MISSIONARY ACTIVITIES AND CHURCH ORGANIZATION

IN PENNSYLVANIA, 1830-1840

 

 

 

A Thesis

Presented to the

Department of Church History and Doctrine

Brigham Young University

 

 

 

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Masters of Arts

 

 

 

by

V. Alan Curtis

April 1976

                                          37

followed "from the gospel and the Lord blest [sic] us

much," he wrote. Brother Hodges, a native of the

country preached with the missionaries. On December 30, 

the two brethren met Elders Levi Hancock and Even

Greene, who were also laboring in the area. Elder

Coltrin wrote they baptized seven before crossing

over into Ohio on January 3, 1833. 32

 

JOHN F. BOYNTON AND EVAN M. GREENE

   One of the most productive missions in Erie

County, Pennsylvania was the mission of John F. Boynton

and Evan M. Greene from January to April of 1833. They

left Kirtland on Tuesday, January 15 and arrived at

Springfield two days later. They preached in Spring-

field, baptizing thirteen. In Elk Creek, Pennsylvania,

they baptized twenty-nine, and organized a branch of the

Church. They also preached in the Taylor settlement

where they baptized two, in Girard,  in the Jackson's

settlement and in Sherman's corners, all in Erie County,

Pennsylvania. In addition to the ones counted above,

forty-six converts were listed without naming the loca-

tion of their baptism, making a total of ninety people

who joined the Church in less than three months in Erie

__________
  32 Zebedee Coltrin Diary, June 15, 1832 - March 28,
1833 (MSS in LDS Church Historical Department).

                                                      46

States Postal Department has established Central Moreland

as a rural postal branch of Tunkhannock, Wyoming County.

Orson Pratt and Lyman E. Johnson baptized four, in 1832,

at Blakely, about twenty miles east of there. North

Moreland was listed by Rand McNally as a township on the

southern boundary of Wyoming County with Center Moreland

as a village therein.63

 


DOCTOR PHILASTUS HURLBURT

   Sometime in March or April of 1833, Doctor

Philastus Hurlburt was sent on a mission to Erie County,

Pennsylvania. He had joined the Church in Kirtland in

March and sent on the mission, but was excommunicated by

a bishop's court on June 3, 1833, and finally by a high

council court on June 23 for immorality.64 Before his

excommunication, he was laboring around Jacksonville, in

Erie County. Benjamin F. Johnson recalled that it was

while elder Hurlburt was laboring in Erie County that he

"learned of Solomon Spaulding, who once lived in that

vicinity." Spaulding had written a romance called

__________
  63 Standard Reference Map and Guide of Pennsyl-
vania (Chicago: Rand McNally and Company, 1972), map..

  64 HC, I 352, 355; Max Parkin, "A Study of 
the Nature and Causes of External and Internal Conflict of
the Mormons in Ohio between 1830 and 1838" (unpublished
Master's thesis, Brigham Young University, 1966),
pp. 120-121.

(pages 1-61 not transcribed)

[p. 62]

with their precedent, their son Jedediah M. Grant was baptized by 
John F. Boynton at Elk Creek in March 1833.  Mary G, Judd, author of 
the book Jedeiah M. Grant, included comments on Jedediah's wintry 
baptism: "The day was so cold that as he came up out of the river, his 
clothes froze to his body." 34 Chart 7 lists several members who resided 
in Erie County in the 1830s. 

Organizing the second Erie County branch at Elk Creek on 21 March, 
Elders Greene and Boynton set it in order by ordaining three men to 
the priesthood and charging them to watch over it. Robert W. Dimsey 
was ordained a priest, Stephen Winchester a teacher, and John Sagers a 
deacon. Thus, the governing authority was bestowed upon three native 
brethren; remarkably, each were converts of less than two months. 35 
As a deacon, Sagers had the authority to assist the teachers, but neither 
deacons nor teachers could baptize. Deacons were "to warn, expound, 
exhort, and teach, and invite all to come unto Christ." 36 

In spite of the labors of additional missionaries in Erie County during 
1833, only a few conversions were reported. That year Elders Amasa I. 
Lyman and William F. Cahoon baptized one hundred in the states of 
Pennsylvania, 

----------------------
34 Mary G. Judd, "Jedediah M. Grant" (Salt Lake City: Deseret News 
     Press, 1959), pp. 13-15.
35 Curtis, p. 44. 
36 Doc. & Cov. 20:57-58, 
 


[p. 63]

CHART 7. -- ERIE COUNTY MEMBERS 

NAME			TOWNSHIP	OTHER STATISTICS 

1. Rudd (Bro.)		Springfield		There in Oct. 1833.

2. Roundy (Bro.)		Elk Creek		There in Oct. 1833.

3. Tiler (Bro.)		Springfield		Cut off from the Church
							on 5 Dec. 1833. 

4. Grant, Joshua		Elk Creek		Both were baptized in
    Grant, Athalia					1832. 

5. Jeffers, Asa					Excommunicated in Erie Co.
							on 11 Dec. 1833.

6. Hartshorn, Joseph	Springfield		There on 5 June 1835.

7. DeWolf, J. (Bro.)		Springfield		There in June 1835.

8. Sagers, J. (Bro.)		Gerard		There in June 1835. 

9. Turner, Marshall				In Erie Co. in June 1835.

-------------------------
SOURCES: V. Alan Curtis's Master's Thesis, pp. 52-62, 166-67; 
Mary G. Judd, "Jedediah M. Grant" (Salt Lake City: 
Deseret News Press, 1959).

Judd listed the Grant family; the rest were presented by Curtis. 
Brother was a term applied to male Mormons as well as to many 
non-members; it is possible that Roundy was not a Mormon, 
 


[p. 64]

New York and New Hampshire; unfortunately, the specific locations 
have not been documented, During August Elders  Orson Hyde and 
Zebedee Coltrin baptized three at Elk Creek;  there they also ordained 
an elder. 37 The prophet Joseph Smith recorded on 5 October, "I started 
on a journey to the  East, and to Canada, in company with Elders (Sidney)
Rigdon and Freeman Nickerson," After preaching at Springfield from
the sixth to the eighth of October, they spent the ninth at Elk Creek before 
continuing on to Canada. 38

Although some of the 1833 statistics pertaining to the organization of 
the Elk Creek Branch were available, documentation regarding 
fluctuations in the Springfield Branch was sparse, The ecclesiastical 
administration of branches, at times, necessitated regulation through 
Church courts. Between August and December 1893, twelve Erie 
County Mormons were expelled for "bad conduct, denying the faith," 
or "immoral conduct". 39 Excommunication was only one recourse 
of the Mormon judicial system. The primary goal of their courts was 
to seek the purification of its members by offering forgiveness to the 
repentant. In order to satisfy justice, transgressors may be forgiven, 
disfellowshipped or

-----------------------
37 Curtis, pp, 49-50.
38 "HC," 1:416-17; Nelson, "Journal of Joseph," pp. 52-53. 
39 Zebedee Coltrin Diary, 1833-34, March 26, 183[?]
(MSS in LDS Church Historians Department), as cited in Curtis, 
pp. 50-51.


 

[p. 65]

excommunicated. 40 Being disfellowshipped is a probationary 
condition in which one remains a member of the Church and can 
attend its public meetings; however, one cannot hold   callings in the 
Church. Following repentance. one may be reinstated in full fellowship.
At Elk Creek on 11 December, Elders Harrison Sagers and Moses Martin, 
who had been baptised in Erie County in January and February of 1833
respectively. confessed their wrongdoings and were forgiven. 41

In marked contrast to 1833, 1834 provided a negative  impact on the 
Mormon Church in Erie County. Factors affecting this decline were the 
gathering. excommunications, fewer missionaries, and the dissatisfaction
of some with the new religion, For example, the Joshua and Athalia 
Grant family moved from Erie County to the environs of Kirtland, Ohio
soon after the baptism of their son Jedediah in March 1833. 42

Chart 5 on pages 52-54 did not reveal any new baptisms that year; a
comparison with the two previous years illustrates a radical numerical
decline in missionaries. This scarcity of Mormon missionaries in Erie
County during 1834 was a reflection of the preponderance the
Missouri Mormons had with resettling in Clay County following
their expulsion from Jackson County in November 1833. Another 
recourse engaging many of the prominent Mormon missionaries 

----------------
40 Bruce R. McConkie, "Mormon Doctrine," 2d ed. (Salt Lake City:
Bookcraft, 1966), pp, 134-35, 630-31.
41 Curtis, pp, 50-53.
42 Judd, p. 15. 
 


[p. 66]

was Zion's Camp. In addition to Brigham Young's mission to the East 
to gather men for that camp, in February 1834 Orson Pratt and Orson 
Hyde also left to recruit in the East for three months. They appealed 
to the membership both at Springfield and Elk Creek. The six native 
Pennsylvanians from those townships, who responded affirmatively 
to that challenge, were Benjamin and Stephen Winchester, Jedediah M. 
Grant, Moses Martin, William H, H. Sagers, and Samuel T. Winegar. 43

In 1835 Erie County witnessed the transient passage  of several 
missionaries, who reported a few members residing therein. The last 
significant event in that county for the 1830s was the visit of Joseph 
Smith, Senior, the father of the Prophet. He visited nearly all the 
branches of the Mormon Church in Pennsylvania, New York, 
Vermont, and New Hampshire; along with John Smith, the Prophet's 
uncle, they baptixed many between June and October 1836. Joseph 
Smith, Senior, as the Patriarch of the Church, bestowed patriarchal
blessings on the members. 44 A patriarchal blessing usually consisted 
of a declaration of a person's lineage together with inspired counsel. 45 
Although, after 1835, records of Mormons from Erie 

-------------------
43 Curtis, pp. 38-40, 54-55. Refer to chart 6, p. 60. 
44 Curtis, pp. 62-65. 
45 "Gospel Principles," rev. ed. (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus 
Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1979), p, 356. 
 


[p. 67]

County are rare, one family's account was recorded by their son 
Appleton Mile Harmon, who was born on 29 May 1820 in Conneaut 
Township, which borders the townships of Springfield and Elk Creek. 
His mother was baptized on 29 May 1833, but the rest of the family 
remained non-Mormons until after they had moved from Erie County 
to Kirtland in the fall of 1837. The following spring, his father Jesse 
Pierce Harmon, along with his sister Sophronia, and a brother Amos 
accepted baptism. By October 1840 the family was residing at Nauvoo, 
Illinois where Appleton was baptized on 11 April 1842 by William 
Smith, the Prophet's brother. 46 

Apparently, between 1835 and 1840 the branches at Elk Creek and 
Springfield were disbanded. The author has not located any references 
to those units after 1835. Dissipation in those congregations was 
primarily a result of the gathering. 

OTHER NORTHERN-TIER AND ADJACENT COUNTIES 

Separating Erie and Tioga counties are the counties of Warren, McKean 
and Potter. Missionaries most likely passed through them during the 
1830s. Elders Orson Pratt and Lyman Johnson held a conference at 
Genessee, Potter County in late December or early January 1834, 47 

---------------------
46 Maybelle Harmon Anderson, ed., "The Journals of Appleton Milo 
Harmon" (Glendale, Calif.: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1946 , p. 1.
47 Curtis, p. 54. 

(remainder of this text not transcribed)

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