Description

Daniel Webster Jones

Just how powerful is kindness over the minds and hearts of men? Let me illustrate.

Daniel Webster Jones was born in Missouri and orphaned at the age of 11. Shortly after, he left all his friends and relatives and struck out on his own. He described himself as, “as willful a boy as ever lived. No one could control me by any other means than kindness, and this I did not often meet with.”

Dan soon found himself among such rough people that he later wondered how he ever survived. It began to weigh upon his soul that this was not how men ought to live. There had to be something better, but what?

Then came 1847 and Dan enlisted in the army to fight in the war with Mexico. He was 17 years old. He stayed there until 1850 living what he later described as a “wild reckless life of gambling, swearing, fighting, and other rough conduct.”

Soon thereafter he was part of a gang of men driving 8000 head of sheep from Santa Fe to the north. While camped on the Green River in Wyoming, Dan accidentally shot himself. The wound was serious enough that Dan’s companions said he would die unless he could get himself to Utah. There were good people there he was told who would care for him. That surprised Dan. He had heard the terrible stories about the Mormons. But having no other options, he traveled to Spanish Fork, Utah where the Isaac Higbee family took the stranger in and nursed him back to health. Their kindness so touched Dan that he decided to stay.

Then in October 1856, Dan received word that a large company of emigrants were in trouble in Wyoming. Dan volunteered to help. They thought they would be home in a few weeks at most, but it soon turned into a life and death struggle to save nearly 1500 starving freezing handcart emigrants. Weeks became months and the sacrifices of the rescuers became legendary. It would be six grueling months before Dan finally returned to his family. He spent the brutal winter of 1856-57 risking his life for people he did not even know.

What is it that transforms a man from a life of willful self-indulgence to willingly offering his time, talents, and life in sacrifice for others? It was in this case, kindness.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Webster_Jones_(Mormon)

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/memories/KWJB-8KJ