Arza Adams: The Man Who Carried the News of the Martyrdom to Nauvoo (1836–1889)

Arza Matson Adams (1804–1889) was baptized on Christmas Day 1836 by Elder John E. Page in Canada. A trusted member who 'knew the Prophet Joseph Smith,' Arza was the man Church leaders chose to carry the news of the Prophet's martyrdom sixteen miles to the city of Nauvoo in June 1844. He served as a mission president in Canada in 1841 and as a missionary to Michigan in 1843, where he organized the St. Clair Branch. In 1849 he crossed the plains with the Samuel Gully/Orson Spencer Company and became a founding father of American Fork, Utah. Upon his death on April 15, 1889, a eulogist wrote that Brother Adams 'went the way of all the world… in full faith.'