George Washington Amadon contributed to the success of the Review and Herald publishing office during its earliest decades as a typesetter, foreman, administrator, editor, and author. Described as “an ordinary man with extraordinary faith and perseverance,” he dedicated more than fifty years of his life to the publishing work, served as editor of the Youth’s Instructor, Vice President of the SDA Publishing Association, and a devoted champion of Sabbath School education. His lifelong commitment to advancing Present Truth through the printed page helped shape the Adventist publishing enterprise from its infancy.
Early Life
George Washington Amadon was born on August 30, 1832, at Sandlake, New York, to Philanda Amadon (born 1808) and Eliza Amadon (born 1809). He was the oldest of five children, including Samantha (born 1833), Liland (born 1837), Lewis (born 1839), and Emeline (born 1841). Very early in his life, George was sent to live with his grandfather near Boston, Massachusetts. “It was his task to mix his grandfather’s toddy every day, but he himself never partook, although frequently urged to do so” — an early demonstration of the temperance convictions that would mark his life.
A few years later, back in upstate New York during the 1840s, he served as a “hoggee” — a mule driver on the Erie Canal towpath, towing barges upstream with teams of work animals. The young man could scarcely concentrate on his work as the Advent message stirred his mind. Sometime in the late 1840s, he studied at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, although he may not have completed a degree.
Conversion and Call to Publishing
While visiting his uncle at Clarkson, New York, about twenty miles west of Rochester, Amadon and his mother heard Elder J. N. Loughborough present from the Bible what he called “Present Truth.” The message was extraordinary and life-changing. “I must follow my convictions,” he decided. “I will be baptized as soon as I can. I want to help others prepare for Jesus’ coming.”
In 1853, James and Ellen White and J. N. Loughborough led Amadon to Sabbath-keeping Adventism. Amadon left his employment on the canal and was hired as a typesetter at five dollars a week at the press in Rochester, New York. As Loughborough reported: George was “a horse driver on the Erie Canal…. Of course he had to cease that employment. He wanted to learn to set type, so I presented his case to Brother White. He was accepted… and connected with their work….” The year was 1853, and Amadon was twenty-one years old.
Publishing House Pioneer
Amadon made it his “first business to please God and be a good printer.” He worked in the composing room, setting type and preparing plates for printing. Uriah Smith and Warren Batchellor joined the printing office in Rochester about that time. During October and November 1855, the publishing office moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, and Amadon moved with it.
According to his diaries, Amadon was largely a self-taught man, reading widely and learning eighteen ancient and modern languages, including Hebrew, Greek, German, Danish, Swedish, and French, in order to set type for foreign publications. He could set 10,000 pieces of type a day. Despite James White’s occasional criticism that Amadon was not laboring hard enough, Amadon’s diaries show that he often worked twelve to sixteen-hour days, including Saturday nights and Sundays.
In time, Amadon became a printer, writer, editor of the Youth’s Instructor (1858-1864), foreman in charge of foreign language publications, and vice-president of the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association. He was a strong advocate of “Gospel Order” in the 1850s and early 1860s, helping organize local churches throughout Michigan.
Editor of the Youth’s Instructor
“Abide in Christ” was the title of one of his first articles, which appeared in the July 1854 issue of the Youth’s Instructor. He served as acting editor from 1858 through July 1864. He wrote that the purpose of the Instructor was “to place Bible truths in so attractive a form, that multitudes of the dear youth will ‘turn away … from… vanity,’ and fix their affections on the heavenly inheritance.”
In May 1861, when the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association was incorporated, Amadon was chosen as Vice President. “James White was elected editor of the Review and Herald, and G. W. Amadon, editor of the Youth’s Instructor.” When the General Conference was formed in 1863, he was elected to the Committee on Nominations and served on the General Conference Executive Committee for many years.
Foreign Language Publications
One of Amadon’s most significant contributions was developing publications in foreign languages. The “foreign department” started in November 1871 when they sent for German type. By December, the first Danish magazine was nearly completed. By January 1872, French accents were ordered. “In less than a decade the foreign department had issued fourteen French works, twenty-one German, thirty-nine Danish, and twenty-three Swedish.” This expansion of the publishing work into multiple languages helped the Adventist message cross linguistic and cultural barriers.
Marriage and Family Life
In 1857, Amadon met Martha Dorner Byington (1834-1937), who had recently moved to Battle Creek from Bucks Bridge, New York, to live with the Whites. Their friendship led to marriage on November 24, 1860, solemnized by Martha’s father, John Byington (1798-1887), the first president of the General Conference. Byington bought them a house on Van Buren Street where they lived for twenty years, until they moved to a house at 19 Hill Street in 1880. They had two daughters: Kate, born March 15, 1866, and Grace, born February 24, 1872. They adopted a son, Claude, born March 15, 1876.
An indulgent father, Amadon played with Kate on the living room floor, planned elaborate birthday parties and Christmas celebrations, took her to circuses and to visit the famous abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Sojourner Truth, and paid for her piano, organ, and vocal music lessons. In 1877, he taught her to set type at the Review office.
Martha herself was a remarkable woman. She had been the first teacher in the first Sabbatarian Advent school in 1853, was a charter member of the Buck’s Bridge Church in New York and Battle Creek Tabernacle, and was the first president of the first “Dorcas Society.” She was present on many occasions when Ellen White received visions, including the landmark 1863 health reform vision in Otsego, Michigan. Martha wrote of these experiences: “Mrs. E. G. White was gifted in prayer, her voice clear, her words distinct and ringing, and it was almost always during one of these seasons of prayer that she was taken off…. In vision her eyes were opened. There was no breath, but there were graceful movements of the shoulders, arms and hands expressive of what she saw.”
Churchman and Defender of the Faith
A strong believer in the prophetic gift of Ellen White and the divine leadership of James White, Amadon served on a committee in March 1863 that cleared the Whites of charges of profiteering, presenting seventy-four affidavits in a thirty-nine-page “Vindication of the Business Career of Elder James White.” He and Martha were present on June 6, 1863, when Ellen received the health reform vision at the home of Martha’s cousin, Aaron Hilliard, in Otsego, Michigan.
On August 3, 1864, Amadon, along with John Byington and J. N. Loughborough, signed a letter to Michigan Governor Austin Blair explaining the Church’s pro-Union, anti-slavery, and noncombatant position during the Civil War. Following James White’s first stroke in 1865, Amadon helped care for the partially paralyzed General Conference president, and he and Adelia Van Horn took charge of the publishing work while James recovered. Amadon also traveled extensively with Ellen White in 1867-1868 when James was unable to do so. To relieve the Whites of hospitality duties, the Amadons often opened their home to visiting church workers.
For many years, Amadon served as an elder and Sabbath school superintendent in the Battle Creek Tabernacle, a religion teacher at Battle Creek College, and treasurer of the Michigan Conference. He was deeply committed to Sabbath school work, writing: “My soul trembles when I think how much God’s people fail of coming up to Bible requirements. We live in the time when the prophet says, God shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, Mal. 4:6, and what does this mean except home catechizing and Sabbath-school instruction? I never saw the importance of Bible-Class and Sabbath-School instruction as today, and shall labor on till He that took little children in His arms shall say to all, ‘Well done, wear the crown.'”
Trials of Health and Spirit
Amadon suffered several serious illnesses. In 1857, erysipelas infected his right arm — “usually fatal in those days.” He asked Ellen White for help and prayer, “and his arm was healed.” In 1866, he had a severe case of typhoid fever, “brought on by an undue amount of care and labor as foreman of this Office.” After recovery without drugs, he testified: “I… have taken no drugs into my system to poison my life currents, and so retard my restoration to health…. My unprofitable life has been spared, for which I sincerely praise the name of the Lord.”
In 1870, Amadon went through a period of deep spiritual struggle. His diary from that spring reveals his anguish: “I am feeling bad, bad, all day. The Lord pity me. I want to be right. I have been wrong and now I feel it most terribly. I believe Satan is determined on my ruin. May the Lord save.” His sharp wit and acid pen had gotten him into trouble with the Whites when he and Uriah Smith wrote a satire on the behavior of certain Battle Creek Adventists. In April 1870, all but twelve members of the Battle Creek church were removed from membership during a severe church discipline action, including George and Martha Amadon. Ellen White felt such severe discipline was unnecessary and recommended tender treatment and compassion. George was readmitted in November 1870, and Martha shortly thereafter.
Later Life and Reconciliation Efforts
After the Review and Herald Publishing plant burned to the ground on December 20, 1902, Amadon went to Nashville, Tennessee, where he helped Edson White publish his book Gospel Primer and the periodical Southern Watchman. In 1904, he returned to Battle Creek as the visiting pastor at the Dime Tabernacle. At seventy-two, he was ordained to the ministry by the West Michigan Conference.
Encouraged by Ellen White to carry on a ministry of reconciliation with estranged Adventists, Amadon and A. C. Bourdeau met with Dr. John Harvey Kellogg for seven hours at his home on November 10, 1907, seeking to bring him back to the Church, but to no avail. Kellogg had worked with Amadon in the Review office between 1864 and 1868 when Kellogg was twelve to sixteen years old. Amadon was his friend and knew how it felt to be misunderstood and disfellowshipped, and wanted to help prevent a similar occurrence.
Amadon, like Ellen White, attended his last General Conference session in 1909. In 1911, she sent him an autographed copy of her new book Acts of the Apostles. That same year, George, Martha, and their daughter Grace moved to St. Joseph, Michigan, near Lake Michigan and the St. Joseph River.
Legacy
George Amadon died at eighty on February 24, 1913, in St. Joseph. Following his funeral, presided over by Elder Kit Carson Russell, he was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Battle Creek.
His wife Martha outlived him by more than two decades, passing away in 1937 at nearly 103 years of age. For over eighty years, Martha Amadon grew in step with the expanding progress of the Advent Movement. Together, the Amadons witnessed nearly every major event that marked the development of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination.
George Washington Amadon’s primary contributions to the Seventh-day Adventist Church are the hundreds of articles, tracts, pamphlets, and books he helped to publish during his more than fifty years of service at the Review and Herald and Southern Publishing Association presses. As a church elder, Sabbath school teacher, and ordained minister, he was widely respected as a man of prayer and fasting in his spiritual life and as a methodical, systematic, and accurate worker. He was an ordinary man with extraordinary faith and perseverance — willing to work hard and to learn from his mistakes, giving his life to publish the Present Truth to the world.
