John M. Horner of Monmouth County, New Jersey

Yes, the posts on this blog stopped in June/July, coinciding with my signing of a book contract with an academic press. The research and writing on the topic of the African American slaves in Utah Territory has been and will continue to be time intensive: I am attempting forty or more hours a week of research and writing since the deadline is approaching quickly.

From time to time I see something applicable to the history of the area, and I will include links here. Here is a story from Keepapitchinin: The Mormon History Blog about a convert from Monmouth County, New Jersey.

“Heaven Forgave Me”: The Fortunes of John M. Horner

From the introduction:

John M. Horner (1821-1907) built – then lost – one of the first great Mormon fortunes. Despite his living only briefly in Mormon communities, then spending decades living geographically far from the Church, he always considered himself a Latter-day Saint, and his personal story is entwined with some of the greatest events of 19th century Mormondom.

Rachel Ivins Grant: “...the kind of religion I was looking for...”

Rachel Ridgeway Ivins Grant was from Hornerstown, New Jersey, a small community in Monmouth County. She was born in 1821. This is the story of her conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

My parents died when I was quite young. My grandparents on both sides were Quakers, consequently I was brought up under that influence. But the silent worship of the Friends did not satisfy the cravings of my soul. I longed to hear the beautiful hymns that my mother taught to her little children even in our tender years, and the spirit often moved me to burst out in songs of praise, and it was with difficulty that I could refrain from doing so. 

At the age of sixteen years, with the consent of my relatives, I joined the Baptist church. The singing pleased me and the prayers were somewhat inspiring, but the sermons were not much more satisfactory than the none-at-all of the Quakers. I was religiously inclined but not of the long-faced variety. I thought religion ought to make people happier, and that was the kind of religion I was looking for.

About this time we heard of some strange preachers called Mormons who had come to our neighborhood. I concluded they were some of the false prophets that the Bible speaks of and I had no desire to see or hear them. Soon after I left my home in New Jersey for a visit to relatives in Philadelphia, little thinking what would transpire in my absence. The elders held meetings near our home and soon after my sister Anna and some of my cousins accepted the truth and were baptized. She was filled with the spirit of the Gospel, and when I returned she urged me to attend the meetings with her. I went to the meeting on Saturday, but when she asked me to go on Sunday I did not know whether I ought to break the Sabbath day by going to hear them or not, but through her persuasion and that of a schoolmate, who had come some distance on purpose to hear them, I finally went, but upon returning home I went to my room, knelt down and asked the Lord to forgive me for thus breaking the Sabbath day.

William Appleby: New Jersey's Pioneer Poet

William Ivins Appleby (1811 Egypt, Monmouth, New Jersey - 1870 Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah Territory) lived in Recklesstown (now Chesterfield), Burlington, New Jersey, when he joined the Church.

Don't miss the post Kent Larsen wrote about Appleby:

Lines suggested by reflections on Joseph Smith

Besides his occasional literary series at Times & Seasons, Kent Larsen wrote a blog called "Mormons in New York City," which has been an inspiration. Here's his brief biography of Appleby: 

This poem, written 3 years after Joseph Smith’s martyrdom, is by William I. Appleby, a New Jersey native born in 1811. When he joined the Church in 1840 he was already a Justice of the Peace and Town Clerk in Recklesstown, New Jersey. Appleby jumped into the Church with both feet. He travelled to Nauvoo in 1841, met Joseph Smith, and returned home anxious to serve. He built up branches in central New Jersey, and was eventually named president of the Eastern States Mission, first temporarily in 1847, before he took his family to Utah in 1849, and then later returning to the East as the permanent mission president and immigration agent from 1865-1868.

Joseph Smith Goes Down the Shore, 1840

Christopher Jones's post at Juvenile Instructor, Joseph Smith on the Jersey Shore: In Search of NJ’s Nauvoo, is a great introduction to the sources on Joseph Smith's visit to the region in 1839-1840.



The picture of the Delaware Water Gap is from Wikipedia.