Millerite movement
Adventist · 1831–1844 · Northeastern United States
William Miller's reading of Daniel 8:14 fixed Christ's return for 1843–44; between 50,000 and 100,000 embraced the expectation, and its failure on October 22, 1844 — the Great Disappointment — scattered the movement into the branches from which the Adventist denominations formed.
Millerite movement was formed between 1831 and 1844, as a process rather than a single event. Millerite movement dissolved into successor bodies. Millerite movement's institutional line runs back through Triennial Convention, Particular Baptists, Congregationalists, Church of England, Roman Catholicism to the post-apostolic church. No body on this tree is the assembly of Acts 2; where a body claims that, the claim appears in the claimed-lineage layer.
Between the post-apostolic church and Millerite movement stand 4 divisions along the institutional line, counting separations and disputed forks, not mergers, renewals or national organizations.
At a glance
- Formed
- Between 1831 and 1844, as a process rather than a single event
- Family
- Adventist
- Region
- Northeastern United States
- Ended
- It ended around 1866.
- Key figures
- William Miller, Joshua V. Himes, Samuel Snow
- Cause tags
- Doctrine
- Also known as
- Adventists; Second Adventists
What it was organized out of
- Began as a renewal within Triennial Convention. Miller was a Baptist layman; the movement drew Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians — transdenominational.
Bodies organized out of it or separated from it: Seventh-day Adventist Church, Advent Christian Church, Church of God (Seventh Day).
On the tree
Solid lines are separations and unions; dashed lines are renewals that began inside a body; dotted gray lines are national organizations of one communion; a diamond marks a fork event where neither side is drawn as the one that left. Every line runs back to the post-apostolic church; no body descends from the assembly of Acts 2.
Scriptures
Sources
Research compiled July 2026. Page data built 2026-10-10.