The first Latter-day Saints in Blount County left behind more than names. The elders who taught them kept daily journals, and those journals are full of things that can be counted: miles, doors, dinners, rainy days and baptisms. This page turns those counts into pictures, one chapter at a time.
3,293
miles in one elder’s running tally
100
members baptized by 1939
87
elders profiled on this site
1,429
days written down in journals and letters
Prefer to explore? Play Elder Young’s walk day by day on a map, pick any date to read what the elders wrote, and tap through the first hundred members in the interactive version on Weak Things.
The chapters
CHAPTER 1
Every mile on foot
Elder Robert Young arrived in Maryville on August 30, 1892. Most days he and his companions walked, carrying their “grips” from one farmhouse to the next. Every so often he stopped at the start of an entry and wrote down how far he had come. On December 30, 1893, the number was 3,293 miles. That works out to about seven miles a day, every day, for sixteen months. Read every entry in the Journal of Elder Robert Young.
Maryville was the hub. He came back to it again and again for mail and for meetings, then set out toward Millers Cove, Rockford, Happy Valley and the far corners of the county. A few, like Miser Station and Middle Settlement, are hard to find on a map today.
We went in to three houses for dinner but they did not invite us to have any. We called at Maryville and got 10 cents worth of crackers and cheese.
Elder Robert Young, January 12, 1893, the day he walked 19½ miles
THREE DAYS BEHIND THE NUMBERS
January 12, 1893: the longest day, 19½ miles
It had snowed the night before. He and his companion left Greenback about 8 o’clock, were turned down for dinner at three houses, bought crackers and cheese in Maryville, and were refused the Pleasant Hill Chapel. When the family they hoped to stay with was away, they “pulled our weary selves” to John Riddle’s, where they were kindly treated and spent the evening singing.
May 15, 1893: eleven doors, then a barn
“It rained nearly all day.” Walking toward Maryville from Montvale, they tried 11 places for a bed and were turned away from every one, and “finally had to sleep in a barn.” They were up about 4 the next morning, before the family came out to the barn. His running total that night: 1,678 miles.
January 14, 1894: a notice on a stick in the road
In the last entry of his journal, after blessing a baby born in Wears Cove and holding two meetings, he found a handwritten warning put up on a stick in the road telling the “Mormon preachers” to stop passing through the Sixteenth District, signed “old american bull dog.” On the back was a drawing of a man with a pistol. That afternoon, 25 people came to meeting.
CHAPTER 2
A hundred names
The list of the first Smoky Mountain Saints records who was baptized, on what day, and by which elder. Put every name on one timeline and the story of the branch appears: a burst of baptisms in the 1890s, steady handfuls through the 1900s and 1910s, a high point in 1918, and then a quiet Depression decade. The hundredth name on the list is Levi Harmon, baptized August 23, 1939.
Went over to Abram’s Creek and dedicated a spot to baptize some converts.
Elder Robert Young, November 30, 1893, the day he baptized four
THREE DAYS BEHIND THE NUMBERS
December 23, 1892: the first
Sarah Woody is the first name on the list. Elder Alma West baptized her, and Elder John Koyle confirmed her. Her family, the Woodys, are the first family in the series of family pages on this site.
November 30, 1893: four in one day
At a spot on Abrams Creek, Elder Robert Young baptized Alexander Garland; his son Joseph John Calvin “Joe” (JC) Garland; Sarah Margaret Cauble Garland; and Andrew Johnson Smith. That evening they held a meeting at Joe’s. Read the families in The 1st Garlands.
1918: the biggest year
Eleven people were baptized in 1918, more than any other year on the list. Elder Loren Blain performed six of them, including four on September 27: Wilburn Garland, Homer and Bessie Frye, and Burley Harmon.
CHAPTER 3
The Garland door
Missionaries in the 1890s traveled “without purse or scrip,” which meant they depended on strangers for every dinner and every bed. One family’s name runs through more than forty years of those journals. All 13 journals on this site, from 1892 to 1935, mention the Garlands of Millers Cove, in 194 entries in all. Elders came there to rest, to collect mail, to wait out snow, and to hear news. Meet the families in The 1st Garlands and The 2nd Garlands.
THREE DAYS BEHIND THE NUMBERS
August 26, 1895: eight elders at once
Elder James Hubbard and seven other elders traveled 18 miles into Blount County together, “making eight of us traveling together, it was a plumb sight in the world,” and arrived at Brother Garland’s “all well and happy.” Read the Journal of Elder James Hubbard.
February 27, 1911: met at the depot
When Elder John Morley arrived in Blount County, JC Garland met the elders at the Walland depot with his rig and drove them four miles to his home, where they “had a fine dinner.” Morley’s journal names a Garland in 42 of its 94 entries. Read the Journal of Elder John Morley.
November 20, 1914: news in the snow
After “the largest snow and the most home like since I came south,” Elder Cliff Robertson picked up the mail, then walked through the snow to the Garlands’. When he arrived, he learned that Sister Mary Jane Davis Harmon had died. Read the Journal of Elder Cliff Robertson.
CHAPTER 4
What filled the days
Search all 1,512 dated journal entries for a handful of everyday words and a picture of missionary life comes out. Dinner and meetings each show up in more than a quarter of the entries. Walking, letters from home and tracts come next. Rain is in one entry out of twelve. Not every day was peaceful, either: a few entries record threats, written warnings and talk of “white capping,” the night-riding violence of the time.
THREE WARNINGS
November 21, 1893: talk of white capping
A Mr. Blair told Elder Robert Young that “some had talked a little of white capping” the elders, meaning beating them. Young’s tally for the day: 15 houses, 8 tracts, 8 miles.
March 19, 1895: forty-eight hours
About 9 PM, Elder William Hayes and the elders staying with him found a note on the step: “We will give all you Mormons just 48 hours to get out of the county. Signed: ‘whitecap.’” Hayes wrote that it “did not even make a sensation among us.” Read the Journal of Elder William Hayes.
August 16, 1896: a crowd of boys
After a meeting, Elder John Hinckley went to stay at a home where “a crowd of boys were there. They threatened to mob us. We went and talked to them.” Read the Journal of Elder John Hinckley.
CHAPTER 5
87 faces
This site profiles 87 elders who served the first Saints in Blount County, from the 1890s to the eve of World War II. Most were in their twenties. Some left wives and small children at home. Their faces, colorized from old photographs, are grouped here by the four eras used on this site: 1891–1900, 1901–1910, 1911–1920 and 1921–1939.
I am pleased to answer you in the affirmative.
William Ricks, accepting his mission call at about age 54
TWO ELDERS AT EITHER END
The oldest: William Ricks
William Ricks was nine years old when he crossed the plains from Nauvoo to Utah by wagon. In 1893, at about 54, he was serving in Blount County, and on November 30 of that year he confirmed Alexander and JC Garland the day they were baptized.
One of the youngest: Melvin Miller
Melvin Miller was about 19 when he began his mission in 1901. He served with Elder Abinadi Porter, administered to Eliza Nelson after her husband Alexander Garland died, and confirmed Sealy Garland. He is one of two elders on this site with no surviving photograph.
CHAPTER 6
Forty-three years, day by day
The 13 journals and four letters on this site cover 1,429 different days between 1892 and 1935. Some years are written almost day by day; whole decades have no surviving journal at all. On 77 days, two elders wrote about the same day. Read more about the elders’ journals.
Curious what happened on your birthday, or on today’s date? On This Day in the Missionary Journals has an entry for 364 of the 366 days on the calendar.
Want to see these numbers move? Open the interactive Blount County by the Numbers on Weak Things.
SHARE A NUMBER
Tap a card to open it full size, then save it or share it with family.
How we counted
Every number on this page comes from the transcriptions on this site. Chapter 1: the 3,293 miles is Elder Robert Young’s own running total from his entry for December 30, 1893; the dots on the chart are earlier totals he recorded. His count includes some train travel, such as 161 miles “on the cars” around the December 1893 conference in Chattanooga. The longest day is the largest single-day mileage written at the end of an entry; weekly report totals are not days. Map circles count entries naming each place, at approximate locations. Chapter 2: baptisms are from The First Smoky Mountain Saints, counting each person once at their listed baptism date, through 1939; the list has six more in 1940–1942, and a few people have more than one baptism record. Chapter 3: entries that contain the name Garland, across the 13 journals (Will Fullmer’s letters do not mention the Garlands). Chapters 4 and 6: word searches and dates across 1,512 dated journal entries and four letters; a word search finds entries that use the word, not every time something happened. Chapter 5: the 87 elders with profiles on the four Smoky Mountain Elders pages; ages are estimated from birth year and the year each mission began, for the 56 elders with both dates.
