Not Quite the End of the World in Suffield
A view of King’s Island: Credit John Phelan
I can’t believe another year has come and gone. As the end of the year approaches, I am reminded of the first time that I stayed up to ring in the new year. It was for the year 2000 and my family gathered at a relative’s house on Cape Cod and had a huge party. I was enjoying myself immensely when I overheard my older cousins talking about how at midnight the world might end. I was worried for a moment, but then convinced myself that my cousin was just telling one of his tall tales and forgot about it. Midnight came and went and the world was still standing. Well before the Y2K scare, Suffield had an incident where the apocalypse foretold by some also never came to pass.
Now who hosted the end of the world gathering and why? The man in question was DeWitt Clinton Terry who lived on Kings Island (sometimes called Terry’s Island) in the Connecticut River with his wife and two daughters between 1864 and 1894. On the island he operated a farm, a ferry service from the Suffield side and a coffin making business. While the life of a farmer and a ferryman seem ordinary enough, it was Terry’s religious beliefs that drove him to believe that the world was coming to an end.
Kings Island Depicted on an 1869 map of Suffield: Credit Library of Congress
Terry was part of a Christian movement called Adventism. The movement was based on the beliefs of William Miller, a Baptist preacher who believed that the second coming or advent of Jesus Christ was an event that could be calculated ahead of time. Miller believed that the second coming would occur in 1843 based on his interpretation of the Book of Daniel. After 1843 came and went, Miller revised his prediction to 1844 and then 1845. These three consecutive failures became known as the Great Disappointment.
Portrait of William Miller: Credit the Ellen G White Estate
Despite these failures, the idea that the apocalypse was imminent and that it was a date that could be predicted continued to persist. As the Adventist leader of the Hartford-Springfield region, Terry was constantly on the lookout for any sign of the end of the world and was in frequent communication with other Adventist leaders throughout New England to see if they had detected any rumblings of the apocalypse. In 1870, they saw a sign that the end was fast approaching.
The harbinger of the destruction of the world was the Battle of Sedan during the Franco-Prussian War. During the battle, the Prussian army soundly defeated the French and took Emperor Napoleon III prisoner making the outcome of the war a foregone conclusion. With the defeat of Catholic France by Protestant Prussia, the Adventists believed that the papacy had lost its last powerful protector and would soon collapse. The destruction of the papacy would trigger the return of Christ and the true believers would ascend into heaven. For unclear reasons, they calculated that the collapse of the papacy and the end of the world would occur 3 years and 42 days from the start of the battle, making the end of the world November 5, 1873.
As the date approached, Adventists from all over the northeast began to gather at Terry’s Island so they could ascend to heaven together. The Springfield Union reported that people started gathering on the island on October 19th. The gathering varied in size between 60 and 100 people at any given time and featured fervent group prayer interspersed with lectures by Adventist elders. During these sermons, the speakers acknowledged the disappointment of the failure of previous predictions and the certainty that they were right this time.
As the appointed time drew near, the Adventists began their final preparations. They donned their ascension robes and some were even reported to have climbed trees to ascend to heaven faster. Unfortunately for them and fortunately for us, the calculations were off and November 5th ended with the Adventists still in this world.
A cartoon from Punch Magazine depicting Adventists in their ascension robes.
What started as a spiritual tragedy soon spiraled into a financial one for Terry. Many of the Adventists gathered on the island insisted on staying just in case the calculation was only off by a day or two. After a few days passed, the general consensus was that the world was not ending, but a large number stayed anyway and took advantage of Terry’s hospitality and generosity, eating him and his family out of house and home. The most egregious act was the crowd devouring a flock of over 100 turkeys that the Terry’s owned.
Despite this disappointment, Terry remained a committed Adventist and a leader in the region. In 1895, owing to declining health, Terry sold the island so he and his wife could move to Springfield to be closer to their daughter. He died after an extended illness in 1905 and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Springfield.
The gravestone of DeWitt Clinton Terry: Credit Find a Grave
Eventually, the island was purchased by the Connecticut Light and Power Company who intended to use the island as part of a hydropower operation and Terry’s house was moved to Suffield Street in Windsor Locks. Those plans never came to fruition and today it’s a state wildlife management area. The island is open to the public and is reachable by boat. While the island lacks formal trails, you can easily get around and there is even a campsite if you want to stay the night. If you do decide to camp there, you may find yourself experiencing some of the same sights and sounds as those camping there waiting for the world to end over 150 years ago.
Bibliography
Fuller, Myrtle Hatheway. “HISTORY OF KINGS ISLAND ENFIELD CT AND FARMER TERRY.” The Hartford Courant , June 20, 1948.
“Kings Island.” Explore Connecticut, September 19, 2020. https://explorect.org/kings-island/.
Morse, J M. “Windsor Locks.” Windsor Locks Journal , December 22, 1905.
Numbers, Ronald L., and Jonathan M. Butler, eds. The disappointed: Millerism and millenarianism in the nineteenth century. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1993.
“The Adventists at Terry Island.” Hartford Courant , November 1, 1873.
