Pioneer and Church Servant
The winter of 1846 was spent at Winter Quarters, where Van Cott became well acquainted with Brigham Young. According to historical records, he was chosen to be a bishop at this time to watch after the families of men who had joined the Mormon Battalion. He was ordained a Seventy on February 25, 1847.
As a Mormon pioneer, John made the "trip across the plains" multiple times. In 1847 he, his wife, two children (their two other children died in New York), and 59 year old mother traveled with the Daniel Spencer/Perrigrine Sessions Company, wherein John was appointed to be a "captain of 10" and a marshall. They arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on September 25.
After arriving in the valley, at the behest of Young, Van Cott went back out on the trail to assist other companies who were having difficulties. He assisted in the exploration of the new land. He was chosen to be the first marshal of Salt Lake City.
In 1852 Van Cott began a four year assignment as the president of the Scandinavia Mission, headquartered in Denmark. He was called to the same assignment again in 1859 and served for two and a half years. He became proficient in Danish as a result of his work there.
On the journey home to Utah, Van Cott led a group of church members from Scandinavia to the United States aboard the ship Waldemar, and then on the journey across the midwest to Salt Lake. He is listed as being the President of the Madsen and Liljenquist companies, leading a group of Scandinavian Saints to Salt Lake in July–Sept 1862. This may be the same group he led on the Waldemar, but further information is needed.
In 1862 Van Cott was sustained as one of the Seven Presidents of the Seventy. He died at his home a short distance south of Salt Lake City, February 18, 1883, after a lingering illness of several months.
Read more about this topic: John Van Cott
Famous quotes containing the words pioneer and, pioneer, church and/or servant:
“America is the civilization of people engaged in transforming themselves. In the past, the stars of the performance were the pioneer and the immigrant. Today, it is youth and the Black.”
—Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978)
“New pioneer of days and ways, be gone.
Hunt out your own or make your own alone.
Go down the street.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“Exporting Church employees to Latin America masks a universal and unconscious fear of a new Church. North and South American authorities, differently motivated but equally fearful, become accomplices in maintaining a clerical and irrelevant Church. Sacralizing employees and property, this Church becomes progressively more blind to the possibilities of sacralizing person and community.”
—Ivan Illich (b. 1926)
“I put away my brushes; resolutely crucified my divine gift, and while it hung writhing on the cross, spent my best years and powers cooking cabbage. “A servant of servants shall she be,” must have been spoken of women, not Negroes.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm, U.S. newspaperwoman, abolitionist, and human rights activist. Half a Century, ch. 8 (1880)