Appleton Milo Harmon and Elmeda Stringham

Appleton Milo Harmon

Appleton Milo Harmon was born in 1820 in Pennsylvania to Jesse Peirce Harmon and Anna Barnes. His mother Anna was baptized in 1833. The family moved to Kirtland, Ohio in 1837 where his father Jesse, sister Sophronia, and brother Amos were baptized in 1838. They all moved to Illinois and then to Nauvoo, where Appleton was baptized in 1841 by William Smith, one of the Twelve Apostles. Appleton was ordained an Elder in 1842 by William Richards served a mission in New York. Here is an account of his faith written by his grand-daughter, Maybelle Harmon Anderson:

"Baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints when scarcely twenty-one, he made his religion the dominant force of his life. For it, he became a refugee from Nauvoo, a struggling pioneer in the Salt Lake Valley, a rugged crusader in the forbidding cities of England, an indomitable colonizer among the bleak wilds of southern Utah. Faith pervades every page of his journal. It swayed his thoughts, shaped his aspirations, and justified to him all his sacrifices. And what he gave in service came with spontaneous willingness and humility." (Appleton Milo Harmon Goes West, xii)

One account of Appleton's faithful and obedient spirit is when he and some other men were reprimanded by Brigham Young for playing cards and gambling in his tent. In response to the rebuking, Appleton recorded the events of the day, which happened to be his 27th birthday: "On it I received quite a lesson, which I hope will result in much good and profit."

Appleton is well know for making the odometer. He came out with Brigham Young in the first company that left Winter Quarters, although he didn't go all the way to Salt Lake. Instead, he was one of nine men who stayed at the Plat River in Wyoming where there is a tribute to him still to this day at Fort Casper. Coincidentally, one of Steve's ancestors was also one of those nine men!

Elmeda Stringham

The Stringhams were of English descent--early settlers in the New England States. The family lived on a farm in Jamestown, New York when my great-great-great-great grandparents George Stringham and Polly Hendrickson joined the church in 1832. Elmeda Stringham (my great-great-great grandmother) is one of their six children, born in 1829. The Stringhams later moved to Kirtland, Ohio, where Elmeda remembers gathering bits of glass and broken dishes for the building of the Kirtland temple as a young child.