Lorenzo Snow

Lorenzo Snow (April 3, 1814 – October 10, 1901) was the fifth President (1898-1901) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the last president of the 19th century.

Lorenzo Snow was the fifth child and first son of Oliver and Rosetta Snow, residents of Mantua, Ohio, who had left New England to settle on a new and fertile farm in the Ohio valley. Despite the labor required on the farm, the Snow family valued learning and saw that each child had educational opportunities. Lorenzo received his final year of education at Oberlin College, which was originally founded by two Presbyterian ministers. Snow later made his living as a school teacher when not engaged in church service.

Introduction to the LDS faith

Joseph Smith, Jr., the Latter Day Saint leader, took up residence in Hiram, Ohio four miles from the Snow farm. The Snow family were Baptists, but soon took a strong interest in the new religious movement. Snow recorded that he heard the Book of Mormon being read in his home in Mantua and met Smith at Hiram in 1831. By 1835, Lorenzo's mother, Rosetta Pettibone Snow, and his older sister Eliza Roxcy Snow, had joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Eliza was also to become a prominent Latter-day Saint leader. Eliza soon moved to the church headquarters in Kirtland, Ohio, and worked as a school teacher. She, in her biography of Lorenzo, claims to have fostered his interest in Mormonism while he was at Oberlin. She invited Lorenzo to visit her and attend a school of Hebrew newly established by the church. During his visit there, in June of 1836, Lorenzo was baptized by John F. Boynton, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

Early church service

While living in Kirtland in 1837, Snow was called to serve a short mission in Ohio, traveling "without purse or scrip." He recorded that relying on the kindness of others for his meals and lodging was difficult for him, as he had always had sufficient means to care for himself. When he returned to Kirtland in 1838, he found Smith's followers in turmoil over the failure of the Kirtland Safety Society. Snow, and the members of his extended family, chose to move to Missouri in the summer of 1838 and join the Saints settled near Far West. Snow became seriously ill with a fever, and was nursed for several weeks by his sister Eliza.

On his recovery, Snow left for a second mission to Illinois and Kentucky in the fall of 1938. He served there through February 1839, when he learned that the Saints had been expelled from their settlements in Missouri. He traveled home by way of his former mission area in Ohio. He was again taken ill and was cared for by members of the Church. He remained in Ohio, preaching and working with Church members until the fall of 1839. During the school year of 1839-40, Snow taught in Shalerville, Portage County, Ohio. Funds earned by his teaching were of use to his family, which had now settled in Nauvoo, Illinois. He joined them in May 1840.

Shortly after he arrived in Nauvoo, Snow was again called to serve an active mission, this time to England. After an unpleasant sea voyage from New York City, Snow met with some of the members of the Twelve Apostles who had opened the British Mission in 1839. These included Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Parley P. Pratt. He worked briefly in the Manchester area, and had success in Birmingham where he baptized people in Greet's Green and organized a branch in Wolverhampton. Snow was then assigned to preside over Church members in the city of London. During his administration, church membership in the city increased from 100 to approximately 400 members. He was released from his mission by Elder Pratt, now president of an expanding European mission. Snow arrived home on April 12, 1843, bringing with him a shipload of 250 British converts.

After visiting with his family, Snow again secured a school for the winter, teaching at Lima, Illinois thirty miles from Nauvoo. In late spring 1844, he returned to Ohio, preaching and baptizing new converts and distributing recent church publications to members. He was working in Cincinnati, Ohio when he learned of the assassination of Joseph Smith. Snow closed his Ohio mission and promptly returned to Nauvoo.

During the period of disorganization and schism that followed Smith's death, Snow decided to follow the Quorum of the Twelve under Brigham Young. Under Young's direction, the Twelve directed the greater body of the Saints, helping them in their efforts to close affairs in Illinois and prepare to emigrate west. In 1845, Snow was involved in work in the Nauvoo temple.

Before leaving the city, Snow accepted the principle of plural marriage and took four wives: Charlotte Squires, Mary Adaline Goddard, Sarah Ann Prichard, and Harriet Amelia Squires. He and his family, with wagons and livestock, joined a group of emigrants and moved across the Mississippi River into Iowa in February 1846. On the way west, Snow again became ill and the family stopped at Mt. Pisgah, Iowa. Three Snow children were born at the LDS refugee settlement, but one child did not survive. Snow was called to preside over the church organization in Mt. Pisgah, and actively raised money to assist the bands of emigrants in their move west. The Snow family moved on to Salt Lake City in 1848.

Service in Utah

Called to the Quorum of Twelve Apostles (1849)
Mission to Italy and French Switzerland; expanded mission to include India (1849-1852)
Established Brigham City, Utah under the direction of President Brigham Young (1853)
Mission to the Hawaiian Islands (1864)
Arrested and confined for unlawful cohabitation (1885-1886)
President of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles (1889-1898)
President of the Salt Lake Temple (1893)

Actions as Church President

As he began his tenure as president, President Snow had to deal with the aftermath of legal battles with the United States over the practice of plural marriage. Men engaging in plural marriage were still being arrested and confined in Utah Territory. Some members of the LDS church did not accept the 1890 Manifesto put forth by President Wilford Woodruff, and there was a strong division of opinion on plural marriage even in the priesthood hierarchy of the church.

The LDS church was also in severe financial difficulties, some of which were related to the legal problems over plural marriage. President Snow approached this problem first by issuing short terms bonds with a total value of one million dollars. This was followed by emphatic teaching on God's law of tithing. It was during this time that the Church officially adopted the principle of tithing, the payment of 10% of one's earnings, as a hallmark of membership. In a short period of time, the members' practice of paying a tithe reduced the church's debt and financial difficulties to a manageable level.

Lorenzo Snow died of pneumonia in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1901, and was succeeded in office by Joseph F. Smith.

References

Notes

Brigham Young called 4 men in 1849 to the Apostleship and as members of the Quorum of Twelve to fill the vacancies created by the reconstitution of the First Presidency. These were Charles C. Rich, Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow, and Franklin D. Richards.