Hiram Edson (1806-1882)

Hiram Edson was an early Adventist prophetic expositor and traveling evangelist.

In 1861 Edson helped organize the Roosevelt (NY) SDA Church.70 But during the 1860s, as Edson’s health declined from physical prostration, colds, typhoid fever, and nervous debility,71 James White and J. N. Andrews appealed for funds to send him to Dr. James Caleb Jackson’s water cure in Dansville, New York.72 After months of hydrotherapy treatments, rest, and a vegetarian diet, his health improved and he adopted the health reform diet.73 Following his recovery, he attended the fifth session of the New York-Pennsylvania Conference in 1866 at which he received a ministerial license.74 Edson also attended quarterly meetings (communion services) at Vernon (1867)75 and Adam’s Center (1868)76 and conference sessions at Adam’s Center (1868)77 and Kirkville (1869),78 New York, where his ministerial license was renewed.

In 1870 at Oneida, New York, Edson received ministerial credentials as an ordained minister of the New York-Pennsylvania Conference.79 In 1871 he baptized sixteen-year-old Byron Tefft of Allegany County, New York, his only documented baptism.80 During the 1870s Edson’s health worsened as he suffered from consumption (tuberculosis) and catarrh (inflammation of the nose and throat).81 He missed most of the conference sessions after 1873.82 In 1875 his ministerial credentials were not renewed,83 largely because of a dispute between Edson and the reading committee at the Review publishing house, who refused to publish his 230-page manuscript on prophecy that they deemed biblically unsound.84

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