Stephen Hales

Photo Credit: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF STEPHEN HALES

[Stephen Hales, third child and second son of Stephen and Mary Ann Hales, records the following biography in the Second Quorum of Seventies records:]

I, Stephen, son of Stephen and Mary Ann Hales was born in England, Rainham parish, county of Kent, in the year of our Lord 1820. My father was a professor of religion. When I was eleven years old, my father removed to America, with all his family. We located in Canada.

We all tarried there five or six years when Parley P. Pratt came and preached to the people where my father resided. In a short time my father and mother united themselves with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and removed to the place of gathering in Far West, Caldwell County, Missouri. At the age of eighteen I was baptized by Elder Hunter in Daviess County, Missouri. [Stephen Hales was caught up in the activities of the saints to protect themselves from the spirit of mob-fever that was rampant in Missouri during these trying times. No doubt Governor Bogg’s “extermination of the Mormons” order caused some of this activity. The Haun’s Mill massacre where wives and children of many of the saints were killed also led to protective feelings among the saints. Stephen’s story continues:]

A number of the brethren started off on an expedition and I with the rest, to search out the designs of the mob. We came to the place where they had camped the night before where they had buried a cannon. I found the cannon and some powder and balls. And, from there we returned home to our city.

In a short time, I heard the mob was letting the brethren’s fences down and turning the cattle into the corn fields. A small number of the brethren including myself went in search of them. We left our homes about the twelfth hour of the night. About the break of day we found the mob, encamped on a small stream called the Crooked River. We marched down in battle array. Their guard shot one of our men and a number of our men shot their guns at him. The mob fired on us and we returned the compliments. We returned home with three killed and six wounded and a short time later left our homes as exiles and came to Quincy, Adams County, Illinois. We resided there four years and came to Nauvoo in the twenty-fourth year of my age.

I was ordained into the Quorum of Seventies under the hands of President Joseph young and Isaiah Butterfield. I was united to the Second Quorum of Seventies and by the assisting grace of God, I shall try to stand in my lot and station as long as I live on the earth. And, when I leave this world of trouble, I hope to meet my brethren in the next better world and praise God through all eternity.

(Stephen Hales married first Eveline Lydia Carter, daughter of Simeon Doget Carter and Lydia Henyon Carter at Nauvoo, Illinois on October 16,1842. He married second Henrietta Heyes, daughter of Samuel Heyes and Nancy Ann Delgarn Heyes, on December 23, 1851. Stephen was the father of fourteen children by his two wives. He and his wives are buried in the Bountiful, Utah cemetery.)