Erastus Snow
(1818-1888)
Among the early settlers of Massachusetts colony was the family of the Levi and Lucina Snow, parents of seven sons and two daughters. All but two of the sons and father Levi accepted the Gospel when missionaries visited them in St. Johnsbury, Caledonia County, Vermont, where Erastus was born on November 9, 1818.
Erastus, 14 years old at the time Elders Pratt and Johnson introduced the Gospel to the Snow family, was zealous in his study of the scriptures and search for truth. After his baptism on February 3, 1833, he was advanced quickly in the Priesthood.
On November 8, 1835, he left his home in Vermont to travel to Kirtland, Ohio, where he became acquainted with the Prophet Joseph Smith and where, after attending the Elders’ School, he received his endowments in the Kirtland Temple, and his Patriarchal Blessing under the hands of Joseph Smith, Sr.
On April 16, 1836, after the glorious spiritual experiences he had had in Kirtland, he left on a mission to Pennsylvania where he was successful in converting some 50 people and organizing several Branches of the Church.
This was the commencement of many missionary travels and experiences, confrontations with ministers of other fathers, miraculous healings and considerable verbal and physical abuse. In June 1838, he joined a company of 40 or 50 Saints, including Heber C. Kimball and Orson Hyde, who had just returned from a successful mission to England, and with them traveled to Far West, Missouri, where he was reunited with his family, who had moved there from Vermont. When Far West was subsequently besieged by the mob, Erastus, like all the able-bodied Mormon men, was forced to take up arms in defense of their homes and families. Suffering from fever and ague, which left him extremely weak, he nonetheless stuck bravely to his post.
On December 3, 1838, Erastus and other brethren were sent as messengers to Liberty, Missouri, where the Prophet Joseph was incarcerated. On the evening of February 8, when the jailer brought food to the prisoners, a previously planned escape attempt failed, and not only were the prisoners locked in their cell again, but their visitors were incarcerated also. At the suggestion of the Prophet, who promised Erastus success if he would follow counsel, Erastus pled his own case before the court and was set free; the others, with professional lawyers, were freed on bail.
Upon his return to Illinois with his family, Elder Snow commenced a series of missionary assignments that took him throughout the northeastern part of the United States. Despite continiuing bours of fever and ague, which plagued his family as well, in six months’ time he managed to travel some 5,650 miles, a great deal of the distance on foot, and was responsible for the conversion of many souls and the establishment of numerous Branches of the Church.
His missionary labors continued over the next several years, during which time his wife bore him a daughter and a son. Occasionally, he was able to return to Nauvoo, Illinois, for counsel and, on one such visit, he was instructed by the Prophet on the principle of celestial and plural marriage. Sometime later, he obeyed that teaching by having his wife, Artemisia, and a 2nd wife, Minerva, sealed to him.
He and his family suffered the hardships endured by all the Mormon pioneers crossing the plains and the rigors of establishing themselves in a new and barren land, but he was ready for additional missionary service when he was called to establish a Scandinavian mission.
On his way to that field of labor, he stopped in St. Louis and stayed at the home of a Mrs. Streeper. While there, he contracted a light case of smallpox. Noting her concern for her family, he promised her that neither she nor her family would have the disease, and they did not.
Elder Snow was responsible for the translation to the Scandinavian languages of many of the Church publications of that day, and the missions flourished under his supervision. After three years in Scandinavia, he returned to his home and family only to be called on two additional missions which took him away from them again.
On February 12, 1849, Erastus Snow was ordained an Apostle.
In the early 1860’s, his mission took him to southern Utah and northern Arizona, where he supervised and organized early settlements in those areas. From there, he supervised and organized the Saints in their move to Mexico. This was an area which he had previously scouted and which he felt would be suitable for the families of plural marriages who needed to be together but who, out of necessity to avoid persecution, were separated.
In 1882, with Apostle Moses Thatcher, Apostle Snow was on a trip to northern Mexico, attempting to secure lands for the Mormons to colonize. While there, Erastus received a poignant letter from his 2nd wife, Minerva, advising him of the death of Artemisia on December 21. The love and devotion which Minerva felt toward his older wife was expressed in simple but eloquent terms: she wanted to go with her in death, their ties were so fast.
The ensuing years of his life were devoted to the welfare of the self-exiled Saints in Mexico. In Colonia Juarez, a town nestled in the narrow valley through which flows the Piedras Verdes River, he built a lovely home near the banks of the East Canal.
While his energies were directed toward making a comfortable home fo his family in the small Mormon colony, he continued to travel extensively to aid the Saints with land problems which often required meetings with President Porfirio Diaz in Mexico City, and to oversee affairs of the scattered colonies in the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua. He was in Salt Lake City on business for the colonies when he succumbed to a heart attack on May 27, 1888.
His life spanned an exciting, challenging and remarkable period in the history of the Church, and he was equal to the burdens he was called to bear throughout his lifetime of service during that period. A deep thinker, a kindhearted and benevolent man of impressive bearing, a man noted for his honesty, a kind father, wise counselor, efficient pioneer and colonizer, and a great statesman—truly, he was an Apostle of the Lord.
Jeanne J. Hatch
Stalwarts South of the Border, Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, page 627