On March 25, 2015, By Common Consent put up a guest blog post that I wrote titled “Did Joseph Smith, Jr. Ordain Elijah Abel to the Priesthood?” The first line of that post simply stated, “The short answer is no, I do not believe that he did.” I went on to lay out my reasons for arriving at that conclusion. You can read them here.

At that time I wondered if we would ever know who ordained Able an elder in the Melchizedek priesthood. For all the searching, historians had come up empty handed on that question. It would take the discovery of some previously unknown source in some yet untapped archive to reveal new information. Or perhaps there was still an unprocessed collection somewhere that held such clues. More than likely, I thought, it was just a detail lost to history.

The unprocessed Joseph F. Smith papers recently yielded the answer to the frequently asked question. A new two-page, handwritten note offers evidence of who ordained Able to the priesthood, the exact date of that ordination, as well as a variety of other tantalizing details. It is, in fact, a rush of new information about Able, his ancestry, a bit about his wife, Mary Ann, and mostly about his ritual relationship to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is such a wonderful microburst of details that it might just cause an historian’s heart to race. It certainly did mine.

Adding to the excitement is the fact that Joseph F. Smith recorded the new document himself. Although the document is not dated, the nature of the information it contains strongly indicates that it was produced when Smith interviewed Able in 1879 at the request of John Taylor. Able had asked to receive his endowment and to be sealed to his wife that year, and Taylor opened an investigation in order to determine how to proceed. Smith, then an apostle, interviewed Able and reported back to Taylor that “the Prophet Joseph told him [Able] he was entitled to the priesthood.” Smith also refuted some of the claims made by Zebedee Coltrin about who performed Able’s washing and anointing ritual in the Kirtland Temple. It is not difficult to imagine Smith returning to report his findings to Taylor with this new-found document in hand.

It was found in the Joseph F. Smith papers and has been verified to have been written by Smith. Accordingly, Able’s biography was recently updated at the Joseph Smith Papers and a link to a digital image of the document posted there. I have subsequently updated Elijah Able’s metadata and biographical information at Century of Black Mormons here.

Okay, enough torture. So, who ordained Elijah Able an elder?

It was a man by the name of Ambrose Palmer, on 25 January 1836, an earlier date than previously surmised. Palmer is described in the Joseph Smith papers biographies as a “farmer, tavern keeper, surveyor, glass worker, manufacturer, [and] justice of the peace.” He was born in Winchester Connecticut, 15 September 1784, but had moved to Trumbull County, Ohio by 1807. He was a veteran of the War of 1812 and a Mason. In 1818 voters in Norton, Medina County, Ohio elected him Justice of the Peace. He converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in April 1833 in New Portage, Ohio, where he became presiding Elder by 1834. It was likely in that capacity that he ordained Able an Elder in January 1836. Palmer moved to Missouri by September of that year and died at Far West, likely in 1838.

What else does the new document reveal?

Here is my typescript [with sparse commentary] so you can read it for yourself:

Elijah Able grand father. Joseph Abel was an Englishman and a member of the English House of Commons. His father’s name was Andrew Able. his grand mother was a half white—his mother Delilah Williams was of Scotch descent and died when Elijah was 8 days ^years^ old. [This is the most reliable information to date about Able’s ancestry and I’m sure it will keep researches busy for the foreseeable future tracking down its clues]. Joined the church in Sep. 1832 in Cincinnati [the exact location of his baptism was previously unclear]—was ordained an Elder by Ambrose Palmer—a high Priest [Joseph Smith Papers do not list Palmer as a High Priest] Jan. 25. 1836 [Hooray! An exact date for his ordination!] and Liscenced by Joseph the Prophet in Kirtland Mar. 31 1836 [this is a ministerial certificate signed by Joseph Smith and found here. Some historians previously suggested it was an ordination certificate, something this new document clarifies it was not]. Recieved [sic] his washings & anointings in the Kirtland Temple, also in 1836 under the hands of Judge Beaman & Ruben P. Hadlock. Was ordained a Seventy by Z. Coltrin 1836. Rec^d^ a Liscence from Jos. Young & A. P. Rockwood in 1841 in Nauvoo. [Young and Rockwood were presidents of the Seventy and relicensed Able as a Seventy in 1841]. His wife was also an Octoroon. Joseph said he was entitled to the Priesthood and all the blessings. He recieved a patriarchal blessing under the hands of Father Joseph Smith and blessed as his own son &c. [The minutes of Taylor’s investigation, as kept by L. John Nuttall, include Able’s patriarchal blessing in its entirety].

There it is. That is it. A surge of new details about the most well documented black priesthood holder in 19th century Latter-day Saint history.

But why is it important? Does the fact that we now know who ordained Elijah Able to the priesthood, and that it was not Joseph Smith, in any way diminish the fact that Able WAS ordained to the priesthood? Not in the least. It strengthens it in my estimation. It offers additional evidence of the universal nature of the early gospel message, so much so that presiding Elders such as Ambrose Palmer, fifty-five miles away from the central hierarchy at Kirtland, did not discriminate in distributing priesthood power. Moreover, Joseph Smith, Jr., and Joseph Smith, Sr., did not discriminate either in certifying and licensing, and officially sanctioning that priesthood power through their signatures and blessings and personal communications. People at the center and on the periphery of the Latter-day Saint movement did not erect racial barriers to membership, priesthood ordination, or temple rituals, a fact captured in this new document in the hand writing of Joseph F. Smith.

It matters, too, because it demonstrates in more concrete terms that Joseph F. Smith was just as much responsible for the solidification of the priesthood and temple restriction as Brigham Young was responsible for beginning it. The restrictions emerged from a variety of events that played out over time in response to varying circumstances and changing contexts, not as a result of an unknown command from God in a single unrecorded pronouncement. We see that process play out in the remembering and forgetting of Joseph F. Smith himself.

As I document in Religion of a Different Color we can see Joseph F. Smith’s memory change over time:

In 1879 he defended Able’s priesthood as valid.

In 1895 he reminded LDS leaders that Able was ordained to the priesthood “at Kirtland under the direction of the Prophet Joseph Smith.”

In 1904 he called Able’s ordination a mistake that “was never corrected.”

In 1908, he claimed that Able’s priesthood “ordination was declared null and void by the Prophet [Joseph Smith] himself.”

This new document is clear refutation of Joseph F. Smith’s 1908 statement that Joseph Smith declared Elijah Able’s priesthood “null and void.” And that clear refutation is in Joseph F. Smith’s own handwriting.

NOTICE (30 January 2019): I’d like to leave this thread open to relevant comments by those who discover it late. I will close the thread, however, if there are any more attempts to redefine Elijah Able’s blackness into some form that allows commenters to cover their racism through twisted appeals to misunderstood scripture. I’m trying to weed those comments out as soon as they are posted, and I’m growing weary of them. — AEP