Monday, June 25, 2012

Missionaries in Tennessee from 1834-1860

One of my long term projects has been putting together a list of LDS missionaries who served in Tennessee. The Church History Library (CHL) has a pretty good list of missionaries and the mission in which they served. But Tennessee was never a mission unto itself. For much of the time period I am looking at it was part of the larger Southern States Mission. So the CHL list is not detailed enough for my purposes. For what I want to do, I must pick through missionary journals, letters, publications, and the like.

Recently I have turned up a large list of missionaries serving in Tennessee between 1834 and 1860. The list has been on my radar for a couple of years, but always just a little further down the list than whatever I was working on at the moment. Then a couple of weeks ago, I had some downtime and finally took a close look at it.

The list was really good, with proper documentation and some good analysis. It covered the entire Southern States Mission, but included enough detail for me to extract the Tennessee portion. It did have some holes which were a product of the sources used by its author. I have added a few names from a variety of other sources to create the composite list of 63 missionaries named below.

After 1860, missionary work in Tennessee stops altogether until well after the Civil War ends.

David W. Patten 1834, 1836
Warren Parrish 1834, 1835, 1836
Wilford Woodruff 1835, 1836
Calvin H. Nicholson 1835
Elias F. Wells 1835, 1836
Daniel Cathcart 1835, 1836
Abraham O. Smoot 1835, 1836, 1837, 1840, 1844
Benjamin Clapp 1835, 1839
Benjamin Boyston 1836
Samuel West 1836
Thomas B. Marsh 1836
Elijah H. Groves 1836
Henry G Sherwood 1837
Jesse Turpin 1838
George A Smith 1838
Don Carlos Smith 1838
Julian Moses 1838, 1840, 1841
Jesse Divine Hunter 1839, 1844
Jeremiah Mackley 1839
Davis Lewis 1839
John D. Lee 1839, 1841, 1843
Levi Stewart 1839
George Washington Brandon 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842
George W. Gee 1839, 1840
Pitkins 1840
Dwight Webster 1840
Charles Crismon 1840
Norvel Head 1841
(Moses?) Sanders 1841
Paden 1841
Alphonzo Young 1841
Samuel B. Frost 1841
T. M. Edwards 1841
Amasa Lyman 1842
William Camp 1842
Horace K. Whitney 1842
Adam Lightner 1842
Lyman Wight 1842
W. H. Edwards 1842
Frances M. Edwards 1842
Randolph Alexander 1842?
Jonn Brown 1843
Haden Wells Church 1843, 1855
John L. Twiss 1843
Thos Wm P Vance 1844
Archibel Cure 1844
Joseph Mount 1844
Alonzo Young 1844
Samuel Heath 1844
Joseph Younger 1844
David P Rainey 1844
Wm L Cutler 1844
Z. D. Wilson 1844
Kerr 1844
Burry 1844
Casteel 1844
R. Thomas1844
J. Thomas 1844
John W. Grierson 1844
James Holt 1844
Jackson Smith 1844
W. B. Corbitt 1855
William Laney 1855?
Hyrum Blackwell 1857
Emanuel Masters Murphy 1857
Elijah Thomas 1860


8 comments:

Amy T said...

Nice! That's useful!

Sally said...

My g-g-grandfather served a mission to Tennessee for only a few weeks. James holt was called to go in April conference 1844. While preaching in tenn on June 27 he received a revelation that the prophet had been martyred and returned to nauvoo. I can sent link to journal entry if you would like

Bruce said...

Thanks Amy.

Sally, Yes please! I'd love to have that link!

Sally said...

Really great story. He tells the crowd in Tennessee that the prophet was martyred that day and that it would be a testimony to the of the truthfulness of the gospel when it was proven true. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~utwashin/history/jholt.html

Jon Holdaway said...

Missionary Levi Stewart seems to have married into the Holdaway clan up in East Tennessee. My great-great grandfather Shadrack Holdaway apparently went back with him to Nauvoo. The name Levi Stewart has been carried within the Utah Holdaway family all the way through my grandfather Charles Levi Stewart Holdaway.

Jon Holdaway
Spanaway, WA

Bruce said...

Thanks Sally, that is really helpfull. His compnaion, Jackson Smith, isn't on my list either. Double thanks!!

Bruce said...

Jon, I wasn't aware of the marriage connection. There were so many families that named children after the missionary that brought them into the church, that I would never have though to look for a marriage. Levi Stewart obviously made a lasting impression on the Holdaway family.

Anonymous said...

My Walker family was listed in the 1840 and 1850 Census for Overton County, Tenn, family 538.
William R Walker and family.

The widow of William, Frances Walker was in the 1860 census for
Wayne oounty, Iowa.

Their migration may have taken to Far West or Iowa City for further
travel to Utah.

Several of my uncles were LDS while others associated with the RLDS Church.

I am Dr. Garold D. Barney, author
of "Mormon, Indians and the Ghost Dance of 1890"