Blessing to Alvin Winegar, 7 February 1836
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Source Note
Church presidency (including JS), Blessing, to Alvin Winegar, , Geauga Co., OH, 7 Feb. 1836. Featured version copied in Alvin Winegar, Emigration Record Book, [ca. 1850s]; handwriting probably of John Winegar; private possession; photocopy in Alvin Winegar, Papers, CHL.Handmade book measuring 9¼ × 7¾ inches (24 × 20 cm). The book is not paginated, and the number of pages is unknown. The covers are constructed of heavy brown paper. Winegar primarily used the book as an emigration record book while migrating to Utah Territory in 1852; the book also contains a company roster, Winegar family genealogy, and the blessing Winegar received from the First Presidency in , Ohio, in 1836.Joseph Smith Papers staff accessed the original in 2005 from a Winegar descendant; subsequent attempts to access the original and obtain additional physical information were unsuccessful.
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Historical Introduction
Alvin Winegar likely joined the along with his parents, Rhoda and Samuel Winegar, in the town of , Erie County, Pennsylvania, sometime in early 1833. In March 1834, JS and passed through Springfield and nearby , recruiting volunteers and raising money for the expedition to . Eighteen-year-old Alvin and his father soon volunteered to join the expedition and subsequently marched to Missouri. Along with many of the other participants in the expedition, Alvin likely returned home by early 1835. He was in , Ohio, by early February 1836.On 7 February, Winegar received his blessing from a member of the , likely JS. JS’s journal entry for 7 February indicates that he spent the majority of that day engaged in church meetings. Following an “evening meet[ing] with the presidency in the loft of the , in company with the presidency of the ,” JS “blessed one of the Zion brethren”—presumably Winegar. , who temporarily served as JS’s scribe from 25 January to 8 February 1836, recorded the blessing. Although that original is no longer extant and was not copied into any of the church’s official blessing books, a copy of the blessing—likely written in the handwriting of Winegar’s son John—was preserved and retained in private possession.
Footnotes
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1
Winegar was born in the town of German, New York, on 13 May 1816. According to the journal of Evan Greene, Rhoda and Samuel Winegar were baptized by either Greene or John F. Boynton on 20 June 1833. In a list near the end of his journal, Greene also noted that Alvin’s siblings Almira and John were baptized on the same day. (“Names of Those Baptised,” in Greene, Diary, vol. 1, 1833–1835.)
Greene, Evan Melbourne. Diaries, 1833–1852. CHL. MS 1442.
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2
JS, Journal, 26 and 27 Mar. 1834.
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3
“Festival of the Camp of Zion,” Deseret News, 12 Oct. 1864, 13; Bradley, Zion’s Camp 1834, 275–280; “A Synopsis of Remarks Made by Prests. Brigham Young and Geo. A. Smith,” 14 June 1874, pp. 1–3, in Historian’s Office, Reports of Speeches, 1845–1885, CHL. For more on the Camp of Israel expedition—later referred to as “Zion’s Camp”—see Revelation, 16–17 Dec. 1833 [D&C 101]; Revelation, 24 Feb. 1834 [D&C 103]; and Minutes, 24 Feb. 1834.
Deseret News. Salt Lake City. 1850–.
Bradley, James L. Zion’s Camp 1834: Prelude to the Civil War. Logan, UT: By the author, 1990.
Historian’s Office. Reports of Speeches, 1845–1885. CHL.
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4
Winegar’s whereabouts following the 1834 expedition are largely unknown. He was in Kirtland at the time of this blessing and married Mary Judd in Henry County, Indiana, on 31 August 1837; their first child, John, was born in Clay County, Missouri, on 28 September 1838. (Henry Co., IN, Clerk of the Circuit Court, Marriage Records, 1823–1951, vol. C, p. 298, microfilm 1,870,202, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL; Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, 1255.)
U.S. and Canada Record Collection. FHL.
Esshom, Frank. Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah: Comprising Photographs, Genealogies, Biographies. Salt Lake City: Utah Pioneers Book, 1913.
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5
Many members of the Camp of Israel expedition who were not ordained to a leadership calling during spring 1835 received blessings, often referred to as Zion blessings, during the subsequent years. Many of these blessings were recorded in Patriarchal Blessing Book 1; others, such as Lorenzo Barnes’s blessing, were recorded in private journals. (Patriarchal Blessings, vol. 1; Blessing to Lorenzo Barnes, 3 Jan. 1836.)
Patriarchal Blessings, 1833–. CHL. CR 500 2.
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6
JS, Journal, 7 Feb. 1836.
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1
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