George Washington Amadon was born on August 30, 1832, at Sandlake, New York, to Philanda and Eliza Amadon. He was the oldest of five children. Very early in his life George was sent to live with his grandfather near Boston, Massachusetts. His grandfather owned a tavern, but George never partook of the liquor.
From there he went to Oberlin College in Ohio to study. While studying he worked on the Erie Canal driving horses that towed canal boats.
Upon going to visit his uncle in 1853 in Clarkson, New York, he heard the Advent message from J.N. Loughborough. He was baptized shortly afterwards by Loughborough. George could not continue working as a horse driver as they would not give him Sabbath off, so Loughborough recommended George to James White who took him in and provided him employment in the Review and Herald Publishing department in Rochester, New York, as a typesetter. He was paid five dollars per week. The following year, he wrote his first article in The Youth’s Instructor.
When the publishing department moved to Battle Creek in 1855, George went along with the Whites. After some time he became a printer, writer, and served as the editor of The Youth’s Instructor from 1858 to 1864.
Two years later he got sick with erysipelas and was healed when Ellen White prayed for him. It left him with a scar on his arm.
Martha Byington (daughter of John Byington—first president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church) came to live with the Whites in 1857 in Battle Creek. She also came to work in the publishing department. It was here that George met her. Their friendship turned into marriage. They were married on November 24, 1860. Martha’s father conducted the ceremony and he purchased them a house to live in, where they lived for 20 years. They had two daughters: Kate, born on March 15, 1866, and Grace, born on February 24, 1872. They adopted a son, Claude, who was born March 15, 1876.
In 1853, Martha became a schoolteacher and later she taught Ellen and James White’s sons in Battle Creek for a time. In 1874, she became the first president of the Dorcas and Benevolent Association, later known as the Dorcas Society.
George spoiled his first-born daughter Kate. He hated to discipline her; he played with her on the living room floor, and planned elaborate birthday parties for her. He paid for her piano, organ, and vocal music lessons. In 1877, he taught her to set type at the Review office, and when she was competent at it, he hired her.
It was in 1864 that George met John Harvey Kellogg. Kellogg was 12 at the time and he came to work in the Review office for four years. George was a good influence on John in his impressionable years.
George was very close with the Whites. After James’s first stroke in 1865, he helped care for the partially paralyzed General Conference president, and took charge of the publishing work for several months while James recovered. Amadon also traveled extensively with Ellen White in 1867–68 when James was unable to do so.
George and Martha were also very hospitable and often opened their home to visiting church workers.
But, later, problems arose in Battle Creek. The church was getting quite worldly. In 1868 Ellen White started writing reproofs to various Battle Creek leaders. George and Martha were not immune to the worldly influence. In his letters and diaries Amadon occasionally bemoaned his, “exalted, puffed up…jealous, censuring, backbiting, hypocritical state” which showed his spiritual sensitivity
In 1870 the Battle Creek church had 400 members, but the leaders decided to “purge” the church and disfellowshipped all but 12 members. John and Martha were among those disfellowshipped, as also were Uriah Smith and his wife.
All the disfellowshipped members could be reaccepted if they showed fruits of repentance, reform living, and requested for refellowshipment. George repented the following Sabbath and requested refellowshipment but was refused for one reason or another. He then went for eight months to live with Martha’s parents, John and Catharine Byington, near Newton, Michigan, planting, weeding, watering, and harvesting their huge gardens, enjoying family picnics at Goguac Lake, and taking care of his ailing in-laws. He and Martha were restored to church membership in January 1871.
George loved to learn, and he was largely self-taught. He read many books and had learned 18 different ancient and modern languages, including Hebrew, Greek, German, Danish, Swedish, and French. He did this so that he could typeset materials for foreign publications. He began by publishing materials in German and Dutch. He often worked twelve to sixteen-hour days, including Saturday nights and Sundays.
Although he typeset hundreds of other books, he only wrote four of his own. But, he wrote many articles in the Instructor, and in the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald. He wrote on various topics such as church organization, Sabbath/Sunday issues, and health reform (George and Martha were strict vegetarians).
When the General Conference was formed in 1863, George was elected to the Committee and served on the General Conference Executive Committee for many years.
George was a strong believer in the prophetic gift of Ellen White and the divine leadership of James White. He and Martha were present on June 6, 1863, when Ellen received a health reform vision at the home of Martha’s cousin, Aaron Hilliard, in Otsego, Michigan. In October 1867, Amadon signed a statement supporting the White’s sacrifices, faithfulness to the testimonies, Ellen’s visions, and James’ right to rebuke wrongdoers.
On August 3, 1864, George (along with John Byington and J. N. Loughborough) signed a letter to the Michigan Governor, Austin Blair, explaining the Church’s pro-Union, anti-slavery, and noncombatant position during the Civil War (1861–1865).
On December 20, 1902, a fire burnt down the publishing house in Battle Creek. George and his daughter Kate just stood in disbelief and watched the flames. But, he did not lose heart.
After the fire, the publishing department was relocated to Washington, D.C. George, being 70 years old, did not move. He left off with the printing work and began visiting members and visitors locally, giving Bible Studies and encouraging them. Then in 1904, at the age of 72, he was ordained into the ministry as a gospel worker.
Ellen White wrote of him as follows: “ Brother Amadon knows something of our early experiences. He was a member of my family. I am sure that he remembers many of the strait places through which we passed. . . . Brother Amadon has been connected with the Review office from its first establishment. Those who labored in the cause from the first, knew what it was to sacrifice: they accepted the least wages which it seemed possible to subsist upon, and sacrificed of even the little they did receive, in order to make the Office a success.” –Manuscript Releases, vol. 5, p. 164
In later years Ellen White liked to recall how, before he came work with her and James in 1853, George Amadon had been “a mischievous boy working on the towpath with the horses” but had become “one of our main pillars in Battle Creek,” whom she regarded “very highly.” Letters from Ellen White to George Amadon in the 1890s and early 1900s show that she placed a great deal of confidence in him, asking him to assist in sensitive matters. This included requesting him to help conciliate in the growing rift between J. H. Kellogg and the church. Amadon and A. C. Boudreau met with Kellogg for seven hours at his home on November 10, 1907, seeking to bring him back to the Church, but to no avail. George was also asked to carry on a ministry of reconciliation with other estranged Adventists like A. R. Henry, and A. T. Jones.
During his lifetime George received 44 letters from Ellen G. White. Several of them are written in Manuscript Releases, vol. 5, p. 164–171. Her final letter to him, written in 1912, is on pages 170–171 (see box below).
George Amadon and Ellen White both attended their last General Conference session in 1909. In 1911 she sent him an autographed copy of her new book, The Acts of the Apostles. That same year, George, Martha, and their daughter Grace moved to St. Joseph, Michigan. Here they entertained many international guests and enjoyed relaxing near Lake Michigan and the St. Joseph River.
During his life, George had helped publish hundreds of articles, tracts, pamphlets, and books during his more than fifty years of service at the Review and Herald and Southern Publishing Association presses (1853–1904). As a church elder, Sabbath-school teacher, and ordained minister, he was widely respected as a man of prayer and fasting in his spiritual life and as a methodical, systematic, and accurate worker in all of his business relations at the Review and Herald press.
George Washington Amadon died at the age of 80 on February 24, 1913, in St. Joseph and was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Battle Creek.