Citations
- Saints:History of the LDS Church Ch 9 Come Life or Come Death (and Ch 10)
- Garrett, H. Dean (Spring 1997). "Ziba Peterson: From Missionary to Hanging Sheriff" (PDF). Nauvoo Journal . 9: 28–32.
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Ziba Peterson [1] (died 1849) [2] was an early American Latter Day Saint best known as one of the four initial missionaries sent by Joseph Smith in 1830 to preach to Native Americans in Indian Territory. [3] This mission brought in several influential converts and introduced the church to Kirtland, Ohio and Jackson County, Missouri, which would become religiously significant to Mormonism.
Peterson was baptized into the Church of Christ by Oliver Cowdery on April 18, 1830 in Seneca Lake, New York. [4] By June 1830 he had been ordained an elder. Peterson was one of six elders attending the church's first conference on June 9, 1830. [5]
Peterson was called as a missionary to the Native Americans (referred to as Lamanites by early members of the Church) in Indian Territory with Parley P. Pratt, Oliver Cowdery and Peter Whitmer, [6] and left Fayette, New York on October 17, 1830. On this journey, they went through Kirtland, Ohio where they met a Reformed Baptist pastor friend of Pratt's, Sidney Rigdon. From their preaching, about 50 converts were baptized, including Rigdon, who became an important early leader of the Latter Day Saints. [7] This early success in Kirtland led it to become a crucial gathering place for early Mormons, the headquarters of the church, and the place of the church's first temple.
Peterson and the other missionaries continued to Jackson County, Missouri, on the borders of Indian Territory, where they established a tailor shop and baptized about 40 or 50 settlers. [3] Joseph Smith would eventually come to Jackson County in 1831 and identify it as the place where Zion, or the New Jerusalem, would be built.
While still in Missouri, Smith delivered a revelation that included a reprimand of Peterson for unspecified sins. [8] Days later, on August 4, 1831, in public at a conference of the church, Peterson was again reprimanded and he confessed his transgression. Peterson's missionary call and reprimand are both recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants, a book of Latter Day Saint scripture, in sections 32 and 58.
He married Rebecca Hopper on August 11, 1831, with whom he would have eight children. The Hopper family had been among the converts baptized by Peterson and the other missionaries in Jackson County. [3]
Peterson was reordained an elder by Lyman Wight on October 2, 1832, but when the church was driven out of Jackson County in 1833, Peterson stayed and left the Church. He and his family left for California on May 3, 1848, arriving in Dry Diggins (Placerville), California in October 1848, where he was elected sheriff. [9] His hanging of three outlaws earned Dry Diggins the nickname "Hangtown." Peterson died in 1849.
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In Mormonism, the Melchizedek priesthood, also referred to as the high priesthood of the holy order of God or the Holy Priesthood, after the Order of the Son of God, is the greater of the two orders of priesthood, the other being the Aaronic priesthood.
Sidney Rigdon was a leader during the early history of the Latter Day Saint movement.
In the Latter Day Saint movement, priesthood is the power and authority of God given to man, including the authority to perform ordinances and to act as a leader in the church. A group of priesthood holders is referred to as a quorum.
The Latter Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate, often shortened to Messenger and Advocate, was an early Latter Day Saint monthly newspaper published in Kirtland, Ohio, from October 1834 to September 1837. It was the successor to The Evening and the Morning Star and the predecessor to the Elders' Journal.
The Latter Day Saint movement is a religious movement within Christianity that arose during the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century and that led to the set of doctrines, practices, and cultures called Mormonism, and to the existence of numerous Latter Day Saint churches. Its history is characterized by intense controversy and persecution in reaction to some of the movement's doctrines and practices and their relationship to mainstream Christianity. The purpose of this article is to give an overview of the different groups, beliefs, and denominations that began with the influence of Joseph Smith.
David Whitmer was a leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who eventually became the most interviewed of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon's golden plates.
Thomas Baldwin Marsh was an early leader in the Latter-day Saint movement and an original member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who served as the quorum's first president in the Church of the Latter Day Saints from 1835 to 1838. He withdrew from the church in 1838, was excommunicated from it in 1839, and remained disaffected for almost 19 years. Marsh was rebaptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in July 1857, but never again served in church leadership positions.
Orson Hyde was a leader in the early Latter Day Saint movement and a member of the first Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He was the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847 to 1875 and was a missionary of the LDS Church in the United States, Europe, and the Ottoman Empire.
Luke Johnson was a leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and an original member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles from 1835 to 1838. He served in the Quorum with his younger brother, Lyman E. Johnson, and Orson Hyde, his brother-in-law.
The Kirtland Temple is a National Historic Landmark in Kirtland, Ohio, United States, on the eastern edge of the Cleveland metropolitan area. Owned and operated by the Community of Christ, formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS), the house of worship was the first temple to be built by adherents of the Latter Day Saint movement. The design mixes the Federal, Greek Revival, and Gothic Revival architectural styles.
John Whitmer was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement. He was one of the Eight Witnesses of the Book of Mormon's golden plates. Whitmer was also the first official Church Historian and a member of the presidency of the church in Missouri from 1834 to 1838.
Lyman Eugene Johnson was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and an original member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He broke with Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon during the 1837–38 period when schism divided the early church. Johnson later became a successful pioneer lawyer in Iowa and was one of the town fathers of Keokuk, Iowa.
Frederick Granger Williams was an early leader of the Latter Day Saint movement, serving in the First Presidency of the Church of the Latter Day Saints from 1833 to 1837.
Isaac Morley was an early member of the Latter Day Saint movement and a contemporary of both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. He was one of the first converts to Smith's Church of Christ. Morley was present at many of the early events of the Latter Day Saint movement, and served as a church leader in Ohio, Missouri, and Utah Territory.
John Corrill was an early member and leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and an elected representative in the Missouri State Legislature. He was prominently involved in the Mormon conflicts in Missouri before leaving the church in 1839 and publishing A Brief History of the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints .
Jesse Gause was an early leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served in the First Presidency as a counselor to church president Joseph Smith. For decades Gause was generally unknown to LDS historians, and so could be considered the Church’s lost counselor of the First Presidency. It was only in the 1980s that research identified his rightful place among early Church leaders.
John Gould was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement.
Levi Ward Hancock was an early convert to Mormonism and was a general authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for nearly fifty years. He was also one of the witnesses of the Book of Commandments.
Ezra Booth was an early member in the Latter Day Saint movement who became an outspoken critic of Joseph Smith and the Church of Christ. He was "the first apostate to write publicly against the new Church". Before joining the early Church of Christ in 1831, Booth worked as a Methodist Episcopal minister and a farmer in Ohio. After his baptism, he moved with his family to Kirtland and served as a missionary, preaching in Missouri and Ohio. Booth left the church later in 1831, five months after his baptism. He proceeded to write a series of nine letters denouncing Mormonism that were published by the Ohio Star.
Jared Carter was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement. He joined the Church of Christ in 1831 and soon after served a mission in the northeastern United States. He was mentioned by name in section 79 of the Doctrine and Covenants; the passage encouraged him to continue his work as a missionary. He has been described as "one of the Church's great missionaries" of the 1830s. In 1834, Carter was chosen as a member of the first Presiding High Council of Kirtland, Ohio, and then became the council's president in 1837. After being disfellowshipped from the LDS Church and briefly joining the Strangite church, Carter re-joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while living in Chicago. He died in DeKalb County, Illinois.
