Series: People of the Mormon Pioneer Trail

Learn more about significant figures of the Mormon PIoneer National Historic Trail.

  • Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail

    Article 1: Hark Lay, the Mormon Pioneer Trail

    In January 1846, Young ordered Brown to gather the “Mississippi Saints” and meet the main body of Mormons along the Platte River trail to Utah later that summer. Brown managed to convince just forty-three of the Monroe County converts to make the 640-mile trip to Independence, Missouri. William Lay and his wife, Sytha (Crosby), decided to take with them their twenty-year-old enslaved man, Hark Lay. Read more

  • Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail

    Article 2: Rebecca Winters, the Mormon Pioneer Trail

    Rebecca Winters, at the advanced age of 53, crossed the plains with her family on their way to Utah in 1852. The fate that befell her along the way was one shared by many emigrants on the westering trails. Read more

  • Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail

    Article 3: Green Flake, the Mormon Pioneer Trail

    Historical image of a man standing in a suit.

    Green Flake was born into slavery on 6 January 1828 in Lilesville, Anson County, North Carolina. His master, Jordan Flake, gave ten-year-old Green to his son James Madison Flake as a wedding gift in 1838. When Brigham Young led the first LDS wagon companies out of Nauvoo in 1846, three Mormon families from Mississippi volunteered their enslaved men—Green Flake, Oscar Crosby, and Hark Lay—to go along as laborers. Read more

  • Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail

    Article 4: Elijah Abel, the Mormon Pioneer Trail

    historic image of an African American man

    Elijah Abel was born in Maryland in either 1808 or 1810, most likely into slavery. He converted to the Mormon faith in 1832 and soon migrated to the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) in Kirtland, Ohio. Read more

  • Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail

    Article 5: Joseph Fielding Smith, the Mormon Pioneer Trail

    Historic bust portrait of a man with a beard.

    Joseph Fielding Smith, sixth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the nephew of its founder, Joseph Smith, was born in Far West, Missouri, on 13 November 1838. He traveled with his family on the Mormon Pioneer Trail in 1846. In 1848 they left Winter Quarters and arrived in Salt Lake City, Utah. Read more

  • Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail

    Article 6: Zina Huntington Young, the Mormon Pioneer Trail

    Zina Diantha Huntington, an early convert to the Mormon faith and wife to both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, was born in Watertown, New York, on the last day of January 1821. The Huntingtons left Kirtland for the Mormon encampment at Far West, Missouri, during a time of heightened tensions between Mormons and Missourians. Read more

  • Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail

    Article 7: Elizabeth “Lizzy” Flake, the Mormon Pioneer Trail

    Historic portrait of an African American woman.

    Elizabeth “Lizzy” Flake was born enslaved in Anson County, North Carolina, in 1833. She grew up alongside other enslaved people who picked cotton on William Love’s plantation. The Flakes joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and moved to Mississippi, then to Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1844. Two years later, when most of the Saints fled Nauvoo, they joined the migration to Utah. Read more