1. Words such as “ultraist” and “radical,” which Cross used to characterize the movements he described, are vague and loaded with connotations which may not be applicable. They assume a theological spectrum with a purely subjective “center” of normal, moderate, belief and practice. Even if we were to accept such a spectrum as a vehicle for discussing comparative religion, we would have to place our innovators, who as restorationists were not only conservative but somewhat reactionary, in the right wing. Also, as religious dissenters, the innovators in the 1830s and forties fit into long-established traditions in American cultural and social life. Finally, simply in terms of civic behavior, Joseph Smith was no more ultraist than the mob that murdered him; nor were Millerites assembled peacefully in prayer meetings more radical than the mockers who jeered at them. So I have replaced these adjectives with others when talking about dissenting religion in general. I retain the word “radical,” however, when describing left-wing Millerites who were more extreme than the movement's leaders.

2. “The Quest for Religious Authority and the Rise of Mormonism,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 1 (Spring, 1966): 68–88Google Scholar; “The Social Sources of Mormonism,” Church History 37 (03, 1968): 50–79.Google Scholar

3. Troeltsch, Ernst, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, 2 vols. (New York, 1956)Google Scholar; see particularly the section entitled “The Sect Type Contrasted with the Church Type,” 1:331–343; Niebuhr, H. Richard, The Social Sources of Denominationalism (New York, 1929).Google Scholar

4. Smith, Stephen Rensselaer, Historical Sketches and Incidents Illustrative of the Establishment and Progress of liniversalism in the State of New York (Buffalo, 1843), pp 244–245.Google Scholar

5. The “Report of the Committee on the State of the Church and the Discipline” of the Oneida Conference, 1833, Oneida Conference Papers, Methodist Collection, Syracuse University, compiled lists of ways in which religious services throughout the Conference differed. It commented that the situation “must unsettle and confuse our society, occasion dissensions among ourselves, and expose our weakness, inconsistencies, and whims to the ridicule of our sagacious enemies.”

6. Baptist opposition to associational “excesses” is illustrated below. The Christianites (I use the term to distinguish the group from Christians in general) were wont to meet in regional conferences. Joseph Badger, editor in the 1830s of the Christian Palladium published in New York Mills near Utica, was forced several times to defend the use of conferences from opposition charges that their power was excessive. See particularly his editorials of July 2, 1838, and April 15, 1839.

7. Almost all the radical innovators were laypersons with little or no theological training– William Miller, Joseph Smith, Mother Ann Lee, Jemima Wilkinson, Charles Grandison Finney. Alexander Campbell was an exception.

8. In his articles DePillis makes two contradictory generalizations. First, he states that the identifying quality of Mormonism was its “quest for authority,” the tangible evidence for which is the Book of Mormon. The Mormons were the only sectarians of the period to go beyond the Bible and claim a new revelation, and the Book of Mormon, the product of Smith's experiences in western New York, was the central document of Mormon experience. On the other hand, DePillis argues that the Mormon Church was given shape by the Doctrine and Covenants, which was the product not of western New York but of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. On this basis DePillis says that Mormonism was not a western New York phenomenon but grew from experiences in the farther west, and asks us to believe that Mormon religious experience and the Mormon Church are somehow independent of each other. I would argue that the Mormon Church is an attempt to validate temporally, i.e. historically, the Mormon revelation and that the Book of Mormon (the New York experience) remains as central to Mormonism as a keystone to an arch.

9. DePillis, , “Social Sources,” pp. 51, 62, 72Google Scholar; idem, “Quest for Authority,” pp. 72–73.

10. Again, in contrast to DePillis's emphasis on the quest for authority, I believe the crucial question is how particular movements attracted particular kinds of people.

11. For the evolution of Miller's eschatology see the opening chapters of Bliss, Sylvester, Memoirs of William Miller: Generally Known as a Lecturer on the Prophecies, and the Second Coming of Christ (Boston, 1853)Google Scholar. The best histories of the movement are Wellcome, Isaac C., History of the Second Advent Message (Yarmouth, Me., 1874)Google Scholar, and Dick, Everett, “The Adventist Crisis of 1843–1844,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1930)Google Scholar. More available but marred by apologetics is Nichol, Francis D., The Midnight Cry: A Defense of the Character and Conduct of William Miller and the Millerites (Washington, D.C., 1944).Google Scholar

12. Miller's itinerary is sketched out in two manuscript “Text Books” included in the Adventual Collection, Miller Papers, Aurora College (hereafter cited as Miller Papers). Miller wrote in them the dates, locations, and verses (thus the name “text book”) of his sermons in the 1830s.

13. Paine, E. E. (DeWitt's Valley), Midnight Cry (hereafter cited as Cry), 04 13, 1843Google Scholar; L. P. Judson (Warsaw), ibid., May 11, 1843; Paine to Miller, April 15, 1843, Miller Papers.

14. My map, appearing as Appendix I in “Thunder and Trumpets: The Millerite Movement and Apocalyptic Thought in Upstate New York, 1800–1845,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1974)Google Scholar, is based on a cross-referenced index of letters to Miller and the three principal Millerite journals from followers living in and itinerating within New York State. My figure of 160 is more than twice the number included on Cross's map. Burned-over District, p. 289.

15. I follow Cross's geographical division of the State, the boundary between east and west running through Rome, simply to test Cross's count and not because the east-west pattern is a model for all the movements concerned. DePhillis has shown that for Joseph Smith and the early Mormons a north-south line of movement is more significant. For the Millerites both are evident, since from 1831 to 1839 Millerism spread north and west from Low Hampton, then east to New England in 1840 to 1843, and finally principally west from 1843 to 1845. Obviously there is no single pattern of directional flow for all the movements, but each one spread in directions determined by transportation routes, local considerations, and the appeal of the movement.

16. The figure 16 for western New York in the first decade includes five towns in Chautauqua County accounted for by Isaac Fuller, an early convert to Millerism who went there in 1833. Before 1843 Miller's views circulated in the region informally. The low level of activity in New York generally in 1840–42 marks the New England phase of the movement.

17. Voice of Truth, June 15, 1844, and January 1, 1844.; ibid, March 23, 1845. Himes had long suspected Marsh of personal ambitiousness. Following one of Marsh's attacks on the Albany Conference he said to Miller, “You see that Marsh did not stay at home for nothing. He is determined to have things go at loose ends—or to go to support him, and not the mutual, or general cause.” Himes to Miller, May 3, 1845, Joshua V. Himes Papers, Massachusetts Historical Association, Boston, Mass, hereafter cited as Himes Papers.

18. Pinney to Miller, August 15, 1845, limes Papers.

19. Himes to Miller, March 22, 1845, Himes Papers. Himes said of Galusha, “He is right and has kept things all right at the West.”

20. In 1836 their two associations, the Lexington and Warwick, were both in the Hudson Valley. Peck, John and Lawton, John, An Historical Sketch of the Baptist Mnsionary Convention of the State of New York (Utica, 1837), p. 175.Google Scholar

21. Judson, L. P. (Warsaw), Cry, 05 11, 1843Google Scholar; Burnham, George W. (Greenville), Voice of Truth, 07 27, 1844Google Scholar. This is just a sample of the large number of such statements.

22. Christian Palladium, September 2, 1839, October 1, 1839; Cry, August 22, 1844.

23. See particularly the printed minutes of the following Baptist Associations: Lake George, 1840, 12–16; Genesee River, 1842, 13; Genesee, 1844, 18; Union, 1842, 18; Saratoga, 1841, 19–24. These are all available at the American Baptist Historical Society, Rochester, New York.

24. See Cross, , Burned-over District, p. 183Google Scholar, and the minutes of the Cayuga Association, 1843, p 11, and the Madison Association, 1845, p. 8, American Baptist Historical Society, Rochester, N.Y.

25. Peck, and Lawton, , Historical Sketch, p. 280.Google Scholar

26. Pittsford Baptist Church Records, June 1-August 6, 1844, American Baptist Historical Association.

27. Chautau qua Baptist Association Minutes, 1840, circular letter; Chautauqua Baptist Association, Reorganized, Minutes, 1845, American Baptist Historical Society. See also Crissey, S. S., Centennial History of the Fredonza Baptist Church, 1808–1908 (Buffalo; nd.).Google Scholar

28. Miller to Truman Hemidryx, April 10, 1833, February 25, 1834; ibid., November 17, 1832. Miller Papers, Adventual Collection, Aurora College, Aurora, Ill. For his defense of Old School theology see ibid., January 25, 1832, November 28, 1834, and April 2, 1836, Miller Papers.

29. See the minutes of the Washington Association, 1831, the Bottskill Association, 1832–1835, and the Washington Union Association, 1836, American Baptist Historical Society.

30. Miller to Hendryx, April 10, 1833, Miller Papers.

31. Ibid. Since Millerism was popular in his neighborhood, he was not referring to his peculiar beliefs in the letter, but the addition of the phrase about “my country” indicates a political nature of the complaint against him which accords with the Anti-Masonic condemnation of the Lodge.

32. Ibid.

33. Cole to William S. Miller, January 7, 1838; Isaac Fuller to Miller, September 7, 1834; Miller Papers.

34. Miller to William S. Miller, April 5, 1844; Miller to Himes, December 7, 1842; Miller Papers.

35. Cry, May 16, 1844.

36. DePillis has already shown this to be the essential theme of Joseph Smith's first vision (“Quest for Authority,” pp. 72–73), and statements from other groups confirm the trend. For the Shakers see particularly Wells, Seth Y., Testimonies Concerning the Character of and Ministry of Mother Ann Lee (Albany, 1827), p. 1Google Scholar; Campbell's, Alexander and Campbell's, ThomasDeclaration And Address (Washington, D.C., 1809)Google Scholar; Hawley, Silas Jr, A Declaration of Sentiments … to the “Christian Union Convention” Held In Syracuse, August 21st, 1838 (Cazenovia, 1839), p. 1Google Scholar; and the newspaper Signs of the Times published in New Vernon, N.Y., 1832–1835, on Old School Baptists.Google Scholar