Q: Henry Harriman is mentioned in D&C 124:138. Henry Harriman served as a General Authority for over fifty-three years, longer than any other Church leader up to that time. Is Herriman, Utah, named after Henry?
A: Henry was born a twin in 1804 in Massachusetts, but when he joined the Church in 1832, that was the end of his family relationships. “I believe the Gospel as it was preached by the power of the Holy Ghost by the Elders Orson Hyde and Samuel H. Smith. Elder Orson Hyde baptized me in August 1832.’ (Autobiography of Henry Harriman, FamilySearch.org) With faith, he moved forward and moved to Kirtland in the fall of 1833 to be with other Saints. He then volunteered to march with Zion’s Camp.
He returned to Kirkland in August 1834, stayed a few days, and then went on a mission to Massachusetts, Maine, and New York. In the summer of 1835, the Prophet Joseph ordained him as one of the first Seventies. In January 1838 Henry became one of the Seven Presidents of the Seventies. One of his first assignments in that council was to help organize the Kirtland Camp. The Kirtland poor followed his direction and traveled from Kirtland to Caldwell County, Missouri, as the Kirtland Camp. In 1842 he served a mission to the Eastern States.
When Henry was 42, and his wife had been unable to have children, the Prophet Joseph counseled Henry to take another wife. Obedient to the counsel of the Prophet, Henry was sealed by the Prophet to Eliza Elizabeth Jones, with whom he had ten children. In the spring of 1844, he went on a mission to Cape Cod.
Henry then returned to Nauvoo, where he served in the Nauvoo Legion and received his Temple ordinances in the Nauvoo Temple. He joined the Saints in their westward movement and crossed the plains in the Heber C. Kimball company in 1848, as captain of the first hundred.
In the spring of 1849 Henry help build a fort in the Salt Lake Valley, which was named Herriman in his honor. A monument located in the Herriman City Cemetery lists the original four families of the town of Herriman as the Thomas Jefferson Butterfield, John Jay Stocking, Robert Cowan Petty, and Henry Harriman families. (Herriman, Utah, wikipedia)
Brigham Young then called Henry to settle in southern Utah, and Henry remained in Dixie for the next twenty-five years. He died in 1891 at the age of eighty-six and is buried in Huntington, Emery, Utah.
Source: Who’s Who in the Doctrine & Covenants by **Susan Easton Black
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