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Excerpt From

Mosiah Lyman Hancock

Autobiography
(1834-1865)

Source: Autobiography of Mosiah Hancock, typescript, BYU-S.

Compiled by Amy E. Baird, Victoria H. Jackson, and Laura L. Wassell
(daughters of Mosiah Hancock). Grammar has been standardized

T he next day the Prophet came to our home
and stopped in our carpenter shop and stood
by the turning lathe. I went and got my map for
him. “Now”, he said, “I will show you the trav-
els of this people”. He then showed our travels
through Iowa, and said, “Here you will make
a place for the winter; and here you will travel
west until you come to the valley of the Great
Salt Lake! You will build cities to the North and
to the South, and to the East and to the West;
and you will become a great and wealthy people
in that land.
But, the United States will not receive you
with the laws which God desires you to live, and
you will have to go to where the Nephites lost
their power. They worked in the United Order
for 166 years, and the Saints have got to become
proficient in the laws of God before they can
meet the Lord Jesus Christ, or even the city of
Enoch”. He said we will not travel the shape of
the horse shoe for there we will await the action
of the government. Placing his finger on the map,
I should think about where Snowflake, Arizona
is situated, or it could have been Mexico, he said,
“The government will not receive you with the
laws that God designed you to live, and those
who are desirous to live the laws of God will
have to go South.
You will live to see men arise in power in
the Church who will seek to put down your
friends and the friends of our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. Many will be hoisted because of
their money and the worldly learning which they
seem to be in possession of; and many who are
the true followers of our Lord and Savior will
be cast down because of their poverty.
There will be two great political parties in
this country. One will be called the Republican,
and the other the Democrat party. These two
parties will go to war and out of these two par-
ties will spring another party which will be the
Independent American Party.
The United States will spend her strength
and means warring in foreign lands until other
nations will say, “Let’s divide up the lands of
the United States”, then the people of the U.S.
will unite and swear by the blood of their fore-
fathers, that the land shall not be divided. Then
the country will go to war, and they will fight
until one half of the U. S. army will give up, and
the rest will continue to struggle. They will keep
on until they are very ragged and discouraged,
and almost ready to give up—when the boys
from the mountains will rush forth in time to
save the American Army from defeat and ruin.
And they will say, ‘Brethren, we are glad you
have come; give us men, henceforth, who can
talk with God’. Then you will have friends, but
you will save the country when it’s liberty hangs
by a hair, as it were.