If teenage Susan J. Bysong’s youth made her an unexpected outlier for the lone first Seventh-day Adventist in Colorado Territory, the second Seventh-day Adventist to arrive in Colorado Territory was also an outlier for her advanced age. Amy E. Dartt was 66 years old and in poor health when she arrived in 1871.
Amy Elizabeth Sanford was born on January 11, 1805, in Prospect, Connecticut. Her parents, Jared Sanford (1780-1845) and Abigail Wooster (1780-1845) were members of the Congregational Church. Jared was a shoemaker by trade. Amy was the eldest of their seven children. The senior Sanfords remained in Connecticut until they moved to Byron, Illinois, later in their lives when several of their children moved west in the 1840s.
Why and how Amy came to live in Pennsylvania is unknown. The Dartt family (originally spelled Darte) into which she married had early ties to Connecticut, but her first husband was born in Castleton, Vermont. His family moved from Vermont to New York, and finally Tioga County, Pennsylvania, where his grandfather founded the Dartt Settlement in Charleston Township, near Wellsboro.
Amy married Spencer Dartt (1808-1833) in 1830. They had one daughter, Martha Ann (1831-1881). After Spenser’s death, Amy married Spenser’s first cousin, Josiah Dartt (1818-1881) in 1841. He was thirteen years younger than Amy, yet she gave birth to two more children—Mary Emma (1842- ) and Sarah Elizabeth (1844-1939)—at the advanced ages of 37 and 39.
Amy and Josiah Dartt left Pennsylvania around 1844. Records differ as to whether their youngest daughter was born in Pennsylvania or Byron, Illinois, where members of Amy’s family had migrated. By 1850 the Dartts were living in Baraboo, Sauk County, Wisconsin.
Meeting Seventh-day AdventistsAmy later wrote that she had been aware of the Millerite Movement in 1844, but she had not understood what it was all about (Advent Review and Sabbath Herald). In 1851, Hiram S. Case of Jackson, Michigan, visited southern Wisconsin and began making converts that included J. H. Waggoner, an editor of the Sauk County Standard newspaper in Baraboo. In 1852, Waggoner reported to the Review that Waterman Phelps and Hiram S. Case had visited Baraboo, bringing encouragement to their small group, some hearing the Adventist message for the first time (Advent Review and Sabbath Herald). Amy Dartt was probably one of the individuals in this group. She started subscribing to the Review 1853.
In our day of online church services and instant communication, it is difficult for most of us to conceive of how isolated early Adventists were. Waggoner soon moved away from Baraboo, and for some time after 1852, apparently there were very few other Adventist, if any, in the area. This left Amy and her two younger daughters feeling isolated from other Adventists. Amy enjoyed correspondence with the Review:
I have seated myself to enjoy for a few moments the great privilege conferred upon us, of speaking often one to another through the Review, and indeed it is the only medium of communication that I enjoy with sabbath-keepers at present, for I have not seen one for the last six months excepting my two young daughters. But notwithstanding my lonely situation, I am not in the least discouraged, but am daily looking forward with joyful anticipation to ‘—that blest home, Where none shall sigh with pain, Where hours of parting never come, Nor human frailties stain.’ (Advent Review and Sabbath Herald)
Apparently, Josiah did not join his wife in her newfound beliefs, nor did her eldest daughter Martha Ann, who was a student at Oberlin College in 1851-1852.
Aloneness was a constant refrain in Amy’s letters to the Review. In 1858 Amy had not heard an Adventist preacher speak in three years (Advent Review and Sabbath Herald). Though she was spiritually lonely, she was not physically lonely. In 1854, Martha Ann married James Maxwell, an older man with six children. They had another daughter, Mabel, together in 1857. When the Maxwells headed to the Colorado gold fields in 1860, they left Mabel with her grandparents.
Then, Amy grew seriously ill. Her daughter, Mary Emma, wrote:
My mother Mrs. Amy Dartt has been sick for the past four weeks and now lies at the point of death. We think she is beyond human aid; but we know God is able to save her, and we wish to ask for the prayers of the church in her behalf. We do not feel as if we could give her up, as we three, mother, a younger sister, and myself, are all the Sabbath-keepers in this place, and we know of no one we could call upon to comfort us, and pray with us for her recovery. She feels that the prayers of the church may prevail in her behalf, as they have done in many instances, and she yet be spared to her family and the church of God.
Oh pray for her! We do not yet feel strong enough to do without her counsel and advice. Pray that with her returning health, (if God in his mercy should see fit to spare her,) we may all have more grace given us to take a firmer stand for God and the truth. (Advent Review and Sabbath Herald)
A few weeks later, Amy herself wrote a follow up letter, praising God for her healing. She admitted that this was not the first time that she had been healed in response to prayer. It seems that her health issues were an ongoing concern (Advent Review and Sabbath Herald).
Move to Colorado
In 1871 the Dartts moved first to Central City and then to Boulder, Colorado. Their motivation for the relocation is not clear. Perhaps they desired to be closer to their children who had settled in the territory. Josiah had been a surveyor and civil engineer in Wisconsin. He continued this work in Colorado until his death in 1881 in Boulder.
Meanwhile, Amy remained committed to her faith. In 1872, her first letter to the Review sent from Colorado (probably Central City) mentioned an accidental injury to her left shoulder and hand. In spite of the pain, this intrepid woman continued to climb mountains and hike in order to distributes literature (Advent Review and Sabbath Herald). As a result, Charlotte Bental and Sarah Stalker started keeping the seventh-day Sabbath.
After Merrit E. Cornell held evangelistic meetings in Boulder in 1878, the first Seventh-day Adventist church in Colorado was organized in Boulder. Amy Dartt was a charter member of this congregation. Amy remained in Boulder for the remainder of her life. After Josiah’s death, she boarded with Flora E. Hamm (1854-1921), another member of the Boulder church.
Just four months before her death, Amy wrote her last letter, dated October 9, 1900, to the Review, renewing her subscription for one more year:
Have taken the REVIEW ever since it was published; and though I am now nearly ninety-six years old, I do not want to do without it. Hope I may yet live to see Christ come in the clouds of heaven. Inclosed find $1.50 for the REVIEW one year. (Advent Review and Sabbath Herald)
Amy Elizabeth Dartt died on February 11, 1901.
