Joseph Smith's Missionaries in Upper Canada
Mormon Missionaries Changed Leeds County Demographic Profile
Nov 21, 2008
Joseph Smith published the book March 26, 1830, officially established the Mormon Church April 6, 1830, and sent missionaries out to preach the gospel during that year. Phineas Young’s testimony in Kingston, Ontario (then known as Upper Canada) was the first known outside the United States. Several Canadian villages and towns north of the St. Lawrence River were visited by eager converts from Palmyra.
Brigham Young in Canada
Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon, a man who delivered mighty rhetoric, travelled to Mount Pleasant near Brantford, Ontario to visit the extended family of another recent convert. Former Methodist preachers Brigham and Phineas Young convinced their brother Joseph to convert in 1832. The brothers then met with friends and acquaintances in Kingston, Loughborough, Ernestown, and Syndenham, Ontario and baptized more than 150 people between 1832 and 1834.
Demographic Profile Changed in Upper Canada
During that period, Mormon missionaries arrived in the village of Halladay’s Corners (now Elgin) in Leeds County. They talked to groups large and small in open-air meetings, rented halls or theatres. Their recruitment efforts were so successful that in 1834 one hundred and thirty-five covered wagons congregated in Halladay’s Corners and left with many families for Mormon settlements in the United States. In recognition of the Mormon Church, the village was named Nauvoo for a short period of time.
Elder John E. Page, known as Son of Thunder because of his strong voice, left the Mormon settlement in Kirtland, Ohio, May 31, 1836. It is estimated that he travelled over five thousand miles, often on foot, and converted almost one thousand people to Mormonism during his two-year mission in Eastern Ontario.
Halladay’s Corners and other villages on the Rideau Canal System, including those in Frontenac County north of Kingston, were greatly affected by Page’s work. As part of the flight from increasing persecution in the Eastern United States and Canada, the Mormons decided to travel westward. Following John Page on the trek to Missouri, another thirty wagonloads of families left the area.
In January 1837 several Leeds County families crossed the St. Lawrence River and travelled up the lakes to Cleveland, Ohio. There they met the members of their party who had trekked overland with their cattle. With several prominent Mormons, the party went to the Ohio River where they boarded a steamboat bound for St. Louis, Missouri.
They travelled from St. Louis to eventually reach the Mormon encampment where they encountered Brigham Young. Disillusioned by the hostility and the skirmishes with local people and their own discomfort with Mormonism, two families decided to abandon Mormon life and return to Canada. During their journey toward home several old friends and neighbours persuaded them to stay.
As opposition to the Mormon Church increased, the encounters became more violent and the two young families that wished to leave were held as prisoners with other followers. When they escaped, they travelled the Missouri River to St. Louis and safety. Finally, after a one-year absence and a journey of several thousand miles, they returned to their homes in Eastern Ontario. There were no Mormons in the area by the early 1860s.
The Mormon Church to Utah
To escape persecution, the Mormon Church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) moved first from New York to Kirtland, Ohio, then to Western Missouri, and to Illinois. Utah was not part of the United States at the time of Mormon settlement there.
Sources:
“Hub of the Rideau – A History of South Crosby Township” by Susan Warren, The Haynes Printing Company (Cobourg) Ltd., 1997
“History of Leeds and Grenville, Ontario, from 1749 to 1879” by Leavitt, Thaddeus William Henry, Brockville, Ontario: Recorder Press, 1879
LDS Home Website: History of the Church
“Joseph Smith” by C. Clark Julius, MPS, The Philalethes - August 1987
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