Charles Fitch

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Charles Fitch (1805–1844) was an American preacher who helped spread the Millerite movement in the early 1840s. In the 1830s he worked with famous evangelist Charles G. Finney on temperance and abolition. In 1838 he found William Miller’s lectures but was rebuffed when he shared them with local colleagues, so he initially stepped back. Three years later, after meeting Josiah Litch, he openly joined the Millerite movement and focused his preaching in Ohio, Michigan, and Western New York.

Fitch’s most notable moment came in 1843 with a sermon called “Come Out of Babylon.” He argued, based on Revelation 18, that Babylon included Protestant churches that had not accepted the Second Coming, and he urged Millerites to separate from their churches. This idea was later echoed by George Storrs and Joseph Marsh, though Millerite leaders did not officially endorse it.

In 1844, after the initial disappointment when Jesus did not return in the spring, Fitch continued preaching and baptizing. Following Samuel S. Snow’s August 1844 prediction that Jesus would come on October 22, 1844, Fitch persisted in evangelizing and baptizing groups in early October. He died of fever on October 14, 1844, at the age of 39, just eight days before the expected event.