Untitled article by John Norton Loughborough

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 14, 1909

Experiences in the Publishing Work—No. 15

By John Norton Loughborough

In April, 1852, Elder James White moved from Saratoga Springs to Rochester, N. Y., to establish the printing business, with press and type owned by the Seventh-day Adventists. It was in this city, at 124 Mt. Hope Avenue, that he and his wife, after nearly six years of married life, for the first time set up housekeeping with articles purchased instead of borrowed. But such was their anxiety to make the publishing work a success, and to publish the paper regularly, that they denied themselves many of the common comforts of life.

The manner in which they began housekeeping at this time appears in the following private letter written by Mrs. White to Brother S. Howland’s family, April 16, 1852:—

“We are just getting settled here in Rochester. We have rented an old house for one hundred seventy-five dollars a year. We have the press in the house. Were it not for this, we should have to pay fifty dollars a year for office room. You would smile, could you look in upon us and see our furniture. We have bought two old bedsteads for twenty-five cents each. My husband brought me six old chairs, no two of them alike, for which he paid one dollar, and soon he presented me with four more old chairs without any seats, for which he paid sixty-two cents for the lot. The frames were strong, and I have been seating them with drilling. Butter is so high

we do not purchase it, neither can we afford potatoes. We use fruit sauce in the place of butter, and turnips for potatoes. Our first meals were taken on a board, placed upon two empty flour barrels. We are willing to endure privations, if the work of God can be advanced. We believe the Lord’s hand was in our coming to this place. There is a large field for labor, and few laborers. Last Sabbath our meeting was excellent. The Lord refreshed us with his presence.”

In the REVIEW, Vol. III, No. 12, issued Oct. 14, 1852, we learn that up to that date two thousand copies of each number had been issued and circulated gratuitously. In a business note on the publishers’ page of that number we read:—

“The office is not in debt. However, for this reason: Brethren Belden and Stowell, who have worked in the office the past six months, have received but little more than their board. Others engaged in the same work have received no more than they have. It will certainly be a pleasure for all the friends of present truth to help make up the deficiency in the receipts, that those who have labored hard, especially in our absence, in the midst of sickness, in publishing the REVIEW AND HERALD, may have a comfortable support.”

The absence of Brother and Sister White from the office was a three months’ trip, with horse and carriage, as far east as Bangor, Maine. This was a tour of meetings from which they returned about the first week in October. The sickness referred to was on this wise: The year 1852 was a cholera season in Rochester, N. Y., and many died of that disease. On the eighteenth of August, young Masten, their office foreman, was taken with this distressing malady. He seemed to be doing well; but for some cause he had a relapse, when he was given up by the physicians to die. He then made a vow to serve the Lord if he would raise him up. The rule in James 5 was followed, and he was healed, and lived for some three years, until others were taught to fill the position of foreman. An account of his miraculous restoration in answer to prayer is given by himself in the REVIEW of Sept. 30, 1852.

This Volume III of the REVIEW consisted of twenty-six numbers. The first was dated May 6, 1852, and the last May 12, 1853. In the month of August there was begun the monthly issue of the Youth’s Instructor, with a price of twenty-five cents a year. During the year the list of ministers was increased by fifteen. Among these were J. H. Waggoner, A. S. Hutchins, M. E. Cornell, J. M. Stevenson, D. P. Hall, J. B. Frisbie, Albert Stone, M. G. Kellogg, U. Smith, T. M. Steward, and J. N. Loughborough. A small beginning was also made in the way of printing books. Among these were four thousand copies of “Review of O. R. L. Crozier on the Sabbath and Law;” three thousand “Conversation on the Sabbath Question;” a sixteen-page tract by Elder James White; and two thousand copies of “The Sanctuary and Twenty-Three Hundred Days;” an eighty-page pamphlet with cover, by Elder J. N. Andrews. In the making up of this book, after a “bee” of sisters had folded and gathered the signatures preparatory to stitching them, the writer stabbed them with a pegging awl; and after the covers had been put on, Brother Uriah Smith pared them with a straitedge and a sharp pocket-knife. This, for lack of machinery.

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.