William Farnsworth (1807-1888)
William Farnsworth
Reputed to be “the first Seventh-day Adventist,” that is, the first of the Adventists who kept the seventh-day Sabbath. Separated from other first-day Adventists, began meeting in family homes.
Worthy of Honor (Dores Robinson; The Church Officers’ Gazette, May, 1944, p. 6), page 1
Inseparable: the Sabbath and the Sanctuary (W. A. Spicer, Review and Herald, Dec. 28, 1939, pp. 11, 12), page 2
Divinely Foretold Prophetic Work (F. D. Nichol, The Midnight Cry, 1944, p. 463), page 2
Peculiar Destiny (Marlene Steinweg), page 3
William Farnsworth–a True Pioneer–1807-1888 (timeline and biographical sketch) (Marlene Steinweg), page 4
Over Shadowed (Ellen G. White, Early Writings, pp. 254-256), page 7
Unmasked! (Marlene Steinweg), page 8
"Sabbatarian Adventists" emerged between 1845 and 1849 from within the Adventist movement of William Miller, later to become the Seventh-day Adventists. Frederick Wheeler began keeping the seventh day as the sabbath after personally studying the issue in March 1844 following a conversation with Rachel Preston, according to his later report. He is reputed to be the first ordained Adventist minister to preach in support of the sabbath. Several members of the church in Washington, New Hampshire, to whom he occasionally ministered, also followed his decision, forming the first Sabbatarian Adventist church.[36] These included William Farnsworth[37] and his brother Cyrus.[38] T. M. Preble soon accepted it from either Wheeler, Oakes, or someone else at the church.