Sunday, January 29, 2017 – Sunday Services, Heber C Kimball, Exodus Commemoration
Sociable, Orville Sutherland Cox
Another beautiful
Sabbath Day in Illinois. When we left for church at 7:30 it was 26 degrees and
by the end of the day it was all the way up to a balmy 35 degrees. Just a
beautiful day for a beautiful Sunday sacrament service.
Usually Sis. Johnson
& I are assigned to be tour guides at one of the historic sites in Nauvoo on
Sunday afternoons. Today our assigned site was the historic home of the
Apostle, Heber C. Kimball and his family. We enjoy these Sunday assignments
because Sis. Johnson and I get to meet and teach visitors as well as learn new
things about the early members of the church. In this case, an Apostle, his
family, his home and the eight missions he was called by the Lord to serve.
Tonight we had the first
of several programs commemorating the Pioneer Exodus that took place the first
week of February in 1846. Tonight’s
program was titled “Faith of Our Fathers” and featured twelve stories submitted
by the Elders and Sisters of our mission about their own ancestors that lived
here. They were all great stories that told of the faith, hard work, sacrifice
and dedication of those beloved pioneers.
.
I submitted the story
about my Great-Great Grandfather, Orville Sutherland Cox. Elder Swain
coordinated the project and was hoping to get a dozen or so stories submitted.
But, instead there were over thirty stories turned in. I wish we could have
heard all of them but there wasn’t enough time for everyone’s stories to be
told. Over twenty of the submissions couldn’t be used, including my story about
Sutherland Orville Cox.
I submitted the story
about my Great-Great Grandfather, Orville Sutherland Cox. Elder Swain
coordinated the project and was hoping to get a dozen or so stories submitted.
But, instead there were over thirty stories turned in. I wish we could have
heard all of them but there wasn’t enough time for everyone’s stories to be
told. Over twenty of the submissions couldn’t be used, including my story about
Sutherland Orville Cox.
Sooo. . . . Here is the
story of my Great-Great Grandfather, Orville Sutherland Cox:
Nearing his 24th
birthday, Orville Sutherland Cox was a thorough frontiersman, forester, lumberman,
a splendid blacksmith. Orville fought with the Texans in the Mexican war and
was returning the by way of Missouri when he met the Mormons in Far West.
While there he won the
heart of the orphan girl, Elvira Pamela Mills, who was living with her uncle,
Sylvester Hulet. He asked Elvira to marry him and become his partner for life.
She answered that if he would be baptized into her church, she would be glad to
do so. To that proposition he did not
react as she expected he would. Instead of complying with her suggestion, he
said “I don’t propose to join any religion, including yours . . . to buy a wife.” Elvira hesitated to marry a gentile. Months
later on October 3, 1839, however, she yielded, and they were married in Father
Elisha Whiting’s home at the Morley settlement by Elder Lyman Wight.
Three days later,
October 6, 1839, the two newlyweds drove into Nauvoo twenty miles away, and
Orville Sutherland Cox was baptized, by the Prophet Joseph Smith. He went a
gentile and returned a full-fledged Mormon, so short a time it takes a good
woman to make a convert.
Orville and his wife
lived in Adams County, ILL and help build the Morley settlement. His stacks of
grain were burned at the Morley settlement by the mobbers, and they fled to the
City of Nauvoo, he with his wife and two children – the oldest child died as a
result of chills and fever, and from exposure resulting from mobber’s violence.
Orville was a faithful
Latter-day Saint, full of love and zeal – He played the fife and was a member
of the famous brass band of the Nauvoo Legion. When the Prophet and his brother
were killed, none mourned more sincerely than he. He assisted those more
helpless or destitute in the migration west from Nauvoo.
Orville attended the
meeting where Sidney Rigdon asked the Saints to appoint him as guardian, and
where Brigham Young claimed that the Twelve Apostles were the ordained leaders;
and many times thereafter he testified that he saw Brigham Young changed to
appear like Joseph and heard his voice take on the Prophet’s tone. And after
that manifestation he never doubted for a moment that the rightful leadership
of the Church was vested in the twelve, with Brigham Young at their head.
He remained in Nauvoo
till almost the last departed. He assisted Jonathan Browning in transforming
the old rusty steamer shafts into cannon that were so effectively used by
Daniel H. Wells at the battle of Nauvoo.
Leaving Nauvoo with the
last of the Mormon exiles, Orville and his family crossed Iowa and settled at
Pisgah, where he served as counselor to Lorenzo Snow, President of Mt. Pisgah.
In his devoted attachment to Lorenzo Snow, he was an enthusiast; also to Father
Morley and he would follow their leadership anywhere.
Orville and his family
arrived with the pioneers of the Bryant Jolley Company in Salt Lake City Sept.
9, 1852. He was the first Bishop of Bountiful, Utah. He helped “Pioneer”
(Settle) six communities in Utah and Nevada.
************************
This is a very
abbreviated and condensed version of the life story Orville Sutherland Cox. My
rendition of his life story was taken from the pages of a 539 page book written
about seven intertwined pioneer families, the Coxes being one of the principal
families. All of the credit for my story goes to Clare B. Christensen, author
of “Before & After Mt. Pisgah.”
