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Foy and Foss

Reluctant and Rebellious

Adam Ramdin

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Foy and Foss
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When learning about Ellen White and how she received visions as a last-day prophet, I remember hearing anecdotally that God had previously called two men, but they had both rejected the prophetic gift. After some investigation, however, I learned this was not true. While it is true that two other men were called, it is not true that they both rejected the prophetic gift—one did, and one did not. Hazen Foss rejected it, but William Foy accepted it. Who were these two men, what do we know about them, and where do they fit into Adventist history?

A tale of two prophets

William Foy was a free Black man living in Maine, then Boston, in the early 1800s. He was converted in 1835 under the preaching of Silas Curtis1 and became involved in the Advent movement anticipating the return of Jesus in the early 1840s.

Foy received four visions before 1844 and faithfully shared what the Lord had shown him. We have his written accounts of the first two visions, but rely on secondary sources, namely J. N. Loughborough, for the third one. The visions follow a logical order, starting out general and becoming more detailed. The first vision covers the final victorious experience of the faithful believers. The second deals mainly with the theme of the judgment and our readiness for it, while the third one highlights events on earth prior to the Second Coming. The fourth vision Ellen White spoke of in a 1906 interview with D. E. Robinson.2

Foy was acutely aware of the personal challenges he faced with sharing the visions God gave him, wondering why God did not use someone more educated or from a different social status than he was. Despite the enormous issues of his day, the slavery and racial prejudice that impacted him directly, he put those aside and shared with the Advent believers what God had shown him. With a close relationship between the Millerite movement and the abolition movement, the Advent movement was as friendly a place as could be for a Black American in North America at the time.3

Hazen Foss’s story is a sad one, with lessons that we ought to be mindful of. After God called him, he received his first vision in September or October 1844. The vision had similarities to William Foy’s vision, with “three steps by which the people of God were to come fully upon the pathway to the Holy City.”4 Partly because he was unable to explain it himself and because he had a naturally proud spirit, he refused to share it.

Foss was indirectly related to Ellen White (his brother married Ellen’s sister Mary), and in a letter to her sister dated December 22, 1890, she wrote, “You know Hazen Foss had visions once. He was firm in the faith that Christ would come in 1844. . . . After the time [the Great Disappointment] passed, he was told by the Lord to relate the visions to others. But he was too proud-spirited to do this. He had a severe conflict, and then decided that he would not relate the visions.”5

Hazen Foss and William Foy are often confused in person and experience, but they were distinctly different.

The vision was repeated a second time with the additional instruction that if he refused to share the vision, the burden would be taken from him and given to someone else. Nevertheless, he refused, and a third vision was given to let him know he was released and someone who was the weakest of the weak would do the Lord’s bidding. Now startled into action, he tried to make a belated attempt to relate what he had been shown. A crowd was gathered, and he shared how he had received a vision with a warning that it must be shared. When he got to the point of sharing the actual vision, he stood as dumb as a statue. “When he attempted to relate the vision, his mind could not grasp it. He tried and tried to relate it, but he said, ‘It is gone from me; I can say nothing, and the Spirit of the Lord has left me.’ Those who gave a description of that meeting said it was the most terrible meeting they were ever in.”6 Foss warned Ellen White to be faithful to what God had called her to do, saying, “Do not refuse to obey God, for it will be at the peril of your soul. I am a lost man. You are chosen of God; be faithful in doing your work, and the crown I might have had, you will receive.” He lived about another 50 years after this incident, but never again did he show any interest in spiritual things.

Hazen Foss and William Foy are often confused in person and experience, but they were distinctly different. Foy related the visions shown him; Foss didn’t. Foy retained his Adventist beliefs; Foss didn’t. Foy maintained his religious interest and church connections; Foss didn’t. After the Great Disappointment, William Foy moved east to Sullivan, Maine, and there is no account that he knew about or rejected some of the later major doctrines discovered, such as the Sabbath. He continued faithfully ministering in the Freewill Baptist Church until his death.

Different people, different roles

A question of comparison is also raised when looking at the ministry of William Foy and Ellen White, but it is important to remember that different people and prophets play different roles and functions in history. Foy was used by God as a spokesman, largely to the Advent movement in the pre-Disappointment time period. If he was correctly understood, then God’s people could have been spared the Great Disappointment or at least prepared for it.

Foy never suggested that his prophetic role would continue after 1844, and this is where a misleading generalization is often made—that if William Foy is accepted as a prophet to the Advent movement, having received legitimate visions from God, then he must also be a prophet to the Seventh-day Adventist movement as well. This thought process, while understandable, is not supported when looking at the broad swath of history.

Different people have different roles. In his book The Unknown Prophet Delbert Baker states, “Peter was an early church leader, but he was not the missionary and theologian that Paul was. James was an apostle and early church administrator, but he didn’t receive the revelations that John did. . . . William Miller preached God’s message to the remnant—he was a burning and central light to the Advent movement—but he certainly didn’t fill the foundational and organizational role that James White occupied in the early days of Seventh-day Adventism.”7

Foy served for just two years before the Great Disappointment, while Ellen White served for 70 years after the Great Disappointment. Foy’s ministry was measured, Ellen White’s was prolific; yet they both felt blessed in their final days of life, having done their best and looking forward to the resurrection.


1 William E. Foy, The Christian Experience of William E. Foy Together With the Two Visions He Received in the Months of January and February 1842 (Portland, Maine: J and C. H. Pearson, 1845), p. 7, accessed at https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Books/WFoy1845.pdf. No photograph of William E. Foy has yet been discovered.

2 Ellen G. White manuscript 131, 1906, in Manuscript Releases (Silver Spring, Md.: Ellen G. White Estate, 1993), vol. 17, pp. 95-97; J. N. Loughborough, The Great Second Advent Movement (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1905), pp. 145-147.

3 This is highlighted in Delbert Baker,“The Millerite Connection,” The Unknown Prophet (Hagerstown, Md.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1987).

4 Loughborough, p. 182.

5 Ellen G. White letter 37, 1890, in T. H. Jemison, A Prophet Among You (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1955), p. 488.

6 Ibid., p. 489.

7 Baker, p.148.

Adam Ramdin

Adam Ramdin is the executive producer for Lineage Journey, a media ministry, and is based in the United Kingdom.

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