Two Young Mormon Missionaries Survive Extreme Floods, Threats, and Near-Starvation on a 1,400-Mile Mission Journey

In the summer and fall of 1843, 20-year-old Oliver B. Huntington and his companion Elder Henry B. Jacobs traveled on foot nearly 1,400 miles from Nauvoo to western New York and back, without purse or scrip — in circumstances of remarkable hardship that Huntington consistently attributed to divine sustaining.

The journey included:

- Walking through the worst flooding in Indiana's recorded history, with the old settlers saying 'they never saw such a flood in that country' — bridges washed out for 60+ miles, roads covered with flood debris, corn fields buried under a foot of dirt

- Walking 35+ miles per day on blistered feet so severe that Oliver made moccasins from old hats

- Traveling for days without food, blood gushing from his nose from exhaustion

- Being threatened by angry men, thrown out of houses, and left stranded mid-journey by companions

- Being nearly abandoned by his wagon company on the return trip

Throughout it all, Huntington wrote: 'I had a friend who will stand by those who trust in him' and 'I realized that God was speeding us on our journey by those means and that he was as able to preserve us on water as on land.'

They baptized multiple converts, organized the Brant Branch in western New York, and returned safely to Nauvoo on October 11, 1843 — four months and ten days after departure. Huntington wrote: 'To see myself safe at home once more, I could hardly believe my own tale.'

Fuller account of this event (in the witness’s own words):

The next spring which was that of 1843, April the 8th, I was ordained an elder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. About six weeks after I was ordained an elder. I started in company with my brother-in-law, Henry B. Jacobs and Elder John Gleason whom I had not acquaintance with before, on a mission to the western part of the state of New York. We found a man by the name of Casper going into the state of Ohio with a two-horse wagon; he said we could ride there free, and find our own provision. Least I forget it, I will here state that I was ordained under the hands of two of the Twelve Apostles, namely John Taylor and George A. Smith, nephew to the prophet. We started on the 30th of May, traveled thirty miles the first day, 1843 stayed that night with one Mr. We were told it rose six feet the night before, on account of the rains the day before. We traveled 30 miles that day and stopped at one Mr. Gray’s, preached considerable to them and found them quite believing, enough so to give us a good bed to sleep in, which was thankfully received by us. Wednesday the 7th, crossed Sugar Creek at Crawfordsville pretty early on a very large bridge which was nearly washed away by the flood. The waters were the highest then they had ever been known and we that day had the worst going I ever saw in my life; traveled only 26 miles, doing our best. The water was then high but nothing to what it had been. Not a bridge from Crawfordsville to New Lebanon was standing even old crossways on level ground washed up; corn and wheat fields d