The objective of this note is to reconstruct the demographic, infrastructural, and economic situations in Battle Creek that the pioneers experienced at any point in time from 1830 – 1900, and also, how they saw those variables grow significantly during their lifetimes. These material conditions facilitated the expansion of the Adventist Church and as such, they help us better grasp the material possibilities and challenges that undergirded the expansion of the denomination.

The demographic growth of Battle Creek is closely linked to the expansion of the Adventist Church. The settlement’s size, urban sprawl, and the development of roads and railroads around Battle Creek serve as key indicators of its economic activity. In this article we present a review of maps that chart the growth of Battle Creek from the 1830s to the 1890s. This serves as a useful background reference for several related articles in EGWmaps.org.

But first it’s interesting to explore the religious composition of the population of New England and Michigan. The proportion of religious people in the 1890’s, as seen in the census map below, was generally low. In Calhoun County where Battle Creek was located, the proportion was 25-40%, but in neighbor counties it was lower in the order of 15-25%. In New England the proportion was higher but not complete. This illuminates the possible apathy or resistance to religion in a time where the Adventist Church evangelistic efforts were very dynamic.

James White and the other pioneers, when deciding to move the Review & Herald office from Rochester, NY in 1855 either to Vermont or Battle Creek, pondered the material conditions that would be most beneficial to the printing operations and the expansion of the denominational work. Battle Creek was chosen because, he thought, that Michigan was better suited. He was right. The map below shows how the centroid of the manufacturing activity in the United States moved West from 1850 to 1890. This of course was accompanied by a densification of the of the network of railroads as discussed below.

The variations that the economy experienced in the formative decades of the Adventist organization provide background information about the production and employment. The growth of the national debt in the Civil War period starting in 1860 was very steep and very large.

As regards the population of Battle Creek, it grew rapidly in this period, roughly doubling every two decades.

The map below from 1831 shows the location of what would become Battle Creek in the confluence of the Kalamazoo River and the Battle Creek two or three years after the first settlers arrived (see table). The creek was originally called Wapokisko (Ratner A single road, following the “Kekalamazoo” river, is shown, the Territorial Road, which was a widening of the older St. Joseph Trail that started in Detroit.

Six years later, in 1837, the village of Battle Creek appears clearly (left hand side, upper height) with a denser network of roads around it (dirt roads and railways). In addition to the Territorial Road, four or five other roads were built that connected the village with the West, East, South, and Northwest destinations.

The village, was first called Milton after the name of the township, later Garnsey, and finally Battle Creek. The map doesn’t show the Methodist church and the post office, established in 1832.

This beautiful map from 1841 is the first detailed depiction of the Battle Creek settlement detailing individual buildings. Population neared 993, but maybe this figure included people living in the farms nearby.

The first buildings in Battle Creek, aside from dwellings, were the Methodist Church, the post office, and two mills. The detail below shows the post office (seems a french horn), a saw mill (wheel with spring), a flouring mill (wheel), there’s also sand stone north of the river (bricks on the left map), and marshes. New roads were built. Notice the Territorial Road (gray zigzag line). Five bridges are shown, three over the Kalamazoo river, and two over the creek. This is a signal of dynamic economic activity. Notice also two roads running parallel to the western branch of the Kalamazoo river.

The population of Battle Creek in the decade after 1841 didn’t increase significantly, but there was an economic consolidation as is exhibited in the first photographs of the Main Street of Battle Creek. These are probably the oldest available taken in 1853. Diverse stores can be seen, groceries stores, clothing, and the Noble’s Block built in 1850.

The Railway

The first Adventist messenger, Joseph Bates, arrived by train to Battle Creek and from that time the railroads became an instrumental piece for several aspects of the Adventist development. A dense network of railroads converged to Battle Creek as can be seen in the table below. From this relatively small city, people could easily reach any part of the country by train. With clear foresight, James White envisioned that Battle Creek was a convenient location to establish the church headquarters, due to its frontier location in the westward expansion of the time, to the economic expansion, and the ease to access the flow of goods and materials. Railroads were crucial to all these aspects envisioned by James White and the other pioneers. Below is a list of the lines and the dates of arrival to Battle Creek.

The Postmaster

The Postmaster of Battle Creek played a very important role in the early history of the Adventist Church because it was him who determined who was the “most honest man in the village” in response to Bates’ question. Had he proposed a different person, maybe the history would have been very different. This points to the importance of seemingly anonymous people in the course of events. So, the postmaster that met with Bates was a man named Leonard H. Stewart a respected citizen who, in 1844-45 had a general store, (B.B. Lowe, Tales of Battle Creek, p. 53, 220-222) was the Postmaster (1849-1853), and later an attorney at law (listed in 1858 Wechler & Wenig map below and in Loomis & Talbots 1860)

The list of all Postmaster until 1869 is shown in the next table.

It is interesting to note the hours of operation of the post office by 1869 (Reference)
"Post Office Hours. — Open from 6:45 A.M. to 8 p. m. Close on Saturdays at 8:30 P.M. Open Sundays from 8:30 to 10, A.M., and 12 to 1, P.M. Mails close. — Going west, 12:45 P.M. Going east, 1:40 P.M. Through night mails, east and west, close at 8 o'clock. Close on Sunday evening, going east and west, at 6:30."

The year 1852 has great significance for the history of the Adventist Church because it was when Joseph Bates arrived in town looking for “the most honest man in the village”. This picture shows what in most likelihood Joseph Bates saw as he walked down to the Post Office looking for David Hewitt.

In the 17 years elapsed from the situation shown in the map above, and the one shown below, the urban footprint of the village is hardly recognizable.

Interestingly this map may well be the first to list an Adventist Church, even before the church adopted the name “Seventh-Day Adventists” in 1863. The small meetinghouse shown in the inset below was the second church built on the property of Pr. Joseph B. Frisbie (1816 – 1882) on Van Buren St. and Cass St.

The map below dates from before 1869 possibly, because the Grand Trunk Railroad isn’t shown, but only the Michigan Central is represented.

By 1869, Battle Creek had a dynamic economy as is apparent from the Business Catalog from which this map is taken. The Michigan Central and he and Grand Trunk Western can be seen the map.

Flour mills (L. G. Kellogg was already established), factories of carriages, woolen goods, carpentry (doors, sashes, moulding), suction pumps, and iron pumps, agricultural implements (threshing machines, separators, and “horse powers”), and wood sawing machines. Several dealers and merchants completed a wide offer of machines and other tools. The drawing below depicts a beautiful scene of a dynamic industrial activity and the Michigan Central RR.

By 1873, the Adventist presence was significant. The map below shows a smaller section of the previous one, highlighting the presence of the Adventist institutions. Of special interest is the home of James and Ellen White (shown in the inset below). It was common practice to locate the properties of prominent citizens in the maps of that time. It also shows the Review and Herald (R&H) buildings on both the east and west sides, with the General Conference offices located in the R&H West building, which survived the 1902 fire. The Health Reform Institute occupies a large area spanning several blocks, and the map also marks the site of the future Battle Creek College, on property purchased from the prominent citizen Erastus Hussey.

A beautiful birdview from the 1880’s shows a dense array of houses, parks, and industrial establishments. Note that the view points South, to the Goguac lake, a site frequented by patients of the Sanitarium. This is the appearance of the city by the time of James White passing, in 1881, and departure of John N. Andrews as a missionary to Switzerland in 1885.

The last map of this page shows the city by 1894.

The north branch of the Kalamazoo river was rerouted in a concrete channel and moved west in the late 1950s by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

References

• Ratner, J. The Battle Of The Creek. Historical Society of Battle Creek.
• New York Central System Historical Society.
• Denis, L. (2024). Made in America: U.S. Manufacturing in Gilded Age Census Maps. Library of Congress
• Wright, G (1990). The Origins of American Industrial Success, 1879-1940. The American Economic Review 80, no. 4 (1990): 651–68. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2006701