It Was Said of Him

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It was said of African American preacher and member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Elijah Able that he was what?

a.                  Not a very good teacher

b.                  One of God’s chosen ministers

c.                   Didn’t have the right to preach since he didn’t have the priesthood

d.                  Understood the gospel and scriptures, better than most

Yesterday’s answer:

A   Natives and wolves

From the life of Martha Jane Sharp Mowrey:   Martha Jane Sharp Mowrey was born September 24, 1827. In September of 1845 she married Nathan Sharp in Nauvoo, Illinois. Nathan, 18-year-old Martha Jane, and her 12-year-old sister were among the Mormon Battalion families who were sent to Pueblo by the United States Army. The main group arrived in Pueblo on September 16, 1847, but Martha Jane was delayed by a family tragedy. She wrote the following letter to the Deseret Evening News on March 17, 1897.   

We traveled under Captain [Nelson] Higgins and passed through the Arapahoe Nation which was on the warpath. The captain ordered all to load their guns. My husband, being sick at the time, put his gun with the muzzle to the front of the wagon to have it handy, and when he took it out, it shot him through the arm.

The Indian chief who came to the camp said that he could cure him in a certain time, and the men thought best to leave him, as they had no doctor, and they had strict orders to meet the main army at a certain time. I stayed with him and Brother Thomas Woolsey and my little twelve-year-old sister Caroline Sargent Stoddard. I was left in that strange land in a delicate situation [she was expecting a baby] among the wild and treacherous Indians.

The chief told me I was safe while I stayed in his tent if he was there. I had to give him nearly all I had in my wagon. Once he left me while I was in his tent, and two large Indians came in, took out long knives and made them sharp—all the time looking at me. [Nathan said], “They are going to kill you and dissect you. Pray earnestly to God.” And I did, many times, and the Indians got up and went away muttering. The chief then came and said they were very bad Indians.

My husband died, and Brother Woolsey dug a grave, and we put him in some sheets and lowered him into the grave without a coffin or a board to mark the lonely spot. I had an ox team. We left this lonely spot, and we committed ourselves into the hands of God, and we traveled in four days the same distance that the company did in seven. The hand of the Lord was over us and brought me safely through all. We stopped the team many times and knelt down in the road and asked the Lord to take care of us, and He surely did, for we saw savage Indians following us all the time.

Brother Woolsey stood guard at night while the hungry wolves howled around so close they scratched and threw the dirt on my head. When I overtook the company, the sisters gathered around me as If I had been their child and wept tears of joy, saying they never expected to see me again. [Martha Jane gave birth to Sarah Ellen Sharp in Pueblo on November 28, 1846.]

[The next spring] we started under order of the government and got into the valley on the 28^th [of July 1847]. It was a hard time for us. [During their trek to Utah, Harley Mowrey married Martha Jane Sargent Sharp at Independence Rock, Wyoming, on July 4, 1847.] All I had in shape of bread was 100 pounds of flour, one bushel of corn, and one-half bushel of wheat. The wheat we sowed the same fall. If we had kept it, we might have eaten it. In the spring it came up, and the crickets ate it off twice. It came on again, and at harvest we pulled and threshed it and had 15 bushels. I thought I was rich then. Never did bread taste so sweet. It was ground on a hand mill, baked without sifting.

Many days I took my child and went and dug segos all day; got home and cooked them; and that would be all we had that day. We lived many days on thistles, roots, greens, and segos. I mean we existed—we did not live—that is what Brother Kimball used to tell us. He was a great prophet of God. I heard him prophesy many things that I have lived to see fulfilled.

International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Museum Memories (Talon Printing: Salt Lake City, 2011), 3: 132-134.