First Visit of James and Ellen White to Michigan

The May 12 Review carried a note from James White:1BIO 273.5

Providence permitting, we will hold conferences as follows: Mill Grove, New York, May 21 and 22. Tyrone, Michigan, May 27, 28, and 29. Jackson, Michigan, June 3, 4, and 5.1BIO 273.6

They would travel by train to Buffalo, New York, and take a boat for Detroit, Michigan. Mill Grove was en route, and there the Roswell Cottrell family, Seventh Day Baptists, were taking their stand for the full third angel's message.1BIO 273.7

As the day approached when he and his wife were to leave Rochester, James White was in bed with a high fever. His associates gathered about his bed and earnestly prayed for his recovery. He was relieved but left very weak. He and Ellen decided to start out, traveling the fifty miles to Mill Grove. If he did not continue to recover they would return to Rochester. At the Cottrell home he was extremely weak and feared he would have to turn back. “We were in great perplexity,” wrote Ellen White.1BIO 274.1

Must we be driven from the work by bodily infirmities? Would Satan be permitted to exercise his power upon us, and contend for our usefulness and lives as long as we remain in the world? We knew that God could limit the power of Satan. He may suffer us to be tried in the furnace, but will bring us forth purified and better fitted for His work.—Life Sketches of James White and Ellen G. White (1880), 301.1BIO 274.2

Ellen found her way to a log house nearby, and there she poured out her soul to God that He would rebuke the fever and give her husband strength to pursue their journey west. She reported:1BIO 274.3

My faith firmly grasped the promises of God. I there obtained the evidence that if we should proceed on our journey to Michigan the angel of God would go with us.1BIO 274.4

When I related to my husband the exercise of my mind, he said that his mind had been exercised in a similar manner, and we decided to go trusting in the Lord.—Ibid.1BIO 274.5

Every mile they traveled James felt stronger, the Lord sustaining him. The night trip across Lake Erie to Detroit on a ferry carrying six hundred or more passengers was enjoyable. Theirs was a pleasant stateroom with every convenience. Of the overnight trip Ellen wrote:1BIO 274.6

We slept sweetly through the night. James felt much better than he expected to. He began to feel better directly after leaving Mill Grove, and he has been growing better ever since.—Letter 2, 1853.1BIO 274.7

In Michigan they found themselves among friends—new believers. They were entertained first in the Henry Lyon home near Plymouth where they met M. E. Cornell and his wife. Then they were taken to Tyrone for three days of meetings. There they met the Kellogg family, J. P. and his wife and the children, including 21-year-old Merritt. Meetings were held in a barn (The Review and Herald, June 27, 1935). Sabbath morning Ellen White was given a vision, and what took place was observed very carefully by those present. Merritt Kellogg later wrote of this:1BIO 274.8

We were engaged in a prayer and social meeting Sabbath morning at about nine o'clock. Brother White, my father, and Sister White had prayed, and I was praying at the time. There had been no excitement, no demonstrations. We did plead earnestly with God, however, that He would bless the work in Michigan.1BIO 275.1

As Sister White gave that triumphant shout of “Glory! glory! glory!” which you have heard her give so often as she goes into vision, Brother White arose and informed the audience that his wife was in vision. After stating the manner of her visions, and that she did not breathe while in vision, he invited anyone who wished to do so to come forward and examine her. Dr. Drummond, a physician, who was also a first-day Adventist preacher, who (before he saw her in vision) had declared her visions to be of mesmeric origin, and that he could give her a vision, stepped forward, and after a thorough examination, turned very pale, and remarked, “She doesn't breathe!”1BIO 275.2

I am quite certain that she did not breathe at that time while in vision, nor in any of several others which she had when I was present. The coming out of vision was as marked as her going into it. The first indication we had that the vision was ended was in her again beginning to breathe. She drew her first breath deep, long, and full, in a manner showing that her lungs had been entirely empty of air. After drawing the first breath, several minutes passed before she drew a second, which filled the lungs precisely as did the first, then a pause of two minutes, and a third inhalation, after which the breathing became natural.—M. G. Kellogg, M.D., Battle Creek, Michigan, December 28, 1890, in The General Conference Bulletin, 1893, 59, 60.1BIO 275.3