Black elder and Seventy
Elijah Abel (Able)
1810–1884
1 topic · 3 dated events
Their part in each topic
Race and the Priesthood
Black elder and Seventy
Baptized in 1832, ordained an elder on 3 March 1836 and a Seventy that December, Abel served three missions and worked on the Salt Lake Temple. He was repeatedly refused the endowment, and in 1879 defended his own ordination before John Taylor's council, saying the Prophet Joseph had told him he was entitled to the priesthood. In 1908 Joseph F. Smith declared the ordination had been void all along.
In the timeline
3 events across 1 topics, chronological. Only events this person was actually part of — present at, responsible for, or the subject of — not every event where the name comes up.
Elijah Abel ordained an elder; a Seventy that Decemberhinge
Baptized in September 1832, Abel was ordained an elder on 3 March 1836 and received a patriarchal blessing from Joseph Smith Sr. On 20 December 1836 he was ordained a Seventy, by Zebedee Coltrin. He participated in washing and anointing ordinances in the Kirtland Temple, and his Seventy's certificate was renewed in 1841 and again in Salt Lake City. Other free Black men — Joseph T. Ball in 1837, Q. Walker Lewis by 1844 — were also ordained.
John Taylor investigates, and Abel defends himself
Taylor convened a council after Abel again sought the endowment. Zebedee Coltrin and Abraham Smoot testified to recollections of Joseph Smith barring Black ordination. Abel produced his Seventy's certificates and stated that the Prophet Joseph had told him he was entitled to the priesthood. Joseph F. Smith supported Abel's account. Taylor let the ordination stand as made before the word of the Lord was fully understood, but refused the temple. Taylor called the seventy-three-year-old Abel on a final mission in 1883; he fell ill, returned to Utah, and died on 25 December 1884.
Joseph F. Smith reverses himself on Elijah Abelhinge
Recounting Abel's case to the council for at least the fourth time, Smith now said that Abel had been ordained a Seventy by Joseph Young “but this ordination was declared null and void by the Prophet himself.” He had testified to the opposite for nearly thirty years, and the same year he wrote that priesthood once received could not be taken away except by transgression serious enough to forfeit membership.
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