Overview

 

The emergence and growth of the Church in Pontiac is credited to Almira Mack and Lucy Mack Smith. Lucy’s brother Stephen Mack moved from Tunbridge, Vermont, to Detroit, Michigan, in 1807 and then settled in Pontiac, twenty-six miles north of Detroit in 1818.¹⁴ Almira Mack,¹⁵ the youngest of Stephen’s twelve children, left Pontiac to visit her aunt Lucy in Manchester, New York, in May 1830. On hearing the message of the restoration, she received baptism into the Church.¹⁶ In 1831, Almira moved to Kirtland, Ohio, with the Smiths.

On June 7, 1831, Hyrum Smith, John Murdock, Lyman Wight, and John Corrill were commanded by revelation to journey to Missouri “by the way of Detroit.”¹⁷ Almira Mack and Lucy Smith accompanied Hyrum on this mission as far as Pontiac in order to visit the Macks. The missionary efforts in Michigan proved fruitless for Hyrum and his companions. Leaving Lucy with the Mack family, the four missionaries left Michigan and traveled in a southwesterly direction, preaching as they journeyed toward Independence, Missouri.¹⁸

Lucy remained in Pontiac for four weeks. She and Almira were enthusiastic about the new religion, and Lucy “never missed an opportunity to advance it.”¹⁹ Among others, Lucy introduced the gospel to her sister-in-law Temperance Mack.²⁰ Lucy won the hearts of many, but not all. In one biting exchange with the minister of the local Congregational Church, the Reverend Isaac W. Ruggles, Lucy warned that “within three years her son Joseph would have a third of his church, including the deacon.”²¹ Two years later, the Prophet made good on Lucy’s promise when he dispatched Jared Carter and Joseph Wood to Pontiac for missionary service. They arrived January 7, 1833, and within several weeks the Reverend Ruggles lost his first deacon, Samuel Bent,²² and seventy members of his flock to the Saints.²³ The Church achieved a stronghold in Pontiac with Samuel Bent presiding over the branch.²⁴

On April 21, 1834, Hyrum Smith and Lyman Wight began their recruiting mission to Pontiac, traveling with a team of horses and one light wagon. They left Kirtland, heading west while “visiting the churches and ascertaining what they would do for the brethren in Missouri.”²⁵ (See their route on map on page 172). Their first stop was in Florence, Ohio, where they got recruits for Joseph’s division.²⁶ After a short stay in Florence, they moved on to Pontiac, Michigan, where they called on the Saints of the Huron Branch.

Fifteen members of the Huron Branch responded to the call and volunteered to join the Camp of Zion: nine men, three women, and three children.²⁷ With the exception of Charlotte Alvord, who traveled without husband or parents, the women and children joined the camp in order to be with their husbands and parents and to settle in Zion once the Saints were reestablished on their land.²⁸ Adding Hyrum Smith and Lyman Wight from Kirtland, and Charles C. Rich, who joined the camp in Illinois, the number traveling with the camp was eighteen. The youngest in camp was nine-year-old George Fordham and the oldest was fifty-six-year-old Samuel Bent.

From "Journal of the Branch of the Church of Christ in Pontiac,…1834": Hyrum Smith's Division of Zion's Camp Craig K. Manscill in BYU Studies Quarterly Volume 39 Issue 1 Article 13 => https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3385&context=byusq

1. Initial History of the Church in Pontiac 1830-1845
2. Lucy Mack and Joseph Smith Visits to Pontiac
3. Wikipedia history of Latter-day Saints in Michigan
4. LDS Church History in Michigan - Wikia