Orrin Porter Rockwell — Joseph Smith's Prophecy: No Bullet or Blade Would Harm Him

Orrin Porter Rockwell (1813–1878) was baptized in 1830 at age 16 or 17 — one of the Church's earliest converts — and became Joseph Smith's most trusted protector. His life reads like a catalog of miraculous survivals, many of which his contemporaries directly attributed to a remarkable prophecy made by Joseph Smith.

At a Christmas party in December 1842, following Rockwell's release after being imprisoned for nearly a year on false charges of attempting to assassinate Missouri Governor Lilburn W. Boggs (charges that were never proven and ultimately dismissed), Joseph Smith made him a promise. According to multiple accounts recorded in the History of the Church and by those present:

'I prophesy, in the name of the Lord, that you — Orrin Porter Rockwell — so long as ye shall remain loyal and true to thy faith, need fear no enemy. Cut not thy hair and no bullet or blade can harm thee until thy mission is complete.'

Rockwell took the prophecy literally. He never cut his hair again, wearing it long for the rest of his life. And for the next thirty-six years, he was shot at more times than most men on the frontier could count — in gunfights, ambushes, and mob confrontations — and walked away from all of them.

The Church History Library has documented numerous specific incidents: he survived multiple point-blank ambushes, escaped from prison, rode through guerrilla territory during the Utah War, and participated in some of the most dangerous law enforcement operations in territorial Utah. He died in his bed in 1878 at age 64 or 65 — not from a bullet, not from a blade.

When Porter once gave a lock of his hair to a young woman, he told her it would bring her good luck — revealing that he understood the promise as extending through the hair itself, much like Samson's covenant with God. He bore a quiet, unwavering belief that he was under divine protection.

Fuller account of this event (as retold in JacobBarlow.com, Orrin Porter Rockwell):

In 1842 Rockwell was arrested in St. Louis and charged with the attempted murder of Governor Boggs. More than nine months later Rockwell was freed and returned to Nauvoo . On Christmas Day, 1843, Joseph Smith promised him: “So long as ye shall remain loyal and true to thy faith, (you) need fear no enemy. Cut not thy hair and no bullet or blade can harm thee.” For the next thirty-five years Porter faced outlaws, Indians, and war without being harmed. In 1855, while in California, he cut his hair to provide a wig for Agnes Smith, the widow of Don Carlos Smith, the younger brother of Joseph Smith, who had lost her hair due to typhoid fever. Porter grew his hair back, not willing to face outlaws and enemies without the prophet’s promise.