Josiah Litch was born to John and Jerusha Litch on April 4, 1809. They were living in the small town of Lunenburg, Massachusetts, USA, at the time. For his education, he attended Wesleyan Academy at Wilbraham.
In 1833 he joined the Methodist Episcopal ministry. During his ministry he travelled from Cape Cod to Rhode Island.
In 1836 he married Sarah Barstow. Sarah’s father was also a minister in the Methodist Episcopal church. Together they had two children Wilbur and Josiah.
In 1838, a friend asked Josiah Litch to read the writings of William Miller. He, at first, was hostile to Miller’s prediction of the second coming of Jesus, but after reading he was converted into the Millerite movement. In 1841 he left the Methodist church and joined the Millerites. Around this time, the Millerite movement requested Litch to become the first fully paid Millerite worker.
“In the year 1840 another remarkable fulfillment of prophecy excited widespread interest. Two years before, Josiah Litch, one of the leading ministers preaching the second advent, published an exposition of Revelation 9, predicting the fall of the Ottoman Empire. According to his calculations, this power was to be overthrown ‘in A.D. 1840, sometime in the month of August;’ and only a few days previous to its accomplishment he wrote: ‘Allowing the first period, 150 years, to have been exactly fulfilled before Deacozes ascended the throne by permission of the Turks, and that the 391 years, fifteen days, commenced at the close of the first period, it will end on the 11th of August, 1840, when the Ottoman power in Constantinople may be expected to be broken. And this, I believe, will be found to be the case.’–Josiah Litch, in Signs of the Times, and Expositor of Prophecy, Aug. 1, 1840
“At the very time specified, Turkey, through her ambassadors, accepted the protection of the allied powers of Europe, and thus placed herself under the control of Christian nations. The event exactly fulfilled the prediction. . . . When it became known, multitudes were convinced of the correctness of the principles of prophetic interpretation adopted by Miller and his associates, and a wonderful impetus was given to the advent movement. Men of learning and position united with Miller, both in preaching and in publishing his views, and from 1840 to 1844 the work rapidly extended.” –The Great Controversy, p. 334
According to J. N. Loughborough “The publication of Dr. Litch’s lecture made a general stir, and many thousands were thus called to watch for the termination of the difficulties that had sprung up between Mehemet Ali, the pasha of Egypt, and the Turkish sultan. Hundreds said, ‘If this affair terminates as the doctor has asserted, it will establish the “year-day” principle of interpreting symbolic time, and we will be Adventists.’ –The Great Second Advent Movement, p. 130
“This striking fulfillment of the prophecy had a tremendous effect upon the public mind. It intensified the interest of the people to hear upon the subject of fulfilled and fulfilling prophecy. Dr. Litch said that within a few months after August 11, 1840, he had received letters from more than one thousand prominent infidels, some of them leaders of infidel clubs, in which they stated that they had given up the battle against the Bible, and had accepted it as God’s revelation to man. Some of these were fully converted to God, and a number of them became able speakers in the great second advent movement.’” –The Great Second Advent Movement, p. 132
In 1843 Josiah Litch wrote a book, entitled, The Probability of the Second Coming of Christ About A.D. 1843. However, he was among the last of the prominent Millerites to accept the date of October 22, 1844, proposed by Samuel S. Snow, as the anticipated date of Jesus’ return.
After the Great Disappointment, Litch first thought there was some misunderstanding with regard to what happened in 1844. In 1845, he was present at the Albany Conference where the Millerites met to work out the meaning of the Great Disappointment, and determine the future of the movement. In the years following 1844, he abandoned his commitment to Scripture alone, followed tradition with the Albany Adventists, and eventually lost all distinctiveness in his understanding of the Bible, from the emerging dispensationalists. He then went on to form his own organization known as the Messianians, and he served as president in both Pennsylvania, and Canada.
Josiah Litch died January 31, 1886.