Orson Bennett Adams: The Second Man to Enlist in the Mormon Battalion — His Wife Susan Marches as Nurse and Laundress (July 16, 1846)

Orson Bennett Adams was born March 9, 1815, in Alexander, Genesee County, New York. He married Susannah 'Susan' Smith in 1836, and the young family joined the Church in 1840 in Brown, Illinois. They moved to Nauvoo, where Orson helped build the Nauvoo Temple.

In 1844, Orson and Susan — who had already lost two babies — were given an infant boy whose mother had died. They adopted him and raised him as their own son.

On July 16, 1846, Orson Bennett Adams became the second man to enlist in the Mormon Battalion. He was not the first and not the last — but he stepped forward on that first day, barely hours after Captain James Allen's call went out.

His wife Susan was not willing to be left behind. She had been raised in the home of Dr. Priddy Meeks and had training in nursing and care of the sick. She enlisted as a laundress and nurse — one of a small number of women who marched with the Battalion.

After the Battalion was discharged, Orson and Susan made their way to the Salt Lake Valley. In 1861, Orson was called to help settle at the confluence of Leeds and Quail Creeks in southern Utah. Nine families built the new settlement of Harrisburg. Orson helped construct its first stone house — which still stands today — and became its presiding elder, serving as bishop from 1889 to 1891.

Susan died in Harrisburg on January 23, 1892. Orson moved to his daughter's home in Leeds and died there on February 4, 1901.

The second man to answer the call was also among the last to leave.