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This journal was found in the Sidney B. Sperry papers at Brigham Young University and was transferred out to be processed as a seperate document. Nothing more is currently known as to its history prior to coming in the possession of Dr. Sperry.
Collection is open to public use.
It is the responsibility of the researcher to obtain any necessary copyright clearances.
Permission to publish material from the Jacob Hamblin Journal must be obtained from the Supervisor of Reference Services and/or the L. Tom Perry Special Collections Board of Curators.
Jacob Hamblin was born in Salem, Ashtabula Co., Ohio on April 6, 1819. He was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on March 3, 1842 at the age of twenty-two. At that time he was married to Lucinda Taylor (1823-c.1858) who was baptized soon afterward. However, when Hamblin proposed moving west, Lucinda refused to go. In February 1849, Hamblin and Lucinda decided to end their marriage, and he continued west without her, taking their four children with him. In September of the same year, Hamblin met and married Rachel Judd, a widow, in Council Bluffs, Iowa. She had two children from her deceased husband and she bore Hamblin five more. In 1857, he married Sarah Priscilla Leavitt (1841- 1927); they had nine children. Then he had six children from his last wife, Louisa Bonelli (1843- 1931). In addition to the twenty-four children by his four wives, he adopted three Indian children and had at least two Paiute Indian girls who served as maids.
In about 1853, while leading an expedition against hostile Indians in Tooele Valley, Hamblin and his men found that their guns would not fire at the Indians. Of that experience Hamblin wrote: "The Holy Spirit forcibly impressed me that it was not my calling to shed the blood of the scattered remnant of Israel, but to be a messanger of peace to them. It was also a manifestation to me that if I would not thirst for their blood, I should never fall by their hands."
The very next year, Hamblin was called by President Brigham Young to work with the Paiute Indians of Southern Utah. This calling began a lifetime of work with various tribes. He was later called as the president of the Indian Mission.
He made nine missionary visits to the Hopi villages of Northern Arizona and, in the process, reopened the ancient Ute Crossing on the Colorado River. He pioneered the Lee's Ferry Crossing, and in 1862-63 traveled completely around the Grand Canyon. In 1870, he guided U.S. government explorer Major John Wesley Powell on a survey of the Grand Canyon. In November of that same year he was responsible for the negotiation of the Treaty of Fort Defiance, New Mexico.
In 1869, Hamblin moved from Santa Clara to Kanab, Utah, then nine years later he moved to northern Arizona. In 1882, Hamblin moved to Pleasanton, New Mexico where he died four years later in 1886.
Handwritten diary and typescript. Among other things, the journal tells of activities relating to Mormon missions to the "Moqui" (Hopi) Indians, farming conditions near Kanab, Utah, and pioneer remedies for various ailments.
The Historical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah has the following Hamblin records: