Elijah Abel

(Printed verbatim from article below)¹

(Elijah Abel’s) membership in the Church went back to 1832 when he was baptized by Ezekiel Roberts (Andrew Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4 vols. [Salt Lake City: Andrew Jenson History Co., 1920] 3:577.)

Abel was born on July 25, 1810 in Maryland and later migrated to Mormonism's headquarters in Kirtland, Ohio. Within four years of his conversion, he was ordained an elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood (The exact date of Abel's ordination as an elder is not clear. Abel's 26 Dec. 1884 Deseret News obituary says that he "was ordained an Elder as appears by certificate dated March 3d, 1836." It is possible that Abel had been ordained before this date since "certificates of ordination" were frequently issued after the date of original ordination).

By June 1836, he was listed, along with a number of other Mormon priesthood holders, as a duly licensed "minister of the gospel” (Latter Day Saints Messenger and Advocate (Kirtland, Ohio) June 1836). As a member in good standing, he was promoted in the Melchizedek Priesthood to the rank of Seventy in December 1836 (Minutes of the Seventies Journal, kept by Hazen Aldrich, 20 Dec. 1836, LDS Church Archives).

… He received a patriarchal blessing in the same year. This ordinance, performed by Joseph Smith, Sr., father of the Mormon prophet, proclaimed that Abel was "ordained an Elder and annointed to secure thee against the power of the destroyer." In this blessing were apparent allusions to Abel's unusual status as one of Mormonism's few black members. In contrast to his white fellow Saints who were often declared descendants of a particular biblical lineage-usually Joseph or Ephraim-Abel was not assigned such a lineage. Instead, he was proclaimed "an orphan." Finally, this blessing promised, "Thou shalt be made equal to thy brethren, and thy soul be white in eternity and thy robes glittering” ("Joseph Smith's Patriarchal Blessing Record," 88, as cited in Lester E. Bush, "Compilation on the Negro in Mormonism," pp. 16-17; copy of unpublished manuscript in possession of author).

Like many of his white male priesthood brethren, Abel served as a missionary for the Church during the late 1830s. The field of Abel's missionary labors included New York State and Canada.

…In 1839 when Elijah Abel migrated from Kirtland to Nauvoo, Illinois, he was still accepted in full fellowship both within the Church and the larger community. As an active Latter-day Saint, Abel participated in at least two baptisms for the dead following his arrival in Nauvoo (See "Elijah Abel bapt for John F. Lancaster a friend," as contained in Nauvoo Temple Records Book A100, LDS Church Archives)

He earned his livelihood as a carpenter and joined with six others who described themselves as "the House Carpenters of the Town of Nauvoo.”

…In addition, Abel, according to his own recollections, was "appointed" by Joseph Smith "to the calling of an undertaker in Nauvoo." (“Minutes of First Council of Seventy, 1859-1863," 5 Mar. 1879, p. 494, LDS Church Archives)…

While in Nauvoo, Abel apparently had close contact with the Joseph Smith family. According to one account, Abel was "intimately acquainted" with the Prophet and lived in his home (Kate B. Carter, The Negro Pioneer [Salt Lake City Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1965], p. 15; Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, p. 577).

Abel recalled being present at the bedside of Patriarch Joseph Smith, Sr. "during his last sickness" in 1840. The following year Abel, along with six other Nauvoo Mormons attempted to rescue Joseph Smith after his arrest for earlier difficulties in Missouri (Joseph Smith, Jr., History of the Church, ed., B. H. Roberts, 7 vols. [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1908] 4:365 [6 June 1841]).

In 1842 Abel moved for unknown reasons from Nauvoo to Cincinnati… While in Cincinnati he married a black woman, Mary Ann Adams, and by the time of his migration from Cincinnati to Salt Lake City in 1853, he was the father of three children (As indicated by 1850 U.S. Census, 10th Ward, Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio, 26 Aug. 1850 and 1860 U.S. Census, 13th Ward, Salt Lake City, pp. 5:217).

Just six months before the June 1843 conference that attempted to limit Abel's visibility, Joseph Smith apparently alluded to him in a positive way. The Prophet declared, "Go to Cincinnati ... and find an educated negro, who rides in his carriage, and you will see a man who has risen by the powers of his own mind to his exalted state of respectability” (History of the Church, 4:217 [2 Jan. 1843]).

Abel continued to remain active in the affairs of the Cincinnati branch. In June 1845, for example, "Elder Elijah Able [sic] preferred a charge against" three women for their failure to attend church meetings and for "speaking disrespectfully of the heads of the Church” ("Minutes of a special Conference of the Cincinnati [sic] branch of the Church ... held at Elder Pugh's on the 1st day of June, 1845," Times and Seasons [l June 1845], 5:916).

Nevertheless, the Mormon status of Elijah Abel and all black Latter-day Saints deteriorated after 1840 despite their faithful activity… 

When Elijah Abel migrated from Cincinnati to Utah in 1853, he found that his status within Mormonism had been undermined. While no effort was made to declare Abel's priesthood authority "null and void" (despite later suggestions to the contrary), Abel was prohibited from participating in certain temple ordinances considered essential for full Mormon salvation. When Abel "applied to President Young for his endowments ... to have his wife and children sealed to him," the Mormon president "put him off" because, according to one account, participation in these ordinances was "a privilege" that the Mormon president "could not grant." (Council Meeting Minutes, 2 Jan. 1902, George A. Smith Papers, [hereafter GAS Papers], University of Utah library, Salt Lake City; Council Meeting Minutes, 12 Aug. 1908, Adam S. Bennion Papers, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah). This refusal was ironic in light of Abel's willingness to contribute his time and labor to the construction of the Salt Lake Temple (Salt Lake Temple Time Book, Dec. 1853, June and July 1854, LDS Church Archives).

Despite these difficulties, Elijah Abel tried to make the best of his situation. By 1857 he was listed as a member of the Mill Creek Ward in Salt Lake City… In 1877, "Bro Elijah Abel was notified that he was still a member of the Third Quorum" of Seventies (First Quorum of Seventies Minute Book, 6 June 1877, LDS Church Archives).

… Abel once again renewed his application for his temple endowments to John Taylor, who by 1880 had succeeded Brigham Young as Church president. Taylor submitted Abel's request to the Council of the Twelve which rendered "a decision unfavorable to Brother Abel” (Council Meeting Minutes, 2 Jan. 1902, Bennion Papers).

… Even though he failed to secure his long-sought temple ordinances, he continued to be accepted as a member of the Third Quorum of Seventies as late as 1883 (Third Quorum of Seventy, Minutes, 1883-1907, 10 Dec. 1883, LDS Church Archives). In fact, during that same year Abel, then an elderly man in his early seventies, was appointed to serve a mission for the Church. He was set apart by Apostle Joseph F. Smith and sent to Ohio and Canada (Missionary Records, 6175, pt. 1, 1860-1906, p 75, 1883, LDS Church Archives).

Abel's missionary activities, however, were cut short by ill health, and he returned to Utah in early December 1884. Two weeks later he died of "old age and debility” (Jenson, Biographical Encyclopedia, 3:557; Deseret News, 26 Dec. 1884).

The story of Elijah Abel and his activity in the Church is significant for several reasons. First, Abel's changing status was a microcosm of what happened to all Mormon blacks during the nineteenth century. Up until the 1840s, Mormon blacks were accepted in full Mormon fellowship including the right to receive the priesthood. However, by 1849 this was no longer the case; Mormon black priesthood denial was recognized as a church-wide practice. Even though Abel "got in under the wire" in receiving the priesthood, he and all other black Mormons were unable to participate in temple ordinances considered essential for full Mormon salvation.

Walker Lewis:

(printed verbatim from article below)

Walker Lewis, (was) a barber in Lowell, Massachusetts. Little is known of Lewis's background other than that he was apparently ordained an elder by William Smith, the younger brother of the Mormon prophet (William L. Appleby to Brigham Young, 2 June 1847; also noted in William L. Appleby, Journal, 19 May 1847, LDS Church Archives).

As with Abel, Lewis's role or place within Mormonism was not initially questioned by church officials. Various Mormon apostles visiting Lowell as late as 1844- 45 seemed to accept Lewis's priesthood status (See Wilford Woodruff to Brigham Young, 16 Nov. 1844. Woodruff in his journal, LDS Church Archives, during late 1844 and early 1845 made note of his numerous visits to Lowell and the areas around Lowell). One of these visitors, Apostle Wilford Woodruff, merely observed in November 1844 that "a coloured Brother who was an Elder"-presumably Lewis-manifested his support for the established church leadership during this time of great internal division (Woodruff to Young, 16 Nov. 1844., LDS Church Archives).

By 1847, however, Lewis's status within the Church was challenged by William L. Appleby who was in charge of Mormon missionary activity in the eastern states. During a visit to Lowell in 1847, Appleby encountered Lewis and in a terse letter to Brigham Young expressed surprise at finding a black ordained to the priesthood. Appleby asked the Mormon leader if it was "the order of God or tolerated, to ordain negroes to the priesthood ... if it is, I desire to know it as I have yet got to learn it” (Appleby to Young, 2 June 1847; also noted in Appleby, Journal, 19 May 1847).

Jane Manning James:

(printed verbatim from article below)

Jane Manning James petitioned church leaders on several occasions for her endowments and sealings. The background and experiences of Jane Manning dramatized the changing and, indeed, deteriorating place of blacks within Mormonism… 

Manning was also a long-time member of the Church. She joined the Mormon movement during the early 1840s while a resident of Wilton, Connecticut. Following her conversion she and eight members of her immediate family migrated to Nauvoo in 1853. Upon her arrival in the Mormon community, Manning became "a member of Joseph Smith's household" where she stayed until "shortly before" the Mormon prophet's death.

Just before the Mormon abandonment of Nauvoo, she married Isaac James, a free black Mormon who had lived in Nauvoo since 1839 (Wolfinger, "Test of Faith," pp. 129-30). Jane Manning James and her family were among the earliest Saints to migrate west, arriving in the Great Basin in 1847. Like so many Great Basin Mormons, the James family engaged in farming and achieved a fair degree of success. 

However, Jane and her husband had separated by late 1869 or early 1870. Possibly as a result of this separation, Jane became concerned about her future salvation. Realizing the importance of temple ordinances for future exaltation, she petitioned for the right to receive her sealings and endowments. This was done in a number of requests submitted to various Latter-day Saint leaders, including John Taylor and Joseph F. Smith, throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Wolfinger, "Test of Faith," pp. 150-51). 

In the most interesting of these requests, James asked to be "sealed" to Walker Lewis, the black Mormon elder who had lived in Lowell, Massachusetts, during the 1840s. According to James, "Brother Lewis wished me to be sealed to Him." (Jane E. James to Joseph F. Smith, 7 Feb. 1890 as cited in Ibid., p. 149).

These requests were rejected by Church authorities (Church officials allowed Jane James to "be adopted into the family of Joseph Smith as a servant" through a "special" temple ceremony prepared for that purpose. See minutes of a Meeting of the Council of the Twelve Apostles, 2 Jan. 1902, GAS Papers).

¹ Newell G. Bringhurst, “Elijah Abel and the Changing Status of Blacks Within Mormonism,” in Neither White Nor Black: Mormon Scholars Confront the Race Issue in a Universal Church, edited by Lester E. Bush, Jr. and Armand L. Mauss (Signature Books; Midvale, Utah, 1984).