Julia Ann Hills (Johnson)

JULIA ANN HILLS (JOHNSON) 1783 -1853

(Julia Ann Hills (Johnson) is the GGGG-Grandmother of Richard Ward Cantrell)

[This was presented by Ferrin Orton at the Alva & Clora Orton Family Reunion July 2, 2011.]

We are going to review and honor the life of a truly great pioneer heroin … my GGG-Grandmother.
Julia Ann Hills was born 228 years ago, in 1783 in Upton, Mass., and she died in 1853, at Council Bluffs, Iowa, at age 70.

Upton, is not exactly “downtown”, it is a small, unspectacular, rural town, about 40 miles west of Boston.

(Our relative, Sister Jordan Lynn, is currently serving a mission in the Massachusetts Boston mission, and is assigned in Oxford, Mass., which is only about 25 miles from this town of Upton.)

Julia’s parents are Joseph Hills and Esther Ellis, who were both descendants of early Massachusetts settlers.

Julia was the second of three children born in the home her father built for his family in Upton, Massachusetts. She had an older brother named Joel Hills, and a younger sister, Nancy Hills.

Julia, a seventh-generation New Englander, was born into a large extended family formed by a complex web of intermarriage among several prominent families. The Metcalf, Hills, and Ellis families were clerics, selectmen, community leaders, merchants, tradesmen, soldiers and teachers. They were people of property and social status.

Both Julia’s father and mother were descendents of Michael Metcalf and Sarah Elwyn, who immigrated to America in 1637. In England, Michael Metcalf had owned a cloth weaving factory that employed over 100 workers.

When Michael and Sarah joined the Puritan movement in England, Michael became embroiled in a religious conflict with the Church of England Bishop Matthew Wren of Norwich, that resulted in Michael being charged with treason. When the authorities came for him, Sarah hid her husband under the straw in the roof of their home. After evading capture they made their way across the Atlantic Ocean, to New England, where Michael resumed his occupation as a cloth weaver.

They settled in Dedham, Mass, about 12 miles southwest of Boston.

From her parents Julia learned to think and act independently within the context of family unity. She learned to be governed by Christian principles and her own conscience.

The first of many tragedies in Julia’s life struck their family when she was only four years old, with the death of her 29-year-old father, who died of tuberculosis. Then, about six years after the death of Joseph, Julia gained a step-father when her mother remarried to a man named Enoch Forbush.

After Enoch and Esther married, Julia and her siblings went to live in Enoch’s home in Grafton, a village lying about 7 miles northwest of Upton, where she lived for the next eight years. During that time Enoch and Esther had three children together, who were named: Joseph, Seneca, and Diademia .

Perhaps in defiance of her mother and stepfather’s wishes, on January 12, 1801, at the age of seventeen, Julia became the bride of Ezekiel Johnson, who was ten years older than she. There is nothing odd about Julia’s attraction to Ezekiel who was described as handsome and charming “full middle stature, about 5′ 10” in height, of solid build, fine light brown hair, with mild but piercing blue eyes, with light smooth skin, and of natural personal attractions. He must have had a certain refinement and sufficient charm to cause her to accept a man ten years her senior. But, Julia was marrying a man without family connections, landless, illegitimate, of inferior social and economic status. It is curious though that Julia’s mother would have allowed her young daughter to marry a man with Ezekiel’s background, social and economic status.

Julia was refined, intelligent and reasonably well-educated. attractive, and tall with excellent posture.

Although Ezekiel was a fine man of great fortitude, patience and strength, he seemed to have taken little or no interest in religious matters. Julia always had a strong religious conviction, and was a very devout and practicing Christian.

This couple were to become the parents of 16 children, the eldest, Joel Hills Johnson, was to become our direct ancestor. The others are named as follows:

Nancy Mariah, Seth Garnzey, Delcina Diademia, Julia Ann, David Partridge, Almera  Woodward, Susan Ellen, Joseph Ellis, Benjamin Franklin, Mary Ellen, Elmer Wood, George Washington, William Derby, Esther Melita, and Amos Partridge.

The naming pattern of their children reflects strong family ties and close relationships.

Their eldest son was named after Julia’s beloved brother, Joel Hills. Their eldest daughter was named after her sister, Nancy. Their second son was given the middle of Garnsey, which was the maiden name of Ezekiel’s mother. Their son Joseph Ellis was given the first name of Julia’s father and the middle name was Julia’s mother’s maiden name. The middle name of Delcina Diademia is from Julia’s half-sister, Diademia. I suppose you all can guess who Benjamin Franklin Johnson and George Washington Johnson were named after.

Julia made sure that her children attended the Presbyterian Church with her, where they learned to read the Bible. The Presbyterians held a strong belief that what we do in this life will affect us in eternity and this belief strongly influenced Julia in her decisions and actions throughout her life.

From their mother, the Johnson children got their religious training and convictions and they learned to read from the Bible. From Ezekiel, their father, they learned the habit of hard work and acquired skills in carpentry, husbandry an agriculture. They learned to clear virgin land, plow and plant crops and to harvest and preserve them for food and seed. They learned to survive meager times and means, and to enjoy the “fruits of their honest labors”.

The newly married couple remained in Grafton for a year or more, where their first child was born, a son Joel Hills in 1802, named in honor of Julia’s much loved brother. The little family then moved about 50 miles to Royalton, on the northern border of Massachusetts

With a little family of 3 children, Ezekiel and Julia next moved to northern Vermont, in a community named Westford. Here they lived near the east shore of Lake Champlain, almost on the Canadian border. Ezekiel cleared the land for farming, built a home for his family and earned income through carpentry. During the seven years they lived in Vermont, Julia bore four more children, and the family and nation suffered a serious economic depression.

Julia and Ezekiel held out hope for a better future for themselves and their children along the frontier, and they decided to migrate to the highly promoted regions of western New York that promised more fertile farmland and greater economic opportunity.

In the spring of 1813, Ezekiel and Julia and their children set out for western New York. Ezekiel had just turned forty-one, and Julia was now thirty years old and pregnant with her eighth child.

During this arduous and daring move west, they faced many daunting challenges that would sorely test the mettle of the strongest and bravest of pioneers. We can barely imagine what that journey would be like.

BUT … Julia has left us a glimpse into her personal insight, for she wrote a letter home to her beloved mother … a MIRACLE letter! For it not only survived to be delivered (even before the Pony Express or US Mail was invented) … it survives to this day!! It is 197 years old! It reads:

October 14, 1813

My dear mother:

After my love t.o you, I would inform you of our welfare, and hope these few lines will find you in health and prosperity. Through our journey we have been blest with health and are all well and hearty. We started from Westford, Vermont, on the 27th of June and came on over some 100 miles, when one of our horses became lame and we laid over for a week. We then came awhile but were obliged to stop again for three or four days, and then we came as far as Hamburg, this side of Buffalo, where we stopped about seven weeks. I was very discontented there, yet the people urged us to stay. They gave Mr. Johnson one dollar a day with house rent, garden vegetables, milk, etc. He thought it best to stay until our horses got recruited up and we got rested, as he had the money for his work. But I could not be contented to stay any longer, for there were no neighbors short of about two miles, and all Sabbath breakers, and I could not feel at home there. We started from there on the 24th day of September and were four days coming to this place on account of bad roads.

This is a beautiful country and we have concluded to stay until spring, if not longer. Mr. Johnson intends to go on, himself, and see the country before he moves his family any further for fear he would not like it so well as he does here. There are many moving to the west … some days 10 or 12 wagons in company, and some have come back to this place. The country is very healthy indeed, and good for grain which is plenty and cheap. Markets at present are distant. Such corn I never saw before as I have seen here. It is only seven years since the settlements were made here. There begins to be fruit of almost every kind; I never saw such sights of peaches before, thousands of bushels rot on the ground. They make sauce of them and brandy. The trees bear in three years from the stone, and apples in six.

We have hired a little house about two miles and a half from the village of Canadaway (now Fredonia) which contains three societies, Baptist, Presbyterian and Methodist. There are also mills and school is near at hand, with neighbors who appear very friendly and kind. If Mr. Johnson does not like it at Cincinnati he intends to settle here before any other country he ever saw. It is a good place for his trade which demands one dollar and fifty cents per day, but the Lord knows what is best and I hope I shall be reconciled to His will. All things shall work together for the good of those who love Him. If we are afflicted, it is for our good, for He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. Therefore, let us put our trust in Him, for he hath said, ‘They that put their trust in him shall be as Mount Zion, which shall not be removed.’

My children send their love to you all. Remember my love to all inquiring friends. Tell Almera I wish they would write to me. Do write as soon as possible. I shall write as soon as Mr. Johnson gets back if not before. This from your affectionate children. E. and J. Johnson. (This letter was taken from the book, J. E. J. Trail to Sundown, by Rufus David Johnson, page 20.)

Once in New York they selected a place in the frontier town of Pomfret on the far western border of New York State, only a few miles from the shore of Lake Erie. The town of Pomfret had been created only a few years before Julia and her family arrived.

Gradually they began to prosper and establish themselves within the economic and social fabric of the community. Ezekiel purchased farm land, three miles from the town center. Here in the hills of Chautauqua he built a new home for Julia and their growing family. It would be their home for the next nineteen years. During that time eight more children joined the family. By the time she bore her sixteenth, and last child, she was forty-five years old, and Ezekiel was fifty-six. Twenty-seven years separated their youngest from their eldest. In Pomfret, Julia had gradually regained the stability and social status she had given up to marry Ezekiel.

Son Benjamin remembered of this time, when he later wrote:

“All our support and home comforts were produced by our home industry; from the wool, all our winter clothing was made…from the flax, all the summer clothing…also all the bed and table lined and toweling. At this period young women were not thought qualified for marriage, who could not, through their own industry provide all these things. Our cheese, butter and honey were home products, as also sugar, thousands of pounds of which we made from maple forests; while soap and candle making, along with beer brewing were common, homelike events.”

Their lives moved in rhythm with the seasons, regulated by the weather, filled with routine, hard physical labor, a scarcity of cash, and slow tedious means of transportation for people, goods and information. Yet, life was not all work for Julia and her family, and their lives were not without pleasures. Julia loved poetry, and she passed this love onto her children, who in adulthood turned to poetry as a favorite form of correspondence between each other. For them poetry was a means for expressing their joys and sorrows, for entertaining themselves and each other, for witnessing and recording their personal and family history.

For Julia and Ezekiel, parenting involved spending time with their children and treating them with kindness, tenderness, and patience, terms that were used repeatedly by their children when describing the way their parents interacted with them. Julia and Ezekiel took time to engage their children in conversations that elicited their thoughts and feelings. They enjoyed their children’s company in both work and amusements. Ezekiel often took his children with him into the woods or to clear fields, even when they were too young to be of any real assistance to him.

Attendance at religious services was a Sunday ritual, for Julia and her children, as were Bible readings at home. As she reared her children, one of Julia’s greatest concerns was for her children’s religiosity. She raised her children by a strict moral code based on a Presbyterian ethos. She continually and consistently reinforced Bible principles, insisting that their children conform to those precepts and severely reprimanded them when they did not. As part of Julia’s commitment to instilling in her children her religious faith and self-determination, she encouraged them to think and act independently, governed by Christian principles and their own sense of right.

The strength of her influence can be seen in the writings of her eldest son, Joel, who recalled how Julia frequently instructed him on matters of religion. “When I was a very small child, my mother being a very strict Presbyterian, would often converse with me and tell me about heaven and hell, God, Jesus Christ, the Devil, etc., and when but eight years of age I had quite a correct idea of those things according to the precepts of men in those days and sometimes when meditating upon them I would weep bitterly, considering myself a sinner in the sight of God. I sought every opportunity to attend religious meetings of every denomination with no other motive than to obtain a knowledge of the religion of Jesus Christ.”

In the fall of 1823, Julia’s youngest child, sixteen-month-old Elmer, died. His loss was a devastating blow to the family. Their son Benjamin recalled that it was at this point that Ezekiel began to consume large quantities of “ardent spirits.” Ezekiel may have turned to alcohol to numb the pain he felt at the loss of his son, since it was a socially acceptable way for a man to respond.

Ezekiel’s drinking drove a wedge into the family. His children remembered that Ezekiel was never violent with his family, but when drinking he became morose and distant. Benjamin wrote that “as a husband and parent, he was by nature the most tender and affectionate.” Following Elmer’s death, Ezekiel’s withdrawal of affection began to create a wedge in his marriage and in his relationship with his children. They were deeply affected by his decreasing participation in their lives and yearned for a return to the intimacy of their former relationship with him.

Eldest son, Joel, was married in 1826, and after some financial reverses he moved to Amherst, Ohio in 1830. WHAT A GREAT COINCIDENCE. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized in that year, and Amherst was only 50 miles from Kirkland, Ohio.

Missionaries came to town to preach and Joel and his wife were persuaded to attend their meeting. Their teachings astonished Joel, “it being the first discourse that I had ever heard that corresponded with the New Testament.” Still he rejected outright their assertions that the Book of Mormon was scripture equal to the Bible. As he later recalled, “my prejudice was so great against the book, that I would not receive their testimony. I heard them twice and concluded to stay at home.” Swayed by the “many evil reports” in circulation, Joel soon decided to stop reading the Book of Mormon as well.

His wife, Annie, continued to attend the meetings and became converted to the truth the missionaries taught. Joel turned to his Bible for guidance, searching it every day and praying for inspiration. He reasoned that for the teachings of the Mormon elders to be true, they would have to conform to those principles contained in the Bible. After searching the Bible each day at home and, while contemplating upon the matter, he began to think “that the work might possibly be true.” Finally, Bible in hand, Joel accompanied Annie again to the Mormon meetings. This time he was prepared to investigate every doctrine they preached and compare their doctrines with those contained in the Bible. He was baptized on June 1, 1831.

Joel then began a correspondence with his family back in Pomfret, New York, about his newly-found Church and gospel. He witnessed to them that the Church of Christ embodied the restored gospel, that the Book of Mormon was holy writ, and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. He also sent the family a copy of the Book of Mormon to read. Julia and other family members received the news of their becoming “Mormonites” with a mixture of “horror and a disgrace.” Julia and her family had been hearing about a new sect called “Campbellism,” and even more gossip about the “Mormonites,” “Joe Smith” the “money-digger,” and his “Golden Bible.”

Initially, Julia and the rest thought that Joel, Annie, and David had fallen under some deplorable delusion. Julia addressed a letter to Joel and his wife, saying, “My dear children, I want to address you but know not how for it is impossible to describe my feelings … for I understood you had embraced new doctrine. I feared lest you’re deceived, but hope you will all strive for the truth. Do write or come quick.”

As her group continued to read and study, Julia became persuaded that the Book of Mormon was sacred scripture and that the new sect was the restoration of Christ’s ancient church. She and the rest began to hope that “there really was a living prophet on the earth.” At this point Julia allowed her younger children to attend the gatherings. In a letter to Joel, Annie and David she wrote, “My soul rejoiced for I long to see all my children enjoy pure and undefiled religion.”

Joel and David left Kirtland, Ohio, for Pomfret on December 19, 1831, in company with their new friend and fellow convert, Almon Babbitt. By the time they arrived, Julia’s study sessions had already prepared her for baptism. Mormon Elders Joseph Brackenbury and Edmund Durfee arrived soon afterwards, and Julia invited them to stay in the Johnson home. Once converted, Julia was determined to be baptized, as were her older children.

Ezekiel was not persuaded to the new faith and refused permission for his younger children to be baptized, contending that they should choose for themselves after they attained their majority.

Despite the fact that some friends and neighbors had joined the church, following their baptism, other members of their rural New York community began to ostracize Julia and her fellow converts, scoffing at or assailing them publicly. Attacks from local ministers were particularly hostile. They may have perceived the doctrines of the Church as unorthodox, heretical, and therefore, threatening.

The level of hostility directed at them because of their conversion, particularly the attacks from the community’s religious leaders, did come as a surprise. Julia knew these ministers. Although no public record lists Julia as a member of any organized denomination in the region prior to her decision to join the Church; she had for nineteen years been a devoted churchgoer who had attended their religious services and “had always been esteemed among the most eminent in religious society.”

Following their conversions, Julia and her children wanted to know more about Joseph Smith and the gathering of saints in Kirtland. Harassment from hostile neighbors made living in Pomfret an increasingly unpleasant experience and heightened their desire to relocate somewhere free of antagonistic neighbors.

After months of discussion and urging by his family, Ezekiel finally agreed to consider the possibility of moving to Kirtland. The idea of leaving all he had worked to acquire in the way of land and status was difficult for Ezekiel. Julia wanted to be where she could immerse herself and her children in their new religion, in the fellowship of other new converts. In Kirtland they would have the opportunity to be participants in that restoration of Christ’s ancient church to which she now belonged and escape the antagonism of hostile neighbors.

In the summer of 1832, Ezekiel set off with his son, Seth, and daughter, Susan, along with other new converts from Pomfret on the 130-mile scouting trip to Kirtland. Ezekiel apparently wanted to assess conditions in Kirtland first, before committing himself to moving there.

In Kirtland, they met with Joseph Smith in the midst of a bustling, energized community. According to their son Benjamin, at first Ezekiel “appeared favorably impressed” by his contact with Joseph Smith. But Ezekiel returned home to his family with an attitude that was hostile toward moving the family to Kirtland. Without any advance surveying he decided to bypass Kirtland and move the family to another small, but expanding, frontier settlement, Fort Dearborn, Illinois, (which is now Chicago).

When Ezekiel proposed the move to Chicago, Julia and the rest reluctantly assented. For now Julia’s desire for family unity seemed her foremost concern. Perhaps she was still hoping that in time Ezekiel would convert and be willing to move the family to Kirtland. Ezekiel sold his farms in the fall of 1832. Then in the early spring of 1833, Ezekiel “sailed up the lakes with the understanding that” Julia would turn over possession of their home and farms “before the first of June.” Once Ezekiel had a place for the family to live, he would write Julia with instruction on where to join him.

As June approached, with still no word from Ezekiel, Julia became deeply troubled over what might have happened to her husband. Ezekiel would never have abandoned them, yet, there was always the possibility that illness, violence, or an accident might have taken his life. Regardless of whatever fears or grief she felt over what might have befallen Ezekiel, Julia still had to relinquish possession of the farm, and move her family elsewhere. With Ezekiel’s fate unknown, traveling all the way to Chicago was pointless. Once the choice of where to relocate was at her discretion, Julia chose Kirtland.

As Ezekiel’s presumed widow, Julia was now in possession of all their household finances and goods. Along with her large family she now set out to set up a new home in Kirtland. In a caravan of wagons loaded with all their earthly possessions, Julia left Pomfret with seven minor children, ages four to fifteen, and five adult children. They probably took the most common route, from Pomfret to Dunkirk Port, just to the north, then by steamer, on Lake Erie, to Fairport, Ohio, and overland (about 15 miles) on to Kirtland, Ohio.

By the time she joined her fellow converts at Kirtland, in the early part of June 1832, the city had emerged as the Church’s spiritual and financial center. Julia promptly traded some of her teams and wagons for a home on Kirtland Flat, near the schoolhouse, and began to integrate herself and her family into church activity. It is unknown when Julia and her family first met Joseph Smith, but both church and personal family records indicate that a close relationship between them developed after their arrival in Kirtland.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch … can you just imagine!

Ezekiel finally caught up with his family in early fall of 1833. He had written them, but when the family never joined him he made the return trip to Pomfret searching for them. There Ezekiel learned that Julia had never received his letter, and the family had gone to Kirtland. After Ezekiel rejoined them in Kirtland, he tried to persuade Julia to return with him to Fort Dearborn, but she refused. She was where she wanted to be, where she wanted her children to be, and doing what was important to her, participating in the restoration of Christ’s gospel and church. Her faith had now become more valuable to her than acquiescing to her husband’s entreaties.

Julia’s devotion to her new faith and Ezekiel’s disbelief and intemperance became irreconcilable sources of conflict within the marriage and combined to make life together seem unbearable. As Julia’s efforts to inculcate the doctrines and practices of her new faith in her children were increasingly successful, their commitment to the church and its doctrines deepened, and so, too, did the divide between Ezekiel and his family.

After thirty-four years of marriage the decision to separate was an agonizing one, but Julia and Ezekiel separated in the summer of 1835, with Ezekiel taking up residence in the nearby community of Mentor, which was the hotbed of dissention and antagonism by the apostates and enemies of the Church.

Julia and her family rejoiced in the opportunity of helping to build the temple in Kirtland. Although her resources were limited, Julia offered her labor and resources to the effort. Along with her daughters she fashioned elegant needlework for furnishing the temple’s interior. Joseph Smith asked for her sons to “make and burn the brick to build the temple, and for help in digging the basement.” After church leaders decided to build the temple of stone, the brick “was sold to buy nails, glass and other furnishings.”

Julia and her sons and daughters experienced the joy of seeing the temple completed and dedicated, and they experienced the disappointments of seeing apostasy among some leaders and the turmoil of dissention. They bore the hardships of economic depression, and the heartbreak of having four of their number taken in death at the prime of their young adult lives: 2 sons and 2 daughters.

Two of Julia’s daughters married promising young leaders of the Church, both of which are mentioned in the Doctrine and Covenants: Almon Babbitt and Lyman Sherman. Two of her daughters were later to became plural wives of the Prophet Joseph Smith, in the Nauvoo era.

Julia and her younger children were among the last of the Saints to leave Kirtland in the exodus for Missouri. In the spring of 1838, Julia joined with other Latter-day Saints in what became known as Kirtland Camp as they made preparations for their departure from Kirtland. This company was made up of the poor and sick who had been unable to depart earlier. Ezekiel and beloved daughter, Almera, were left behind.

The company proceeded slowly and with much difficulty. Discouragement, illness, and death took their toll on camp members. By the time they reached Springfield, Illinois, their numbers had been reduced by half, from an original 515 to 260. A majority of camp members decided to remain in Springfield because they were either too ill to go on, or were needed to provide care for those who were sick. Julia remained in Springfield with her older sons in order to care for those who were too ill to travel. Julia experienced a severe illness that nearly took her life.

In the spring of 1840, when Julia and her family started westward again, the resettlement of Nauvoo was well underway and a new temple was under construction. Julia stopped twenty miles southeast of Nauvoo in a place called Perkins Settlement, an area along Crooked Creek (Macedonia). Her son, Joel had purchased a sawmill and piece of land along the west branch of Crooked Creek. Julia’s sons, Joel, Joseph and Benjamin, maintained lands and businesses, and held influential political and Church positions

Julia’s family expanded as her children married and twenty-three more grandchildren were born. As her younger children matured they had assumed much of the work load, placing less of a demand on Julia’s time and resources, and enabling her to spend time in both Nauvoo and Macedonia. By the mid-1840s the Johnsons were so numerous and influential that locals dubbed them the “Royal Family.” Son Benjamin has written: “When Joseph heard of this honor conferred upon us by our neighbors, he said the name was and should be a reality; that we were a royal family.”

After daughter Almera’s failed marriage in Kirkland, she and her father, Ezekiel moved to Macedonia (Crooked Creek). Ezekiel’s heart softened towards the Mormons, and he became a valiant defender against the mobbers. On August 1, 1843, Julia and her family gathered in Delcina’s home in Nauvoo where Hyrum Smith officiated in the marriage of Almera and Joseph Smith.

Julia had property only 4 blocks from the Nauvoo Temple. She and her family were part of the dramatic times of happy Nauvoo life, and then the dark days of persecution, the martyrdom of the Prophet, and the exodus of the Saints as they were driven from their homes. In the last year of Nauvoo, Ezekiel ceased the use of ardent spirits, and came to believe the Gospel was true. He asked for baptism, but sadly, he died of injuries and broken health incurred from defending against the mobbers, before it could happen.

Julia received her Endowments in Nauvoo Temple on 23 December 1845, just 6 weeks before the exodus began. She was sealed to the Prophet’s uncle, John Smith. In later years, her posterity had this annulled, and had her sealed to her husband, Ezekiel.

Julia went with family out to Iowa, where her son, Joseph, established a store and a newspaper. She never got to see the land of Zion in Utah, as she died in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 1853, at age 70.

Julia was a strong-willed woman who in her youth challenged the patriarchy of her stepfather to pursue her own ambition. As a mature woman she challenged the patriarchy of her husband to follow the dictates of her own conscience. Julia believed the Bible to be the word of God and the foundation upon which all moral decisions were based. An ardent scriptorian who formed her own concept of true Christianity and whose faith was self-determined and tenacious, Julia chose to break with the religious and social conventions of her time, to embrace ideas that were outside the social and religious norms of her society.

Julia shared the process of her investigation into and subsequent conversion to the faith with her family and friends. Her decision to convert was a monumental turning point in her life and in the lives of other family members. Religion became the central focus of her existence. In the ensuing conflict between religion and marital harmony, her religious convictions took precedence, resulting in the alienation and marginalization of her husband as head of the family. Yet, she remained emotionally attached to Ezekiel and found ingenious ways to fulfill her own religious yearnings without him, while remaining his wife.

Julia was a dominant influence in her children’s lives. Despite the fact that Ezekiel never joined the church, all of their children embraced the church and its doctrines and remained loyal members throughout their lives. Julia was determined to adhere to and inculcate in her children the Church’s doctrines and organization. Consequently, the Church and its doctrines also became the focal point of their existence.

Throughout her twenty-two-year sojourn in Mormonism Julia chose to place herself and her family at personal and financial risk to adhere to the doctrines of her faith, sustain Church leaders, and remain in company with other converts. She shaped the religious faith of her children, influenced the faith of others, and, thereby influenced the development of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Richard Horsely, a genealogist and historian, has pronounced that she is the mother of the largest family in the Church today.

What a great blessing it is for us, to be counted among the jewels of this wonderful woman’s crown!

Click to access etd2379.pdf

JULIA HILLS JOHNSON, 1783-1853: MY SOUL REJOICED, by LINDA J. THAYNE- A MASTERS THESIS