Elijah Abel

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Elijah Abel

Elijah Abel ( July 25, 1808 - December 25, 1885 ) was an American clergyman and the first African American to be ordained a Mormon priest by Joseph Smith . He was later accepted into the Quorum of the Seventy .

Life

Abel was born a slave in Maryland and is believed to have escaped to Upper Canada on the Underground Railroad to escape slavery. He was baptized in the Church of Christ by Ezekiel Roberts in September 1832 and married Mary Ann Adams, who was also African American.

Abel was ordained a priest on March 3, 1836 in Kirtland, Ohio by Joseph Smith . In 1839 Abel became a member of the Nauvoo Quorum of the Seventy . While living in Nauvoo, Illinois , he worked as an undertaker at the request of the Prophet Joseph Smith.

In 1841, when Smith was arrested in Quincy, Illinois , Abel was one of seven elders who tried to save him from Nauvoo. But by the time they got to Quincy, Joseph Smith was back in Nauvoo. In 1842 he was a carpenter in Cincinnati working for John Price. He stayed in Cincinnati for several years.

In 1843 Abel served as a missionary in New York, but he returned to Cincinnati and married Mary Ann Adams there in about 1847. There they had their first child, Moroni Abel, in 1849.

In 1853 Abel and his family immigrated to Utah with the Mormon pioneers and ran a hotel there.

In Utah, Abel remained in a seventy and served on his last mission in Canada in 1884, where he fell ill. He died on his return home in Utah and was buried in the Salt Lake City cemetery.

heritage

  • Front of the tombstone
  • Back of the tombstone

At least two of Abel's descendants - his son Enoch and his son Elijah - were ordained priests: Enoch on November 27, 1900 and Elijah on September 29, 1935.

In 2002 a memorial was erected in memory of Abel and his descendants in Salt Lake City. This memorial was dedicated by the Apostle M. Russel Ballard, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Minutes of the Seventies Journal, Hazen Aldrich, entry for December 20, 1836. LDS Church Archives as cited by Alma Allred in, "The Traditions of Their Fathers, Myth versus Reality in LDS Scriptural Writings" in Newell G. Bringhurst and Darron T. Smith (eds.) (2006). Black and Mormon (Urbana: University of Illinois Press)
  2. ^ W. Kesler Jackson: Elijah Abel: The Life and Times of a Black Priesthood Holder . Cedar Fort, 2013, ISBN 1462103561 , p. 1833 (accessed on July 28, 2014): "" --the ordination was performed by "Joseph the martyred propet" himself. ""
  3. ↑ Elijah Abel . Retrieved July 28, 2014.
  4. ^ History of the Church , 4 : 365.
  5. ^ Cemeteries and Burials Database: Burial Information: ABLE, ELIJAH . Utah Division of State History. Archived from the original on April 8, 2014. Retrieved April 8, 2014.
  6. ^ Newell G. Bringhurst, "The 'Missouri Thesis' Revisited: Early Mormonism, Slavery, and the Status of Black People" in Newell G. Bringhurst and Darron T. Smith (eds.) (2006). Black and Mormon (Urbana: University of Illinois Press) pp. 13-33 at p. 30th
  7. ↑ Lynn Arave: Monument in SL erected in honor of black pioneer . In: Deseret Morning News , September 30, 2002, p. B3. Retrieved on June 30, 2009.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / archive.deseretnews.com
personal data
SURNAME Abel, Elijah
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American clergyman
DATE OF BIRTH July 25, 1808
DATE OF DEATH December 25, 1885