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LIFE & TIMES OF ERASTUS SNOW 

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"This is the Place" Monument, Salt Lake City. Erastus Snow is the fourth horseman in this representation of the Mormon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley. Photograph courtesy of Utah State Historical Society. Click photo for full image

The Snow home in Chesterfield, New Hampshire, built in 1762 by Erastus Snow's great-grandfather and grandfather, John and Zerubbabel Snow.  Click photo for full image.

TRAGEDY OF JUNE 27th, 1844

It was early in the Spring of 1844 that Erastus boarded a steamboat on the broad waters of the Mississippi, bent on his mission again to the folks living in the East. As the boat nosed its way up the stream, Erastus stood on the deck gazing at the panorama of Nauvoo, the beautiful city of the Saints. It nestled, as it were, in the arms of the river, its homes, fields, and gardens spread out for five miles along the banks and on up the side of the rolling hill. In his mind’s eye he visualized what he had seen there three years ago. A miracle had truly been performed when he thought of all that the city now contained: business houses, grist mills, saw mills, iron foundry, pottery factories as well as the fine brick homes, some large and imposing, other small but comfortable.
    One of the passengers, seeing him so absorbed in the scenery, came up and remarked, "Quite a city these Mormons have made in that swampy bend of the Mississippi. If I were of the religious type, I think that accomplishment would be the best motivation I could have in joining their church. I have just spent my week’s leave visiting this curious people. Do you know that I never in the whole week saw a drunken person? Every person meets you with a smile and a glad hand of welcome. I had more offers to help show me their city than in any place I ever visited. They have only been here about three years and they say at their last census there were over 20,000 in population."
    Erastus own home state of Vermont and its surrounding states were the goal of his mission at this time, but enroute he stopped at points along the way where he had left branches on his former missions. The first stop was at Pittsburgh where he found a need for reorganization, for many of his Saints had moved to Nauvoo. These newly converted Saints needed much instruction for it was so easy to fall back into former habits of living.
    After several weeks of traveling and stopping he found himself once more in his old home of St. Johnsbury. The town was the same, but its residents were mostly strangers for when he called first at the home of this and that neighbor, he found they had moved West to join the Mormons.
    With Elders who had preceded him, Erastus gathered all Saints into branches and organized them according to schedule, then held a conference to build up the morale of those unable to gather with the Saints in the West. During this conference a spirit of depression seemed to hover over him.

Artimesia Beman. Click photo for full image.
    Quoting from his autobiography: "Although at that time I was ignorant of the awful tragedy which had occurred at Carthage Illinois, I felt resting down upon me a more dreadful pressure of sorrow and grief and sense of mourning that I had ever before felt, I knew not why. Under the influence of that feeling I assigned Elder Alfred Gordon and the other Elders under my charge the duty of fulfilling our outstanding appointments, and I took a stage for Salem where I knew President Brigham Young and others of the Twelve were holding conference the following Saturday and Sunday."
    Erastus could feel the same spirit of gloom pervading the brethren in that Conference and during the following week all letters from Nauvoo increased that depression until at the end of the week, the news of the martyrdom reached them, thus explaining their depressed feelings.
    After Erastus had left for this mission, his mother had gone to Rhode Island to visit her children there and had intended returning when Erastus left for Nauvoo. But Erastus and his brothers advised her to remain in Woonsacket until all was quiet again in the City of the Saints. How could she know there would be no more quiet in the beloved city until no more Saints lived there?
    What a contrast to his last homecoming! Although it had been several weeks since the martyrdom, the pall of death still held sway in the city. No home had been spared from death and disease during the mobbings and drivings in Missouri, but this death brought a deeper sorrow than anything the Church members had ever known.
    As Erastus met his family he found strength as usual in Metia’s calm faith. "Of course, Erastus, we all knew that some day we would lose him, but we needed him so badly to meet the persecutions and show us where to go! But the Church was set up never again to be done away with and in the revelations to Joseph the Prophet the Lord says just what the Church must do for a leader when the president dies, doesn’t it Erastus?"
    "Yes, my dear, it says that the Twelve Apostles will lead the Church when the Prophet leader dies and I am sure Brigham Young understands that too." The experiences of the following week showed that Brother Brigham did know and understand the responsibility that now rested on the Twelve and we know how Joseph’s cloak of authority did fall on Brigham’s shoulders and not on those of Sidney Rigdon, as the latter made claim.
    About two weeks after the arrival of the Twelve Apostles, a special conference was held and some of the most urgent business of the Church was attended to. The first of all was the sustaining of the Twelve as the leading authority in the Church according to the anointing they had received from the Prophet. At that conference Erastus was called with some others to travel East among the scattered branches of the Church to gather tithes from the members, a very wise and testing proof of their loyalties.
    On May 17th 1845, Erastus returned from this mission and that evening as he sat conversing with Metia and Minerva, the latter remarked, "It is good you arrived home just now, Erastus, for the court trials of the Prophet’s murderers are being held this week. I don’t see how any trial can be just, though, when the majority of the court is in cahoots with those who committed the murder."
    For some time Erastus, holding his head in his hands, did not reply and then only, "We will see. We will see."

Quoting from his Journal (Vol. III p. 21) we can see what his judgment of the proceedings of that court was: "On the l9th commenced the setting of the ever-memorable circuit court of Hancock County at which the indicted murderers of the Prophet and Patriarch had a mock trial, which I attended. And a more ridiculous legal farce never was played by any officers in any county than was there exhibited. I need not add that the guilty wretches were acquitted when I inform the reader that the court set aside the whole of the jurors that had been selected by the proper officials of the law, both Grand and Petit jury, and appointed men to take charge of the court and to select a new Jury (thereby setting aside the sheriff and his deputies) which was done exclusively from the most ignorant and bitter mobocrats."

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Elizabeth Rebecca Ashby. Click photo for full image.

 

During the summer and fall there was a great deal of sickness in and around Nauvoo and the Snow family had their share of illness and death. Metia had plenty of nursing right in her own home, not only to nurse the illness of the body but what requires more technique, the stimulation of the soul as well. Holding her own whimpering baby Charles on one hip, she went to Minerva’s bedside from that of her husband.
    "Oh Metia," said Minerva in the early stage of birth pains, "do you think my baby will be all right when I have been so ill the whole time that I have been carrying it? I have tried not to weep during these days when all Nauvoo was weeping, but the tears would come and I have tried to eat all that you have told me to eat for my own good and that of my baby. But you know I haven’t been able to keep much nourishment down." As she spoke her pains were already coming and Metia sent for the help she needed at once. All night they wrestled to bring the tiny mite into the world—Erastus with humble petitions, the women with every known device of their day, and finally the baby boy, tiny and ill-nourished, was born.
    Looking at his little pinched nose, his darkening skin, Metia shook her head but tried to look pleasant when she brought him to his mother’s side.
    "It is a little son, Minerva. What will you name him? Do you still want him named Nephi?" Metia asked, for over and over the young mother had said while waiting for his birth, "If the Lord sends me a son, Metia, I want him to named Nephi, for that prophet is my ideal of manhood." Nodding her head wearily, the tired mother closed her eyes in sleep.
    Metia hurried to Erastus with her bundle saying: "My dear, I think you better christen him to be sure he has a name, for I fear he can’t live many hours."
    "You can’t tell, Metia, many of these weakest ones live in spite of their seeming lack of vitality. Still, I want to bless him and I can give him a name at the same time." Going to the crib off and on all day, Metia reported she could still feel a bit of breath, but the following morning, just twenty-four hours after his birth, Minerva’s first born went back to God from whence he had came.
    The poor little disappointed mother wept with many another that summer in Nauvoo! How these mothers clung to the words of their Prophet who in speaking at the funeral of one of such babes, told the mother that the babe would rise as it was laid down and she would be privileged to raise it to maturity in the life hereafter.
    About the first of September the persecutions that had been going on ever since the Prophet’s death became more and more violent. The fate of the murderers of the Prophet gave courage to the fiends, for they felt that they had the law on their side, so had nothing to deter them from their wickedness, nothing to fear from reprisals. They assembled in large groups and commenced, first in the smaller towns outside of Nauvoo proper, burning haystacks and homes, grain fields and stacks of unthreshed wheat, killing and driving off cattle and horses.
    The county sheriff, Backinstos, who was conscientious in his efforts to maintain the law of personal rights, attempted to bring them to justice, but there were too many against him. He finally had to flee Nauvoo to save his own life.
    One day Erastus rushed into the house, caught up his rifle saying that the sheriff had called for a posse of men to assist him in restoring peace to the county. With this posse Erastus, riding his best mare along with 160 other well-armed, well-mounted men, went from place to place driving the mobocrats into hiding. The homeless and suffering were brought into Nauvoo where the Relief Society sisters nursed and cared for them.

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