II. Washington, New Hampshire-Where Sabbath and Advent Unite

Let us now go to the sturdy little village of Washington, New Hampshire, planted back in Revolutionary days in the heart of the rolling hills of central New Hampshire, about twelve miles from Hillsboro. According to the bronze historical marker in the village, it was the first town in America to call itself after George Washington, being so christened in 1776. In this vicinity massive stone-wall fences mark out the fields of the Granite State. And here the great barns are generally attached to the houses, bearing mute testimony to the heavy snows of severe winters. Here also rugged men are born and nurtured, growing up in close harmony with their surroundings. It is here at Washington that we find the home of Cyrus and William Farnsworth. And here also outspoken Rachel Oakes (later Preston), with her “corkscrew curls and strong convictions,” came to live with her daughter, Rachel Delight Oakes, the local schoolteacher, who later married Cyrus Farnsworth.PFF4 944.7

It was here, one Sunday in the winter of 1843, that Frederick Wheeler, on his riding circuit-which included Washington—was conducting the communion service for the Christian congregation, which had accepted the advent teaching. And forthright Mrs. Oakes, who was present and watching him closely, had to restrain herself from speaking out her convictions then and there. Wheeler had just made the appropriate observation that all who confess communion with Christ in such a service as this “should be ready to obey God and keep His commandments in all things.” When Wheeler visited the family shortly thereafter, candid Mrs. Oakes told him that she almost arose and spoke out in meeting that day. Asked what she had had on her mind, she responded that she had wanted to tell him that he had better push back the communion table and put the communion cloth back over it until he was willing to keep all the commandments of God, including the fourth.PFF4 945.1

This remark cut him to the quick, for he knew” she was a Seventh Day Baptist, with positive views on the Sabbath. As she plied him with questions and pressed him for a decision, Wheeler was put in an uncomfortable spot. But the episode started Wheeler to serious thinking and earnest study. And it was not long after—about March, 1844—that he began to observe the seventh-day Sabbath of the fourth commandment. ^{10Spicer, Pioneer Days, p. 43.}PFF4 945.2

Picture 1: HISTORIC SCENES ENACTED IN WASHINGTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE, CHURCH
(Upper left) rachel Oakes Preston, Intrepid Sabbath proponent; (upper right) William Farns-Rorth, first cvonvert to her Sabbath Faith; (below) humble Christian Church where the covenant was made and where a later Sabbath conference was held
Page 947PFF4 947

Here also Thomas M. Preble, of East Weare, New Hampshire, formerly a Free-will Baptist minister—but then an Adventist preacher in both the 1843 and 1844 phases—just a little later accepted the Sabbath, in August, 1844, either directly from Mrs. Oakes or through Wheeler. These men each shared the Disappointment with others, but retained their advent faith, and each had personally accepted the Sabbath prior thereto. It was Treble’s revealing article on the Sabbath, in the Portland (Maine) Hope of Israel of February 28, 1845, that brought the seventh-day Sabbath to Joseph Bates, ^{11Joseph Bates, The Seventh Day Sabbath, A Perpetual Sign (1846), p. 40.} who later wrote his own tract on the Sabbath. And this in turn led James and Ellen White to accept the Sabbath, both men engaging thereafter in teaching the Sabbath to the advent believers. So it was here at Washington that the first union of these two teachings—the second advent and the Sabbath-took place in North America.PFF4 947.1

And it was here also, only a month or so after the Disappointment-but evidently before the close of 1844—that a little group in the Washington church amid those inspiring granite hills, announced their decision to keep the seventh-day Sabbath as one of the foundation stones of their faith. The modest meetinghouse of that first Sabbathkeeping company still stands among the trees on the mountain road, about three miles from Washington. The pews are of the old straight-backed box type. It was the day of small beginnings, but the earnest of greater developments to come.PFF4 947.2

And it was here also that Joseph Bates, having heard of the little Sabbatarian group at Washington, and wishing to meet those first Sabbatarian Adventists, made the hurried trip by train and stagecoach to the nearby Hillsboro home of Frederick Wheeler. He reached there at ten o’clock at night, just after the family had retired. Wheeler heard the knock and let Bates in. Then they talked all through the night. In the morning Bates was introduced to the family, and alter breakfast and further talk, lasting until noon, the two drove over to Washington to confer with Cyrus Farnsworth.’ ^{12Letter from F. W. Bartle, quoted in W. A. Spicer, Pioneer Days, p. 50.}PFF4 947.3

Here at Washington, under a cluster of newly leafed maples, Wheeler, the Farnsworths, and Bates discussed the law of God and the neglected Sabbath, as well as the article by Preble in the Hope of Israel, setting forth the claims of the seventh-day Sabbath. There a pact between them was sealed. Then having obtained the confirmation he sought, Bates hastened home. Thus it was that Washington became the cradle of the seventh-day Sabbath among the body that, in 1860, took the name Seventh-day Adventists. Now let us turn to the principal characters, and meet them.PFF4 948.1