Jacob Hamblin - Conversion To Mormonism and Migration West

Conversion To Mormonism and Migration West

As an adult, he and his family lived in Wisconsin. Hamblin was injured and thought he would die of his wound. Hamblin prayed that if he survived, he would serve God the rest of his life. Soon after, a woman knocked on his door who said she had felt called to go to his house. A nurse, she had the medicines and poultices needed, and helped heal Hamblin's wound and save his life.

From then on Hamblin turned to God. In 1842, he and his children converted to Mormonism. They moved from Wisconsin to Nauvoo, Illinois, where the Latter-day Saints had gathered. His first wife, Lucinda, left him and their children over their conversion to Mormonism.

After Joseph Smith's death, Hamblin witnessed the "Succession crisis" among the Mormons. He became a supporter of Brigham Young for the leadership of the LDS Church. In his memoir, he wrote:

"On the 8th of August, 1844, I attended a general meeting of the Saints. Elder Rigdon was there, urging his claims to the presidency of the Church. His voice did not sound like the voice of the true shepherd. When he was about to call a vote of the congregation to sustain him as President of the Church, Elders Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt and Heber C. Kimball stepped into the stand. Brigham Young remarked to the congregation: "I will manage this voting for Elder Rigdon. He does not preside here. This child" (meaning himself) "will manage this flock for a season." The voice and gestures of the man were those of the Prophet Joseph. The people, with few exceptions, visibly saw that the mantle of the Prophet Joseph Smith had fallen upon Brigham Young. To some it seemed as though Joseph again stood before them. I arose to my feet and said to a man sitting by me, "That is the voice of the true shepherd—the chief of the Apostles."

Hamblin followed the Saints on their migration to Utah, where he settled in Tooele, near Great Salt Lake City in 1850. He became well known for creating good relations between the white settlers and Indians. After an altercation, when his gun failed to fire as he shot at an Indian, Hamblin said God had revealed he was to be a "messenger of peace" to the Indians, and that if he did not thirst for their blood, he should never fall by their hands. In 1854, Hamblin was called by Brigham Young to serve a mission to the southern Paiute and settled at Santa Clara in the vicinity of the modern city of St. George, Utah.

Hamblin's first home there was destroyed by a flash flood. His second wife Rachael saved one of their young children from drowning, but the child soon after died from exposure. Rachael never fully recovered from the exposure she got from the flood. Swearing to avoid the risk of flood, Hamblin built a new home on a hill in Santa Clara.

Owned today by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, it is operated as a house museum, where Mormon missionaries give daily tours.