William Miller

William Miller (February 15, 1782 – December 20, 1849) was an American clergyman who is credited with beginning the mid-19th-century North American religious movement known as Millerism. After his proclamation of the Second Coming did not occur as expected in the 1840s, new heirs of his message emerged, including the Advent Christians (1860), the Seventh-day Adventists (1863) and other Adventist movements.

Early life

William Miller was born on February 15, 1782, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. His parents were Captain William Miller, a veteran of the American Revolution, and Paulina. When he was four years old, his family moved to rural Low Hampton, New York. Miller was educated at home by his mother until the age of nine, when he attended the newly established East Poultney District School. As a youth, he had access to the private libraries of Judge James Witherell and Congressman Matthew Lyon in nearby Fair Haven, Vermont, as well as that of Alexander Cruikshanks of Whitehall, New York.

In 1803, Miller married Lucy Smith and moved to her nearby hometown of Poultney, where he took up farming at his in-laws. While in Poultney, Miller was elected to a number of civil offices, starting with the office of Constable. In 1809 he was elected to the office of Deputy Sheriff and at an unknown date was elected Justice of the Peace. Miller served in the Vermont militia and was commissioned a lieutenant on July 21, 1810.

Shortly after his move to Poultney, Miller rejected his Baptist heritage and became a Deist. In his biography Miller records his conversion: "I became acquainted with the principal men in that village [Poultney, Vermont], who were professedly Deists; but they were good citizens, and of a moral and serious deportment. They put into my hands the works of Voltaire, [David] Hume, Thomas Paine, Ethan Allen, and other deistical writers."