Zera Pulsipher, 1788 — 1872
Zerah Pulsipher was born June 24, 1789, in Rockingham, Vermont. His parents were John and Elizabeth Pulsipher. His father and grandfather were both soldiers in the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, in which 13 Americans withstood 3000 British soldiers for about two hours.
At the age of 21, Zerah married Polly or Mary Randell. They had a daughter named Harriet. Polly died about a year later. Some few years later, Zerah and his daughter Harriet moved to Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. There he met a young lady named Mary Brown. Together they had a large family and Zerah made his living rafting on the Susquehanna River.
In the summer of 1831 Zerah and Mary were introduced to the Book of Mormon and after much prayer and study felt it to be the word of God. The next fall, in 1832, Elder Jared Carter, following the prophecy given him in the Doctrine and Covenants, Section 79, by Joseph Smith, found Zerah Pulsipher and his Baptist Congregation. They studied the Book of Mormon together. During that year Zerah and Mary and their older children were baptized as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints by Elder Carter. After their baptism, Elder Carter ordained Zerah an Elder and left him in charge of the small congregation and continued his mission elsewhere.
On December 31, 1833, at Richland, New York, Zerah baptized Wilford Woodruff as a convert into the Church. After a short mission to Canada, the Pulsipher family along with a small group of converts moved to Kirtland, Ohio to
be close to the gathering saints and help build the Kirtland Temple. While in Kirtland, the infamous extermination order of Missouri Governor Lilburn W. Boggs was issued on October 27,1838. This order forced the saints out of Kirtland and Zerah and the families following him, moved to Far West, Missouri where they camped around the temple cellar as they had it dug. The next morning, Joseph Smith, the Prophet came to Zerah and asked him to move to Diemmon, Davies County, about 25 miles north. Zerah and those families with him moved to Diemmon, later called Adamondiamon. They lived along the Grand River a few weeks under constant annoyance by mobs and thieves stealing everything they could lay their hands on. They suffered under these conditions for many weeks until they were able to finally move to Nauvoo, Illinois, where the saints once more attempted to settle and live peacefully.
In 1841, while at Nauvoo, the Lord revealed Section 124 of the Doctrine and Covenants to the Prophet Joseph Smith. In verses 138 – 141, the Prophet is commanded to call Zerah Pulsipher, among others, “to preside over the quorum of seventies, which quorum is instituted for traveling elders to bear record to the world, whenever the traveling high council, mine apostles, shall find them to prepare a way before my face.” D&C 124: 138-
139.
As the era of persecution against the Church unfolded, the Pulsipher family, like so many others, found themselves time and again forced from their homes under the guns of mobs and pushed into the night with nothing but their bed clothes and holding their infants in their arms. Fleeing into the darkness as the mobs ransacked their homes and barns for food, animals, and goods. Then leaving the homes and barns burning in the night, the mobs fled away in the darkness.
When the Church was forced out of Nauvoo, Illinois, Zerah Pulsipher was made Captain of the first division of 100 wagons. Zerah led this company from the Elk Horn River June 1, 1848 and arrived in Salt Lake City September 20, 1848.
In March of 1857, Zerah married Martha Ann Hughes, a daughter of James and Ann Picton Hughes. Together, they had five children.
A few years later, in the fall of 1862, he was given the opportunity to move to southern Utah where many of his family had been called to the Cotton Mission. His boys had taken the responsibility of managing the Church’s cattle and had
moved the cattle herds to Shoal Creek and began a community they named Hebron, Utah. Zerah loved Hebron and was very content to spend the rest of his life there. He died and was buried at Hebron January 1, 1872
This small community of Hebron, Utah became home to many of the families who had joined the Church together so many years before in the Susquehanna Valley under the direction of Jared Carter. They had maintained their families together through persecutions, trials, life, and death. These same stalwart families tie into the fabric of the history of the Church and the settlements on Mesquite Flats.