Wayne, Jasper (1850–1920)

Jasper Wayne was an Adventist layperson and entrepreneur who started the practice of “Harvest Ingathering” (the “harvest” prefix was dropped in April 1942). During Ingathering, Adventists would appeal for funds from the general public to be used for missionary purposes.¹

Early Life

Jasper Wayne was born June 16, 1850, in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, to James (1825-1882) and Cinthy or Cinthia (1830-1897) Wayne.² The oldest of six children, he joined his father in hauling freight in his steamboat from the upper Wisconsin River down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. On one of their trips during the Civil War, they were held up by Confederate soldiers who stole their cargo of potatoes. His father was so angry about this injustice that he enlisted in the Union Army.³

Jasper married a teacher, Emma Tyas Horsefall (1852-1930), on January 10, 1874.⁴ Initially the couple lived in Crawford County, Wisconsin, where Jasper worked in the sawmills. They then purchased a small farm outside Wauzeka where they raised their four children (Myrtle [1875-1944], Leona [1876-1944], Mabel [1881-1960], and Leah [1883-1973]). In 1886 they purchased a 90-acre farm in Boydtown, Wisconsin, where they built a rustic cabin. Soon thereafter, Jasper rented out his land to sharecroppers, started a mercantile, and concentrated his efforts on raising beef and selling nursery stock.⁵ Emma had a forceful personality and was interested in politics. In 1890 Jasper first attended an Adventist evangelistic meeting in southwestern Wisconsin. Until then he had been a regular church goer although he was not especially religious. In 1893 the Waynes moved to Platteville so that he could devote his efforts to selling trees and nursery stock. In 1898 Emma filed for divorce, leaving him with their four daughters.⁶ After their divorce, Jasper became “a devoted member of the church.”⁷

Harvest Ingathering

In 1901, while on a business trip to Dubuque, Iowa, Jasper met Elizabeth “Eva” Moynihan Morton (1863-1916) at the local church. Several months later, on May 14, 1901, they were married. The couple moved to Sac City, Iowa, where Jasper and Eva adopted a child, Emma Phinette (1903-1979). Eva was an entrepreneur in her own right and founded Spencer Hospital in Spencer, Iowa.⁸ Jasper joined with another Adventist partner, B. C. Butler, to establish their own tree nursery. Butler would tend the nursery (with the help of Arch Kelso), and Wayne traveled by team to nearby farms taking, and later delivering, orders for plants.⁹ The first year the Butler and Wayne families lived together as they worked to get established. The missionary minded families worshipped together in their home on Sabbath and distributed literature to their neighbors. Eva encouraged him to pursue his dream of raising funds for missions. Concerned about the rise of labor unions and violence, they decided to distribute a special outreach edition (December 16, 1903) of Signs of the Times. Initially Jasper thought 25 copies would be enough, but Eva thought they should order 100. So, they compromised by ordering 50 copies.¹⁰

Wayne recounted in his own words how the idea of Harvest Ingathering came about while he was traveling selling fruit trees:

Our hearts were filled with an earnest desire to do what we could to advance the message in our neighborhood, and in the fall of that year a special issue of the Signs of the Times appeared, known as the “Capital and Labor” number. I ordered fifty copies of this paper, and considered the disposing of this number quite an undertaking. On receiving the papers at the post office, I unwrapped them, and began to hand them out to the people standing in the lobby of the post office, stating that the money received would go to the cause of foreign missions. To my surprise and delight, in a very short time all my papers were gone, except three, and I had over $4 in money for missions.¹¹

About ten days later [December 2, 1902] he received a second duplicate package of Signs by mistake. The first order had come from his state Tract Society; the second came from the publishing house in Oakland, California.¹² They had duplicated his order by mistake. He took these papers home and shared with his wife, Emma: “I shall see how much can be secured for these papers for our annual offering to missions.” She was delighted as she had felt they should have ordered 100 copies anyway. “God wanted a hundred of our neighbors to receive that paper,” remarked Eva. “So he just doubled the number.”¹³ He recounted what happened next:

I took the papers with me in my buggy to use as occasion offered. The first man I accosted gave me 15 cents, the next 18 cents, and a lady gave me 25 cents. This gave me courage to suggest 25 cents thereafter, which the people readily gave me, some giving larger sums, until with this fifty papers I had collected about $26 for missions. It was with feelings of deep emotion that I emptied the contents of that glass upon the table at the time of the annual offering.¹⁴

According to his grandson, he spent most of that first day distributing the second set of fifty copies. When he returned home: “I almost wept for joy,” he recalled, “to think that I, a poor farmer, could bring in that amount of money to help the missionaries.”¹⁵ He shared his idea with his fellow church members. He saw this endeavor as a fulfillment of Isaiah chapters 60 and 61 about the Gentiles coming with gold and silver to support God’s work as an example of what God could fulfill in their own day. The next Sabbath he brought his jar to Sabbath School, urged others to follow his example, and set a goal of collecting $100 for missions. “The brethren were skeptical,” his grandson remembered. “Some thought Brother Wayne was a little sick in the head. One dear sister whispered that he had suffered a sunstroke while working in the fields that summer.”¹⁶ Yet he remained undeterred ordering 400 more copies of the Signs. As the quarters rolled in, he did in fact reach his goal of $100. “Not only did I receive this sum of money,” he wrote, “but I obtained a rich experience as I explained the object and aims of our work.”¹⁷ He wrote about his success stating that he could raise funds “while pursuing my ordinary business.” He added: “God has greatly blessed me in the effort, and my heart burns with an indescribable desire for the salvation of souls.”¹⁸

Upon reaching his goal Jasper sent the funds to the Iowa Conference office. They returned the money initially as it did not match the denomination’s policy. He sent the funds back again with a letter requesting that “this money was collected for missions and to missions it shall go.” They finally accepted it as a personal contribution.¹⁹

In 1905 Jasper attended the Omaha, Nebraska, camp meeting. After a sleepless night, Eva encouraged him to “go and see what you can do.”²⁰ Some still thought it was a poor policy to “beg money from the Gentiles” to support the Adventist work.²¹ Nebraska Conference president, A. T. Robinson (1850-1949) listened to Jasper and offered Jasper an hour to share about his work.²² Although not a public speaker, he shared his idea to a crowd of an estimated 2,000 people. On the platform with him was W. C. White (1854-1937) who became deeply interested and urged people to enter this “open door.” White arranged for him to talk with his mother, Ellen White (1827-1915) about his idea. As Jasper recounted their meeting, White “manifested a deep interest, and assured me that she considered it a most excellent plan, and that she would do all she could to help bring it before the people.²³

He considered this meeting with White the “event of my life” after which he “knew that the success of the Harvest Ingathering work was assured.”²⁴ Ellen White agreed that this plan was under “the providence of God” as a new means to awaken the interest of church members in raising funds to reach the world.²⁵

Subsequently Robinson developed a conference-wide plan for solicitation. Wayne traveled across Iowa with L. F. Starr speaking at a series of regional camp meetings (Colfax, Burt, Cedar Rapids, and Storm Lake). Starr in turn arranged for him to travel with William H. Cox, visiting churches across the state and demonstrating the plan. That year the denomination held a special “Harvest Ingathering” offering as recommended by Ellen White and other church leaders “in which the fruits of farm and garden were brought in” to raise money for missions. As Wayne loved to recount, according to Spalding, funds were to be raised “not through leafy vegetables, but leafy papers” hence the name “Harvest Ingathering easily attached itself” to the endeavor.²⁶

The next summer (1906) Wayne was asked to share his idea at other camp meetings across the Northern Union (North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota). “The idea was received with considerable enthusiasm,” noted R. A. Underwood, Northern Union president, as word quickly spread among church members.²⁷ I. H. Evans (1862-1945), at the Minnesota camp meeting, came up with the goal of raising ten cents per church member toward foreign missions. Then Underwood and Jasper together presented the idea to the General Conference leaders as a goal for members in North America.²⁸ Although there was initial reluctance from administration, in 1908 the General Conference Executive Committee adopted this special “Thanksgiving Program” for raising missionary funds.²⁹

During the first year the Harvest Ingathering plan brought in $30,000, which was enough funds to send out 25 new missionaries.³⁰ By the time of Jasper Wayne’s death in 1920, the denomination had raised over a million dollars toward missions.³¹ It soon became customary to hold an annual Ingathering effort during the last week of November in conjunction with a special issue of a denominational periodical. Initially this was a special number of the Review but later, special editions of either Signs of the Times or Watchman (later These Times) were distributed during these efforts. In 1935 denominational leaders introduced the individual “Minute Man” goal. Each church member was urged to raise enough funds to support the overseas mission work for one minute.³² In 1959, church members were given a goal of $25 known as the Silver Vanguard goal. By 1971 that goal had increased to $30 a person. An estimated $136 million for church outreach projects was raised through this program.³³ In the 1980s the practice declined, in large part due to concerns about the safety of young people and discomfort about asking for money as culture shifted and raising funds through television or over the telephone became more acceptable than knocking on doors. Some even noted how the pressure to perform could create a toxic culture of abuse, especially for pastors.³⁴ By the year 2000, the practice of Ingathering had largely disappeared in North America.

Later Years

Eva, Jasper’s second wife, died from pneumonia on January 17, 1916.³⁵ In his grief he sold the sanitarium in West Union, Iowa, and opened another medical center in Waukon, Iowa. Here he was assisted by a nurse, Ida Mina Root Hayes (1882-1962), whom he married on October 30, 1918. The couple had one child, Dorothy (1919-2006).

In Jasper’s later years he was involved in philanthropic hospital work, ultimately managing five hospitals, including the one in Waukon, Iowa, at the time of his death. Also during this time he established a chain of fitness centers.³⁶ These hospitals and fitness centers lasted until the Great Depression when they went out of business.³⁷ Adventist historian A. W. Spalding described him as “a genial man, frank, openhearted, [and] honest.” He furthermore “commanded the respect of all who knew him.”³⁸ The end came on February 5, 1920, while in Waukon, Iowa, and he was buried in a nearby cemetery.³⁹ He was remembered for having a “quiet” and “unassuming” disposition and his Ingathering scheme which he believed was a “heaven-born plan” that “proved to be of such world-wide influence and blessing.”⁴⁰

Sources

Ahl, Faye. “Ingathering ’71.” Southern Tidings, October 1971.

Bowes, Richard G. “Jasper Wayne—Adventist Innovator.” ARH, October 27, 1983.

Bowes, Richard G. “Jasper Wayne—Adventist Innovator—2.” ARH, November 3, 1983.

Bowes, Richard G. “The Life of Jasper Wayne.” Unpublished term paper. Andrews University, 1973.

“Death of Jasper Wayne.” ARH, February 26, 1920.

General Conference Executive Committee Minutes, April 24, 1908.

Land, Gary. Historical Dictionary of the Seventh-day Adventists. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.

Obituary. ARH, March 18, 1920. https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Periodicals/RH/RH19200318-V97-12.pdf

Obituary. Grant County Herald, February 18, 1920.

Patterson, Emma Fairchild. Jasper Wayne: His Life and Times. Youngtown, AZ: SunCity-Youngtown Printers, 1980.

Schwarz, Richard W and Floyd Greenleaf. Light Bearers: A History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2000.

Seibold, Loren. “Harvest Ingathering: A Personal History.” Adventist Today, August 6, 2021, https://atoday.org/harvest-ingathering-a-personal-history/ [accessed 7/15/23].

Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia. Second revised edition. Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herlald Publishing association, 1996. S.v. “Harvest Ingathering,”.

Spalding, Arthur W. Christ’s Last Legion: Second Volume of a History of Seventh-day Adventists, Covering the Years 1901-1948. Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1949.

Underwood, R. A. “How the Harvest Ingathering Was First Started.” ARH August 28, 1919.

[Wayne, Jasper]. “Beginning of the Harvest Ingathering Work.” ARH, August 24, 1933.

White, Ellen G. “Consecrated Efforts to Reach Unbelievers.” The Church Officers’ Gazette, September 1, 1914.

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