The San Francisco Tent Meeting

According to plans laid early in the year, as soon as the camp meeting in Fairfax was over the big tent was moved to San Francisco and pitched on McAllister Street, between Gough and Octavia, not far from where the new church was under construction on Laguna Street. Extensive newspaper advertising was employed to draw the crowd, and the newly established press in Oakland gave good support in printing thousands of advertising bills and frequent issues of a four-page sheet titled “The Tent Meeting.” Each contained choice reading matter on the subjects introduced in the tent meetings and also a piece of appropriate music. These were eagerly sought after and preserved.2BIO 486.1

The meetings began in early October. The preaching was done by Waggoner, Loughborough, and James White. Ellen White came in on Sabbath and Sundays (Ibid., October 21, 1875, and Ibid., November 11, 1875). The Sabbath question was introduced the second week in November. Ellen reported on November 10 that half a dozen people had decided to keep the seventh day. They had attended the meeting in the tent Sabbath morning, October 9, and bore their testimony (Letter 36, 1875). Meetings continued in the tent through November. When the house of worship could be occupied in December, the meetings were moved to that location. Weekends, after speaking in the tent Sunday afternoons, Ellen White took the ferry to Oakland and spoke Sunday evenings in the hall.2BIO 486.2