Moses Martin Witnesses the Beauty of God's Creation on the Prairie March

Moses Martin (born c. 1814) was one of the youngest members of Zion's Camp, a twenty-year-old convert who marched with Joseph Smith from Kirtland, Ohio to Missouri in 1834. He kept a journal of the journey, which is preserved in the Church Archives.

As the camp emerged from the wet, marshy lands of western Indiana and crossed into the wide Illinois prairie, Martin was so moved by the sight that he recorded the following remarkable passage:

'We beheld the beautiful coat of grass wave its head with the gentle breeze. This mingled with an innumerable variety of the most splendid flowers. The heads of grass, each in its turn, made its gentle obeisance as the western gale... passed by. Oh, said I, if the poet that spoke of the west's gales and waters from the spicy planes were here, he would be lost in admiration.'

For Martin, the vast prairie was not merely scenery but a manifestation of the glory of God — a sacred reminder that the God who created such beauty was the same God leading them on their mission. His journal entry on May 26, 1834, was one of the earliest firsthand accounts of what the Illinois prairies looked like to the eyes of faithful Latter-day Saints crossing them for the Lord's purposes.

Martin's journal is one of only a handful of contemporary Zion's Camp accounts that survive, making his witness both historically unique and spiritually significant.