Revelation and Leadership
Late in November, President Young
sent word for Bishop Miller and James Emmett to come to Winter Quarters, which
they did, on foot, by Christmas (Journal History, November 25 and 26, 1846). Council
of Fifty discussions produced the decision [that] Ponca Saints should go west
up the Niobrara towards the headwaters of the Yellowstone River, apparently
near today’s Casper, Wyoming (Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier 1:221
[December 27, 1846]). President Young invited Bishop Miller to move down to
Winter Quarters to help Bishop Newel K. Whitney manage the Church’s finances.
Miller went into Missouri for goods for the Ponca Camp and then returned to Winter
Quarters. There he learned that on January 14 President Young had presented a revelation
to the Church regarding how the trek west should be organized. This “Word and Will
of the Lord,” now Section 136 in the LDS Doctrine and Covenants, instructed the
Saints to organize into companies led by three-man presidencies and subled by
captains of hundreds, fifties, and tens “under the direction of the Twelve
Apostles.”
Bishop Miller disliked the revelation
because he believed the Council of Fifty, not the Twelve, should direct the
move west. He was displeased, too, by how Brigham Young had swelled the Council
of Fifty’s membership and, he claimed, changed its purposes. Miller also chafed
at Brigham’s plan to reestablish a First Presidency for the Church; he believed
the Church must have a prophet-leader instead. Miller felt “broken down in
spirit” by what he believed was “usurpation” of authority by the Twelve and
because of “oppressive measures” he felt the Twelve were taking. Deeply
troubled, he was “from this time, determined to go with them no longer” and to
separate himself and his family from the westward venture (Mills, “De Tal Palo
Tal Astilla,” 111-12).
Bishop Miller returned to Fort Ponca,
followed by new Apostles Ezra T. Benson and Elder Erastus Snow from Winter
Quarters. On February 7 and 8 that visitors presented Brigham Young’s new revelation
to the camp, which then numbered 396 Saints, including 98 men. Elders Benson
and Snow stayed two weeks. Elder Benson did public preaching, which the Saints
appreciated, having been “so long isolated from the body of the Church.” In
accord with the new revelation, Elder Benson nominated camp officers—including John—for
a westward trek that spring, and Ponca Saints voted to sustain them. With
Miller now ordered to do bishopric work at Winter Quarters, Titus Billings,
Erastus Brigham, and Joseph Holbrook became the Ponca group’s presidency, a
leadership change that sparked no recorded criticism among the Ponca Saints.
Hyrum Clark was installed as a captain of hundred. David Lewis and Vincent
Shurtliff became captains of fifty. John Butler and nine others were selected
to be captains of ten wagons each (Journal History, January 27, 28, 29, 30,
February 8, and 15, 1847). (William G. Hartley, My Best for the Kingdom:
History and Autobiography of John Lowe Butler a Mormon Frontiersman [C. L.
Dalton Enterprises, 2017], 226-27)
