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Journey to Conversion

Eph sat staring into the fireplace deep in thought. He well remembered his father’s flushed face and the rage that darkened his features as he went off to church, and Eph knew that come Monday morning he was going to get the beating of his life. So—he ran away. He was 16 years old.

He spent a season working on the Erie Canal and then found himself enlisted in the United States Navy, serving on the USS Man-of-War, Columbus. For three years he traveled the world.

Near the end, he was contemplating re-enlisting, when he received a visit from a stranger who came aboard while they were docked in New York and persuaded him that he ought to return home instead. When this visitor mysteriously vanished, Eph took it as a message from above and started for home.

Eph made his way back to Ohio, only to discover that his father had died in his absence, bequeathing him one dollar and a dying request that he obtain a copy of the New Testament and read it. He also learned that his older brother, Sidney, had been “taken captive by the Mormons and was being held under a spell in Nauvoo, Illinois. Infuriated, Eph determined to visit…Nauvoo…and redeem poor Sidney.”

Accordingly, he journeyed a day and a half towards Nauvoo, when he came to a fork in the road. He turned down the right fork, when he was suddenly and inexplicably overwhelmed by a flood of tears. “Bewildered and annoyed,” he went back to the fork and started down the left fork, only to have the same baffling emotions overwhelm him again. Why? What did this mean?

Eph turned off the road into a grove of trees and for the first time in years–knelt to pray. He felt strongly impressed to go home. You can imagine his surprise when he walked through the door and discovered his brother, Sidney.

In Nauvoo, Sidney had a strange dream that strongly urged him to go home and he knew not why. When Eph walked through the door, Sidney knew exactly why he was there.

He told the story of Joseph Smith and the Mormons with such power that Eph was convinced, and wanted to see Nauvoo for himself. Their mother was vehemently opposed and said if the two boys went after the Mormons they were never welcome at her home again. Reluctantly, they bade her goodbye and set out for Nauvoo.

And so it was that Ephraim K. Hanks arrived in Nauvoo in the summer of 1845 and was baptized a Latter-day Saint. Thus began the life and adventures of one of Mormonism’s eminent frontier scouts.

Source: Eph Hanks, Pioneer Scout, Richard K. Hanks, BYU Master’s Thesis, 1973