The Mormon Battalion

Mission Leaders By Edward H. Anderson

President Joseph W McMurrin .

Elder Joseph W. McMurrin, who recently took charge of the California mission, was born September 5, 1858, in Tooele city, Utah. His parents, Joseph McMurrin, and Margaret Leaning McMurrin, arrived in Salt Lake City, during the early winter of 1856, moving thence to Tooele and later returning to Salt Lake City while Joseph was still a young child. He has since continued to reside in Salt Lake City all his life, except such times as he has been absent upon missions. He received his education in the public schools of Salt Lake City, and in his boyhood and young manhood his time was occupied as a teamster, freighting ore from the mining camps of Ophir, Bingham, and Park City, and hauling in return, wood or coal to Salt Lake City. He was also later employed by the City of Salt Lake, in assisting to establish a city water system. As a stone cutter he assisted in preparing blocks of granite for the walls of the Salt Lake temple, for about two years, and for several years was engaged as receipting clerk in the Bishop's storehouse. On the first of February, 1876, before he was eighteen years of age, he was called on a mission to Arizona, to aid in colonizing the locality, and assisted as one of the pioneers in founding the little settlement of St. Joseph, on the Little Colorado river. This settlement was established by about fifty men under the presidency of William C. Allen, now a patriarch in the Jordan stake. After spending two years in building canals, dams, and hauling logs and building log houses, plowing, planting, lumbering, and doing other lines of work incident to pioneer life, he returned to Salt Lake City, expecting to find a wife, expecting later to return to Arizona and make a permanent home. However, shortly after his return, he was released from the Arizona mission and called to Great Britain. In October, 1881, he left for his first European mission, being assigned to Scotland. He presided over the Scottish mission for at least seven months of his term, returning home in Novem-

ber, 1883. During this mission he baptized fifty persons, among them being two of his father's sisters. During the "raid," in 1885, he came near losing his life,

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being shot twice in the bowels by a United States deputy marshal. The bullets passed entirely through his body. A remarkable miracle occurred in his healing. Being shot or wounded in such a vital part, no hope was entertained that human skill could be of any avail in saving his life. The most eminent doctors of the city were positive in their opinon that he could not live, says his biographer, Edwin F. Parry. He himself felt that his life was fast ebbing away, and he fully expected to die. While in this condition, he was visited by Elder John Henry Smith, of the Council of the Twelve, to whom he related what the doctors had told him, and expressed his own belief in the correctness of their views. After hearing his story, Elder Smith took him by the hand and said: "Brother Joseph, as an apostle of the Lord Jesus, I promise you, in the name of Jesus Christ, that if you desire to live you shall live, no matter what doctors may say to you to the contrary." The Lord heard the promise, and in his merciful kindness, fulfilled the prediction of his inspired servant, and spared the life of Brother McMurrin. The wounds were healed, and Elder McMurrin was completely restored to soundness of body. His recovery was a miracle, wrought by the power of the Lord, and he freely and emphatically acknowledges that such was the case. In July, 1886, Elder McMurrin departed for a second European mission, laboring twenty months in the Bristol conference, and twenty-eight months in the London conference, in which he presided for twenty-six months. His wife accompanied him, and a son and daughter were born to them while on this mission. For a third mission to Europe, he left home in July, 1896, and returned in December, 1898, during which time he was one of the presidency of the mission, with Rulon S. Wells, and traveled extensively through all the countries embraced in the European mission, in which the elders were conducting work at the time, and also in some nations where no missionaries were located, such as France, Austria and Italy. It was while he was in Liverpool on this mission that he was chosen, at the October conference, 1897, a member of the First Council of Seventy, being ordained and set apart for the position by President Anthon H. Lund, in Liverpool, January 21, 1898, when President Lund passed through Liverpool en route to the Holy Land, on a mission assigned him by the Presidency of the Church. In 1901-2, Elder McMurrin filled a short mission to Boise, Idaho, in company with Elder Melvin J. Ballard", at which time he aided in the organization of the Boise branch of the Church, which branch continued to be a strong one until the Boise stake was organized, when it became the headquarters of that stake of Zion. In the interim between his missions, he served as a home