragmatic sort, Father Tillinghast exhumed the bodies of his six deceased children and cremated their hearts. Upon opening Sarah’s coffin, he supposedly found the body swollen with fresh red blood, the eyes open, and the hair and nails still growing. After dealing with Sarah in the same way as the other children, the family apparently found peace.

Writing in 1896, George R. Stetson refers to the region around Exeter as one in which “agriculture is in a depressed condition and abandoned farms are numerous.” He goes on to state, “naturally in such isolated conditions, the superstitions of a much lower culture have maintained their place […] despite the church, the public school, and the weekly newspaper.”

As pointed out in Smithsonian Magazine’s “The Great New England Vampire Panic,” 19^th century New England was a great deal less church-going than popular culture would have us believe. A good portion of the population didn’t even belong to an established church. When disease and catastrophe reared their ugly heads, many people turned to superstition instead of religion; fertile soil for all kinds of long-legged beasties. For more on this, see their excellent article here.

Is it Rhode Island? I’ve been there and I found nothing particularly creepy about the place. Perhaps its Exeter in particular that gives rise to all these stories of the undead. Or maybe the stories are all true. If so, as small as the state is, I’d put money on most of the population being undead by now. Just saying, for those of you thinking about visiting on Halloween night.

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Do you need help in “checking” on your family? If so, count me out; you may have found your way to this site by accident. For all other communications, please use the handy comment box in the space below.

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Keyworth, G. David. “Was the Vampire of the Eighteenth Century a Unique Type of Undead-Corpse?” Folklore. 117.3. (December, 2006): pp. 241-260.

Stetson, George R. “The Animistic Vampire in New England.” The American Anthropologist. 9.1. (January 1896): pp. 1-13.

Tucker, Abigail. “The Great New England Vampire Panic.” Smithsonian Magazine. (October 2012). <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Great-New-England-Vampire-Panic-169791986.html?c=y&page=1>

Financial Crises, Past and Present

The Linear concept of time has traditionally been a straight line, in which time goes relentlessly forward and nothing repeats. The Cyclical concept of time has imagined a circle, in which everything that happens has happened before and will happen again. A professor of mine once made the suggestion that it might be more appropriate to view time as a spiral, in which you can sense in current events patterns which go back decades, or even centuries. These events are different from—but sometimes eerily similar to— things that occurred during the last loop of the spiral.

After the American Civil War, the United States government took steps to ensure that the Pacific coast was connected to the East by railroad. The Union and Central Pacific Railroads, working from the East and West, respectively, were granted large federal subsidies to encourage the completion of the massive project as quickly as possible. Speculators hoping to take advantage of the railroad craze constructed 35,000 miles of new track between 1866 and 1873, and the huge investments caused an unnatural rise in the price of railroad stock. A coalition of speculators, including Civil War financier Jay Cooke and Company, financed the construction of a second Continental Railroad, the Northern Pacific railway.

As often happens in such matters, the success or failure of the project depended on factors outside of any coalition’s control. As financial officer for the Northern Pacific, Jay Cooke stood to make a substantial profit by the purchase and later sale of the railway’s stock. He was also obligated to advance the railroad company $500,000 in order to assure that construction went forward. In 1873, the American stock market was becoming dangerously unstable, stemming largely from the influx of new railroad bonds. As the market was flooded with these bonds, the price of each individual bond went down, so that the bulk of the Northern Pacific stock being hawked by Jay Cooke and Company remained unsold. Unable to raise enough capital to pay back debts, on September 18, 1873, Jay Cooke was forced to close his own firm and declare bankruptcy.

Cooke’s ill fortune caused a chain reaction of bank failures and forced the New York Stock Exchange to close down for ten days. The Panic of 1873, as the fiasco would come to be called, would ultimately result in a depression that lasted until 1879, falling wages, and an unemployment rate of 14%. Labor demonstrations and class tensions became commonplace, as did calls for greater government regulation of railroads and restrictions on monopolies.

A more detailed analysis of the similarities and differences between the Panic of 1873 and the 2008 Financial Crisis is outside the scope of this blog, but the narrative of 1873 will strike a chord with anyone who keeps up on current events. Here’s hoping that we will have learned something from both of these crises the next time the spiral comes around.