5 Feb 2021, Friday
5 Feb 2021, Friday
Prioritized Daily Task
8 AM Legacy Center
I spoke with Peggy Turley Collum in Alabama today. I told her if she would have the family's attorney check and see if they have clear title to the land her family inherited from Aunt Elendor Smith. If not have deeds drawn up and Ora, Elain and I will sign them before any of us pass on and your family will have to run down all our children and get them to sign. She told me she talked to Jeff Larson her minister about me. He works at Miller's Funeral Home in Tallapoosa.
I received some pictures today from Doug Yancey. His family has been in the photography business for years. Doug has digitized many of the pictures and sent me some. The pictures that were taken of the Southern State Mission and members started me on a study of the Church in the South from about 1834 until some time in the 20th century.
L-R rear to front: Smith, Kathy and Judy Johnson .... Doug Yancey...Paula Joiner, Dave Haygood
Meeting of Relief Society Sister in cutral hall of Atlanta Georgia Stake
Georgia District Conference, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Atlanta, GA 18 Sep. 1949
Patriarch Edgar Richard Yarn and his wife, Margaret. (Brother Yarn gave me my patriarchal blessing 1967). Brother Edgar "Ed" sold used cars to provide for his family. When his wife died he married Margaret. Margaret's family sold their farm and home in Buchanan, Georgia to Billy and Vera Kimball. When Ed served on the high council and was assigned to visit the Buchanan Branch, Margaret would go with him. She enjoyed seeing old friends and visiting with Vera in the home where she grew up. Ed and Margaret went on several missions. They would sell all their earthly possessions and when their mission was over and they came home, they would start over again. This process was repeated until he was unable to go on missions. One of their missions, may have been the last, was to Africa. They had several children. They both worked and served in the Atlanta Temple. Margaret continued to serve and work in the temple after Edgar passed away. Edgar had had several children, two brothers, Homer and David, and two sisters who lived in South Carolina.
L-R David Haygood, Richard Clark, James L McAlpin, Max M Kimball, Doug Yancey, Jennifer Haygood
Southern States Mission Conference March 23-24, 1948, Atlanta, Georgia
THE SOUTHERN STATES MISSION
Ted S. Anderson served in the Southern States Mission as a missionary for the church from 1961 to 1963. (I was baptized and became a member of the Church in March 1966.). I combined some of the data in Ted Anderson's and Heather Scferovich's thesis and other sources I found and pulled it together in the below document and pictures an old friend, Doug Yancey, sent me.
This thesis dated April 1976 by Ted S Anderson is accepted in its present form by the Department of Church History and Doctrine in the College of Religious Instruction of Brigham Young University as satisfying the thesis requirement for the degree of Master of Arts.
And
This thesis dated August 1996 by Heather M Seferovich is accepted in its present form by the Department of History of Brigham Young University as satisfying the thesis requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Stan Larsen at the University of Utah’s Marriott Library directed me to important collections and assisted me greatly Dr. David Boone from the BYU Religious Education Department offered many valuable insights into Southern Missionary activity. (I, James L. McAlpin, met and or talked to both Stan and David. David Boone is from Jacksonville, FL. I met his father who was the Patriarch in the Jacksonville Florida Stake and a famous early missionary in the South. My mission president was the bishop in the same ward and President Joseph J. Jenkins was a close friend to Patriarch Boon.)
Between 1830 and 1861 many members or saints traveled to the South to share the gospel with their relatives. Historian Lamar C Berretta noted that several saints visited extended relatives in the region hoping to convert them. David W. Patten and Warren Parish arrived in Tennessee shortly before 11th October 1834 and soon baptized 31 people: organizing a branch of the Church by the end of the year. These efforts were in Henry, Benton, and Humphreys Counties. In 1835, Parrish worked alone after Patten returned to Kirkland, Ohio.
On March 27, 1835, Wilford Woodruff, then a priest, came to assist Parrish. When Warren Parrish was called as a Seventy in July 1835, he ordained Woodruff an Elder and placed him in charge of the work in Tennessee. Woodruff was assisted by Abraham O. Smoot and Benjamin L. Clapp.
In 1836, there were about 100 members in seven branches. By 1839, 12 branches existed in the state and by 1846, missionaries had preached in 26 counties. Following the exodus to the West, little work was done in Tennessee. Hyrum H. Blackwell and Emmanuel M. Murphy visited the state in 1857 to call the saints to gather in the west
Prominent church members such as Wilford Woodruff, Hyrum Smith, George A Smith, Orson Pratt, Warren Parish, Jedediah M Grant, and David W Patten proselyted there. People such as Abraham O Smoot, Benjamin Clapp, Henry G Boyle, John Brown, and Bathsheba W Bigler Smith were among those southerners whom the missionaries taught and baptized in the Church. However, the strong tide of missionary work in the South begin to subside in 1846 just before the saints fled Nauvoo. It halted briefly, as did all missionary activities from 1857 - 1858 during the Utah War. The Civil War from April 1861 to the Spring of 1865, temporarily closed the region to elders, but missionary work resumed a few years later in 1867.
During the early years 1867 – 1875, years that roughly parallel reconstruction, the Southern States Mission, the SSM, functioned very informally and the Mormon elders had different experiences from those who came later during this period. Generally speaking, LDS missionaries met with phenomenal success, stumbled across isolated church members, and received relatively little persecution. These missionaries regularly baptized entire families and organized several branches of the church so local members could hold meetings.
By 1867 LDS church leaders apparently felt the south had sufficiently recovered from the effects of the Civil War because missionary work resumed that year. At the Church’s April General Conference several men were called on missions to the Southern states. The following week Brigham Young and other church leaders decided they needed someone familiar with the region's culture to oversee the mission. Consequently, Brigham called “Pioneer” John Brown to act as Mission President. Later in January 1868, Brown received notice that his jurisdiction extended into all areas South and West of Philadelphia. This initial reorganization was only temporary when Brown returned home two years later church leaders did not fill his position. The handful of missionaries who worked in the region for the next six years had no designated leader. The next official President, Henry G Boyle, was not called until 1875.
At any given time from 1867 to 1874, fewer than two dozen proselyting elders canvassed the south but occasionally only two or four worked in the entire region. It was not uncommon for a pair of missionaries to temporarily split up and work alone. There were no set procedures or specific rules exclusive to the mission at this time. Some elders were called to serve in certain states others chose their own fields of labor.
Of the first twenty-three apostles, eleven were involved in proselytizing in the South, three became Presidents of the Church.
No formal mission organization existed in the south prior to 1875.
In 1875 Elder Henry G Boyle established a branch of the church at Shady Grove Tennessee at the October Conference of the Church in Salt Lake City seven missionaries were sent to join him. At their first meeting with Boyle, the elders elected him to preside although he was to wait until the next October Conference in 1876 to be formally set apart. The missionaries labored successfully in the states of Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Virginia, and Florida. Local membership grew rapidly and some of the new members emigrated to church settlements in the West. In January of 1878 one of the original seven, John Hamilton Morgan was appointed to succeed Boyle.
John Morgan served as President until 1888 and may be justly termed "the father of the Southern States Mission" because of service through these first thirteen difficult years.
Brigham Young organized the Southern States Mission in 1875 when he assigned eight men to fulfill a mission to the American South. In 1875 the Southern States Mission of the Church was organized at Shady Grove Tennessee.
The Church family was one of the first to build a log home in the wilderness area that would become Shady Grove, Duck River, Tennessee. It is about a mile or so from Gordon’s Ferry on the Duck River where President John Brown discovered a couple of isolated church members. The Abraham Church log home, which contained a dogtrot (shotgun house), served as a headquarters for the Church of Latter-day Saints in Tennessee for a number of years. It is reported that Abraham Church and a few of his children, but not all, were members of the Hickman County, Tennessee LDS Church. The Mormon Church may have been established in the area around the year 1839-1840.
(The word elder is a generic title given to male LDS missionaries. In reality, the vast majority of these missionaries held the office of Seventy not Elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood.)
Pioneer John Brown converted to Mormonism in his native state of Tennessee in 1843. He served three missions to the southern states. Although it is only logical to send a missionary to labor among his relatives and neighbors, some southerners perceived native southern elders as betraying their own people and defecting to enemies. For example, John Brown recorded that on his first mission his native Tennesseans, “I was calculated to do more harm in that region than any other Mormon. I had been brought up there and known to be a man of truth and veracity and yet I told the people I knew that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God” but that was precisely why church leaders called him to serve there. He knew people and people knew him and because he was traveling without purse or scrip. It was assumed he would be able to find lodging and meals more easily.
Brigham Young and other church leaders decided they needed someone familiar with the region's culture to oversee the mission. Consequently, Brigham called “Pioneer” John Brown to act as Mission President in 1867.
(Of the twenty-one elders under John Brown 1867-68, thirteen or had been born in the south. Similar patterns exist for SSM missionaries between 1869 and 1874. Thus, the majority of these elders had some connection to the area. Many were either native Southerners who had Southern relatives or had served missions there.)
John Brown labored just as hard as his fellow missionaries because the mission was so small. SSM presidents until the late 1870s wore two hats one for administration and one for normal missionary duties.
Another distinguishing factor of the mission, during these early years was that some elders occasionally found isolated church members, people, who had been baptized ten and twenty years earlier but who had not gathered with the saints. Interestingly none had apostatized. All the accounts found thus far, note the faithfulness of these people and their eagerness to entertain the missionaries. President John Brown discovered a couple of isolated church members near Gorden’s Ferry on Duck River in Tennessee. They were happy to see the missionary and treated him and his companion well. The following month he visited an eighty-five, year old woman, Elizabeth Henderson. According to Brown, Sister Henderson had been baptized twenty years earlier. He must have visited her on one of his other missions. Since she remembered me well when she last saw me eighteen years ago. A few weeks later a guide took Brown to see Isaac Hamilton, a local church member. When the missionaries arrived, he immediately wanted them to preach. Hamilton quickly gathered a crowd of twenty-five friends and neighbors and the elders shared their testimonies of the restored gospel.
Between 1867 and 1874 southerners rarely persecuted LDS missionaries perhaps as a result of the elders’ southern connections and because southerners were preoccupied with reconstruction. Years later that element of persecution became a distinguishing characteristic of the mission.
Prejudice seemed to increase proportionately to the amount of time missionaries spent traveling in the South and to the number of elders who labored there.
Mission President John Morgan moved the headquarters of the newly established Southern States Mission from Nashville, Tennessee, to Hayward Valley/Rome, Georgia, in 1878.
While in Hayward Valley at Uncle Jeter Davis’ and Brother Marshalls' home on 16 October 1877. While in Hayward Valley, Morgan wrote "The Plan of Salvation," a document designed to answer the questions of where human beings come from, why we are they here, and where do we go at the end of our lives. The pamphlet stresses the importance of faith, repentance, baptism, and the laying on of hands. The Church was still using that pamphlet when I joined the Church in 1966.
On 10 April 1883, Jonathan Golden Kimball’s preparations hastily completed at Brigham Young Academy, he boarded a train at 1:00 P.M. in Salt Lake City and with twenty-three other elders began the long ride to the mission headquarters in Chattanooga.
Elder Robert Young, 6 January 1893, wrote in his journal, many elders were involved in life and death situations in the SSM.
*Joseph Standing the first missionary to be murdered in the SSM labored in Georgia in 1879. He had written to the Governor, Alfred H. Colquitt, (a Democratic Governor from Jan. 12, 1877 to Nov. 4, 1882) nine days before his death explaining the injustices heaped upon the missionaries and reporting how local officials had apparently winked at the condition of affairs. At Vernell Station near Dahlonega, Sunday 21 July 1879 a rowdy twelve-man mob apprehended Joseph Standing and his companion Rudger Clawson on a public road after a few hours of derogatory exchanges violence erupted and Standing received a bullet in the face leaving him unconscious but alive. A short time later Clawson was finally allowed to leave to find help for his wounded companion in his absence the disorderly crowd emptied their guns into Joseph Standing's body no doubt attempting to protect the individual murderer by implicating the group. After the murder of Elder Joseph Standing in 1879, bitterness against the Church in Georgia failed to heal, smoldering hatred fanned into flame with little encouragement. Appeals to the governor for protection were fruitless. By the summer of 1889 incensed by sectarian revivals, news of further emigration of Southern saints, and anti-Mormon news articles, the populace of Georgia became undivided in opposition to the elders. The effect on the missionaries was especially discouraging as they were forced to go without food or lodging much of the time. The few members still faithful to the church wrote the elders warning them to stay away for their own safety.
In October the Georgia saints and elders convened in South Carolina because of the impossibility of a church gathering within Georgia. At this meeting, the membership in Georgia was attached to the South Carolina Conference under the direction of the President of the South Carolina Conference. Two elders returned to Georgia but within five months these two were again forced to leave. Thus, Georgia the most successful state within the mission during 1889 closed its doors to the gospel not to reopen them for nearly a decade.
*Violence erupted on Sunday 10 August 1884 in Cane Creek community, Lewis county Tennessee a few miles north of Gorden’s Ferry on the Duck River, when a masked mob raided a meeting just as it was to begin. A local saint and man of the house, James Condor, instructed his sons to retrieve their guns. Within a few brief minutes two missionaries, John Henry Gibbs and William S Berry, two local church members, Martin Condor, James Riley Hudson, and the mob leader David Hinson lay dead. By the following day newspapers across the south were reporting the incident. The acting Mission President, B. H. Roberts, instructed elders throughout the South to temporarily stop their work and lie low.
*The last of the missionaries to be killed before 1898 was Alma P Richards. During the summer of 1888, he labored in Mississippi by himself and was last heard from in August. SSM President, William Spry, then organized a search for him. He was not found, but a year later in that area, near the railroad tracks, some bones of a man. These bones were assumed to maybe be those of Alma P Richards’.
Violence is said is as American as cherry pie. However, violence has been a key component of Southern distinctiveness for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Folklore has celebrated Southern violence almost as much as it has southern hospitality. The need to fight appears to have been engraved into the character of the region. In short, violence permeated every segment of Nineteenth-century Southern society; citizens accepted it as an ordinary element of life.
New sects or churches received cold and sometimes hostile treatment from already entrenched and established denominations in the South. Once rivals disappeared from the scene or were grudgingly accepted the situation returned to its former state of anarchy. Churches occasionally had to deal with outside disturbances not led by denominational adversaries. Ruffians occasionally broke up meetings already in progress or attempted to prevent them from even starting. On one occasion two loads of planks used as seats for an open-air meeting were burned by members of other congregations. Other times rogues had ministers arrested for disturbing the peace. Although these particular antics occurred in the early nineteenth century, similar scenarios transpired when Mormon elders labored in the region fifty years later. Thus, much of the mistreatment heaped upon missionaries was actually routine protocol in the southern religious climate and had been going on long before Mormons arrived.
Elder Gordon B Hinckley once summarized missionaries’ treatment in the South. A few Southerners accepted their testimony but many more rose in bitterness against them. These early missionaries endured much persecution; some were stripped and beaten some were murdered by hateful enemies but with faith, they persevered. Eventually, thousands upon thousands joined the church.
This statement reveals one reason so many elders stayed in the South to convert the honest in heart who would accept their message. Theirs was a labor of love and service to perfect strangers. After nearly twenty-five years of intensive missionary work by 1689 elders, LDS church membership in the south reached an all-time high of 10,000 in 1900.
These elders serve their missions in the South at the risk of their lives. Many had wives and families at home. The common denominator among the elders was their possession of strong faith in their religion and their God. They also felt a responsibility even a sense of duty to serve others and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
These missionaries by and large were second and even third generation of saints. Undoubtedly, they had been raised on stories of the Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois persecutions visited upon the saints. Consequently, many missionaries probably expected to pass through their own Ohios and Missouris and may have looked upon such treatment, as their own rites of passage to becoming true saints. This could explain why so many elders welcomed, and almost seemed to glory in such experiences. Perhaps this is why virtually all diaries and letters retain a sense of unyielding optimism, even in the heat of brutal tribulation.
To help stem the tide of persecution Presidents John Morgan 1878-88 and J Golden Kimball 1891-94 instructed their elders to begin working diligently to allay prejudice. By the early 1890s, allaying prejudice was emphasized so much that some elders considered it to be almost as important as converting souls and performing baptisms. Various Americanization policies such as abandoning polygamy and baptizing people from higher social classes helped allay prejudice.
Elder J Golden Kimball recorded the idea prevalent in Tennessee, is that there is no law for a Mormon, and they can kill us and nothing would be said about it. While other church missions suffered occasional organized persecution mob influence was particularly pronounced in the American south.
In a letter to his mother, B.H. Roberts reasoned, the Lord can care for me equally as well in Georgia as he can in Utah. After other comforting remarks, he eloquently penned whenever dark clouds have arisen and times looked troublous when men have gathered around us with hatred pictured on their faces and murder in their hearts, I have thought my mother prayed for me this morning, all is well. This poetic and reassuring letter closes with a wish, that he shall never live to see the day when my life will be dearer to me than the Kingdom of God.
When violence culminated in murder, the immediate reaction of most church members was to discontinue the SSM altogether. After the 1884 Cane Creek massacre and because of the numerous other acts of violence perpetrated against other missionaries many elders assumed the mission would be abandoned. Mission Presidents Morgan 1878-88 and Roberts 1883-84 discussed this question extensively with church president John Taylor, his counselor George Q cannon, and other leaders on more than one occasion. Morgan and Roberts testified about the mission’s conditions before LDS church authorities. When asked specifically about violence, Roberts revealed every elder in the south was exposed to extreme danger and each carried his life in his hands.
After months of careful consideration, President John Taylor (President of the Church from 1880 to 1887) and his counselors George Q Cannon and Joseph F Smith made the decision for the mission to remain open. However, the elders were instructed to protect themselves against mobs by following Christ’s example, if they persecute you in one city flee unto another. From 1885 on, the elders began taking a somewhat more passive role in the south. No longer did they feel obligated to stand their ground in the face of mob threats. Moreover, they left old fields of labor places that were hotbeds of violence and began to enter new areas many of which had never been visited by Mormon missionaries.
Once these decisions were reached and agreed upon Morgan and Roberts began disseminating the news to missionaries throughout the south. Summarizing the situation in his diary, Roberts boldly stated the work of the Lord cannot be stayed because of the opposition of a mob. The gospel must be taught to the nations. Consequently, he and Morgan encouraged elders to continue their work but to avoid localities where violence is threatened, and the gospel rejected. Instead, missionaries were instructed to enter new counties and hunt for the honest in heart.
Despite the large number of potentially fatal situations amazingly only four missionaries of the 1,689 who were in the south between 1875 and 1898 were murdered.
Elders who served in the South had to adjust to the climate, diet, and customs. About 71 percent serving were from Utah. Elder John H. Gibbs wrote about the conditions in his journal: “I tell you it is hot, hot, hot. I take off my shirt at night and when I drop it down it drops like a dishrag and remains wet all night. The elders’ main mode of transportation was walking between 1 and 20 miles a day, without purse or scrip. The 19th-century Mormon missionaries believed they were to depend on God's mercy and the generosity of the people they encountered for food and lodging. Many Southerners proved to be hospitable hosts. However, with Southern hospitality came Southern hostility and violence. The hostility ranged from written threats and harassment to physical assault, to forced expulsion, and to attempted and actual murder.
Elders weathered currents of persecution in the SSM for more than three decades. They endured everything from verbal threats to murder uncertainty and anxiety characterized their Southern sojourn. The history of persecution in the Southern States Mission between 1875 and 1898 presents a story of persistent harassment abuse and violence directed toward LDS missionaries.
During the night of February 25, 1898, President Kimball (Wilford Woodruff was the President of the Church then; he died September 2, 1898) fully determined upon a method to reopen the state of Georgia. He had concluded during the recent visit of Elders Lyman and Cowley that the time was right but needed the inspiration to act. In the morning he announced his plans to Elder Albert Matheson appointing him to preside over the new conference. Together they selected two to six missionaries from each of the other conferences, a total of forty-two. A letter dated February 28, 1898, informed those selected to leave as soon as possible traveling in pairs without purse or script proselyting on the way. Upon meeting with assigned companions, they were to fast for two days and then begin the long walk to their assigned counties in Georgia. Matheson and his companion, C.O. Christensen, left mission headquarters in Chattanooga, Tennessee March 17th, 1898 on foot and without purse or script bound for the new field. Arriving in Atlanta on April 7th, they met Elders Fred M Michlesen and Adalbert E Cranney who had walked from northern Alabama. Here Matheson traded companions taking Michlesen with him because he was able to sing. Matheson and his new companion then visited Governor Atkinson, to get a promise of protection for the arriving missionaries. The governor responded that the courts would be just if a conflict arose but he anticipated no trouble.
On the tenth of June 1898, the Southern States Mission entered a new era with the appointment of a new President, Benjamin Erastus Rich.
During the mission of President Ben E. Rich, he obtained a promise of financial support from his missionaries and proceeded to publish the Latter-day Saints Southern Star. The name and the format patterned after the Millennial Star printed by the early missionaries in England. The significance of the name of the Millennial Star was described in the first issue by its editor, Parley P. Pratt.
"……..that luminary, which nightly conducted, may be a means in the hand of God of breaking the slumber and silence of midnight darkness, which, like a gloomy cloud, has long hung over the moral horizon--of dispelling the mists of error and superstition, which have darkened the understanding, and benumbed and blunted every great and noble faculty of the soul--and of kindling a spark of light in the hearts of thousands, which will at length blaze forth and light up the dawn of that bright day which was seen afar off by holy men of old--the Sabbath of Creation." The Star was published weekly until its last issue on December 1, 1900. The Star short historical sketches entitled, History of the Southern States Mission summarized the entire mission history from 1875 to November 1900.
The Star contained a weekly statistical summary which included the number of elders in the mission, the miles walked, families visited, books and tracts distributed, baptisms, and blessings, and the number of branches and Sunday schools organized. This report even numbered the families that rejected the testimonies of the elders or refused to shelter or feed them.
After a year of publication, the financial condition of the Star was in the black, but it had required constant appeals to the elders and saints for one dollar and fifty cents per year. Subscriptions by the end of the second year with the number of elders the mission constantly diminishing Rich regretfully discontinued the Star while it remained solvent.
During this first mission tour President Ben E. Rich marked himself as a man who was fearless and bold in his defense of the saints and elders. In the mission on July 30, Rich and Nelson arrived for a conference at Mechanicsburg Yazoo County Mississippi.
A short time later a committee of the mob appeared at the door with an ultimatum, that unless the Mormons wanted bloodshed, they must disband by two clock. To this President Rich consented. After explaining the situation to the elders, he told the crowd outside that they were a set of cowards, who were unwilling to allow others to enjoy the religious liberty they themselves possessed. Then the thirty-four elders were marched out of the building and down the road between the mobbers along either side. They were released at the depot where they boarded a train to Jackson and safety. For the next several years the elders were forbidden to re-enter the county.
With the arrival of Ben E Rich in 1898, the policy of emigration was markedly changed. Church leaders instructed him to encourage only the strongest members grounded in the gospel and with the financial ability to gather to the west. The missionary effort had suffered as a result of new converts who had left for the west, encountered financial difficulties, apostatized, and then returned to the South, bitter from the experience, and angry at the Church. As a result of this new emigration policy, many of the poor converts remained in the South isolated from other members and persecuted by their neighbors.
The labor market in the west could not sustain the influx of converts. Many became unemployed and a burden to the church. The general authorities also felt a need to strengthen the missions by discouraging emigration.
Ben E Rich sought to strengthen the membership of the mission through the means at his disposal--the missionaries. Since nearly all the members lived in country districts. Previous missionary work had been conducted only in rural areas. Rich assigned some of his five hundred elders to labor exclusively with the Sunday Schools organized wherever small groups of saints could meet. As these Sunday Schools grew, they were organized into numerous branches of the church, but by 1900, because of persecution, and their small numbers less than ten branches had constructed chapels.
The Southern States Mission was recognized as the cheapest one in the world and occasionally elders in other missions and newly called missionaries unable to bear the added expense of their fields were transferred to the Southern States elders in the South where they could subsist on three to four hundred dollars. During their years of service, the elders were instructed to avoid carrying money on their person to make them more dependent upon the Lord. They were encouraged to keep a ready account at the mission for the purchase of clothing personal supplies books and tracts. Many of the poorer elders unable to keep an account of ready cash, drew upon mission funds for emergencies, and other needs until the mission was in deep debt. President Rich renewed efforts to have the missionaries keep at least fifty dollars on deposit at mission headquarters. This caused additional hardships for the missionaries who were supporting families back home.
When Ben E Rrich was called to the Southern States Mission in 1898 the Church was saddled with an indebtedness of $1,250,000 and creditors pressing hard for payment. This financial embarrassment partially resulted from costs associated with the judicial crusade against church members, and the escheatment and maladministration of church properties by the federal government prior to the 1890 manifesto declaring a cessation of polygamy by the Mormon Church. The indebtedness was a vexing problem for the church because many members were unwilling to see their donations fall into government hands and had stopped the practice of paying tithing to the church. With this large indebtedness hanging over it, the church leaders were anxious that proselyting efforts not drain the tithing funds more than necessary.
Southern missionary activity completely ceased during the Utah War and the Civil War and only a handful of elders preached in the region between 1865 and 1874.
Mission Presidents of the Southern States Mission, SSM
“Pioneer” John Brown 1867-1875
President Henry Green Boyle 1875-78
President John Henry Morgan 1878- 88
President B. H., Brigham Henry, Roberts 1883-1884
Presidents Jonathan Golden Kimball 1891-94 President Elias Smith Kimball 1884-98 President Ephraim Hesmer Nye July 1902-1903 May
President Nathan John Harris 1Jun 1903- 1903 Aug 7
President Ben Erastus Rich 1898-1908 (1908 transfer of Rich to the Eastern States Mission in 1908) President Charles Albert Callis called 1908 April–1934 February
President LeGrand Richards Dec. 1933-1937 Jun. who wrote the outline for, A Marvelous Work and Wonder (1950) while on his mission, living in Atlanta. President Merrill Daniel Clayson Jun 1937-1940 Aug. President James Peter Jensen, Jr. 22 Jul. 1940-
President William P. Whitaker, 1940
President Heber Meeks, 1947
1878, the headquarters of the Southern States Mission in Nashville, Tennessee was moved to Rome, Georgia
1882 Headquarters SSM was moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee. The mission home was located at 711 Fairview Ave., Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Boundary Changes. 1893-1897
1902 June 28 the Mission Split and the Boundary Change - The mission was split to create the Middle States Mission. The new boundaries of the Southern States Mission changed to include only the states of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina.
1903 August - The Middle States Mission closed, and Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and Ohio once more came under the Southern States Mission.
1908, A branch of the Church opened in Atlanta. Charles A. Callis was called as the new mission president to replace Ben Rich. Charles Albert Callis, as a young boy became an Irish convert to the Church. He earned his law degree while working as a coal miner. After serving as the SSM President for over twenty-five years, he was called as a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles.
1919, SSM headquarters moved to Atlanta, GA.
1920 The mission headquarters was moved from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to 371 East North Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia, and shared the building with the Atlanta Branch of the Georgia District.
1925, A large brick chapel at the corner of Boulevard and North Avenue in Atlanta was constructed and served as both meetinghouse and mission headquarters.
1926 Boundary Change - The state of Ohio was transferred to the Northern States Mission.
1928 December 9 - Mission Split and Boundary Change, The East Central States Mission was organized from the Eastern States Mission and the Southern States Mission. The states of Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia were taken from the Southern States Mission. This left the mission with the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida. (Church membership in Georgia in 1930 was 4,311)
1936, the number of members of the Church in Georgia numbered more than 1,800
1937 President Merrill D Clayson became mission president of SSM
1940 President William P. Whitaker became mission president of SSM (hundreds of missionaries in the South helped to produced a superior rate of growth during the 1930s, an increase in membership totaling 26,744)
1940 June - marked the first stake to be organized in the original Southern States Mission Area, the Washington Stake, which included a branch in Virginia. (The first branch was organized in Baltimore in April 1923. 1934 President Heber J. Grant dedicated the first meetinghouse on Mayfield Avenue in Baltimore, Maryland. The Washington Temple was dedicated in November 1974.
In 1947 during President Heber Meeks administration two stakes were created, one in South Carolina and one in Florida. In 1947 another major mission division occurred with the formation of the Central Atlantic States Mission in October this new mission consisted of the states of North Carolina and Virginia with headquarters at Roanoke, Virginia. Church leaders also transferred the state of Ohio in October 1949 to the newly organized Great Lakes Mission.
Heber Meeks served a mission as a youth to the Southern States Mission from 1914 to 1916. He served in the bishopric of the Forest Dale Ward. From August of 1943 to April 1948. Heber Meeks was called to serve as the Mission President of the Southern States Mission at 50 years of age. After being released as mission president, he operated the church-owned ranch in Florida. The earliest plans for this ranch were made in 1949, and in 1950 the original 45,000 acres (180 km2) were purchased. Its name, Deseret Ranch , now covers an area 50 by 30 miles (80 by 48 km), with a separate section surrounding Kenansville in Osceola County.
1947 during President Heber Meeks administration two stakes were created, one on 19 January 1947 in Jacksonville, Florida by Charles A. Callis of the Quorum of the Twelve. Alvin C. Chase was the first Stake President and South Carolina on October 19, 1947. In 1947 another major mission division occurred with the formation of the Central Atlantic States Mission in October this new mission consisted of the states of North Carolina and Virginia with headquarters at Roanoke, Virginia.
1949 Church leaders also transferred the state of Ohio in October 1949 to the newly organized Great Lakes Mission.
5 May 1957, Elders Mark E. Petersen and LeGrand Richards of the Quorum of the Twelve organized the first stake in Georgia, the Atlanta Stake. It included the northern two-thirds of the state with 3,000 members.
1960 November – Boundary Change - Florida was removed from SSM.
In June 1971, the Southern States Mission was renamed, the Georgia-South Carolina Mission, then later the Georgia Atlanta Mission. In July 2003, it was divided, creating the Georgia Atlanta North Mission.
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH AND MISSIONARY WORK IN GEORGIA
Early efforts at missionary work in Georgia began with John U. Eldredge in 1843, who preached in Georgia as he traveled from Alabama to North Carolina. No other work was in Georgia until 1867. With the arrival of John Morgan, who in fulfillment of a dream 10 years earlier, converted many people in Haywood Valley and organized a branch there in 1876. Haywood was located in northwestern Georgia and was near Rome, a city 60 miles northwest of Atlanta. In 1879, it became the headquarters for the Southern States Mission.
In November 1877, about 80 Church members left Georgia and moved to San Luis Valley, Colo. Another group of Georgian Saints moved to Colorado in 1884. Until the end of the 19th century, groups of Church members from the South continued to migrate westward. Jack Dempsey, a member of the Church, who became World Heavyweight Boxing campion, parents were in the group from Haywood Valley that came west to the area of San Luis Valley. *Jack Dempsey was born in Manassa about 45 miles south of San Luis Valley, Colorado.
Missionaries were initially treated well in the South, but before long, their successes led to violent opposition. Joseph Standing was killed by a mob near Varnell’s Station on 21 July 1879. His companion, Rudger Clawson, later president of the Quorum of the Twelve, escaped serious injury.
Notwithstanding the threats of mobs to missionaries, some pioneer member families joined, stayed in Georgia, and built up the Church. One prominent convert, Judge Wyatt N. Williams who was baptized in Buchanan in July 1879, a few days after Standing’s murder. Williams subsequently donated land and built a chapel in Haralson County at a place called “Mormon Springs,” near his mill and cotton gin on the Tallapoosa, River. Because of persecution, families moved to Williams’ farm to work and raise crops. A Sunday School was organized first, then a branch. Other families in the South joined the Church and moved to Buchanan.
In the early 1900s, the Southern States Mission presidents directed that missionaries begin focusing their work more in the cities during the winter and less in the countryside. The first convert in Savannah was Julia Mozell Love, who was baptized in 1901. The first Sunday School in Savannah was created 26 March 1922, in the home of Arthur B. and Annie Laura Davis. A small meetinghouse, known as the “Little White Chapel,” was completed in 1929.
In 1908, a branch was organized, and a meetinghouse constructed in Atlanta. It was replaced in 1915 with a larger building. Heber J. Grant, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, visited Atlanta in 1911 and addressed an overflow congregation in a local Universalist church. A new meetinghouse was erected in 1925. 
L-R: Unknown contractor, Unknown, Homer Yarn, Unknown, ____ Shirley, Ed Cook
L-R: Unknown contractor, Unknown, Homer Yarn, Unknown, ____ Shirley, Ed Cook One of the prominent pioneer leaders in Atlanta was Homer Yarn. In 1916, he became the first local leader of a Sunday School in Atlanta and served as Atlanta Branch president from 1923 to 1937. When the Georgia District was organized in 1937, he was called as district president. He also served as a counselor in the mission presidency from 1939-57.
On 5 May 1957, Elders Mark E. Petersen and LeGrand Richards of the Quorum of the Twelve organized the first stake in Georgia, the Atlanta Stake. William L. Nichols was called as stake president. The stake boundaries covered the northern two-thirds of the state and had approximately 3,000 members in the two wards in Atlanta, Columbus, Macon, and Empire, and branches in Buchanan, Athens, Gibson, Milledgeville, and Palmetto.
One of the incidents recounted in this thesis was that of John Morgan and a “miraculous healing that occurred.” Elder Morgan was preaching to a congregation and noticed some members were missing from a family he was acquainted with. They were unable to make the meeting because their son was sick. Elder Morgan said he had a message for them. They traveled all night to the house and arrived at 3:00 a.m. The sick boy had actually died several hours previously. Elder Morgan prayed, blessed the boy, and raised him back to life. The boy went to school the following day, and the teacher couldn't believe it was the same boy sitting on the fence, after hearing that he passed away the previous night.
1983 June 1-4, Atlanta George Temple dedicated by Elder Gordon B. Hinckley. It was the second Temple to be built East of the Mississippi River since 1846 and the 21st operating temple of the Church.
*Jack Dempsey known as the Manassa Mauler made the statement, “I’m proud to be a Mormon. And ashamed to be the Jack Mormon I am.”
Growing up poor in the newly settled west, Dempsey often had trouble finding fights close to home. And as he grew in skill and popularity, he was often forced to travel east to find true contenders. In his early fighting years, necessitated by his lack of money, he snuck onto rail cars to avoid paying for passage.
Prior to his title fight with Willard and before he revolutionized the sport of boxing and prize fighting, Dempsey was just a small kid with big dreams who fought through challenges that life as a pioneer kid inherently presented. His parents had migrated west as Latter-day Saint pioneers, and he grew up in a large, deeply impoverished family. Facing overwhelming odds, Dempsey pulled off upset after upset. History remembers his wins inside the ring.
A little over 100 years ago, Jack Dempsey became the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, defeating four-year defending champion Jess Willard in a title fight. At the time, the boxing match was one of the largest in history and one of the most ostensibly lopsided as well. Dempsey, standing just six feet, one inch tall and weighing only 187 pounds, was at a disadvantage in many of his heavyweight fights. His opponents were often significantly larger than him in both stature and weight - none more so than the World Champion title holder Jess Myron Willard who stood six feet, six inches and weighed 245 pounds. Due to the disparity in stature, the champion was not particularly worried by his smaller opponent, reportedly, telling people before their bout, “This will be the easiest fight of my career.”
In the first 30 seconds of the fight, Dempsey scored a knockdown, and he would knock the champion off his feet six more times before first round ended. The mauling continued until the fight was stopped after Willard couldn’t rise or would not rise from his chair to start the fourth; a broken jaw, a broken cheek, broken ribs, and hearing loss, which proved to be permanent. This was the fight that launched a Golden Era. Not since the departure of John L. Sullivan in 1892, had any of his successors to the heavyweight throne; had the Great John L.’s star power and compelling life story. Dempsey, a hardscrabble battler who spent part of his life as a hobo, certainly boasted a tale that resonated with the common man but the power generated by his fists was decidedly uncommon. Dempsey had amassed 44 knockouts in 54 wins, including seven in a row and 21 of his last 22 wins were KOs. But the sight of the 6 foot-1 inch, 187-pound Dempsey standing next to the 6 foot -6¾ inch, 245-pound Willard was too much for many bettors to bear as the “Pottawatamie Giant” was listed as a 6-to-5 choice.
Those who placed bets also remembered that Willard’s blows had killed John (Bull) Young. One of those men was Dempsey’s promoter Jack Kearns who was confident that Dempsey would win, placed a $10,000 bet at 10-to-1 odds that Dempsey would score his 26th first round knockout victory.
Under a scorching sun that sent the mercury past 100 degrees – so hot that the sap that oozed from the fresh pine stands melted onto people’s clothes – Dempsey spent the first 85 seconds either moving to and fro at long range, being smothered by Willard’s clinches or missing his scorching hooks and right hands. Dempsey then changed the course of history with one crunching, jaw-breaking hook.
That hook came at the end of a four-punch combination and upon impact the giant crashed to the floor. Over the final 95 seconds Dempsey, who was wearing skin-tight five-ounce gloves, inflicted horrific bone-busting punishment that would affect Willard for the rest of his life. Not only did Dempsey’s first hook break Willard’s jaw, the ensuing attack – which included seven knockdowns – also reportedly produced multiple facial fractures, several broken ribs and hearing loss in one ear. Dempsey’s tigerish attack caused an instant sensation and for the next seven years the Mauler built a legend unlike any that had been created to that point. Dempsey’s accolades in the ring even gained the notice of David O McKay. I said to Jack Dempsey: ‘I congratulate you as a man who has acted well your part—one who has brought honor to your profession.’”
“My mother had always wanted me to be a ‘good citizen,’” Jack Dempsey wrote. “That might mean a lot of things; according to my interpretation it meant doing whatever job I undertook as well as I could. So, I had to be as good a champion as I could and hold the title as long as possible."
And that he did, holding on to his championship title for seven years after beating Willard. Today, Dempsey is remembered as one of the greatest boxers of all time, and with what he had to overcome as a boxer and a person, he’s David and Goliath personified, a sports icon for the ages.
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