The Fruit of the 1844 Movement: Newspaper Articles about the October 22, 1844, Disappointment

Barre Patriot, Nov. 7, 1845 - Assualt in church service

Berkshire County Whig, Mar. 3, 1847 - 30 Millerites in local insane asylum

Boston Daily Mail, Feb. 15, 1849 - Millerite "preacher" murders wife

Daily Argus Courtesy of Lynda Foster, Public Library of Portland, Maine

October 24, 1844 page 2 - In Boston, on Monday, a warrant was granted on application, by the Municipal Court, to convey Mrs. Abigail Shephard, a young married woman, to the Worcester Insane Hospital. It appeared that she had been listening to the Miller doctrines, and had become perfectly demented.

October 25, 1844 page 3 - On Tuesday last, a respectable citizen in Pleasant Street, Boston, cut his throat, but not dangerously. He had become insane by means of the Miller Delusion. He was taken to the Insane Hospital at Worcester, in company with Mrs. Shepard, the lady alluded to the other day.

October 25, 1844 page 3 - A young man by the name of Kelp, about 18 or 19 years of age, committed suicide on Friday by throwing himself into the Niagara river at Black Rock. He had been for some time infatuated with the Millerite delusion, and for the last two or three days so completely insane that it was found necessary to confine him in the house.

October 25, 1844 page 3 - Moses Clark of Landaff, (says the New Hampshire Patriot), committed suicide by drowning about a week since. A man of good sense and well informed, he yet fell into the miserable delusion of Millerism, and reason was ousted from her throne. He was highly respected in his town, and so well esteemed in Grafton County as to have been elected Chairman of The Board of Commissioners. He was a representative from Landaff to the Legislature, for the two years previous to the present year, and was a very useful, careful, and well informed member.

November 5, 1844 page 5 - By the following from the New York Commercial of Friday, it appears that Brothers Himes and Storrs have at last given up Millerism as a delusion. On Tuesday evening in the Millerite Church on the corner of Christie and Delaney Streets, Mr. Storrs publicly recanted his egregious folly and madness in the matter of the second advent. He said, what others beside his congregation had already found out, he was deceived as to the day of the second advent. He said he had been led astray by excitement and deceived by mesmerism and now most penitently acknowledged his manifold sins and wickedness. He now exhorted them to stick to work etc.,