John Byington was a Seventh-day Adventist

Seventh-day Adventist Church

The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a Protestant Christian denomination distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the original seventh day of the Judeo-Christian week, as the Sabbath, and by its emphasis on the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ...

 minister and the first president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

The General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists is the governing organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It is located in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States, where it moved in 1989...

. His father, Justus, was a soldier in the American Revolutionary War

American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...

, an itinerant Methodist Episcopal

Methodist Episcopal Church

The Methodist Episcopal Church, sometimes referred to as the M.E. Church, was a development of the first expression of Methodism in the United States. It officially began at the Baltimore Christmas Conference in 1784, with Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke as the first bishops. Through a series of...

 preacher, and later one of the founders of the Methodist Protestant Church

Methodist Protestant Church

The Methodist Protestant Church is a regional Church body which was officially formed in 1828 by former members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, remaining Wesleyan in doctrine and worship, but adopting congregational governance....

, becoming an early president of its Vermont Conference. At 7 years of age John first came under the conviction of sin, and at 18 (1816) was converted. He became active in Methodist laity work, but at 21 years of age his health failed, and for three years he suffered depression. He returned to work dividing his time between farming and preaching.

Byington was active in the antislavery movement

Abolitionism

Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...

 and when the leadership of the Methodist Episcopal Church

Methodist Episcopal Church

The Methodist Episcopal Church, sometimes referred to as the M.E. Church, was a development of the first expression of Methodism in the United States. It officially began at the Baltimore Christmas Conference in 1784, with Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke as the first bishops. Through a series of...

 opposed abolitionism, he withdrew from that denomination and joined the new antislavery Wesleyan Methodist Connection. He helped to erect a church and parsonage that are still standing at Morely, New York. He went as a lay delegate to the Wesleyan organizational General Conference meeting in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1844; and later became a Wesleyan minister pastoring the church at Lisbon, New York

Lisbon, New York

Lisbon is a town in St. Lawrence County, New York, United States. The population was 4,047 at the 2000 census.By some accounts, the town is named after the capital of Portugal. However, the 1810 US Census for the town shows the town's name as Lisburn, which is a city located in Northern Ireland...

. He regularly entertained Native Americans and fugitive slaves in his home (his home was reputed to be a stop on the "Underground Railroad

Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...

" at Buck's Bridge, New York, where he lived on a farm).

In 1844 he heard a Millerite

Millerite

Millerite is a nickel sulfide mineral, NiS. It is brassy in colour and has an acicular habit, often forming radiating masses and furry aggregates...

 sermon in Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...

, but was not overly impressed. In 1852, upon reading a copy of the Review and Herald (now the Adventist Review) he began to keep the seventh-day Sabbath. Shortly afterward James

James Springer White

James Springer White , also known as Elder White was a co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and husband of Ellen G. White...

 and Ellen White

Ellen G. White

Ellen Gould White was a prolific author and an American Christian pioneer. She, along with other Sabbatarian Adventist leaders, such as Joseph Bates and her husband James White, would form what is now known as the Seventh-day Adventist Church.Ellen White reported to her fellow believers her...

 visited his home at Buck's Bridge. For three years he conducted Sabbath meetings in his home, then he erected and owned a church building on his property. This is reputed to have been the first Seventh-day Adventist-built church. In a nearby home his daughter, Martha (later the wife of George W. Amadon) taught what is thought to be the first Adventist elementary school (1853).

At the request of James White, Byington relocated to Battle Creek, Michigan

Battle Creek, Michigan

Battle Creek is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan, in northwest Calhoun County, at the confluence of the Kalamazoo and Battle Creek Rivers. It is the principal city of the Battle Creek, Michigan Metropolitan Statistical Area , which encompasses all of Calhoun county...

 in 1858. He worked closely with James White and J. N. Andrews in helping to plan for the growing Sabbatarian Adventist movement. In 1863 at the initial organization of the General Conference in Battle Creek, Michigan, he became the denomination's first president - an office he held for two one-year terms. James White, who was elected first, declined the position.