Zera Pulsipher - Experience With The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Experience With The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The Pulsipher family was introduced to the Latter Day Saint church while living in Onondaga County, New York, and Zera was baptized on 11 January 1832 by missionary Jared Carter. For the next two years he presided over the branch of the church in that county and served a number of missions to preach his new-found faith. During one of these missions he taught and baptized Wilford Woodruff. The Pulsiphers joined the bulk of the Saints in Kirtland, Ohio in 1835 where Zera was ordained as a First President of the Seventy by Joseph Smith, Jr. on 6 March 1838. After the highest leadership of the Church fled Kirtland in 1838, the remaining First Presidents of the Seventy (including Zera Pulsipher) organized the bulk of the remaining faithful adherents to travel to Far West, Missouri—the new Church headquarters. This group of over 500 Saints was known as the Kirtland Camp and was one of the earliest concerted efforts of mass Mormon migration.

Zera and his family followed the main body of the Church membership as they settled in Far West, Nauvoo, Winter Quarters, and Salt Lake City. He also helped settle Southern Utah in his later years. In each of these areas, Zera provided leadership including helping to locate the settlement of Garden Grove, Iowa; leading a company of 100 to Utah; serving as a city counselor in Salt Lake City for a number of years; and presiding over the settlement of Hebron, Utah 1863-1869.

Pulsipher abused the sealing authority by performing unauthorized marriages—most likely of a polygamous nature—and as a result was dropped from the presidency of the Seventy and was either excommunicated or disfellowshipped for a very brief period in the spring of 1862. He was brought before the First Presidency on 12 April 1862 and was rebaptized and ordained a high priest afterwards. Later on, he was ordained a patriarch. Zera died in Hebron, Utah in early 1872 as a member in full fellowship in the Church.