Joseph Marsh (Adventist)

Joseph Marsh (1802–1863) was an American Millerite Protestant preacher, and editor of The Advent Harbinger, Bible Advocate and The Voice of Truth and Glad Tidings of the Kingdom at Hand".

Joseph Marsh was born in St. Albans, Franklin, Vermont, on December 6, 1802. When he was 16 the family moved to Genesee County, New York, where his parents were disfellowshipped by the Methodist Episcopal Church for rejecting the Trinity. From the ages of 19 to 21 he and his brother Josiah tried their hand at farming, first in Monroe Township, Ashtabula County, Ohio, then in Springfield Township, Erie County, Pennsylvania.

In 1823 he joined his brother James in Rochester, New York. Marsh took up the faith of the Christian Connection he was baptized in the Genesee River "a little above the falls". He then began several years as an itinerant preacher, while working as a carpenter to supplement his income. On August 4, 1830, he married Sarah Mariah Adams (born Sennett, New York, on November 27, 1808). They had three girls; Sarah Eliza (b. 1832), Mary Maria (b. 1834) and Permelia Jane (b. 16 June 1836) From 1839 Marsh was pastor of a Christian Connection church in Union Mills and editor of The Christian Palladium, till in 1843 he took up the teaching of William Miller that Christ would return in 1843.

Following resignation from his pastorship and editorship, he supported Charles Fitch in the call for Millerites to leave established churches. In January 1844 he started publishing The Voice of Truth, and in September 1844 he supported the "seven month movement". After the Great Disappointment he criticised movements towards the establishment of an Adventist denomination, and advocating "Age to come" doctrine, renamed his magazine The Advent Harbinger and Bible Advocate then in 1850 The Prophetical Expositor.

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