The Cumorah’s

https://history.lds.org/bc/content/images/historic-sites/Palmyra/780x439/hill-cumorah-anderson-1907-1214171.jpg

Who were the Cumorah’s?

a.                  A popular Salt Lake City band at the turn of the century

b.                  A baseball team of elders in South Africa

c.                   The name of a group of Saints that Lucy Mack Smith led from Palmyra to Kirtland

d.                  The nickname given to the Smith family because of Joseph’s claim of finding the Book of Mormon in the Hill Cumorah

Yesterday’s answer:

C   That he never made it to California, but was baptized in Salt Lake City

From the life of William Morley Black:   A Patriarch in the San Juan Stake of Zion was born Feb. 11, 1826, at Vermillion, Richland county, Ohio, the third child of John Black and Mary Kline. The family moved to Bridgeport, Ill., when William was eleven years old. Three years later his father died. When seventeen years of age, with the consent of the family, he left his mother’s home to earn his own living. His education consisted of two winters, schooling. After leaving home he worked three years among the farmers. In 1846 he married Margaret Ruth Banks and settled with his young wife near Peoria, Ill. At the age of 22 he was elected county sheriff at that place. In 1849 he caught the gold fever, and on his journey west passed through Nauvoo Ill., which he still found in ruins. Driving an ox team across the plains, following the old “Mormon” trail 1400 miles, he arrived in Salt Lake Valley July 24, 1849. While camped near the Jordan Bridge, he and a companion were invited to supper at the house of Uncle Buck Smithson. There he first heard of “Mormonism,” and the Sunday following he attended a meeting in the brush bowery where he heard Apostle John Taylor preach. When that meeting closed his ambitious dreams for gold vanished, he having found a richer treasure. He forfeited his share of the team and outfit, and without a dollar in his pocket he cast his lot with the Latter-day Saints. He was baptized in 1849 by Levi Jackman, assisted in erecting the Council House, and worked as a mason on the tithing office, which was built on the ground now occupied by the Hotel Utah. Being called by Pres. Young to aid in settling Sanpete valley, he started for that part of the country, but was attacked by Indians in Spanish Fork canyon. By the heroic effort of Ephraim K. Hanks, peace was made with the Indians and the party reached Manti in a snowstorm. He was kindly received into the home of patriarch Morley, to whom he soon became greatly attached, and lived with him two years. He then returned to Canton, Ill., for his family. Three days before reaching Canton he met with a severe accident, breaking three of his ribs. His wife and parents-in-law received him as one raised from the dead. His parents-in-law became very angry when they learned that he had joined the “Mormon” Church, and he was told that he must leave the house before morning or renounce his “Mormonism.” This was indeed a crucial test of his life, but he did not flinch. At daybreak he harnessed his team and without a word of goodbye he pulled out in the face of a fearful blizzard with his wife and two children and started for Utah. In the spring he joined a company of Saints at Omaha and was made a captain of a company of 40 wagons in which he crossed the plains.

Andrew Jensen, LDS Biographical Encyclopedia, (Salt Lake City: Western Epics, 1971), 3: 21-22.