A Centennial History of Akron: 1825-1925

By Herman Fetzer

 

CHAPTER XVI

The Millerites

A GREAT many things were happening at almost the same time in the early Forties. The North Akron Fire Company, Akron's first so­ciety of volunteer fire-fighters, was organized with 26 members.

The Universalist church held a mass meeting with delegates from all over the United States. Horace Greeley was here, and the empire-builders of the city showed their canal projects to that sympathetic spirit, and so greatly was Greely impressed that when he returned to New York he wrote, for the Tribune, a lengthy and enthusiastic article extolling the virtues of Akron and declaring that Summit City would become "The Lowell of the West."

Akron's first temperance fight came up, and was one of the factors in the great "Washingtonian move­ment," which had for its purpose the elimination of the sale of spirits by grocers. Akron consistently voted to refuse to let grocers sell whisky. L. V. fierce was one of the prime movers in the Washingtonian movement, which resulted in forbidding the sale of liquor by any persons excepting licensed tavern-keep­ers and physicians.

The Collins Wagon shop, five years or so old, was doing a good business. James Christy started a tan­nery.

The Rev. James D. Pickands, pastor of the First Congregational church, became imbued with the spirit of Second Adventism, which was sweeping the country. William Miller, a Massachusetts farmer, had started this cult several years before, and was preaching the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world.

The cult was very similar to the one which had much publicity several months ago, but it was much more generally accepted.

Pickands' views on the subject grew so warm that there was dissension in his congregation, the more conservative element withdrawing and forming the Second Congregational Church of Akron—the same organization which now is the First.

There was a question as to which element should retain the church. For a time, the conservatives moved out and worshipped elsewhere, but when it was shown that the land had been deeded by Gen. Simon Perkins for the exclusive use of the Congregational church, the Millerites withdrew and built a tabernacle on High st. opposite the site of the present courthouse. The Congregational church itself stood on what are now the courthouse grounds.

April 4, 1843, was the date set for the end of the world. The Millerites sold their goods, paid their debts, suspended their business and bought "Ascension Robes" to be ready for the great day. It came, but the world did not end. Then the "error" was discovered. The date was to be April 23, 1841. This was later changed to March 22. Still nothing by way of a cataclysm happened. The Millerites, however, continued to gain strength here and elsewhere. Many were the baptisms and testimonials.

A Cuyahoga Falls fanatic, interpreting literally a certain verse of the Bible, mutilated himself with a plane-bit and mallet, and went insane.

"Spiritual marriages," to enter which women left their "carnal husbands" and men their "carnal wives" were one feature of the cult. Long after the various dates set for the Second Coming had passed uneventfully—even after Father Miller (who paid Akron one visit) admitted his error and said "my labors are principally ended" the cult flourished. "Angel hands" of light-headed or misled women, each hand in charge of a "saint" migrated from one town to another seeking "spiritual affinities." The Millerite men were brought into court, and ugly charges were placed against them, but they refused to "how to the beast" and take the oath against perjury. One outraged husband—a prominent Akron colonel—failing to get redress for the wrecking of his home at law, pelted his wife's "spiritual affinity" with rotten eggs.

The tabernacle was blown up one night. Nobody paid much attention to the explosion, because explosions were frequent in the "powder patch" where Fountain Park is now located, and where there was then a manufactory of explosives. Nobody knows who planted the keg of gun-powder under the tabernacle, but an old canal boat captain told me with a wink of the eye that he would not be surprised if the canal boatmen had done it, inasmuch as they were an accommodating lot, and the Millerites had shown such a keen desire to soar into the heavens that the boatmen may have figured that the elevation of their tabernacle might satisfy some of these yearnings.

The Rev. Mr. Pickands, who had become the leader of the cult in Northern Ohio, finally recanted and went to studying law and later became editor of a paper devoted to wool growing. The Millerites who could not come back to earth after this joined the Shakers at Cleveland.

In the meantime, the courthouse matter was settled by a general election which Akron won with flying colors, and the courthouse was built on the grounds occupied by the present county structure. A jail was built nearby.

In the meantime, also, the biggest dream of Dr. Eliakim Crosby collapsed. The great Chuckery canal —which was to make Summit City the successful rival of all the other communities in Northern Ohio—was finished; the water was turned on; it flowed as the engineers had promised it would; there was ample water power; but there were no mills to use it.

The company, which had weathered one of the severest financial crises of the nation, had used its last resource to finish the work. It could not build a city. The enthusiasm of the Eastern capitalists who were originally interested had waned, and money was tight with them, too.

 

The trial of the canal demonstrated that more money would be needed to strengthen it at some places, and this money was not in hand. The matter descended into a bewildering litigation.

The Chuckery scheme had failed. Excepting for the panic of 1837-1847, the geography of Akron might be different, and its history is different, too.

Dr. Crosby, ruined in finances, health and spirit, stayed on in the city a few years, and then moved to Wisconsin, where, in 1854, he died at the age of 75. These pages, which have told but a part of his activities, demonstrate how deeply Akron stands in his debt.

They were growing old at the time of the early forties—these men who had made Akron. Gen. Simon Perkins, the founder of the first Akron, the associate of Dr. Crosby in the establishment of the second Akron and his partner, too, in the Summit City scheme, died in 1811, 73 years old.

Judge Leicester King of Warren, who promoted the Pennsylvania and Ohio canal and who was associated in the North Akron and Chuckery projects, had become interested in the Free Soil movement, and was twice Liberty candidate for governor and was later prominent in national politics. He was Liberty candidate for vice president in 1848 and resigned in favor of Charles Francis Adams.

 

Fetzer, Herman. "Millerites." A Centennial HIstory of Akron. By
     Fetzer. N.p.: Summit County Historical Society, 1925. 69-73.