It appears that Merritt G. Kellogg, the oldest son of J. P. Kellogg, was the first Seventh-day Adventist in the State of California. His family shared the Good News by sharing literature and books. Their first convert was B. G. St. John, that forty-niner who made and lost a large fortune in gold mining. Meeting with some success, Kellogg in 1861 held meetings in the courthouse in San Francisco on a weekly basis, and there were eventually 14 who confessed their faith in Jesus and His Church.

Kellogg then organized a Sabbath School in his home. Several years later, an Adventist cobbler, L. W. Cronkrite, arrived in San Francisco. He hung a placard of the Ten Commandments and a prophetic chart on his shop wall. When customers made inquiries about the strange beasts, Cronkrite gave them a study on the prophecies. So much interest was aroused that in the fall of 1865, the little Adventist company decided to send $133 in gold to Battle Creek to pay the travel expenses of a minister to labor in California. Alas, the General Conference had no one to send (Testimonies to the Church, IV, 489, 490).
 

In the spring of 1867, the little group of believers in San Francisco decided to lodge their appeal once again to the General Conference by sending Merritt G. Kellogg to the General Conference Session, but unfortunately, he was not able to arrive on time for the session.

Kellogg decided to take matters into his own hands. He sold his home on the west coast, traveled eastward, and occupied himself until the next General Conference Session which was held May 28, 1868, where he would appear in person.

At first it seemed his plea would again go unheeded. Then, when only two workers remained to be assigned, one of them, J. N. Loughborough, arose. He spoke of recent dreams which had left him with a strong impression that he should hold tent meetings in California. “Should Elder Loughborough go alone?” asked James White. After all, Christ had sent his disciples out two by two. That seemed a good plan to follow for so distant a field. D. T. Bourdeau thought so too; he would gladly accompany Loughborough.

 

Immediately James White set about raising $1,000 to purchase a new tent for California and to finance passage for the Loughboroughs and Bourdeaus by way of Panama. No time was wasted. Less than a month after making their decision, these “missionaries” boarded a ship in New York City. Twenty-four days later they were in San Francisco. Here they were warmly welcomed by the St. Johns and other members of the Adventist company (O. Macomber, Pioneering the Message in the Golden West, (1946) 54, 58, 59, 63-67).

Public Evangelism Heads West

The discovery of gold in California had made California an empire unto itself. Mrs. White had cautioned to use economy but at the same time she urged to spend as needed to make sure God’s work would grow, knowing that the liberal donations of many would more than take care of the expenses that would be incurred in the spreading of the gospel in the West Coast.
 

Bourdeau and Loughborough arrived in San Francisco on July 18, 1868, and immediately found lodging with B. G. St. John, "the converted forty-niner." As they scouted the San Francisco area, they found that food was very inexpensive but the rental of homes and buildings to hold meetings was very expensive. There was a church in a small town called Petaluma about 50 miles north of San Francisco, which was known as an Independent church. Members had seen a notice in an Eastern newspaper that two men were traveling west with a tent to hold evangelistic meetings. They were able to make contact with Bourdeau and Loughborough in San Francisco, and the Independent church invited them to Petaluma to hold meetings.
 

On August 13, about a month after having arrived in California, Bourdeau and Loughborough launched their series of tent meetings in Petaluma at the Independent church. As the story goes, one of the members of this Independent church had a dream one night where he saw two men kindling five fires. In his dream, he saw the ministers of the other churches in Petaluma trying to put these fires out, but the more they tried to put the fires out, the more they burned. Finally he heard the ministers say in the dream, "It is of no use. Leave them alone. The more we try to put out the fires, the better they burn" (J. N. Loughborough, Rise and Progress of the Seventh-day Adventists, 276-279).
 

Everything seemed to be going fine until they presented the Sabbath doctrine, and a division arose among the Independent church members, with only six accepting the Sabbath doctrine and uniting with the Seventh-day Adventist group.

Upon completing these meetings in Petaluma, Bourdeau and Loughborough moved on to Windsor to the north, then to Piner, then on to Santa Rosa and Healdsburg. It is interesting to note, that the "five fires" that had been kindled were now burning.
 

There was much intense excitement in this area of California regarding the establishment of the small Advent groups. It was decided that a church building should be established in this area. Santa Rosa was the city chosen for the establishment of a church building. A man donated two lots of land and $500, and as a result, the first Seventh-day Adventist church in California was established and organized in Santa Rosa, November 1869.
 

In October 1872, the first Adventist camp meeting in the State was held at Windsor, lasting one week. The camp consisted of 33 tents in addition to the 60-foot circular tent in which the meetings were held. Elder and Mrs. White attended, and their message was heartily received by the believers. They remained in the state until the end of Feburary 1873, holding meetings with the various churches and companies. On February 15 and 16 the California Conference was organized at a meeting held in Bloomfield, Sonoma County, the Sabbath keepers then numbering 238 (M. Ellisowrth Olsen, Origin and Progress of SDA’s, 290).
 

By the time the California Conference was organized in February 1873 (a temporary organization having been formed in about 1869), Loughborough could proclaim to the assembled delegates, "None of us, it seems to me, can doubt the utility and practicability of good camp-meetings. They are almost indispensable to the work of our cause" (Harold Oliver McCumber, Pioneering the Message in the Golden West (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1946, 51-107).
 

Camp meetings, having proved so successful in the past, inspired the California Adventists to organize another state-wide camp meeting for the fall of the same year. This camp meeting was a one-week affair held in a shady grove at the confluence of Conn Creek and the Napa River, about a mile northeast of Yountville. Sixty-three tents were neatly arranged around the thoroughfares - Present Truth Street, Law and Order Street, etc. On Sunday, nearly 1,500 people pushed in and out of the big evangelistic tent, and afterwards 29 were baptized in the river (McCumber, pp. 112; Napa Chamber of Commerce, An Insider's Guide to the California Wine Country, http://www. Insiders.com/winecountry/main-worship.htm, 1998).

On June 4, 1874, Elder James White began to issue an eight-page semimonthly paper, The Signs of the Times, as a further means of spreading the Adventist principles on the Pacific Coast. After producing six issues, he arranged with the California Conference to take charge of the paper and returned east to obtain means to put the enterprise on strong footing. At the General Conference held in August of that year, it was proposed to raise $6,000 east of the Rocky Mountains for this purpose, provided the brethren on the coast would raise $4,000, secure a suitable site, and erect a building. Elder George I. Butler brought this proposition to the California brethren assembled at the Yountville camp meeting in October, and they responded by raising $19,414 in coin. The Sabbath keepers in California then numbered 550, and the yearly tithe amounted to more than $4,000.
 

A small health resort was opened near St. Helena in 1878 under the direction of Merritt Kellogg, who had received medical training in 1867. This has grown into a large hospital system, and a number of similar institutions have been established throughout California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah and Hawaii.

In 1882 Healdsburg College was established, which was the beginning of a system of education that includes Pacific Union College, La Sierra University, and Loma Linda University and Medical Center. Today there are three colleges, many hospitals, and a medical training institution all from the California Conference, from which today the Northern California Conference traces its roots.