Excerpts from the Autobiography of Fay Wray

On the Other Hand: A Life Story

By Fay Wray

New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1989

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pages 6-7 MY PARENTS met in Salt Lake City. My mother had been born there in 1871, one of fourteen children. I know more of my grandfather than I do of my grandmother because he had the kindness to write his autobiography. He was orphaned at the age of eleven, in Missouri, apprenticed to to a saddle maker until he was seventeen, when he volunteered to fight in the war with Mexico. There he learned to read and write Spanish and became fond of the Mexican people.

After the war, enroute to California with a large trading company, the hammer of his pistol caught on the edge of his holster, causing the gun to go off: "The ball ranged downward, entering the groin and thigh, passing through some fourteen inches of flesh." The company expected that the youth would die and must, therefore, be abandoned. But the company guide thought that if the youth was to be left behind, he should at least be abandoned to the possible care of nearby Indians. He planned to fetch them. My grandfather wrote: "I can never forget their looks of kindness. They offered to take me and try to cure me." The company, thus challenged, made a frame to carry the wounded boy on the back of a mule for the remaining fifteen day's journey into Salt Lake Valley. "I felt almost disappointed not to go with the Indians for my heart was melted toward them and I felt as though I could always be their friend and trust them." In Salt Lake City, Mormons nurtured him to recovery and inspired him to join the church and forego continuing on to California.

In 1852, he married Miss Emily Colton, whom he would never cease loving. She appreciated his view of the Indians and supported his willingness to befriend them and his efforts to obtain fair treatment for them. She loved her husband, Daniel Webster Jones, too much to tolerate the recommendation of the church that he take a second wife. The devoted pair produced fourteen children. My mother was their tenth.

She was fourteen when her mother died at the age of forty during a storm. My mother's responsibilities as "mother" to the younger ones and housekeeper for her father increased her antagonism to the church. She had seen her mother's anguish at the thought of a polygamous household. Of all the children, she was the one who rebelled.

She had an impudent kind of beauty -- a retroussé nose, gray-green eyes, very fair skin, and an abundance of Titian-red hair. She liked to recall for her children the beauty of her youthful figure. She attended the University of Utah (then Deseret University) and earned credentials to become a schoolteacher. She assisted her father in arranging the manuscript of his book Forty Years among the Indians (1890).

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page 180 [My mother] remembered . . . her exhilaration in having traveled with her father to Washington, D.C., and to San Francisco to the World's Fair.

Foreword to 1960 edition

FOREWORD

By A. R. MORTENSEN

Director, Utah State Historical Society

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NO STORY of Mormon-Indian relations during the pioneer period is complete without recourse to the reminiscent account of Daniel W. Jones. Strangely enough little seems to have been written about this engaging character, and what little is known is gleaned from his own Forty Years Among The Indians, here reprinted for the first time after being out of print for many years.

Born on the frontier of Missouri in 1830, the career of Dan Jones spanned the content west, and extended well into the twentieth century. He died at Mesa, Arizona, in his eighty-fifth year.

His strange and unusual introduction to Mormonism, his conversion, his many relations with the Indians, his experiences succoring the Handcart Pioneers of 1856, his involvement in the Utah War and after, his introduction of Mormonism into Mexico, and his many colonizing activities in Utah and the Southwest, demonstrate a vigorous living of frontier life unmatched by few in his own time. And in a day and place when the unusual became the usual, when the average pioneer and frontiersman led a life of hazard and hardship, Dan Jones led an especially long life of experience and high adventure.

Three Book Reviews (1960 edition)

Book Review of Forty Years Among the Indians

By Sol Lewis

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ca. 1960, publication information unavailable

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Forty Years Among the Indians by Daniel W. Jones. Los Angeles: Westernlore Press. 1960. $8.50

THE LITERATURE on the West during its pioneer period contains a plethora of so-called personal reminiscences written by "old timers" and "old settlers." Much of these purportedly "true stories" have, over the years, been either thoroughly discredited as so much pure fiction -- as for instance, Beckwourth, Drannan, etc. -- or because some of these "narratives," written many years after the author's actual experiences, are filled with faulty history. We can tolerantly, and with a degree of logical justification, attribute these lapses to the failing memory generally attendant upon the old age of the narrators.

Some few books in this genre have come down to us as totally accurate historical accounts. Even fewer still at the same time make absorbing reading. Into this latter category we place Daniel W. Jones' [i] Forty Years among the Indians[/i], which first appeared in 1890, and which has now been reprinted by the Westernlore Press. It is a rambling book, covering the author's long and adventurous life, from his early years as a soldier in the Mexican War in 1847 to his travels through the Southwest and into Mexico. He tells of his meeting with Brigham Young, of his serious interest in, and eventual conversion to, Mormonism. His exciting experiences as missionary and peacemaker among the warring and hostile Indians are dramatically related. His hazardous activities as a frontier scout are lucidly portrayed. Judicious and generally accurate are his descriptions of the life and customs of the natives in the territories through which he traveled from Utah, south to Mexico, into which country he led a Mormon colonizing mission at the request and persuasion of Brigham Young, who apparently had a high regard for Jones' qualities of leadership, sincerity, and piety. When the author died at Mesa, Arizona, in his 85th year, he left this well written record of his extremely interesting and eventful life.

--Sol Lewis

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Book Review of Forty Years Among the Indians By D. E. Livingston-Little ------- From The Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly, Vol. XLII No. 3, September 1960. -------

FORTY YEARS AMONG THE INDIANS, by Daniel Webster Jones. (Los Angeles: Westernlore Press, 1960). Pp XVI, 378. $8.50.

THIS REPRINT of Dan Jones fascinating story is number XIX of the Great West and Indian Series by Westernlore Press. Like many others in the series it was written during the latter part of the last century -- in 1887 to be specific. Few books written so long ago are as valuable today. Perhaps one secret of its vitality lies in the fact that although the author was reminiscing back over a period of forty years, he was only fifty-five at the time of writing, and he was to live another thirty years.

Daniel W. Jones, a seventeen-year-old orphan, enlisted in the Missouri Volunteers for service in the Mexican War. After the war he chose to remain for a while in northern Mexico, and did not return to Santa Fe until 1850. Having developed some curiosity concerning the Mormons he accepted an offer to assist in a sheep drive overland to California by way of Salt Lake Valley. This decision eventually let him into the Mormon Church, and into his life-time struggle on behalf of the Indians. Through he repeatedly traveled about the West from Wyoming to Chihuahua, he was never to reach California.

Dan Jones first contact with Indians was the sight of eight of his fellow soldiers ambushed and scalped within full view of their army camp on the Arkansas River. With such an introduction, it is altogether remarkable that he should earn recognition, and disfavor, as a champion of the Indians.

Having joined the Mormons, Dan Jones native vigor and intelligence, plus his skills as frontiersman, interpreter and artisan marked him out as a man to watch. Unfortunately, the combination of a tactless, if not overbearing, personality coupled with his strange affinity for Indians, led him often to be suspected, charged, and even tried. Apparently the leaders of the church knew his utter honesty and devotion to the cause, and never completely let him down.

Jones's particular interest in the Indians represents no strange quirk, but simply reflects the particular portion of the teachings in the Book of Mormon that especially captivated his interest, and won his ever growing support. Convinced that they were literally the "remnants" referred to in the Book of Mormon, and encouraged by initial success, the author continued to devote himself first to establishing peaceful relations between whites and Indians, and finally in assisting the Indians to live a better life both in the ethical-moral-religious sense, and in the socio-economic sense.

During forty years of such activities as these endeavors led him into, Daniel Jones acquired a catalogue of adventurous experiences that make an absorbing series of stories of the sort that are so much appreciated today. Though he "testifies" frequently concerning his faith, and seeks to justify his conduct, this does not detract unduly from the charm of his tales. Indeed, much that he did would have no sense or meeting without it.

The book is very at practically done with but a single error to be noted in a normal reading. The lack of an index probably justifies no criticism with a book of this nature, and especially in view of the author's brief narrative headings before each chapter. At least one good map might have been profitably included, even if old Dan Jones didn't think it necessary seventy-five years ago.

-- D. E. Livingston-Little

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Book Review of Forty Years Among the Indians By Don Russell ------- From Western Americana, ca. 1960, 69-70. Further publication information unavailable. -------

Forty Years Among the Indians: A True yet Thrilling Narrative Of the Author's Experiences among the Natives by Daniel W. Jones (Westernlore Press: Los Angeles, 1960 pp 378, $8.50)

DANIEL JONES was born in Missouri in 1830; at the time of the Mexican War he joined a company of St. Louis volunteers and marched into Mexico, fighting Indians along the way. After the war he remained in Mexico about three years then went to Salt Lake City where he soon became a Mormon. He was given many missions by Brigham Young, one of the first of importance being the rescue of the Handcart Pioneers. He had a part in the Mormon War and afterward was more or less drafted as guide by an army expedition to New Mexico. Jones got along well with Indians, and several times served as peacemaker between them and the Mormons. However, his principle venture as missionary was into Mexico, where he planned a Mormon colony, but nothing came of it.

All of this supports the "true but thrilling" boast in the subtitle, and it may be said that Jones has an interesting story and tells it in an interesting way. The curious part of it is that almost nothing is known about Jones except what is told in this book, and yet the book is continuously a defense against various charges brought against him within the church and without. While he proves to his own satisfaction that he was in the right in all these numerous occasions, the reader has a feeling that Jones was an unusually cantankerous individual, and there must be another side to the story.

Even more curious is that while the book is called "Forty Years Among the Indians" he has so little to say about Indians. There seems little doubt that he was among Indians for most of the 40 years, and he does tell about it, but about all one gets out of it is that the Indians were fine people when well treated. Toward the close there are some sketchy chapters about various tribes, telling some of their histories not too accurately, but somehow he never seems to get into his promised subject.

All of this is not to say that the book is not worth reprinting. In fact it might be worth while to make some investigation to find out just what Jones is talking about. A one-page forward by A. B. Mortensen, director of the Utah State Historical Society, suggests as much. This is volume XIX of the Great West and Indian Series of this publisher.

-- Don Russell

Brigham's Destroying Angel:

Being the Life, Confession, and Startling Disclosures of the Notorious Bill Hickman, the Danite Chief of Utah

by Bill Hickman (1815-1883)

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New York: Geo. A. Crofutt, Publishers, No. 138 Nassau Street, (Park Hotel), 1872.

Excerpts from Chapters IV and V.

Brigham's Destroying Angel online

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THIS WINTER,'56-'57, one Mr. Hiram Kimball got a contract to carry the mail from Independence, Missouri, to Salt Lake City, once a month for four years. He not being a man of much means in those days, though he had been wealthy in Nauvoo times, sought assistance from O. P. Rockwell and myself, both of us having stock to carry the mail. We agreed upon terms; Rockwell was to carry from Fort Laramie to Salt Lake, and I from Laramie to Independence. Arrangements being made, I was ready to start, although two parties had tried to get through the mountains and failed, one man having frozen to death before going twenty miles.

About this time Brigham Young and others got up a great carrying and express company, and made us put our mail interests into that company, and run together. I was sick of it, and tried to get out, but "No," said Brigham Young, "You are the very man; get your bays and roll out; you can go." I obeyed reluctantly. I dreaded the trip, knowing I would have to be gone three months or more, suffer many privations, be at a heavy expense, and the way they had things fixed, not make a dollar.

We were ten days going the first hundred and thirteen miles, to Fort Bridger, with the best of animals. We were fifteen days on the bleak desert going from Fort Bridger to South Pass. We would travel all day, tramp the snow and lead our animals, which, with great difficulty, we could get to travel very, slow. At night we would camp on some knoll that the snow was blown off of, and by a poor sage brush fire cook a camp-kettle of coffee and another of corn, having got out of provisions, all but a sack of corn I had taken along to feed the horses. Several of these nights I thought I would freeze to death, but stood it better than any of the others.

We finally got through the snow into a little valley near Devil's Gate, on Sweet Water, where we found good grass for our stock, which they very much needed, having been without several days. The next morning we finished our corn, having only a scanty meal, and had not a bite of anything to eat in the company. We packed up and started for Devil's Gate, twenty miles distant, where we expected to find provisions plenty, knowing that a train of goods had been left there the fall before, under a guard of fifteen men; the snow having fallen so deep they could not reach Salt Lake City. We had not traveled far before we saw eight or ten buffalo. Two men were sent out, and soon shot a large one. We were in the center of a valley on a nice stream, where there was plenty of wood, and any quantity of the best mountain grass. We stopped, skinned and packed to camp all the meat, and the greatest eating I ever saw then took place. I cautioned the men not to eat too much; but a continual eating was kept up all day by our company, consisting of nine men. The next morning we all put all that was left of the buffalo in two flour sacks, and packed it on one mule. This is a big story, but true.

The next day we reached Devil's Gate, and found the men out of provisions; they had been living on beef hides for several days. I asked them if there was no provisions among the goods they were guarding. They said they thought there was something that would do to eat, but they dared not touch it. I told them they were foolish; to help themselves to anything there was there to eat. I told them I would be responsible and shoulder all the blame for doing this, as I wanted some provisions for my men; I would hand it out, they could take an account of it, and report to the owners that it was done by me and my party. This pleased the poor suffering fellows. We burst open the door of the cabin in which the goods were stored, and found plenty of sugar, tea, coffee, rice and dried fruit; all hands helped themselves, and we had a great general feast.

We now had bare ground to travel on, but our horses were worn out, and we could only make twenty miles per day. After forty days' travel we reached Fort Laramie. There we found Mr. Ward, post-sutler, waiting for company to go to the States. We rested a few days. I bought a lot of fresh animals, and we started for Independence again. We got along slowly but comfortably. We saw buffalo in innumerable quantities, killed all we wanted, and had some fine sport after them. One of my men, being good at throwing a lariat, caught one while running, but soon found he had not lassoed a cow nor an ox, but a buffalo bull. After throwing the lariat on the buffalo he fastened the other end to the loggerhead of his saddle, as is customary, and jerked his mule. But the buffalo made but little halt, jerking the man and mule heels over head, dragging the mule a few rods, when the lariat came loose, and the buffalo went on as though nothing had happened, with the rope around his neck. This put a stop to catching buffalo with ropes, no one being anxious to repeat the experiment.

We finally got to Independence, men and animals tired out, having been two months and three days making the trip. I delivered the mail, and had to go down the Missouri River to Boonville to telegraph to Washington concerning the return mail, which I had to wait two weeks for. I visited my father-in-law, and then went to the northern part of the State and visited my father and mother, whom I had not seen for ten years; returning to Independence and started the mail for Salt Lake. I here found things boiling against the Mormons. Troops were coming, and great excitement prevailed amongst the people. I had trouble getting the mail or anything else we needed; was threatened strongly, and received the worst kind of abuse from the roughs. Two or three times the trouble came near being serious; but fortunately for somebody, it calmed down without shots or blows. After starting the mail, I went fifty miles up the river to Weston, where I found old acquaintances and friends, had a good sociable time for two weeks, found one of my youngest brothers with a wife and three children, and persuaded them to accompany me to Salt Lake City.

When we got to Laramie, I, with two of my men, started in advance for Salt Lake, changing horses at the different stations, and traveled the entire distance, five hundred miles, in six and a half days, as tired a man as ever you saw. I went to Brigham Young's office and showed my bills of expenditures, and gave a general account of my trip, showing some articles I had published in different papers, rebutting the influences that were going against the people of Utah and the published statement of Judge Drummond, in which I scored him as bad as he had me. I told them that troops would be here; but was laughed at, tantalized, and treated scornfully for making such an assertion. I told them I had been there and ought to know as well as those who sat at home and knew nothing. All hands agreed they were not coming, and Brother Brigham said neither should they come so this ended it.

I had several animals on this express company, had been gone nearly four months, and asked to be excused to attend to my business, which was granted. I went to Green River again, and set up a trading post and ferry. Did very well during the summer; wound up again and come home.

About this time the express company broke up, and all returned home, the mail contract having been taken from them. I lost, on the outfit, about one thousand dollars, besides my time and suffering. . . .

Read Daniel Webster Jones's account of this event in Chapter XVI.

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One Yates, a trader that had been in the country before, had returned with five or six thousand dollars' worth of Indian goods, and stopped on Green River. He had several kegs of powder, and a quantity of lead and caps. He was sent to, to purchase his ammunition, but would not sell it without selling his other goods also. He came to Bridger twice, buying beef cattle for the Government. Both times I went with him beyond all of our troops, to keep him from being hurt. He would trade at the soldier camps, then go to his house on Green River, passing up and down Ham's Fork. We kept watch of the United States camps every day, and if a party attempted to leave we would make a rush for them and run them into camp again. One day they moved up the creek about four miles, and we saw a vacancy between them and their cattle. We made a rush and drove off seven hundred and fifty head, taking all the fat cattle they had, and some mules. Horses and mules were taken several times after this.

About this time it was noised about that Yates had let the soldiers have his ammunition, and that he was acting the spy for them. One of the Conover boys was on a point near Ham's Fork one day, and saw a lone man traveling towards Green River; he got ahead of him, saw he had a good horse, and halted him, intending to take his horse and let him go. But, after learning his name, Yates, he marched him to Bridger, where he was placed in the big stone corral and a guard placed over him. I was not there when he was brought in. I came to Bridger a few days after he was taken. Thinking there would be no particular use for me for a week or two, I concluded to go home and get some fresh horses, and take home three or four of my men that needed rest.

I will here state that the office I held was that of independent captain, amenable to none but the head commanding general or governor, Brigham Young, unless my services were particularly needed, in which case I was under obligations to act in concert with other officers.

When ready to start I was asked to take the prisoner, Yates, to the city with me, and agreed to do so. The men with me were a brother of mine. T. J. Hickman, who had come from the States with me the summer previous. John Flack and Lewis Meacham. There was a common trace-chain on Yates' ankle; fastened with a padlock. He had a fine gold watch and nine hundred dollars in gold, all in twenty-dollar gold pieces. The money was given to me to bring into the city with the prisoner, but the watch was kept, and what became of it I never knew.

We traveled about fifty miles and camped on Yellow Creek. The next morning we traveled about half-way down Echo Cañon to where the general's headquarters were located, and got breakfast. I delivered General Wells some letters, reported myself, and told him who I had along, and asked him what I should do with my prisoner. He said: "He ought to be killed; but take him on; you will probably get an order when you get to Col. Jones' camp"—which was at the mouth of Echo Cañon on Weber River. After breakfast we started for Jones' camp, some twelve miles distant, and when within three or four miles of the camp, we met Joseph A. Young, a son of Brigham's, going, as he said, to the general's camp to take orders. He hailed me (I being behind) and said his father wanted that man Yates killed, and that I would know all about it when I got to Jones' camp.

We got there about sundown, and were met outside by Col. Jones, and conducted around under the hill, below and just outside of his camp. He had a fire built for us and sent our horses out, under guard, to grass. He then took me aside and told me he had orders when Yates came along to have him used up, and that was why he had taken me outside of his camp. Supper was brought to us, and Yates soon went to sleep on his blankets. Flack and Meacham spread their blankets and soon went to sleep also. I told them to do it, as I would guard the prisoner until I called them. My brother, being a Gentile, had been sent on to the next station, some ten miles ahead, on business. I remained at our camp-fire until eleven or twelve o'clock that night, several coming and chatting with me.

About this time all was still, and everybody supposed to be in their beds. No person was to he seen, when Col. Jones and two others, Hosea Stout and another man whose name I do not recollect, came to my campfire and asked if Yates was asleep. I told them he was, upon which his brains were knocked out with an ax. He was covered up with his blankets and left laying. Picks and spades were brought, and a grave dug some three feet deep near the camp by the fire-light, all hands assisting. Flack and Meacham were asleep when the man was killed, but woke up and saw the grave digging. The body was put in and the dirt well packed on it, after which our camp-fire, which consisted of small wood and brush, was moved onto the grave in order to prevent notice of a change of ground. Our horses were immediately sent for, and we were off before daylight; went to the next station, found my brother, got breakfast, and arrived at Salt Lake that day.

The next day I took the nine hundred dollars, and we all went to headquarters. Flack and I had a talk, as we went, about the money. He said Brigham ought to give that to us as we had already been to more expense than that money amounted to, from horses used up and other losses, and urged me to get it. I told him I would try, saying to him: "You know how much I have been out, and can testify to it, and I think he will give us part of it, anyway."

Soon after dark Flack and I went to Brigham's office. He asked how things were going on out East, and I told him. He asked what had become of Yates? I told him. He then asked if I had got word from him? I told him that I had got his instructions at Jones' camp, and also of the word I had got from his son Jo. He said that was right, and a good thing. I then told him I had nine hundred dollars given me to bring in, that Yates had at the time he was captured. I told him of the expense I had been to during the war, and asked him if I might have part of the money? He gave me a reprimand for asking such a thing, and said it must go towards defraying the expenses of the war. I pulled out the sack containing the money, and he told me to give it to his clerk (I do not remember who he was now). The money was counted, and we left. This knocked all the Mormonism out of Flack, and he has never had a speck of it in him since—making many observations of this and other things, of hard work, obeying Brigham Young, and never allowed one dollar for all he had done.

In a few days I returned East, and found Yates' goods and all his property had been taken, and stock belonging to him and other mountaineers.

Read Daniel Webster Jones's account of this event in Chapter XXI.

"In the Strength of the Lord"

By David A. Bednar

President of BYU-Idaho

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Excerpt from an Address delivered at BYU, October 23, 2001

Also Delivered at BYU-Idaho, January 8, 2002

Copyright 2001 BYU and Copyright 2002 BYU-Idaho

All Rights Reserved.

Full BYU Address

Full BYU-Idaho Address

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EXAMPLES of the enabling power are not found only in the scriptures. Daniel W. Jones was born in 1830 in Missouri, and he joined the Church in California in 1851. In 1856 he participated in the rescue of handcart companies that were stranded in Wyoming by severe storms. After the rescue party found the suffering Saints, provided what immediate comfort they could, and made arrangements for the sick and the feeble to be transported to Salt Lake City, Daniel and several other young men volunteered to remain with and safeguard the company’s possessions. The food and supplies left with Daniel and his colleagues were, to say the least, meager and were rapidly expended. I will now quote from Daniel Jones’ personal journal and his description of the events that followed:

“Game soon became so scarce that we could kill nothing. We ate all the poor meat; one would get hungry eating it. Finally that was all gone, nothing now but hides were left. We made a trial of them. A lot was cooked and eaten without any seasoning and it made the whole company sick. Many were so turned against the stuff that it made them sick to think of it. . . .

“Things looked dark, for nothing remained but the poor raw hides taken from starved cattle. We asked the Lord to direct us what to do. The brethren did not murmur, but felt to trust in God. We had cooked the hide, after soaking and scraping the hair off until it was soft and then ate it, glue and all. This made it rather inclined to stay with us longer than we desired. Finally I was impressed how to fix the stuff and gave the company advice, telling them how to cook it; for them to scorch and scrape the hair off; this had a tendency to kill and purify the bad taste that scalding gave it. After scraping, boil one hour in plenty of water, throwing the water away which had extracted all the glue, then wash and scrape the hide thoroughly, washing in cold water, then boil to a jelly and let it get cold, and then eat with a little sugar sprinkled on it. This was considerable trouble, but we had little else to do and it was better than starving” (Daniel W. Jones, Forty Years Among the Indians [Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1890], 81).

All that I have read thus far is a preparation for the next line from Daniel W. Jones’ journal. It illustrates how those pioneer Saints may have known something about the enabling power of the Atonement that we, in our prosperity and ease, are not as quick to understand:

“We asked the Lord to bless our stomachs and adapt them to this food” (Jones, Forty Years, 81; emphasis added).

My dear brothers and sisters, I know what I would have prayed for in those circumstances. I would have prayed for something else to eat. “Heavenly Father, please send me a quail or a buffalo.” It never would have occurred to me to pray that my stomach would be strengthened and adapted to what we already had. What did Daniel W. Jones know? He knew about the enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. He did not pray that his circumstances would be changed. He prayed that he would be strengthened to deal with his circumstances. Just as Nephi, Amulek, and Alma and his people were strengthened, Daniel W. Jones had the spiritual insight to know what to ask for in that prayer.

“We hadn’t the faith to ask him to bless the raw-hide, for it was ‘hard stock.’ On eating now all seemed to relish the feast. We were three days without eating before this second attempt was made. We enjoyed this sumptuous fare for about six weeks” (Jones, Forty Years, 81–82).

Thus, for Daniel and his associates, this delicious doctrine provided both physical and spiritual nourishment.

"In His Strength I Can Do All Things"

By Elder Jack H. Goaslind

of The Presidency of the Seventy

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From 167th LDS General Conference: Priesthood Session

April 5, 1997

Copyright Intellectual Reserve, Inc.

All Rights Reserved.

View on www.lds.org

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THIS EVENING, brethren, I have a strong desire to relate to you an aspect of a well-documented story, but it's little-known in the Church. It involves the courage, the strength, of a few young men from the pioneer era; some were priest or teacher age, like many of you assembled here tonight. These young men willingly made significant sacrifices when they received a call.

As I tell their story, please keep in mind what power it is that unifies us and also connects us to them. The royal priesthood we bear is more than coincidental to this account. Theirs was the same priesthood which today empowers you to perform great and small acts of service to your fellowmen.

Ordinary men--including, and perhaps especially, young men--blessed with the privilege of holding the priesthood of God may be called upon to do extraordinary tasks. Holders of the holy priesthood can accomplish mighty feats of heroism, bravery, and service through faith in that sacred power.

The pioneers did not doubt it. They bore frequent witness that the Spirit of the Lord guided and directed them. In confirmation of their testimony, I declare unto you His Spirit is with each of us. He desires to bless and strengthen us. He will make us equal to every righteous task we undertake in His name. He will magnify many times over our own natural ability. You can succeed beyond your own strength if you learn to rely on the Spirit of the Lord.

Now, the story I promised to tell you began before the October 1856 general conference, but that is where we will begin. President Brigham Young stood at the Old Tabernacle pulpit on this square and issued a call to go rescue the Willie and Martin Handcart Companies. Two days later, about 30 faithful brethren with good mule teams were dispatched to go bring in the handcarters stranded several hundred miles east. Dan W. Jones, a convert of less than five years, volunteered.

After arduous effort, the Willie Company finally was found. Caught in the storms of early winter, the Saints were freezing and starving to death. The relief party did all they could to improve conditions, but for some it was simply too late. The morning after the rescuers' arrival, nine of the company were buried in a common grave.

Some of the rescuers were assigned to escort the handcarters to the Salt Lake Valley, but others pushed further eastward in an effort to find the Martin Company. Finally they were found, along with the Hodgett and Hunt Wagon Companies, bogged down and helpless in the snow east of Devil's Gate, Wyoming.

Members of the Martin Company were in dire straits. Their food rations had been cut to a few ounces of flour per day. Only a third of them could walk, and deaths were recorded daily.

The leaders of the rescue party wisely decided to spare no effort in getting the suffering survivors to safety in the Salt Lake Valley. Because of the shortage of space in the wagons, it was necessary to leave most of the handcarters' possessions in storage at Devil's Gate till spring.

Brother Dan W. Jones and two others from the relief party, along with 17 young men from the wagon companies, were called to stay behind to guard the property. They were left to face five winter months in Wyoming, hundreds of miles from help, with scarcely anything to eat, and under conditions of extreme privation. Imagine the sacrifice! Offers were made to each man to join the wagons bound for the valley, but every one of them chose to stay behind, obedient to the call to serve.

That winter was recorded as one of the most severe ever. The intrepid watchmen struggled to repair the cabins at Devil's Gate; killed the remaining cattle; stored the tough, stringy beef for food; and reconditioned and stacked the goods they were left to protect.

They killed a few buffalo, but the hunting became bad. Soon they were reduced to living on animal hides, from which they scraped off the hair, then boiled the leather. They ate the leather wrappings off the wagon tongues, old moccasin soles, and a well-worn buffalo hide that had been used as a foot mat for two months. At one point Dan Jones was literally preparing to eat his own saddle!

In February of that extreme winter, a member of the Snake Indian tribe visited and helped them. That first night he and two scouts came to camp loaded with good buffalo meat.

The winter passed, and finally, early in May, the relief wagons began to roll in. Of the various communications Brother Jones received, one critical letter from Brigham Young had not arrived. Loading and shipping of the stored goods could not commence without it.

For days they waited, becoming increasingly anxious. Finally Brother Jones sought the Lord in prayer to know how to proceed. He recorded the following testimony: "Next morning without saying anything about the lack of instructions we commenced business. Soon some one asked whose teams were to be loaded first, [and] I dictated to my clerk. Thus we continued. As fast as the clerk put them down, orders would be given, and we passed on to the next. We continued this [way] for four days. . . . All the teams were loaded up, companies organized and started back [to the valley]" (Daniel W. Jones, Forty Years among the Indians [1960], 107).

The 17 young men were loaded on the last wagons departing to the Salt Lake Valley, where they would be reunited with their families and loved ones.

Brother Jones arrived later to report to President Young, feeling not a little uncertain how he would be received. Should he have waited for the President's written orders? As everything unfolded, it was learned that President Young had indeed dictated a letter of instructions, which was never received. Dan carefully presented his detailed report. It was a testimony to him to find that the inspiration he'd received in Wyoming was exactly the same as in the prophet's letter.

Dan Jones's young men had done more than they ever would have imagined they could:

They had crossed the plains in wagons and by handcart, mostly on foot. They had seen many of their friends and relatives die along the way. They had volunteered to spend the winter 300 miles from their destination. They had survived a harsh winter with little food and few, if any, comforts. They had heeded the call of the prophet to serve their fellow Saints. They had endured to the end nobly and were blessed for their efforts.

I repeat, brethren: Ordinary men, blessed with the privilege of holding the priesthood of God, may be called upon to do extraordinary tasks and accomplish mighty feats through faith in that sacred power!

One of my Book of Mormon heroes, Ammon, the great son of Mosiah, explains how much two people can accomplish when one of them is the Lord: "Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever" (Alma 26:12).

To you young men of the Aaronic Priesthood and to you brethren of the Melchizedek Priesthood, I witness that we can perform "many mighty miracles," as testified by Ammon and by Dan Jones! They took the Lord as their guide, listened to and obeyed the Holy Spirit, and learned that they could indeed perform mighty miracles, which thing they never had supposed.

Our own challenges in this day will be great. Our needs will be significant. Our loyalty to great gospel truths must be no less valiant than that of those young men over 140 years ago.

It is my prayer, brethren, that each of us will make the Lord--and His revealed word through His servants, the prophets--the guiding influence in our lives. Each of us has a miracle to perform, a journey to complete, and a marvelous mission to fulfill.

May Heavenly Father bless you to know that you are one of His chosen sons in a blessed and royal generation, and that He has mighty miracles for you to perform. With His strength and the guidance of the Spirit, you too can do all things! To which I testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

"The Unlikely Convert: Daniel Webster Jones"

By Jack McAllister

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From Tambuli (or Liahona), June 1988, 12

Copyright Intellectual Reserve, Inc.

All Rights Reserved.

View on www.lds.org

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An orphan boy from Missouri grew to open the way for the Church in Mexico and begin the great work of translating the Book of Mormon into Spanish.

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ORPHANED at the age of eleven, Daniel Webster Jones traveled from his home in Missouri to the western United States in 1847 with a company of volunteer soldiers who went to fight in the U.S.-Mexican War. “Gambling, swearing, fighting, and other rough conduct” were part of his every day activity he later wrote in his autobiography, Forty Years among the Indians, (Salt Lake City, Utah: Juvenile Instructor Office.) So Daniel Webster Jones in his early years seemed an unlikely person to join the Church, spend forty years proselyting among the American Indians, and with little formal training in Spanish help make the first Spanish translation from the Book of Mormon. As it happened, he was a good person to do all of these things.

He does not talk about his early life, but somewhere he had gained a strong belief in God. During the three years he spent in Mexico with the volunteer army, he “took part in many ways in the wild, reckless life that was common in the army;” but still would not partake of “strong drink and other worse vices that I could see were destroying the lives of my friends.”

Because of his life-style, he says, “I felt condemned, and often asked God in all seriousness to help me to see what was right, and how to serve Him; telling Him I wanted to know positively, and not be deceived.” In his rough way, he felt that people living in his time were entitled to a prophet too; that it was not right “to leave them without anything but the Bible.”

He left Mexico in 1850 with a large trading company traveling to Salt Lake City. On the way, he was badly wounded by a gun accident, but managed to survive until his companions got him to the Latter-day Saint settlements near Provo, south of Salt Lake City.

In that day, the Saints were often ridiculed by travelers, but when he overheard some of his friends reading the Doctrine and Covenants and making fun of it, he thought of his prayer asking for modern revelation. He left his companions, moved in with a Latter-day Saint family, and began investigating the gospel as he recovered from his injury. “Everyone was kind and treated me with great confidence,” he remembered. “I listened to the elders preaching and soon concluded they were honest and knew it, or were deliberate liars and deceivers. I was determined, if possible, not to be fooled, therefore I commenced to watch very closely.” He was particularly impressed by the lack of bitterness that Latter-day Saints felt toward the Indians, in spite of recent battles.

When he learned about the Book of Mormon, “it seemed natural to me to believe it. I cannot remember ever questioning in my mind the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, or that Joseph Smith was a prophet. The question was: Are the Mormons sincere, and can I be one?” When he decided that he could be, he spoke to Isaac Morley, who had been one of the first converts to the Church in Ohio.

It was 27 January 1851, wintertime, and Brother Morley “was just going out to get a load of wood with his ax under his arm.” Remarking quietly, “I have been expecting this,” Brother Morley used the ax to chop through thick ice formed over the nearby lake—and Dan became a member of the Church.

The next twenty-three years were busy ones. He farmed, traded with the Ute Indians, was ordained a seventy, married Harriet Emily Colton, acted as Brigham Young’s interpreter when he dealt with some Mexicans in Sanpete County, helped rescue the handcart pioneers stranded by winter storms, and continued his friendly contacts with the Indians, both as a member of the Church and as a government official.

Then in 1874, he was summoned to Brigham Young’s office and was called on a mission to Mexico. “I had expected this call to come some time. I had both desired and dreaded the mission,” he says frankly, knowing how hard a mission would be in Mexico. He and Harry Brizzee were both called and told to prepare themselves. Since “Brother Young said he would like to have some extracts from the Book of Mormon translated,” they “began to study and prepare to translate.”

Although both spoke Spanish, Daniel “often thought how good it would be to have a Spanish-speaking native to help us.” A few months later, Brother Brizzee met a stranger, Spanish-speaking Mileton G. Trejo, who had heard about the Church in the Philippine Islands and had come to Utah to investigate it. He soon was baptized and began translating selections from the Book of Mormon into Spanish with Daniel’s help and support.

In 1875, Daniel reported to President Young that they were ready to start on their mission. Authorized by President Young, Daniel soon raised $500 to pay for the printing of the first set of Spanish selections.

In a later conversation with President Young, Daniel was asked how he proposed to prove to the satisfaction of the authorities of the Church—none of whom spoke Spanish—that the translation was correct. Daniel suggested this test: they would select a book, Brother Trejo would translate a passage into Spanish, Daniel would take the Spanish translation and, without looking at the original book, translate the text back into English. President Young accepted the suggestion, and when the Brethren received a copy of Daniel’s translation from the Spanish, President George A. Smith, then a member of the First Presidency, “laughingly remarked, ‘I like Brother Jones’ style better [than the original]. … The language is more easily understood.’ ”

But that was not the only exceptional experience Daniel had in connection with the translation. He says:

“When the printing started, Brother Brigham told me that he would hold me responsible for its correctness. This worried me so much that I asked the Lord to in some way show me any mistakes [as we proofread the printed sheets].

“Brother Trejo’s manuscript was written in modern language style. When I called his attention to errors he invariably agreed with me. He often remarked that I was a close critic and understood Spanish better than he did. I did not like to tell him how I discerned the mistakes.

“I felt a sensation in the center of my forehead as though there was a fine thread being pulled smoothly out. When there was a mistake, the smoothness would be interrupted as though a small knot was passing out through the forehead. Whether I saw the mistake or not I was so sure it was there that I would show it to my companion and ask him to correct it. When this was done we continued on until the same thing happened again.”

In September 1875 Daniel left for Mexico with his son Wiley, James Z. Stewart, Helaman Pratt, Robert H. Smith, Ammon M. Tenney, and Anthony W. Ivins. The group went on horseback and took with them two thousand copies of their publication, “Choice Selections from the Book of Mormon.”

After several frustrating experiences dealing with local officials, they received permission in Chihuahua to hold a public meeting, and on 8 April 1876 they preached to a group of approximately five hundred persons at the first Church meeting in the interior of Mexico. After some other attempts to preach the gospel, they returned to the United States, arriving in Salt Lake City on 5 July 1876. Daniel served a second mission to Mexico in 1876-1877, again with Brother Trejo, Brother Pratt, and Brother Stewart. Also serving were Louis Garff and George Terry. Five converts were baptized.

In 1879, Elder Moses Thatcher of the Quorum of the Twelve officially opened the mission, accompanied by Brother Stewart and Brother Trejo. Apart from interruptions caused by political conditions in 1913 and 1926, the mission has operated since.

The first complete translation of the Book of Mormon was finished in 1886 by Brother Trejo and Brother Stewart. Rey L. Pratt, the mission president from 1907 until 1931, revised this translation, assisted by Eduardo Balderas. Brother Balderas eventually became the Church’s chief Spanish translator and corrected the Pratt edition around 1949 for a new printing. A second revision, begun in 1969 and completed in 1980 by Brother Balderas, has recently been published and is in use in all Spanish-speaking missions of the Church.

The work begun in Mexico by a faithful, obedient servant of the Lord, Daniel Webster Jones, Missouri orphan, was to become a major factor in the lives of thousands of Spanish-speaking peoples around the world.