Vision of Zelph the White Lamanite (Zion's Camp, June 3, 1834)

On June 3, 1834, during Zion’s Camp in Illinois (reports place the stop in Pike County, near the Illinois River), members of the expedition excavated an ancient burial mound and uncovered a large skeleton. Several participants—including Lorenzo D. Barnes, Wilford Woodruff, Milton Holmes, Frederick G. Williams, Levi Hancock, Brigham Young, Reuben McBride, and Moses Martin—recorded the event in their journals and reminiscences. Milton Holmes (per some accounts) unearthed the skeleton and an arrowhead was found lodged among its ribs; the thigh bone was broken, apparently by a stone from a sling. Joseph Smith declared in vision that the remains were those of a man named Zelph, described as a “white Lamanite” and a warrior who served under the prophet Onandagus. Wilford Woodruff’s accounts add that “the curse was taken from him, or at least in part,” and that some of Zelph’s bones were brought into the camp; Woodruff later carried one of Zelph’s thigh bones in his wagon for the remainder of the march and ultimately reburying it in Clay County, Missouri. Although Joseph Smith himself left no detailed written account in his own hand, multiple camp members documented the same specific revelation and physical details of the discovery in their journals and later writings.