Howard Coray — Joseph Smith Prophesies 'You Will Soon Find a Companion' and It Is Fulfilled Exactly

Howard Coray (1817–1908) served as a clerk and scribe to Joseph Smith from April 1840 onward in Nauvoo, Illinois, helping to write the early history of the Church. In the summer of 1840, a casual moment between prophet and clerk produced one of the most vividly documented personal prophecies of Joseph Smith's ministry — recorded in Coray's own recollections.

While walking beside Joseph Smith to look at his horses, the Prophet put his arm over Coray's shoulder and remarked, "Brother Coray, I wish you was a little larger, I would like to have some fun with you." Coray, who scarcely weighed 130 pounds to Joseph's over 200, replied "Perhaps you can, as it is" — not realizing what he was inviting. "As soon as I made this reply, he began to trip me," Coray remembered. "He took some kind of a lock on my right leg from which I was unable to extricate it, and throwing me around, broke it some 3 inches above the ankle joint." Joseph immediately carried him into the house, pulled off his boot, found the leg decidedly broken, and splinted and bandaged it himself, coming in "a number of times that day" to console him.

The next day Coray made a bold request — "Bro Joseph, when Jacob wrestled with the angel and was lamed by him, the angel blessed him; now I think I am also entitled to a blessing." Joseph replied, "I am not the patriarch, but my father is..." — then said no more for a minute or so, looking very earnestly at him, and prophesied: "Bro Coray, you will soon find a companion, one that will be suited to your condition and whom you will be satisfied with; she will cling to you like the cords of death, and you will have a good many children."

In nine days Coray was up on a crutch; in two weeks he walked a mile on foot to Church — an healing he "considered no less than a case of miraculous healing." At the meeting, remembering the prophecy, he looked over the congregation and his eyes settled on a young woman he had never seen, who was introduced to him as Miss Martha Knowlton, from Bear Creek. "She had dark brown eyes, very bright and penetrating — at least they penetrated me, and I said to myself, she will do." They were married on February 6, 1841, barely seven months after the prophecy. Martha Jane Knowlton Coray became the mother of twelve children, seven sons and five daughters, all of whom grew to adulthood. Howard Coray later testified: "I will say in this connection that what the Prophet said in regard to the companion which I should soon find has been fully verified."