SELECTIONS FROM EARLY LATTER-DAY SAINT RECORDS

Ezekiel Johnson (1773)

SELECTIONS FROM EARLY LATTER-DAY SAINT RECORDS


Mormon Manuscripts to 1846: Guide to Lee Library, BYU
JOHNSON, EZEKIEL (1773-1848) and JULIA HILLS (1783-1853).
Biographical sketch. Microfilm of typescript, positive, partial reel. 3 pp.
Born in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, son of Ezekiel Johnson and Bethiah Garnzey. His wife, Julia Hills, daughter of Joseph Hills and Esther Ellis, was born at Upton, Massachusetts. Marriage; family data and activities; conversion of Julia Johnson and her children in 1832; associations with Joseph Smith.

Our Pioneer Heritage, Vol. 11, p.560About this time Ezekiel Johnson sold the family home in Pomfret and moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he bought a tract of land and wrote a letter to his family, but through the uncertainty of the mails the letter was lost. Mother Julia, not hearing from her husband, joined the Saints in Kirtland where she met the Prophet Joseph Smith for the first time. Here the members of the family who had been baptized received their patriarchal blessings under the hands of Joseph Smith, Sr. In Kirtland, Julia Ann met Almon again, and their mutual admiration ripened into love and they were married in 1833. Almon W. Babbitt, with his wife Julia Ann, was called on a mission to Pleasant Garden, Indiana, where they organized a branch of the Church. Later they labored with great success in Pennsylvania, and Canada, making many converts. Soon they returned to Kirtland. Julia's brother Benjamin, upon his return from a mission made his home with the Babbitts. While there, he met his future wife, Melissa B. LeBaron, an heiress, who was a close friend of Julia Ann. After a short courtship they were married by Elder Almon W. Babbitt, and both the Babbitts accompanied the bride and groom to Rochester, New York, where the legacy left by her mother was claimed by Melissa.
Our Pioneer Heritage, Vol. 15, p.223My father, Ezekiel Johnson, was born at Oxbridge, Massachusetts, January 12, 1776. My mother's name was Julia Hills, born at Upton, Massachusetts, September 26, 1773. They were married at Grafton, Massachusetts January 12, 1801, and I was born at Grafton, Massachusetts March 23rd, 1802. When I was a small child my parents emigrated to the state of Vermont where they lived about nine years and in the year of 1813 my parents let me go with my Uncle Joel Hills, for whom I was named, to Newport in the state of Kentucky, on the opposite side of the Ohio River from Cincinnati. In the spring of 1815, my father came and took me to Pomphret, Chautauqua County, New York, where I lived with him until I was 21 years of age, March 23rd, 1823. I had little or no opportunity for education but was very religious from a small child, not daring to transgress the will of my parents or do the least thing I thought was wrong. I always attended religious meetings and studied my books by firelight after I had done my work.
PWJS Dean Jessee Notes p. 664
203. Ezekiel Johnson (1776-1848) was born at Uxbridge, Massachusetts. His twenty-one year-old daughter, Susan Ellen, died at Kirtland on March 16, 1836. (Family Group Records Collection.)


The Papers of Joseph Smith Vol. 2 By Dean C. Jessee p. 559
Johnson, Ezekiel (1776-1848), farmer, carpenter; born at Uxbridge, Worcester County, Massachusetts. Father of Joseph E. Johnson and Benjamin F. Married Julia Hills, 1801. Living at Pomfret, Chautauqua County, New York, by 1814. Opposed the conversion of his family to Mormonism but moved to Kirtland, Ohio, with them in 1833. Embittered over his family's conversion, he separated from his wife. Died at Nauvoo, Illinois. (Family Group Records Collection; Milas E. Johnson and Rolla V. Johnson, "The Johnson Pioneers of the West," 2:87-94, Typescript, BYU Library.)