Dan Jones
Dan Jones, an early member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was a mariner, close associate to Joseph Smith, and notable missionary to his native Wales. He is not to be confused with Daniel W. Jones, a contemporary who was also a notable member of the Church.
Dan Jones was born on August 4, 1810, in the parish of Halkyn, North Wales. He was one of eight children born to Thomas and Ruth Jones. Dan’s father was a miner, and more than likely Dan spent some time working in the lead mines of Halkyn.
At the age of sixteen Dan became a mariner and made lengthy voyages around the world. On one of his stays home in Wales, he courted Jane Melling of Denbigh (within ten miles of Halkyn), and they married in the Denbigh Parish church on January 3, 1837. By 1841, they had immigrated to the United States and made their home in St. Louis, Missouri. Jones became part owner and captain of the Ripple, a steamer that traveled the Mississippi River, primarily carrying passengers between New Orleans and St. Louis. When the Ripple struck a rock and sank near Galena, Illinois, he constructed another steamer and became captain of the Maid of Iowa, which was almost double the size of the Ripple.
Jones became aware of negative attitudes about a religious group called the Mormons, especially through comments printed in the Warsaw Signal. Later he wrote, “Through a careful investigation of the accusations I perceived clearly that it was impossible for them to be true, either because in their zeal they overstated the case or because they contradicted themselves in some way.” He was also touched by the words of Emma Smith:
- “Soon, purely by accident, there fell into my hands a segment of a letter which the wife of Joseph Smith had written to some religious sister when she was [visiting] her husband in the Missouri prison; and I shall never forget the feelings which that segment of a letter caused me to have. I perceived clearly that not only did its author believe the New Testament, the same as I—professing the apostolic faith, and rejoicing in the midst of her tribulations at being worthy to suffer all that for a testimony of Jesus and the gospel—but also it contained better counsel, more wisdom, and showed a more gospel-like and godly spirit than anything I had ever read!”
He did not, however, want to lose his livelihood as a steamboat captain, but he could not deny his testimony and was baptized on January 19, 1843, in the Mississippi River. He met Joseph Smith three months later when the Maid of Iowa docked at Nauvoo to unload over 300 converts who had emigrated from Great Britain. Jones continued to captain his ship, and hauled converts to the church, hauled freight for building the Nauvoo Temple, and preached from the deck of his ship.
- The night before the Prophet’s death, Dan Jones and Joseph Smith lay side by side in the upper room of the Carthage Jail. The others with them were sleeping when Joseph asked in a whisper if Dan was afraid to die. “Has that time come think you? Engaged in such a cause I do not think that death would have many terrors,” replied Brother Jones. “You will yet see Wales and fulfill the mission appointed you ere you die,” said the Prophet.[1]
- The following morning, 27 June 1844, Smith asked Jones to deliver a letter on his behalf to Orville H. Browning in Quincy, Illinois, requesting that Browning act as the Smiths' lawyer in their upcoming trial. As Jones departed the jail on horseback, bullets were fired at him, but none struck him. In his haste and panic, Jones took the wrong road to Quincy and became lost. It was later learned that an anti-Mormon mob had been waiting to intercept him on the correct road to Quincy. When Jones finally reached Quincy later in the afternoon, he learned that Joseph and Hyrum Smith had been killed by a mob at the jail.[2]
Two months later Jones was on his way to Wales. Jones filled two missions to Wales. His wife accompanied him on this first mission. A year into his mission, he was asked to serve as mission president. Under his leadership, missionaries baptized approximately 3,600 people and membership in Wales jumped from just over 200 to 4,645. Jones and his wife served from late 1844 to February 1849, when they traveled with more than 300 Welsh converts who were immigrating. The first Welsh-speaking branch was organized in Council Bluffs when they arrived and Jones served as the first branch president. Many of them, including Jones and his wife, departed with the George A. Smith company of pioneers and arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on October 26, 1949.
Jones settled in Manti and was elected mayor in 1851. He began his second mission to Wales, this time without his family, in 1852. He served until 1856 and baptized approximately 2,000 individuals.
After his return to Utah, he became the captain of the Timely Gull (owned by Brigham Young on the Great Salt Lake, and he transported salt, cedar wood, and flagstone.
Jones died of tuberculosis in Provo, Utah, on January 3, 1862. His wife Jane had preceded him in death on February 24, 1861. During his life, he had practiced plural marriage and had married Elizabeth Jones Lewis on November 8, 1849, and Mary Matilda LaTrielle on February 18, 1857. He had fathered fourteen children, but only six—two by each wife—were alive at the time of his passing.
Jones contributed a wealth of Welsh-language material for the Church. He published Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), the first Church periodical to be published in a language other than English. He was briefly editor of its successor, Udgorn Seion (Zion’s Trumpet). Jones also published pamphlets and tracts, the most famous being “Hanes Saint y Dyddiau Diweddaf” ("History of the Latter-day Saints"). In 1852 he oversaw the translation of the Book of Mormon into the Welsh language (the third language other than English—the previous two being Danish and French). He published a hymnal for Welsh Latter-day Saints and a 288-page scriptural commentary in defense of the Church.
