Green Flake – Scout and driver for President Brigham Young.

Black Latter-day Saints and Black Past.org – Introduction by Quintard Taylor.

African Americans have been members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) almost since its founding in 1830. Their numbers were initially small, but their role was significant. Green Flake, for example, LDS President Brigham Young’s driver and scout, was one of the first Mormon pioneers to reach the Salt Lake Valley in 1847.

For 126 years (1852-1978) men of African ancestry were denied the Priesthood and other restrictions were placed on black women and children. Often overlooked in discussions of the ban were the 22 years before the ban was in place where African Americans, such as Elijah Abel and Joseph T. Ball,  played important roles in the church. As an LDS Bishop, Ball led the Boston congregation in the mid-1840s, which at the time was the largest outside of church headquarters in Nauvoo, Illinois.

After the ban was lifted African Americans such as internationally prominent entertainer Gladys Knight, Utah Jazz basketball star and actor Thurl Lee Bailey, and many others joined the Church. One black LDS member, Mia Love, sits in the U.S. Congress representing Utah’s 4^th Congressional District. Far larger numbers of Africans and people of African ancestry in Latin America were converted as well. Today, an estimated 700,000 people of African ancestry call the LDS faith their own.

BlackPast.org captures that history. With financial support from the LDS Church, we have assembled profiles on individual LDS women and men written by LDS and non-LDS volunteer contributors as well as documents, speeches, and public statements from the LDS Church and other sources. This page also includes a bibliography of the leading books on the subject and features a timeline that briefly outlines the history of black Mormons. These assembled resources are the largest concentration of information on blacks and the LDS church on the Internet.

This is not, however, a static page.  We invite others to contribute profiles of significant LDS Church members of African ancestry, to write articles on the history of blacks and the Church, and to suggest other resources that can be linked to this page. We also need your help in spreading this information to LDS members and non-LDS folks around the world. We believe this history should be shared with all. If you are interested in contributing, please contact, quintard.taylor@blackpast.org.

Guest Author

This article titled “The Quincy Miracle: How One Town Saved Thousands of Mormon Refugees” by Glenn Rawson appeared in the 19 Movember 2016 edition of LDS Living.com.

On October 27, 1838, Missouri governor Lilburn W. Boggs issued an extermination order forcing thousands of Latter-day Saints to leave Missouri by March 8, 1839, or be killed. But where could they go?

“The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the state if necessary for the public peace,” Executive Order 44 declared. Thousands of Missouri militia forces were called out; they surrounded the Latter-day Saint settlement of Far West and demanded that the Mormons leave the state according to the governor’s order.

But where could more than 10,000 people go on a moment’s notice as winter approached? They were already on the western frontier of the United States. They couldn’t go south; that would take them deeper into Missouri. They couldn’t go west; that was Indian Territory. They couldn’t go north; that was Iowa Territory, which was sparsely settled at best. The shortest and most direct route out of Missouri was due east, across the Mississippi River and into Illinois. Based on invitations from a few Church members already living in Quincy, Illinois, it was decided that the main body of the Latter-day Saints would join the handful already in the town.

To hasten the Mormons’ departure, mobs continued to prey on them, plundering, pillaging, raping, and burning. Joseph and Hyrum Smith were taken prisoner along with other Church leaders, and it was announced that they would be held until every Mormon had left the state. Joseph Holbrook commented, “We found that there was no more peace or safety for the saints in the state of Missouri. If the Church would make haste and move as fast as possible, it would aid much to relieve our brethren who are now in jail as our enemies were determined to hold them as hostages until the Church left the state. Every exertion was made in the dead of winter to remove as fast as possible” (Pamela Call Johnson, Joseph Holbrook, Mormon Pioneer, Journal).

By December 1838, the Mormons began to move with whatever conveyance they could obtain, leaving behind much of what they owned. Brigham Young invited the Mormon brethren to covenant to assist the poor in leaving the state, and he did his best to gather resources to help them leave. He would not rest until all were safely out of Missouri.

By the bitter cold of January 1839, there were hundreds of men, women, and children strung along a 200-mile trail leading east. The weather was forbidding. At times the snow fell as much as a foot deep, accompanied by wind and bitter cold. At other times their way was marred by rain and deep mud. None had adequate food or clothing. Some were barefoot—their way across the prairie was marked by bloody footprints. Not all would survive the flight from Missouri. And Joseph Smith Sr., who became ill during the exodus to Quincy, would die later in Nauvoo because of it.

By February, hundreds of Mormon refugees lined the west bank of the Mississippi River. Wagons filled with families and all they owned would pull to the river’s edge, drop their human cargo and their meager belongings in the snow before turning back to help evacuate more of their fellow Saints.

At times the mighty river was impassable, as large chunks of floating ice prevented boat traffic on the river. Under these conditions, the Mormons were trapped: ahead was the impenetrable river, and behind were the Missourians, terrorizing them at every turn. Their only option was to hunker down and wait for the river to freeze so that they could cross over to Illinois on the ice.

Town of Quincy, by Kirt Harmon. Image courtesy of Glenn Rawson.

Meanwhile, from across the river, citizens of Quincy saw firsthand the miserable drama of human suffering. The Quincy Whig documented, “A large number of families are encamped on the opposite bank of the Mississippi waiting for an opportunity to cross. . . . If they have been thrown upon our shores destitute, through the oppressive people of Missouri, common humanity must oblige us to aid and relieve them all in our power.”

Sometimes the shelter for the refugees consisted of nothing more than a blanket thrown over a low-hanging limb. It was under these conditions that one Latter-day Saint woman, Martha Thomas, gave birth in a bed comprised of a rope contraption under quilts hung over a tree.

Notwithstanding the risk, a delegation of Quincy residents braved their way across the river, bringing blankets and supplies. When they inquired of the Mormons what they needed, they were told:

“If we should say what our present wants are, it would be beyond all calculation, as we have been robbed of our corn, wheat, horses, cattle, hogs, wearing apparel, houses and homes, and indeed of all that renders life tolerable. . . . Give us employment. Rent us farms. And allow us the protection and privileges of other citizens” (Joseph Smith, History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. B. H. Roberts (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976 reprint), 3:269–70).

The river alternately froze and thawed throughout January and February. In late February 1839, the temperature dropped and the river froze solid. The Mormons still stuck on the Missouri side braved the ice and crossed. Eleven-year-old Mosiah Hancock talked of struggling to walk across the clear and slippery ice barefoot. As he neared the eastern bank, the ice began to break up.

“Father said, ‘Run Mosiah!’ and I did run,” the boy remembered. “We all just made it on the opposite bank when the ice started to snap and pile up in great heaps and the water broke through” (Mosiah Hancock, Autobiography).

The relief Mormons felt after finally being free of the terrors of Missouri was so great that some dropped to their knees on Quincy’s shores and offered prayers of thanksgiving; others kissed the ground. Some made camp on the banks of the river while others struggled up the bluffs to Washington Park, the main square of Quincy, where they set up makeshift tents. Wilford Woodruff described the following scene:

“I saw a great many of the saints, old and young, lying in the mud and water, in a rainstorm, without tent or covering. . . . The sight filled my eyes with tears” (“Wilford Woodruff History, from His Own Pen,” Millennial Star).

The citizens of Quincy had compassion on the beleaguered Saints, especially the suffering women and children, and determined to take them in. The cry for compassion was led by Quincy’s mayor and founder, John Wood.

Quincy’s mayor and founder, John Wood. Image courtesy of Glenn Rawson.

Orville Browning, another of Quincy’s leading sons and an eyewitness of the Saints’ suffering, declared, “Great God! Have I not seen it? Yes, my eyes have beheld the blood stained traces of innocent women and children in the drear winter, who had traveled hundreds of miles barefoot through frost and snow, to seek refuge from their savage pursuers” (History of the Church, 4:368).

Compassion overwhelmed the people of Quincy, and as they had done before and would do again, they took in the homeless and ministered to the suffering. They brought the Mormons into their homes, shops, and even their barns. Every space that could be made hospitable was opened to the suffering Saints. The Mormons filled Quincy to overflowing before spreading out into other communities in Adams County. John Lowe Butler described the kindness that so typified the people of Quincy:

“The old gentleman came to me and told me to bring my family up to one of his houses and we could live in it until we had been there a little while so that we should have a little time to look about us and get a place. . . . He never charged us anything for what we had. There were three or four other families living close to us that were Mormons. They were living in his houses that were joining ours. He treated them all with kindness. It seemed a new thing to us to be treated with so much kindness” (John L. Butler, “A History of the Biography of John L. Butler”).

The small community of Quincy, numbering fewer than 2,000 people, somehow absorbed more than 5,000 Mormons, giving them not only shelter but also food, clothing, and jobs. When the Quincy citizens couldn’t provide any more from their own stores, they sent out pleas for assistance as far away as Washington, D.C.

The Mormons would never forget what was done and by whom. A statement by the First Presidency proclaimed, “It would be impossible to enumerate all those who in our time of deep distress, nobly came forward to our relief and like the Good Samaritan poured oil into our wounds and contributed liberally to our necessities” (“Proclamation to the Saints Scattered Abroad, January 15, 1841,” History of the Church).

In April 1839, Joseph Smith escaped prison in Missouri and found his way to his family in Quincy.

For the brief period of three months, Quincy, Illinois, was the headquarters of the Latter-day Saints. Some of the Saints made their homes among the good people of Quincy. Some citizens of Quincy—including Ezra T. Benson, great-grandfather of President Ezra Taft Benson—joined the Mormons and traveled on with them.

Image courtesy of Glenn Rawson.

By May 1839, Joseph Smith and the first wave of Saints had moved 50 miles north of Quincy to Commerce, where they began building the foundations of a new city that would later be called Nauvoo. All but a handful of Mormons eventually left Quincy and settled in Nauvoo or other places in Hancock County.

But the miraculous kindness of Quincy didn’t stop there. Seven years later, in the fall of 1846, when the Mormons left Illinois for a new home in the Rocky Mountains, it was the citizens of Quincy who rallied. They loaded barges with food, clothing, and supplies, sailing the Saints up-river and aiding even the poorest of the Mormons in their exodus to the West.

The legacy of Quincy will endure as one of great humanitarian compassion. The deeds of Quincy’s citizenry will live forever in the hearts of many who descended from those Mormons sheltered and saved in Quincy in 1839. Joseph Smith himself summed up the deeds of Quincy’s citizens and their place in history: “They burst the chains of slavery and proclaimed us forever free! Quincy, our first noble city of refuge when we came from the slaughter in Missouri and with our garments stained with blood, should not be forgotten” (History of the Church, 4:292).

Lead image by Julie Rogers (courtesy of Glenn Rawson).

Guest Author

This account, written by Jamie Armstrong, appeared in the 29 October 2016 online edition of LDS Living.com.

In the winter of 1838, Governor Lilburn W. Boggs issued an Extermination Order demanding that Mormons leave Missouri by March 8, 1839, or be killed. More than 5,000 Saints fled the state by crossing the frozen Mississippi River into the tiny town of Quincy, Illinois. With throngs of Mormon refugees overwhelming the kind-hearted community, shelter was scarce, so one family gladly—and knowingly—took refuge in a haunted farmhouse.

“Some were willing to take whatever [shelter] they could get, despite the living or the dead,” writes Richard E. Bennet, a BYU professor of Church History and Doctrine and author of Mormons in Quincy, Illinois, 1838–1840.  “Take the case of a Mr. Robert Stilson and his haunted house. Eager to rent his vacant farmhouse to the soonest new tenants, Stilson willingly rented out his property to a Mormon newcomer, Mr. Hale, and his young family as long as Hale did not mind living in a spooked environment. . . . The story was that a black peddler had been murdered there and his body thrown into the well. Hale, a very active Latter-day Saint, saw absolutely no problem with the arrangement since he, as a priesthood holder, could cast out every devil in Adams County.”

For months, the family lived in the farmhouse without incident, but then things began to take a disturbing turn. One of the Hale children, Aroet L. Hale, wrote the following spooky account in his journal:

“Father had called the family together for prayers at bed time and had read a chapter in the Book of Mormon and had knelt down and commenced to pray when there was something that fell on to the top of the house that fairly shook the house so that the dishes rattled on the cupboard . . . and so Father sprang to his feet run to the door up the corner of the house on to the roof and rebuked the evil spirits and commanded them to depart. Came back, knelt down and had his family prayers.

“A few Sundays after this occurrence, Father was having prayers before going to bed. He was on his knees and had commenced praying when there was something sounded like a man braying and a lot of log chains past by close to the door. These logs [had lain] for a week in front of the door. The chains rattled over those logs and passed to the end of the house. Father sprang to his feet ran down to the door and commenced rebuking this evil spirit and commanded it to depart and leave the premises. It started off dragging its chains. He followed it about 20 rods, returned to the house, had prayers and went to bed.

“The third and last time was on Sunday again at the close of the meeting. We had had a very good meeting. The Spirit of the Lord had been in our midst to a great degree. One of the sisters looked across the room and there stood the Devil or evil spirit in the shape of a large Newfoundland dog only much larger with eyes glaring like balls of fire looking into the house. This scared the women and children. Father spoke to one of the Brethren [and] they followed this spirit off of the farm and into the woods rebuking it by the power of the Priesthood and ordered it to return no more. No more evil spirits returned to bother us” (Aroet L. Hale, Journal, Church Historical Department).

Guest Author

The article titled “When Body Snatchers Targeted Mormons and the Miraculous Dream That Saved a Slain Missionary’s Body” by Danielle B. Wagner appeared in the 17 October online edition of LDS Living.com.

When the Latter-day Saints moved west to escape persecution, they weren’t just forced to leave behind homes and valuables. Many of them were most heartbroken to leave behind the bodies of their deceased loved ones—possibly to fall into the hands of unscrupulous body snatchers, also commonly called “resurrectionists.”

Body Snatching: A Fate Worse Than Death

Body snatching—robbing crypts and graves for human cadavers—is a practice with a rather controversial history.

Due to medical schools’ high demand for bodies to study for anatomy, body snatching became a lucrative business that escalated during the 1600s through the 1800s. In fact, in the 1820s two body snatchers, William Burke and William Hare, even went to the extreme of murdering 20 people so they could sell their bodies for dissection.

At that time, people considered dissection a fate worse than death, a “further Terror and peculiar Mark of Infamy” reserved only for the worst of criminals who were publicly executed.

Fearful citizens held riots and ransacked medical schools that they thought practiced dissection. One such riot, held in New York in 1788, involved  by citizens ransacking and searching for bodies in the rooms of students and professors at the Columbia College of Medical School and led to the outlawing of body snatching in New York the following year. However, more comprehensive, national laws regulating medical dissection didn’t come into play in the U.S. and Britain until the 1830s.

Despite these past misgivings, Cambridge scientists claim the knowledge that was gained from these dissections had a greater influence on medicine than WWI. “The body snatchers, like the war, allowed scientists to have a greater understanding of general medicine and amputation due to the bodies they had to work with,” Louise Walsh, a spokeswoman for the Cambridge told the Daily Mail. “For the first time, medical students were able to not only practice but work with real bodies—they could understand how the organs worked.”

Body Snatching in the Early Days of the Church

So, what does all of this have to do with Mormons?

Many Latter-day Saints were victims of “resurrectionists” and illegal body snatching before they began their trek out west.

Saints in Kirtland kept an especially close eye on the graves of their loved ones, guarding them day and night for weeks after their burial because of their close proximity to Willoughby Medical College. According to Latter-day Saint Helen Mar Whitney, the medical students and professors at the college thought it “no sacrilege to dissect a ‘Mormon’ dead or alive” (George W. Givens, 500 Little-Known Facts in Mormon History).

One common way the Saints protected their deceased was to overturn a bier, or coffin stand, on top of the grave of a loved one and then tie a rope connecting the bier to the arm of someone sleeping nearby. If the bier was moved, the person on watch would be notified by a tug from the rope (George W. Givens, 500 Little-Known Facts in Mormon History).

Did You Know? Following the death of Joseph Smith’s brother, Alvin, rumors circulated about his body being dug up and dissected. In order to put these rumors to rest, Joseph Smith Sr. “ran a public notice five times in the Palmyraweekly” which read in part: ““TO THE PUBLIC: Whereas reports have been industriously put in circulation that my son Alvin had been removed from the place of his interment and dissected; … therefore, for the purpose of ascertaining the truth of such reports, I, with some of my neighbors this morning, repaired to the grave, and removing the earth, found the body, which had not been disturbed” (Ensign, August 1987, “The Alvin Smith Story: Fact and Fiction“).

A Miraculous Encounter with Body Snatchers

Kirtland was not the only place the Saints faced the terrorizing body snatchers.

In Pomfret, New York, in January of 1831—nearly 50 years since body snatching had been outlawed in the state—”opposers” to the Church murdered Mormon missionary Joseph Brackenbury, who died from “the effects of poison secretly administered to him” (HC, 7:524, quoted in George W. Givens, 500 Little-Known Facts in Mormon History).

The cold, stormy night following Elder Brackenbury’s burial, my ancestor Joel Hills Johnson had a strange dream. Joel Johnson (the famous writer of “High on a Mountain Top”) was not yet baptized a member of the Church, though he had already shown interest in its teachings. (It’s not clear how Johnson knew Elder Brackenbury, but it’s possible he could have been one of the missionaries who shared the gospel with Johnson.)

As Joel Johnson slept, he dreamt that body snatchers were defiling Elder Brackenbury’s grave and stealing his corpse. The dream was so realistic and disturbed Joel so deeply, he woke his brother David and convinced him to travel with him to the cemetery a mile from their house.

There, the brothers found men digging at Elder Brackenbury’s grave. After chasing the men, they were able to catch one and discovered he was a doctor hoping to dissect the body. The man was brought to the authorities and given a bond, but like “many anti-Mormons accused of crimes against the Saints, he was never brought to trial” (George W. Givens, 500 Little-Known Facts in Mormon History).

Not six months after this event, Joel Hills Johnson was baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and David and many of his other siblings followed. In fact, the descendants of Joel’s father, Ezekiel Johnson, are believed to belong to the largest family in the LDS Church.

Unfortunately, the experiences Joel Hills Johnson and the Saints in Kirtland had with body snatchers are not unique in Latter-day Saint history. Perhaps these encounters give us one more reason to admire the courage of the pioneers and to realize a portion of what they sacrificed and left behind.

Lead image from Getty Images.

Guest Author

Excerpts used in this article were taken from the original article “What 17 Famous People Have Said About Mormons” by Danielle B. Wagner for the 31 August 2016 online edition of LDS Living.com.

People have a lot to say about the Mormons these days, what with The Book of Mormon musical still going strong not to mention how Mormons are impacting the current presidential election. And there’s no short supply of topics or opinions.

But, since the 1800s, Mormons have always been a popular topic of conversation, and often misrepresentation. As a “peculiar” people, we just can’t help but draw the attention of famous people, from writers to presidents to celebrities and more.

Here are just a few priceless quotes of what influential people have said about Mormons:

President Abraham Lincoln

“When I was a boy on the farm in Illinois there was a great deal of timber on the farm which we had to clear away. Occasionally we would come to a log which had fallen down. It was too hard to split, too wet to burn and too heavy to move, so we plowed around it. That’s what I intend to do with the Mormons. You go back and tell Brigham Young that if he will let me alone I will let him alone.”

Charles Dickens

Upon boarding an emigrant ship with several Latter-day Saints, Dickens observed,“Nobody is in an ill temper, nobody is the worse for drink, nobody swears an oath or uses a coarse word, nobody appears depressed, nobody is weeping . . . And these people are so strikingly different from all other people in like circumstances whom I have ever seen, that I wonder aloud, ‘What would a stranger suppose these emigrants to be!’”

Dickens also noted: “It is surprising to me that these people are all so cheery, and make so little of the immense distance before them. . . . What is in store for the poor people on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, what happy delusions they are labouring under now, on what miserable blindness their eyes may be opened then, I do not pretend to say. But I went on board their ship to bear testimony against them if they deserved it, as I fully believed they would; to my great astonishment, they did not deserve it; and my predispositions and tendencies must not affect me as an honest witness, I went over the Amazon’s side, feeling it impossible to deny that, so far, some remarkable influence had produced a remarkable result, which better known influences have often missed.”

Maria von Trapp

“In Brazil, in Argentina, in Peru, in Chile, in Mexico, in New Zealand, in Australia … whenever there were two strapping young Americans—two—coming up to us, very friendly, they were Mormon missionaries. I always admired the Mormon Church, for this in a way is most natural thing to do, to give two years of your life—a preconceived Peace Corps plan, long before there was Peace Corps—and to go to teach all people, as He has told us to do.”

-From Much Ado About Mormons: What Famous People Have Said About the Mormons by Rick Walton

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Good out of evil. One must thank the genius of Brigham Young for the creation of Salt Lake City — an inestimable hospitality to the Overland Emigrants, and an efficient example to all men in the vast desert, teaching how to subdue and turn it to a habitable garden.”

-From Much Ado About Mormons: What Famous People Have Said About the Mormons by Rick Walton

President Franklin D. Roosevelt

In a letter to Winston Churchill, President Franklin Roosevelt commented on a Deseret News article noting that Churchill was related to members of the LDS Church. He wrote:

“Hitherto I had not observed any outstanding Mormon characteristics in either of you—but I shall be looking for them from now on. I have a very high opinion of the Mormons—for they are excellent citizens.”

-From Much Ado About Mormons: What Famous People Have Said About the Mormons by Rick Walton

Cecil B. Demille

Filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille said during his comments at a BYU commencement: “I have known many members of your church—and I have never known one who was not a good citizen and a fine, wholesome person—but David O. McKay embodies, more than anyone that I have ever known, the virtues and the drawing-power of your church.

“David McKay, almost thou persuadest me to be a Mormon! And knowing what family life means to the Latter-day Saints, I cannot speak or think of President McKay without thinking too of that gracious and spirited young lady who is his wife.”

-From Much Ado About Mormons: What Famous People Have Said About the Mormons by Rick Walton

Mark Twain

“We walked about the streets [of Salt Lake City] some, afterward, and glanced in at shops and stores; and there was a fascination in surreptitiously staring at every creature we took to be a Mormon. This was a fairyland to us, to all intents and purposes—a land of enchantment, and goblins, and awful mystery. We felt a curiosity to ask every child how many mothers it had, and if it could tell them apart; and we experienced a thrill every time a dwelling-house door opened and shut as we passed, disclosing a glimpse of human heads and backs of shoulders—for we longed to have a good satisfying look at a Mormon family in all its comprehensive ampleness, disposed in the customary concentric rings of its home circle.”

-From Much Ado About Mormons: What Famous People Have Said About the Mormons by Rick Walton

President Herbert Hoover

“I have witnessed their devotion to public service and their support of charitable efforts over our country and in foreign lands during all these years. I have witnessed the growth of the church’s communities over the world where self-reliance, devotion, resolution, and integrity are a light to all mankind. Surely a great message of Christian faith has been given by the church—and it must continue.”

-From Much Ado About Mormons: What Famous People Have Said About the Mormons by Rick Walton

All images from Getty Images.

Guest Author

This article was originally published by Meridian Magazine on 9 August 2016.

After nearly 12 years of restoration construction, the historical Joseph Knight Sr. Ancestral Farmhouse in Nineveh, NY is open for visitors. Originally built in 1815, the Joseph Knight Sr. home has been beautifully restored with authentic artifacts and furnishings complementary to the time period and historical authenticity of rural New York State. Volunteer docents live in accommodations annexed to the home and conduct tours for individuals, families, and tour groups. They are available at 607-693-1266.

Also completed is the Josiah Stowell home in Afton, NY, less than a mile east of the Knight home. Stowell figured prominently in early Church history. In Afton, Joseph Smith and Emma Hale courted, married and honeymooned. Both homes are finished in museum-quality condition. They represent historical centerpieces to the early period of the Restoration of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a history which has largely been neglected to date.

The Joseph Knight Sr. family is remembered as being close friends of the Prophet who furnished support to his translation of the Book of Mormon. They formed the Colesville Branch of approximately 82 members, which was centered at the Knight home, with Hyrum Smith as the first branch president. As millers, Newel Knight and Joseph Knight Jr. constructed as many as eight gristmills to provide flour to starving Saints over six Mormon migrations. The Knight family remained true and loyal to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young when other leaders and members failed to support them.

The “Cradle of the Restoration” represents five early sites of the Church starting in Palmyra with the First Vision of the Father and the Son to Joseph Smith Jr. and the eventual publication of the Book of Mormon. A short distance south is the Peter Witmer Jr. farm at Fayette, NY. Here the Church was officially organized among other events. Approximately two hours further south is the Knight home in the hamlet of Nineveh, formerly called Colesville Township, and the Stowell home in Afton, NY.

The Joseph Knight, Sr. Farm – Location of the Colesville branch the first branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Driving south 25 miles down Windsor Road along the picturesque Susquehanna River, where the Melchizedek Priesthood was restored, is the Church’s newly finished historic Priesthood Restoration Site, dedicated September 19, 2015, at Harmony, PA. There are inspirational historical presentations to see in the new visitors’ center, the Isaac and Elizabeth Hale home, the cabin home of Joseph and Emma Smith, where over 70% of the Book of Mormon translation took place with scribe Oliver Cowdery, the sites of the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood by John the Baptist, and the baptisms of Joseph and Oliver.

With the openings of the Knight and Stowell homes and the Priesthood Restoration Site, combined with the history of Palmyra and Fayette, NY, visitors now have a more complete picture and expanded appreciation of the early events of the Restoration of the Church, its first members, and the consecration of the Prophet Joseph Smith.

Three families privately own the Knight and Stowell homes: Raphael and Shari Mecham, Steve and Pat Glenn, and Paul and Ann Painter have guided the restoration of the two homes using their own and Knight family organization resources and volunteer help. For information, contact Raphael Mecham at 480-323-5947 or through email: craphaelm@msn.com .

The address of the Joseph Knight home is 1963 East Windsor Road, Nineveh, NY 13813. Visit colesville-restoration.com and josephknightfamily.org. A tour for descendants of Joseph Knight Sr. and the Colesville Branch, is now offered through Mormon Heritage Association for September 12-15, 2016. Contact Patty Steadman, 801-272-5601 or email: info@mormonheritage.com . The tour features all five Restoration sites.

Guest Author

Millions of people worldwide, both members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and non-members alike, have come to know Brother Joseph again. Many revere him as a prophet, seer, and revelator, while others are critical of him and defame his name. Nevertheless, with all of the information that has been collected and published about his life, there are still some interesting factoids about the life of Joseph Smith that are rarely, if ever, mentioned. Here are some unusual facts about Joseph Smith that most people probably never knew.

Joseph Smith was born in Sharon, Vermont, the fifth of eleven children born to Joseph Smith, Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith on 23 December 1805. By 1817, Joseph and his family moved to the “burned-over district” of western New York, an area repeatedly swept by religious revivals during the Second Great Awakening. Views about organized religion differed among family members, but they did believe in visions and prophecies.

His mother described him as “much less inclined to the perusal of books than any of the rest of the children, but far more given to meditation and deep study.” Various people described Joseph as “remarkably quiet,” and “taciturn,” and “proverbially good-natured,” and “never known to laugh.” The first little-known fact about him is that according to one of his acquaintances in Palmyra, New York, O. Turner, Joseph had “a jovial, easy, don’t-care way about him,” and he had an aptitude for debating moral and political issues in a local junior debating club.

A second fact that many people may not be aware of concerns Joseph’s genealogy. Through his mother’s line, he is related to such well-known people as George W. Bush, Winston Churchill, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John P. Morgan, Mitt Romney, Richard Nixon, and David Marriott.

He met and fell in love with Emma Smith from Harmony Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, whom he married in 1827. Another trivia fact is that Emma refused to let Joseph in her garden because she believed that dozens of people would gather around to be near him, and they would trample all of the plants.

It appears that Joseph was also a pet lover and owned two dogs. Reports state that his favorite dog was named Major, and Sylvester Smith threatened to kill it while on Zion’s Camp march. He also had a bulldog named Baker.

What the angel Moroni told him in the vision that his “name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues” rang true in Hiram, Ohio. He was tarred and feathered there, and during the ordeal, he chipped a tooth causing him to speak with a slight whistle for the rest of his life.

How many people would ever think that such a great leader as Joseph Smith would have stage fright? One of the original twelve apostles in the early Church, Heber C. Kimball, reportedly often heard Joseph Smith say that his legs often “trembled like Belshazzar’s when he got up to speak before the world, and before the Saints.”

Unbeknownst to Joseph during his lifetime, several of the people whom he had a close association with such as Parley Pratt, Orson Pratt, Wilford Woodruff, and Harold B. Lee were his cousins. Brigham Young, the second President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847 until his death in 1877, was his fifth cousin.

On 28 June 1830, in route to New York, Joseph was arrested and falsely accused by people purporting that he owed them money. He was given a hearing, found to be innocent, and subsequently released. Events such as this occurred six times in the course of one day, and in each instance, the charges were dropped. After the last hearing, Joseph returned to Kirtland.

Finally, a fact that some may already be aware of is that decoy caskets were used at Joseph and Hyrum’s funeral after the martyrdom in the Carthage jail in Carthage, Illinois. There was a $1,000 reward for the head of Joseph Smith, so the caskets were filled with sandbags to try and prevent the bodies from being desecrated. Later, the bodies of the two brothers were buried in secret.  “In life they were not divided, and in death they were not separated!” (Doctrine and Covenants 135:3). The chorus of the LDS hymn Praise to the Man written by William W. Phelps is a fitting closing commentary on the life of Joseph Smith:

Hail to the Prophet, ascended to heaven!
Traitors and tyrants now fight him in vain.
Mingling with Gods, he can plan for his brethren;
Death cannot conquer the hero again.

** Information for this article was taken from the article titled “10 Rare Facts about the Prophet Joseph Smith” by Aleah Ingram posted on 29 May 2016 on LDS Daily.com.

Keith L. Brown

Keith L. Brown is a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, having been born and raised Baptist. He was studying to be a Baptist minister at the time of his conversion to the LDS faith. He was baptized on 10 March 1998 in Reykjavik, Iceland while serving on active duty in the United States Navy in Keflavic, Iceland. He currently serves as the First Assistant to the High Priest Group for the Annapolis, Maryland Ward. He is a 30-year honorably retired United States Navy Veteran.

of-common-sense.site123.me/

This article which was written by Aleah Ingram appeared on LDSDaily.com on 21 April 2016. This is an excerpt.

During the Kirtland era, when the gathering of new converts to northeast Ohio was at a peak, crippling poverty was a serious issue. One of the proposed solutions was to establish a bank, which would allow the Church to raise money and provide credit for the struggling Saints. However, the timing of the venture was not fortuitous. Due to the recent legislature, the bank wasn’t able to get the charter they needed. Requests for all new banks, which were doubling during the Kirtland era, were being denied across Ohio.

Instead, the brethren decided to open the Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Company. Its doors opened January 2, 1837. Before the year was over, the bank would be forced to close as financial panic gripped the country and opposition grew. The experience would prove to be a refiner’s fire for many Church members; apostasy would lead many to leave and speak out against Joseph Smith and other Church leaders.

Read the rest of the article

Guest Author

Newly converted to the restored gospel, Laura Clark Phelps and her husband, Morris, gathered with the Saints to Jackson County, Missouri, in March 1832. There, in a borrowed tent, Laura gave birth to their third child, a daughter that family lore claims was the first Mormon girl to be born in Independence. The Phelps family was soon driven with the rest of the Saints from Jackson County into clay County, and finally to Far West, Missouri.

As persecution against the Saints escalated, confrontations with mobbers became increasingly harsh. Laura’s daughter Mary Ann recalled: “they [the mobbers] would even come into her yard and shoot the chickens and kill the pigs. Mother had her house full of women and children, in the meantime, who had been driven from their homes by the enemy. These women wanted mother to go into the woods to escape the mob, but she told them ‘No,” that if she had to die, she would die in her own home, so they decided to stay with her.”

During those dark and threatening times in 1838, Laura’s husband, Morris, was arrested and thrown into the Richmond Jail with Parley P. Pratt and four others while Joseph and Hyrum Smith and five others were taken to Liberty Jail. Laura’s daughter Mary Ann noted: “Father was told many times that if he would burn his Mormon Bible and quit the Mormon church he could go free. . . but he chose to be firm in his religion; so he was held in prison all winter, and mother had to support her family the best way she could; her provisions and everything had been destroyed by the armies.”

Amazingly under such circumstances, Laura managed to visit her husband every two weeks and take him provisions so he had something to eat besides the prison food that was often inedible. On one of those occasions, she discovered that Heber C. Kimball had also come to visit the prisoners. He recalled the event in his journal: “On our arrival at Richmond, I went directly to the prison to see Parley, but was prohibited by the guard, who said they would blow my brains out if I attempted to go near him. In a few minutes, Sister Morris Phelps came to me in great agitation and advised me to leave forthwith, as Brother Pratt had told her that a large body of men were assembled with tar, feathers, and a rail, who swore they would tar and feather me, and ride me on the rail.”

Elder Kimball later expounded: “When my life was sought at Richmond, and my brethren in prison had great anxiety on my account, she interceded with my pursuers, who were nearly thirty in number, and actually convinced them that I was another person, altogether, and the pursuit was stopped.” Laura’s courageous spirit may have saved his life.

After Governor Lilburn W. Boggs issued the infamous extermination order, Laura packed up her children and what few possessions she could and left Missouri. With her husband still in jail, she drove a wagon from Far West, Missouri across the Mississippi River to Quincy and then Commerce, Illinois, and then back across the Mississippi to Montrose, Iowa, where her family settled in an abandoned building that had been used to stable horses.

Despite the distance, Laura was determined to return to Missouri to see her husband and attend his trial. Her brother, John Wesley Clark, joined her for the 150-mile journey on horseback. They arrived in Columbia, Boone County, Missouri, where Morris, Parley P. Pratt, and King Follett had been transferred. Laura found that Orson Pratt, brother of Parley, had also come to attend the court proceedings. They yearned for the freedom of their family members, and the Lord had a plan for their liberation. Parley recorded that before Orson and Laura arrived, “The Lord had showed me in a vision of the night the manner and means of escape [from jail]. Mrs. Phelps had the same things shown to her in a vision previous to her arrival.”

The daring escape attempt required great courage and resolve. The plan was for Laura to arrange boarding for a few weeks with the family of the jail keeper, who occupied part of the building that held the prison. This served the double purpose of lowering the jail keeper’s guard and making Laura’s horse available (along with her brother John’s horse and Orson Pratt’s horse) for the three prisoners to make their escape.

The breakout was carefully planned. The prisoners were to await the opening of their upstairs cell door by the jailer. Parley P. Pratt recounted the strategy:

“Mr. Follett was to give the door a sudden pull, and fling it wide open the moment the key was turned. Mr. Phelps being will skilled in wrestling was to press out foremost, and come in contact with the jailer; I was to follow in the centre, and Mr. Follett, who held the door, was to bring up the rear, while sister Phelps was to pray.”

Laura’s daughter related the adventure:

“Mother said she sat in back on the bed in the kitchen, and pretty soon she could hear steps and a rumbling noise, heard the jailer call out, and she said his wife rushed up stairs to where he was (she weighed about two hundred pounds). The jailer had father clinched, but father jumped down two pair of stairs, six steps each, and with the jailer’s wife hanging on to one of his arms. He would get rid of her when he jumped, but she would clinch him again when she reached him. . . Mother said. . . she thought she could pray if she could do nothing else. She thought she was whispering a prayer, but they said she hollered just as loud as her voice would let her, and she said, ‘Oh! Thou God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, deliver Thy Servant.’ Father said he felt as strong as a giant when he heard those words; he just pushed the jailer and his wife off as if they were babies and cleared himself.”

Meanwhile, Orson and Laura’s brother John held the horses at the agreed-upon meeting point. Morris and Parley were able to get away, but King Follett was captured on Laura’s horse, which was strong evidence of her participation in the plot. As news of the escape spread, Laura faced alone the wrath of a mob who gathered around the prison.

It is remarkable that Laura chose to remain at the scene, her own life at risk. According to Parley: “They threatened her with instant death, and finally turned her out of doors in the dusk of the evening. . . Being a stranger and without money, friends, or acquaintances in the place, she knew not where to go or what to do. She finally sat down in the open air in the midst of the mob, by whom she was assailed, cursed, insulted, threatened, and abused in the most unfeeling manner for some time.”

A little boy who witnessed the scene heard the jailer threaten to “put [Laura] out of the way” if she were not gone by dark. The boy ran home and returned with his parents, who were appalled at the cruelty directed at Laura. The Richardson family took pity on her and gave her refuge in their home.

They proved to be true friends. The next day they returned to the jail and collected items belonging to Morris. They searched until they found Laura’s sidesaddle, which the mobsters had vandalized. After a few days, Mr. Richardson located her horse, which had been abused by the mob in their pursuit of Morris and Parley after the recapture of King Follett. Mr. Richardson repaired the saddle and nursed the horse back to health. Laura’s daughter Mary Ann recorded, “Mother stayed with these good people ten days; never heard a word as to whether father was dead or alive, but mother was a woman with lots of faith and courage.”

Laura was determined to return to her family in Iowa, despite the Richardsons’ concerns about the dangers for a woman traveling alone through unsettled country where bandits roamed. Finally, they all agreed that Laura would travel a good part of the way with the mail boy, settling out early in the morning and ride late into the night. Leaving the Richardsons with a Book of Mormon and a hymnbook, Laura began the journey.

Traveling alone for the last leg of her journey, Laura entered an area of thick woods just as darkness began to fall. Her daughter wrote, “She said this was the first time her courage failed her, she had such a lonesome, dismal feeling come over her. . . and she did not know what would accost her.” Then, amazingly, she saw a man approaching on horseback. It proved to be King Follett’s son who had been sent to find out if Laura had ended up in prison because no one had heard from her. Together they traveled to Quincy, Illinois, where Morris was recovering from his eight months in prison and three days without food or rest during his escape. Laura also found that Orson Pratt and her brother John had safely arrived there after walking more than a hundred miles from Columbia, Missouri. King Follett was eventually released from jail several months after his recapture on account of his age and his not being a Church leader.

Laura and Morris still feared for Morris’s safety and did not dare to stay long with the kind of people in Quincy. After only a few days, they left their children with neighbors and traveled to Kirtland, Ohio, to visit Morris’s family. They attempted to teach his Phelps relatives the gospel but to no avail.

After a lengthy time away from Illinois, the family was reunited in July 1840, but their season of happiness was short-lived. Laura’s daughter Mary Ann recalled: “We moved to a town twenty miles from Nauvoo called Masedonia, here we located and soon all were our friends. . . We lived there about a year and a half, which were the happiest days of our lives; then my mother was taken sick and died, leaving her five children, three girls and two boys, the baby one and a half years old. We were all heartbroken and did not know how to manage without mother. She was buried in Nauvoo. . . Hard work and exposure had broken her health.”

Among the many tributes given at Laura’s funeral, Heber C. Kimball said, “She was one of the first who embraced the gospel. . . [and] manifested to the world that no sacrifice was too great for her to make for the cause which she had espoused.” The Prophet Joseph Smith said “her salvation was sure.” An entry about her in the compiled History of the Church concluded simply, “Her rest is glorious.”

Guest Author

The experiences that the first seven missionaries to Britain had when they arrived in Preston, England in July 1837, exemplified Lehi’s counsel to his son. Upon their arrival one of the missionaries, John Goodson, went to find lodgings. They obtained lodging in the house of a widow who resided on the corner of Fox Street and St. Wilfrid Street. Joseph Fielding referred to them as “comfortable private lodging.” (Fielding 1:17). The missionaries provided their own food which the widow cooked for them. The top two floors of the three-floor home which still stands today, served as the mission home. A week after the missionaries arrived, and on the day when the first British baptisms were about to take place, an amazing event occurred within the lodgings.

An article by Peter Fagg for the 7 March 2016, online edition of LDSMag.com, takes the different accounts of the event and puts them all together in chronological order.

Heber C. Kimball’s account

Sunday, July 30th, about daybreak, Elder Isaac Russell…. came up to the third story, where Elder Hyde and myself were sleeping, and called out, ‘Brother Kimball, I want you should get up and pray for me that I may be delivered from the evil spirits that are tormenting me to such a degree that I feel I cannot live long, unless I obtain relief.

I had been sleeping on the back of the bed. I immediately arose, slipped off at the foot of the bed, and passed around to where he was. Elder Hyde threw his feet out, and sat up in the bed, and we laid hands on him, I being mouth, and prayed that the Lord would have mercy on him, and rebuked the devil. While thus engaged, I was struck with great force by some invisible power, and fell senseless on the floor. (Whitney p. 129-131)

Orson Hyde’s account

His [Heber’s] voice faltered, and his mouth was shut, and he began to tremble and reel to and fro, and fell on the floor like a dead man, and uttered a deep groan. I immediately seized him by the shoulder, and lifted him up, being satisfied that the devils were exceedingly angry because we attempted to cast them out of Br. Russell, and they made a powerful attempt upon elder Kimball as if to dispatch him at once, they struck him senseless and he fell to the floor… (Elder’s p. 4)

Heber C. Kimball Continues His Account

The first thing I recollected was being supported by Elders Hyde and Richards, who were praying for me; Elder Richards having followed Russell up to my room. Elder Hyde and Richards then assisted me to get on the bed, but my agony was so great I could not endure it, and I arose, bowed my knees and prayed. I then arose and sat up on the bed, when a vision was opened to our minds, and we could distinctly see the evil spirits, who foamed and gnashed their teeth at us. (Whitney p. 130-131)

In 1856, Heber related the account to a congregation in the Salt Lake Tabernacle and told them that the evil spirits he saw had “full formed bodies” – hands, eyes, facial features, hair on their heads, and ears. (See Journal of Discourses Vol. 3 mar 2, 1856, p. 229). His account continues:

We gazed upon them about an hour and a half (by Willard’s watch). We were not looking towards the window, but towards the wall. Space appeared before us, and we saw the devils coming in legions, with their leaders, who came within a few feet of us. They came towards us like armies rushing to battle They appeared to be men of full stature, possessing every form and feature of men in the flesh, who were angry and desperate; and I (Kimball) shall never forget the vindictive malignity depicted on their countenances as they looked me in the eye; and any attempt to paint the scene which then presented itself, or portray their malice and enmity, would be vain. I perspired exceedingly, my clothes becoming as wet as if I had been taken out of the river. I felt excessive pain, and was in the greatest distress for sometime. (Whitney p. 130-131)

Orson Hyde’s Fight Against the Principalities of Darkness

In the Bible, in John 10:10, scripture teaches, “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.” Therefore, as scripture also teaches in Ephesians 6:12, we must realize that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Nevertheless, all is not lost, for the faithful are promised that “the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Romans 16:20).

These verses of scripture were born true to Orson Hyde as he further recalled that as Heber lay senseless on the floor and upon the bed after being laid there, that he stood between Heber and the devils and fought them face to face, until they began to depart from the room. He stated that the “last imp that left turned around to me as he was going out and said, as if to apologize, and appease my determined opposition to them, ‘I never said anything against you!’ I replied to him thus: ‘It matters not me whether you have or have not; you are a liar from the beginning! In the name of Jesus Christ depart!’ He immediately left, and the room was clear.” (Whitney 131). Orson’s actions exemplify what James taught in James 4:7, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

Joseph Fielding’s Account Substantiates What Orson Hyde Experienced

They [the demons] however kept their distances, but turned their heads toward Bro. Hyde; one looking at him said distinctly, but with a murmuring tone, slowly demure, I never spoke against you.  He said there seemed to be legion of them.  He was alarmed, but very much disgusted.  He could scarcely bear to speak of them. (Fielding, p. 23)

Upon returning home, Joseph Smith declared to Heber, “At that time, you were nigh unto the Lord: there was only a veil between you and Him, but you could not see Him. When I heard of it, it gave me great joy, for I then knew that the work of God had taken root in that land. It was this that caused the devil to make a struggle to kill you. (Whitney p. 132)

From his own experiences in the Sacred Grove (See Joseph Smith History 1:15-17), Joseph was able to teach Heber an important truth about the satanic attack in Preston. He stated, “The nearer a person approaches the Lord, a greater power will be manifested by the adversary to prevent the accomplishment of His purposes.”   (Whitney p.132)

Lehi’s further counsel to his sons is applicable to us at this hour. Said he:

Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.

And now, my sons, I would that ye should look to the great Mediator, and hearken unto his great commandments; and be faithful unto his words, and choose eternal life, according to the will of his Holy Spirit.

And not choose eternal death, according to the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein, which giveth the spirit of the devil power to captivate, to bring you down to hell, that he may reign over you in his own kingdom (2 Nephi 2:27-29).

* Information for this article was obtained from a 7 March 2016 article published in the online edition of Meridian Magazine by Peter Fagg titled A Satanic Attack on the First Missionaries in Preston, England.

* See also: 175 Years of Mormon Missionaries in England by Keith L. Brown

Keith L. Brown

Keith L. Brown is a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, having been born and raised Baptist. He was studying to be a Baptist minister at the time of his conversion to the LDS faith. He was baptized on 10 March 1998 in Reykjavik, Iceland while serving on active duty in the United States Navy in Keflavic, Iceland. He currently serves as the First Assistant to the High Priest Group for the Annapolis, Maryland Ward. He is a 30-year honorably retired United States Navy Veteran.

of-common-sense.site123.me/