Brian E. Strayer

Last month, Part 3 examined two groups of writers who have interpreted Edson’s cornfield experience as a vision or a flash of light. Part 4 describes those writers who believe he received an impression or insight, those who think nothing supernatural occurred, and Edson’s unique word for what happened. Edson received an impression Edson never…

  In a manuscript prepared for The Youth’s Instructor in 1910, Arthur Whitefield Spalding asserted that Owen Crosier and Franklin Hahn had accompanied Edson across the field “to comfort some of the brethren.” As Spalding dramatized the scene, suddenly Edson “felt as it were a hand upon him, stopping him where he was,” and “a…

  Last month, Part 1 of this series described the trauma Millerites experienced when Jesus did not return on October 22, 1844, and the views many developed to explain their disappointment. Part 2 examines the experience of Hiram Edson as described in his autobiographical manuscript.     Cornfield Cleopas Luke 24 tells the story of two of…

  William Miller never set a specific date for Christ’s second coming. Instead, he estimated that, according to his calculations, the Second Advent would occur sometime between the spring of 1843 and the spring of 1844. Consequently, when this period passed uneventfully, his followers experienced their first and second disappointments. Then at the Exeter, New…

Time has greatly altered the perception of Hiram Edson in the minds of many. Some believe he was a simple farmer who had a vision in a cornfield, wrote articles about the heavenly sanctuary, and died a highly revered Adventist pioneer. The reality is much more complex. Edson spent his entire life (1806-1882) in upstate…