Israel Barlow

Israel Barlow (September 13, 1806 – November 1, 1883) was one of the founders of Nauvoo, Illinois and a noted early member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[1]

Israel Barlow was born in Granville, Massachusetts on September 13, 1806 to Jonathan Barlow and Annis Gillett. After the death of his father in 1820, his family moved to Mendon, New York. About the age of 24, Barlow first heard the preaching of missionaries of the Church of Christ, the original name of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In late 1831 or early 1832, Barlow traveled about 250 miles to Hiram, Ohio to meet the founder of the new faith, the Prophet Joseph Smith. After talking with him for two or three hours, Barlow said he knew Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. In May 1832, Barlow was baptized into the Church in Mendon by Brigham Young, a recent convert himself and boyhood friend.

Israel Barlow and his mother, brothers, and sisters moved from New York to Ohio late in 1832 or early 1833 to join with other Latter-day Saints gathering in the Kirtland area. Barlow participated in the 1834 Zion's Camp march led by Joseph Smith, from Kirtland, Ohio, to Clay County, Missouri, in an unsuccessful attempt to regain land from which the Saints had been expelled by non-Mormon settlers. In 1835, Barlow was ordained a seventy by Sidney Rigdon and was called as one of the inaugural members of the First Quorum of the Seventy. Barlow participated in the construction of the Kirtland Temple and attended its dedication on March 27, 1836.

In 1837, Israel Barlow and his family moved to Far West, Missouri. Confrontations arose between local citizens and the new Latter-day Saint settlers in Missouri during 1838. On October 25, 1838, Barlow was present at the Battle of Crooked River near Far West where three Latter-day Saints were killed or mortally wounded, including Apostle David W. Patten. Barlow was one of the stretcher bearers who carried Patten back to Far West, where he died that night. During the next week, the circumstances of the Latter-day Saints in Missouri deteriorated even further. On October 27, Missouri Governor Lilburn W. Boggs issued the infamous extermination order, which stated that “the Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state, if necessary for the public good.” Three days later, on October 30, a Missouri mob killed 17 men and boy and severely wounded several others, including women and children, at Haun’s Mill, a small settlement. That same day, more than two thousand Missouri men from mobs and a military unit began driving the Latter-day Saints from Far West, and on the next day, took captive Joseph Smith and other Church leaders.

In late 1838, Brigham Young counseled Israel Barlow and 32 other Latter-day Saints to leave Far West to search for a place for more than 12,000 homeless Saints to find refuge. While journeying in exile, Barlow would separate from the group and eventually make the acquaintance of Dr. Isaac Galland, the owner of properties near Montrose, Iowa, and Commerce, Illinois. After hearing of the dire plight of the Saints, Galland offered Barlow to sell the Saints the properties on good terms, an offer that Barlow relayed to Church leaders. The Church purchased the properties from Galland and the dispersed Saints once again began to gather together, particularly along the Mississippi River at Commerce, which they renamed Nauvoo in 1840.

In February 1840, Israel Barlow married Elizabeth Haven in Quincy, Illinois. Elizabeth had graduated in 1836 from Amherst College as a teacher. Soon afterward, her cousins Brigham Young and Willard Richards came to Holliston, Massachusetts, on a mission for the new Church. She and her brother Jesse Haven joined the Church and moved to Quincy, Illinois, where she met Israel Barlow. After their marriage, Israel and Elizabeth moved to Nauvoo, where Elizabeth taught school, having among her students the children of Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, and Brigham Young. Joseph Smith was aware of Elizabeth's writing ability and knew she was corresponding with her cousin Elizabeth Bullock. He asked her to save all of her letters. She did, and her writings of those early days of the Church, their operations, movements, and missionaries have been preserved in the family publication, "The Israel Barlow Story and Mormon Mores."

Israel Barlow participated in the construction of the Nauvoo Temple. As told by his grandson Joseph S. Barlow, “My grandfather was assisting in the building of the Temple at Nauvoo and was driving a pair of beautiful high-spirited black mares. One day while backing his wagon in at the quarry which was down by the river’s edge, the Prophet came over to him and said ‘Israel, on your next trip, stop and buy yourself a buggy whip,’ to which grandfather assented. On his next trip up town he bought a buggy whip and returned for another load of rock. Backing the team in this time, he attempted to stop them as usual by saying, ‘Whoa,’ to which they paid no attention, but kept backing until Israel, in excitement, was compelled to use the whip which the Prophet had told him to buy. The horses jumped forward and the wagon stopped right at the edge of the quarry, beyond which they would have plunged below. Grandfather frequently told this story as an illustration of what obedience meant. Grandfather accepted everything the Prophet Joseph Smith told him and never questioned ‘why?’ Some would call this blind obedience, but not so. Israel Barlow knew full well the divine calling of the Prophet and bore that testimony to the day of his death.”

In Nauvoo, Israel Barlow also served as a bodyguard of Joseph Smith. Shortly before his martyrdom in June 1844, Joseph Smith asked Barlow to deliver a message to a certain man who lived a considerable distance away in a neighborhood of enemies of the Church. The Prophet directed Israel to deliver the message, then accept the hospitality which would be extended to him. “But,” said Joseph, “let them put your horse up for you and eat supper with them, but when it becomes sundown, saddle your horse and leave. They will be insistent and try to persuade you to remain overnight. But if you value your life, do not stay, but leave, and listen to the direction of the Spirit.” Israel left the morning he was instructed. He found the man hospitable, just as Joseph indicated. At sundown, the man was persistent to have Israel stay, but recalling the Prophet’s admonition, he mounted his horse and set for home as instructed. He “rode along the country road until it became dark,” reads the Israel Barlow biography. “Just before he came to the river bridge, a voice said to [him], ‘Ride faster.’ He sped up his horse and the voice repeated again and with more emphasis, ‘Ride faster.’ Again he increased the speed of the animal when the voice said to him, ‘Ride for your life.’ He then sped for all the animal’s strength. As the horse’s feet clattered across the bridge he could hear the mob, which had gathered in the brush to intercept him, cursing at the top of their voices. He had crossed the bridge but a short distance when the voice said to him ‘Turn to the right.’ He turned his horse off the road into the brush toward the river. There he stood in silence as the mob who had mounted their horses, came racing over the bridge at break-neck speed, and down the road they went, supposedly after him. After they had gone by, he wound his way from the river’s edge to the bed of the stream and on through the willows. In the darkness he made his way along the river in the opposite direction from which the mob had expected him to go. Finally, when he thought it was safe, several miles away, he emerged from the river and made his way over the country back into Nauvoo, just as the day was breaking. There he saw the Prophet Joseph walking up and down the street in front of his home. As [Israel] approached and alighted from his horse, he began to tell the Prophet of his experience. The Prophet stopped him and told him he need not tell him, for he already knew. The Prophet told him that he had been up all night waiting for his return, and stated, ‘I saw it all; you have no need to tell me.’ Thereupon, the Prophet laid his hand upon [Israel’s] shoulder and gave him a blessing and said: ‘Thee and thine shall never want.’”[2]

Two years after Joseph Smith's death, the Barlow family left Nauvoo on June 15, 1846, and began their westward journey with other pioneers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the Salt Lake Valley. On September 23, 1848, the family arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, where they spent their first winter at the Old Pioneer Fort. In 1849, Israel Barlow settled in Bountiful, where he would become the first nurseryman in Davis County. He served a mission from 1853 to 1855 in England, where he was president of the Birmingham Conference of the Church. In 1882, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles Wilford Woodruff ordained Barlow as a Patriarch.

Israel Barlow and his wife Elizabeth Haven practiced plural marriage as taught by church leaders. In January 1846, Israel married his first plural wife Elizabeth Barton in Nauvoo. In December 1855, Israel married his third wife Lucy Heap of Lichfield, Staffordshire, England, in Salt Lake City.[3] In May 1865, Israel married his fourth wife Cordelia Maria Dalrymple in Salt Lake City.