Black elder, Lowell, Massachusetts
Q. Walker Lewis
1798–1856
1 topic · 3 dated events
Their part in each topic
Race and the Priesthood
Black elder, Lowell, Massachusetts
An abolitionist barber in Lowell, Lewis was baptized in the early 1840s and ordained an elder by William Smith. In March 1847 Brigham Young called him one of the best elders in the Church. His son Enoch's marriage to a white woman, reported to Young later that year, is one of the events historians place at the origin of the restriction.
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.
Brigham Young calls Walker Lewis one of the best elders
Speaking at Winter Quarters to William McCary, a Black convert with a white wife who complained of mistreatment, Young said race was not the issue and cited Q. Walker Lewis: “We have one of the best Elders, an African.” Young told McCary it had nothing to do with blood, for of one blood God had made all flesh.
The Enoch Lewis marriage is reported to Brigham Young
Returning to Winter Quarters, Young heard from William Appleby, president of the eastern branches, that William Smith had ordained a Black elder in Massachusetts and that Enoch Lewis, that elder's son, had married a white woman and had a child. Young's recorded response was severe. Historians place this alongside the McCary affair as the immediate trigger for the restriction.
Appears alongside
People who share the most dated events with Q. Walker Lewis.
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