For thousands of Americans, the morning of October 22, 1844, loomed large on the calendar. On that day, according to a Vermont preacher named William Miller (1782–1849), the world would end with the triumphant return of Jesus Christ to Earth.
Miller, a War of 1812 veteran, had become obsessed with the end of time after returning home from the war. Based on his reading of passages in the Old Testament’s Book of Daniel, he was convinced that Christ would return in the 1840s.
In the 1830s, Miller began giving lectures explaining his prophecies, and several newspapers in New England and New York printed his predictions. Beginning in about 1840, through his sermons and the magazines he published, Miller began to attract thousands of followers—up to 100,000, by one reckoning.
Miller had no formal religious training, and the reasoning he used to justify his predictions was bewilderingly complex. Still, he found a receptive audience in rural New England and New York. Millerism became one of the most prominent religious groups of the Second Great Awakening, a period of intense religious revival in the United States just before the Civil War.
Initially, Miller gave his followers only a rough estimate, predicting that the savior would descend from heaven sometime in the one-year period after March 1843. When March of 1844 passed without incident, however, the estimate was revised to April 18, 1844. With the world still spinning on April 19, Miller’s followers rescheduled the apocalypse one last time, to October 22.
Miller’s prophecies concerned not only the date of Christ’s return, but also its nature. Miller believed that the Rapture would begin the sequence of events described in the Book of Revelation: The earth would be “cleansed” with fire, the righteous would be elevated to heaven, and Christ would rule for a thousand years.
Excitement and giddiness built among Miller’s followers in the weeks and days leading up to October 22. When the world failed to end, however, a crisis ensued. Miller blamed a math error, but many of his followers abandoned him after the Great Disappointment. He died in New York five years later.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
- After the Great Disappointment, some of Miller’s remaining followers reorganized into a new denomination that became the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. The Jehovah’s Witnesses also trace their roots to the Millerites.
- The Bible verse at the center of Miller’s prophecy was Daniel 8:14, which reads: “And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” Miller believed that “days” should be interpreted as years and used the rebuilding of Jerusalem in 457 BC as the starting date.
- Miller fought as an army captain in the Battle of Plattsburgh in 1814, a turning point in the War of 1812 in which the Americans repelled a British invasion from Canada.
