James springer white spiritual beliefs and jack

James Springer White

1821 - 1881

James White, along with his wife, Ellen, played a key role in the development and growth of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. While he is best known for his abilities as an organizer, publicist, writer and editor, preacher, and Bible student, he was also interested in music, partly because his father had been a teacher of vocal music.

James was born in Palmyra, Maine, the fifth of nine children of John and Elizabeth Jewett White.

His father was a descendant of one of the pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock in 1620, and his mother was a granddaughter of Samuel Shepherd, a prominent Baptist minister in New England.

Because of a devastating illness at age three, he suffered from severely crossed eyes that prevented him from reading.

His eyes improved during his late teenage years, and at age nineteen he enrolled in a school in nearby St. Albans, Maine, where he did so well in the twelve-week term at the elementary level, he ea