Seymour Brunson Jr.: Son of a Prophet's Confidant, He Marched the Full Battalion Route (1821–1891)

Seymour Brunson Jr. was born September 4, 1821, in Oneida County, New York. His father, Seymour Brunson Sr., was one of the close early associates of Joseph Smith in Kirtland and Nauvoo, present at some of the most sacred events of the Restoration's early years. It was over the open grave of Seymour Sr.'s daughter that Joseph Smith first publicly preached about baptism for the dead.

Seymour Sr. died in August 1838, when Seymour Jr. was only 16 — leaving the boy in the hands of the Saints and the faith his father had embraced. He grew up among the Nauvoo community and when the Mormon Battalion was organized in 1846, he enlisted in Company A.

For Seymour Jr., the march was in part a continuation of a family tradition of sacrifice for the kingdom. His father had given his life in the cause — dying young after years of devoted service and exposure in Missouri's mob persecution. The son now offered his youth and his labor.

Brunson completed the march to San Diego and was discharged in July 1847. He returned to the Salt Lake Valley and built his life there, eventually settling in Provo, Utah, where he married, raised a family, and served in the Church.

He lived long enough to see the Utah Territory become a state, to see the Salt Lake Temple completed, and to watch the faith his father had died for become the established religion of a thriving mountain civilization. He died November 12, 1891, in Provo, Utah.

The Brunson family story — father present at the genesis of baptism for the dead, son marching in the Battalion — is one of the small, luminous threads connecting the earliest days of the Restoration to the establishment of Zion in the West.