Madison Adventist Origins

Edson White, son of Seventh-day Adventist pioneers James and Ellen White, read his mother's booklet Our Duty to the Colored People at forty-four and started a mission to Black Southerners. The Morning Star, a boat with a library, chapel, photography lab, print shop and staff quarters, carried the work along the Mississippi, and the Southern Missionary Society grew to about fifty schools, including ones in Vicksburg, Yazoo City and Nashville. Edward Sutherland and Percy Magan, who had left Emmanuel Missionary College, bought a farm about twelve miles from Nashville in 1904, where students earned their way by farm work.

What the plaque says

Madison Adventist Origins In June 1904 near this spot, "The Morning Star" moored for repairs. Seventh-day Adventist visionary Ellen White, mother of boat owner Edson White, saw the nearby Ferguson Farm for sale and told educators Edward A. Sutherland and Percy T. Magan to locate there. The founders occupied the property on October 1, 1904 and chartered the Nashville Agricultural and Normal Institute August 4, 1905 later known as Madison College. They dedicated a sanitarium in June 1908 that served for many years as the Madison Hospital and later as Tennessee Christian Medical Center. Madison Health Food company operated by the Rural Educational Association produced high-protein meat substitutes. Other industries helped students work their way through school. Many of Madison College's students started schools and sanitariums of this kind on farms in the southeastern United States. Madison Elementary and Academy and the Middle Tennessee School of Anesthesia now occupy the campus.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Andrew Jackson's Hermitage — 4.3 mi
  Andrew Jackson's cotton plantation east of Nashville, where visitors can walk to the quarters, Alfred's Cabin and the Enslaved Cemetery as well as the mansion.
• Tennessee State Capitol — 8.7 mi
  William Strickland's Greek Revival capitol on Nashville's Capitol Hill, finished in 1859 and built from the bottom up with the labor of enslaved men.
• Ryman Auditorium — 8.7 mi
  The 1892 brick tabernacle in downtown Nashville that was the Grand Ole Opry's home from 1943 to 1974, now a National Historic Landmark and working concert hall.
• National Museum of African American Music — 8.8 mi
  A downtown Nashville museum, opened in 2021, tracing gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and hip-hop through Black history from 1619 to 2016.

More markers nearby

• Old Hickory Village — 1.4 mi
• Free Hill Road — 3.7 mi
• The Hermitage — 4.2 mi
• Williamson-Davidson — 4.3 mi