Description

Two Old Warriors Meet Again

Allen Taylor is one of those pioneers that played a major part but has been largely forgotten by history. He joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1832, in Monroe County Missouri. When the Saints were driven from Missouri by angry mobs, Allen suffered with them.

He was there again at the brutal fall of Far West in 1838. When the Church was driven from Nauvoo in 1846, Allen Taylor was among the first to leave, and when the poor were driven from Nauvoo that fall, he was called to go back across Iowa to their rescue.

At Winter Quarters, Nebraska he volunteered to join the Mormon Battalion but was asked to remain behind and assist in caring for the poor. He came out of Winter Quarters with Brigham Young in 1848 serving as a captain. He was a true and faithful servant of the Lord, given many heavy assignments by the brethren.

Eventually, he brought his family to the Valley and became bishop in Kaysville or Kay’s Ward as it was known at the time. Then in 1861, he was called to settle Utah’s Dixie, a most challenging assignment. He served there until 1883, whereupon he was released and moved to Loa, Paiute County, Utah.

There in Loa in 1884, Allen Taylor, now seventy years old, attended a church meeting in which he was called upon to speak, but as he began, he was suddenly interrupted by another aged veteran in the congregation, who asked, “Do you remember me catching a buffalo for you?”… Allen looked square into his face and asked, “What is your name?” To which the other man said simply, “Hanks.” It was Ephraim K. Hanks.

“Why, Brother Hanks, how are ye?” The two advanced and indulged in a hearty handshaking. Elder Taylor then related that one evening, as he and his company were encamped on the Plains, Brother Hanks came into the camp and said there were some buffalo just around or over a little hill and thought he could get one. [Hanks] took down his lasso and started leisurely out to try. In a little while, he returned, bringing, with lasso hitched to the horn of the saddle, a fine yearling buffalo, which was brought right into camp to be butchered. The meeting of the two old friends thus, after a separation of nearly a quarter of a century, although a little comical, was very affecting.”

“Allen Taylor died at the age of seventy-seven in Loa on 5 December 1891 …. As he had lived, so he died, full of faith in the work to which the greater part of his life had been devoted,” His obituary concludes, “Though he had long since faded from the prominent role he once assumed, he should be remembered as one of the most important leaders in the early days of Mormon emigration.”

As we grow older and our strength and energy wane some of the old warriors among us, male and female, wonder if they have done any good in this world and will their service be remembered. It is my conviction when all is said and done and our family histories are perfected, no good is gone from the record—your righteous service will be remembered by God and family forever.

Sources: https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/99572644?cid=mem_email

Story contributed by Carol Taylor of Carson City, Nevada, July 2020