Ziba Peterson

Ziba Peterson was one of several early members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who fell into apostasy and left the Church.

He was born in New York in about 1810. He was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ in Seneca Lake, New York, in April 1830 by Oliver Cowdery. By June of that year, he was ordained an elder. Six months after his baptism, he received a call to travel to serve a mission with the Lamanites. He traveled with Parley P. Pratt to join Oliver Cowdery and Peter Whitmer Jr. (see Doctrine and Covenants 32). While waiting permission from the U.S. superintendent of Indian Affairs to enter Indian lands and continue teaching, they taught the gospel in Ohio and Missouri and baptized many.

By June 1831, many Saints began arriving in Jackson County, Missouri. During Joseph Smith’s visit to Jackson County, he received a revelation that reprimanded Ziba for unspecified conduct. Doctrine and Covenants 58:60 states, “Let that which has been bestowed upon Ziba Peterson be taken from him; and let him stand as a member in the church, and labor with his own hands, with the brethren, until he is sufficiently chastened for all his sins; for he confesseth them not, and he thinketh to hide them.”[1] Four days afterward, Ziba was publicly reprimanded during a conference of the Church and it is recorded that he subsequently confessed.

Peterson married Rebecca Hopper on August 11, 1831. While his missionary companions returned to Kirtland, Ohio, Ziba remained in Jackson County and his activity in the church diminished. He was reordained an elder in October 1832, but in June 1833, he was excommunicated. When the Saints moved out of Jackson County, Ziba and his family and some members of his wife’s family remained.

In May 1848, he moved his family out to California, arriving in Dry Diggins in October. Ziba was elected sheriff of this mining town. The town later became known as Hangtown and is now named Placerville. He died in the early months of 1849.

External Sources

Joseph Smith Papers, “Peterson, Ziba”

Ensign Peak Foundation, “Ziba Peterson: From Missionary to Hanging Sheriff,” by H. Dean Garrett