Month: November 2003

By S. George Ellsworth Ensign, Oct. 1995, 30

Using a combination of faith and muscle, Latter-day Saint pioneers established homes, farms, and communities in the southwestern United States.

In November, Isaac Morley was called to preside over the proposed settlement. Some 224 persons were called by name from the pulpit to settle Sanpete Valley. No sooner had they arrived on 22 November 1849 than snow fell and a bitter-cold winter closed in on them.

Continue reading Ensign: Heeding the Prophet’s Call

Ensign, Jan. 1979, 31

In the Ensign’s continuing tour of Church history sites, we move this month to Kirtland, Ohio, the first real community of the Latter-day Saints and site of the first temple constructed in this dispensation. Keith Perkins of BYU’s Church History and Doctrine Department accompanied our photographers, Jed A. Clark and Lonny Lonczyna, Jr., to photograph these sites. He also provided the detailed map of Kirtland village in 1837 included here, and material for the captions. The interior photographs of the Kirtland Temple come from the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, headquartered in Independence, Missouri, which owns, maintains, and operates this historic building today.

Looking west across Kirtland township, we see the temple at the top center. The white house across from the plowed fields is on Isaac Morley’s farm. Joseph Smith may have lived in this house for some months.

This period home may have been Isaac Morley’s. This farm became the refuge of many of the converts who came to Kirtland.

It was 27 January 1851 and Brother Morley “was just starting out after a load of wood with his ax under his arm.” Remarking quietly, “ ‘I have been expecting this,’ ”
Continue reading Ensign: The Unlikely Daniel Webster Jones

The Isaac Morley farm in Kirtland was the site of the service project. Overgrown with thorny vines, grass choking the lanes, trees crowding the old home, the farm was discouraging. Cleaning it up looked like an impossible task. But never underestimate a determined group of LDS teenagers.
Continue reading New Era: Living History

Yelrome, or Morley’s Settlement, was located twenty-five miles south of Nauvoo and approximately three miles north of Lima. Although Lima is technically in Adams County, it was so close to the Hancock County settlements that for all intents and purposes it can be included with them. Indeed, Lima, when combined with the minor colonies of Yelrome and Bear Creek, was one of the two major LDS colonies in Hancock County. It was also referred to by Joseph Smith as one of the “spokes on the wheel.”
Continue reading Ensign: Spokes on the Wheel: Yelrome

Isaac Morley and his family joined the Church just thirteen days before Cordelia, his next-to-the-youngest daughter, was seven years old. In her journal, she tells about a time when her older sister Philena asked Joseph Smith to help her carry a large trunk to another room. The Prophet, always happy to help people, quickly went to move it, saying, “Yes I will, with all my heart and part of my muscles.”
Continue reading Exploring: Children in Early Kirtland

“Comment,” Ensign, Feb. 1980, 70

Thank you for your mention of the steadfast Isaac Morley in the January 1979 Ensign (p. 31). Isaac joined the Church in 1830, and he was Edward Partridge’s first counselor in the first bishopric of the Church from 1831 to 1840. The Prophet lived in Isaac’s home for months at a time and was hidden there from the mobs. In Utah, Isaac Morley was sent at the head of families that settled Manti, Utah. He was so kind and gentle that white man and red man alike called him Father Morley. He was a member of the first Utah state legislature and was grand marshal of the first “Days of ’47” parade in Salt Lake City.

Wilma Morley Despain
Alpine, Utah