Monday, May 20, 2013

Almost a Coincidence


The First Glimpse of the Salt Lake Valley by the Pioneers

Not all who lead a race at the start, whether involving humans, animals, or machines, are the first to finish. The crossing of the plains by the Saints was not a race, and it would seem odd that the first family that left Nauvoo in February of 1846 would be the first family to enter the valley in July of 1847, nonetheless, it almost happened.

Who was the first family to leave Nauvoo?
     a.      Charles Shumway
     b.      Orson Pratt
     c.      Levi Hancock
     d.      Erastus Snow

Yesterday’s answers:
     1.      B.   California’s first Governor

In January [1839], Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon were taken to a hearing at the Clay County courthouse a few doors away [from the Liberty Jail]. They were defended by their attorney Alexander Doniphan, who had recently saved Joseph Smith’s life at Far West, Caldwell County, and his legal assistant Peter Burnett, later first governor of California.

Plewe, Brandon S., et. at., Mapping Mormonism (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2012) 34.

     2.      A.   Addison Pratt

He served in the first foreign speaking mission to the Society Islands  (Tahiti) in 1844 returning back to the United States several years later after having baptized about 2,000 Polynesians.
Addison left the United States in 1843 along with Benjamin F. Grouard, Noah Rogers, and Knowlton F. Hanks (who died at sea) and returned to the States in 1848.

Plewe, Brandon S., et. at., Mapping Mormonism (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2012) 42.

     3.      C.   1835

Plewe, Brandon S., et. at., Mapping Mormonism (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2012) 46.

     4.      D.   Anti-Mormon Party

Thomas Sharp, Thomas Gregg, and William Roosevelt, organized the Anti-Mormon Party in 1841 as a political bloc, but in time they turned to violence to drive Joseph Smith and the Mormons from the state.

Plewe, Brandon S., et. at., Mapping Mormonism (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2012) 62.

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